Spending Time in Kampala

I look out of the window of the aeroplane at the still, white landscape as we prepare for take-off and heave a sigh of relief. It is the Tuesday after "Snowstorm Monday" and it looked uncertain at one point whether I would even make it to Heathrow, let alone Kampala. But the car ride to the airport has, aside from a detour due to an accident, been uneventful and the flight is on time. Compared with this first hurdle, getting my luggage onto the plane intact has been infinitely more stressful. My two cases are packed to bursting with toys, books, footballs, skipping ropes and teaching materials and both, I suspect, are well over the weight limit. Heaving them onto the luggage belt as I check in I feel as apprehensive as a wayward member of Weight-Watchers standing on the scales after Christmas dinner. "This one is 6 kilos over the limit" I am told disapprovingly by the stern lady at the desk. "You will have to take something out – or pay £40 for each extra three kilos". "They are full of things for children at a poor rural school in Uganda" I say pleadingly. "Couldn't you make an exception?" As she shakes her head and tells me tut-tuttingly about the airline's strict baggage policy I make a quick mental check of what I might remove. Should it be the three large packs of mature cheddar cheese that I know Hamlet is so fond of? The four heavy tomes I have ordered from Amazon for Godfrey's MA course? The large tin of biscuits I have brought as a late Christmas present for the staff? In any event, I am determined not to leave behind a single item that is for the children. Ah! How about my least favourite item in the case: my new pair of heavy, sensible shoes…? As I agonize, a voice behind me – the roving floor manager I assume, who has been eavesdropping on the exchange – says kindly " It's alright - let them go through." The flood of relief that I feel is, however, short-lived as the check-in lady says, with a small note of revenge in her voice, "Now, please put your hand luggage on the scales". Oh dear! My rucksack contains almost an entire reading scheme, a bulging learning support file and about two hundred pencils – to say nothing of my own personal library of paperbacks to last the next three months. With a sinking heart I haul it up onto the belt. "It's far too heavy! Security will never allow you to take that on board!" my opponent cries triumphantly. I smile as sweetly as I know how and say "Well look, I'll just give it a try and if security tells me to take something out then I will". "They'll never let it through" she sniffs, as I beat a hasty retreat.

"It's full of books…." I start to explain helpfully to the man at security as together we heave the bag up onto the x-ray machine belt. "Bit of a heavy reader, are you?" he quips, and before I can expand any further – and without so much as a reprimand - lets me through. Phew! My guardian angel is with me today. Now I just have to endure two hours in the departure lounge with the weighty backpack then somehow get it into the overhead compartment on the plane - and the rest of the trip will surely be a piece of cake….

Stepping out onto the runway at Kampala a wall of mid-morning heat hits me and the thin clothes that had seemed so inadequate in the icy chill of England are within minutes sticking uncomfortably to my back. Hamlet is there to meet me and full of excitement at the prospect of the afternoon's shopping that lies ahead. The Net-Book appeal has – thanks to the amazing generosity of so many including a very kind last-minute donation to 'round it up' – reached an incredible £6000, and Godfrey, the Headmaster of Kirima Primary School, has come to Kampala to meet me so that we can buy the text books for the school. A teacher from the Great Lakes High School is also meeting us for the same purpose. Hamlet has found a local company who can supply treated mosquito nets more cheaply than the supplier we had found in Kampala so these will be purchased in Kanungu once we are back. As we drive away from Entebbe I talk to Hamlet about how the £6000 can best, and most fairly, be spent. Since so much more has been raised than I could ever have hoped, I suggest tentatively that perhaps some of it could be spent on bunks for Nyamarama Primary School, the remote CHIFCOD school in the Rift Valley that recently started taking boarders but has not yet been able to afford to buy beds for them. I feel sure that contributors to the appeal would be happy with this since the children cannot be given mosquito nets unless they first have beds: this is a highly malarial area and, sleeping on mattresses on the floor as they do, the children are extremely vulnerable. Hamlet turns to me in astonishment: Benon, the headmaster, has been on the phone every day this week, he tells me, desperately begging for some money for this very purpose, but Hamlet felt he could not give money that had been collected specifically for nets and books. "Can I ring him straight away and tell him?" he says, and, still weaving skillfully through the chaotic Kampala traffic, he calls Benon to tell him the news. Even from the other side of the car I can hear Benon's enthusiastic response, a sound very like something between crowing and crying. This has clearly made his day….

As well as beds and books, today's shopping list has grown exponentially due to two outstandingly generous individual donations made by different Highgate School parents at the start of this term. These have meant that development work at the Great Lakes High School that had been halted due to lack of funds can now, thankfully, be restarted. Two further classrooms and accommodation for resident staff are being built, a new and safer water supply and improved sanitation fitted, science labs equipped and doors and windows fitted to the formerly 'open plan' classrooms - and there is no time to be wasted. After a quick bite of lunch Hamlet and I go to meet the other members of the shopping team in central Kampala: a lorry has been hired so all purchases must be made today and driven back to Kinkiisi tomorrow. Six of us sit huddled in the car - which is parked outside the bravely-named 'Run Dental Clinic' – and, with the afternoon rain drumming on the roof and the windows steaming up in the heat, the shopping tasks are allocated. Hamlet pulls a thick wad of notes from his pocket – everything is dealt with in cash here, and with 3000 shillings to the pound, sums quickly reaches the millions. He licks a finger and counts out a pile of notes. " Justus: pipes, roof sheets, boards, toilet bowls, cement. And a septic tank. Go". Another pile of notes is counted after a few quick phone calls to compare prices: " Livingstone: bunk beds. Triples not doubles – I've cleared it with the inspectors. Twenty five sets with poles for mosquito nets. Go." " Godfrey" he continues tersely " – books. If they're out of stock pay for them and ask for them to be sent: we can trust these people" He hands over another pile of notes. This is beginning to feel like a gangster movie or the pay-out after a bank raid and I can hardly wait to see what I will be asked to do – as long as it doesn't involve driving the get-away vehicle, in this case a large and lumbering lorry well past it's sell-by date…. In the event I accompany Godfrey to the educational bookshops and spend a joyful couple of hours filling cardboard boxes with books and ticking them off on a long list: every class at the primary school now has text-books for the five core subjects. "This is a happy day" Godfrey smiles.

Kampala is as hot, dusty, noisy and fume-filled as I remember it: traffic chokes the roads, boda-bodas weave recklessly between the cars and pedestrians must beware: vehicle-users reign supreme here and if you risk crossing the road between the almost-stationary cars you take your life in your hands: they will continue inching forward whether you are in their path or not.…but it is good to be back, and I am looking forward so much to seeing the children and the villagers back in Kinkiisi (I had to laugh at the blog-reader who thanked me for explaining that this is pronounced 'Chin-cheesy' as he says that otherwise it might have sounded like a description of my taste in tights!). On Thursday morning I go to a supermarket to stock up with a few emergency supplies. All sorts of tempting western-style products are available here, at a price: Rose's Lime Marmalade at £6 a jar, a chunk of Edam cheese for a fiver, and even boxes of South African wine – but I resolutely turn my back on the soft life and allow myself two tins of tuna, two jars of peanut butter and a small bag of foreign-looking muesli which will, even with water, be a useful standby when the larder is empty.

We set off a little later than planned after a fruitless search for barium powder for Kellen's mother who has ulcers and needs to have a barium-meal x-ray. As well as paying for the x-ray she must first buy her own barium - and none of the six pharmacies we visit has any. I remember thankfully the excellent, free and thorough care that my own mother received in hospital after Christmas – one of the many things that have given me a heightened sense of gratitude over the holidays. Posting a letter in a letter box and knowing it will be delivered by hand a day or two later; walking on pavements and driving on smooth roads; the first, and every subsequent hot bath; the magical speed and immediacy of broadband. The list is long and this renewed sense of pleasure in everyday things surprisingly sharp: there are so many things I have taken for granted that coming out here has allowed me to appreciate very much more intensely….

The journey from Kampala seems surprisingly familiar now: the changing landscape, the teeming towns and villages, the progression of roadside stalls - one selling drums, another fish, and one selling plucked birds which the driver tells me are "guinea fools" – surely the perfect name for our financial managers back in the UK….? We speed along the good stretches of road then struggle slowly along the bad ones, some sections more closely resembling a roughly ploughed field than a major highway linking Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo with Kampala and with Kenya beyond. Stopping only to buy hot grilled matoke for lunch, at dusk we reach the magical hidden valley cloaked in the deep undulating folds of hills , once covered with jungle but now green with banana trees, that leads to Kanungu; and arrive at Hamlet's house at nightfall. Justine and Novias rush out to greet me with such excitement that I almost fall over. " Our mother has returned!" they laugh and certainly I feel that I have come, if not home, then to a home-from-home.

Lying under my mosquito net listening to the soothing sounds of the Ugandan night – the drone of crickets, a solitary axe chopping wood, the muffled murmur of distant voices - I reflect on all that has happened since I left here in early December. First and foremost the response to the Net-Book appeal, to my pleas for more sponsors and for general support for CHIFCOD has been so uplifting: it has left me with the overriding certainty of the goodness, compassion and generosity of people and their desire to help their fellow-humans. I can't thank you enough for giving so warmly and willingly: for those of you who organized pre-Christmas social events to raise funds; to friends who contacted small charities who then contributed generously; to the thoughtful twenty-something relative who has given up smoking and used the money saved to sponsor a child; to the husband and wife who both 'gave' each other a child to sponsor as their Christmas gifts; to the members of staff at one school who gave to the appeal instead of buying each other presents; and to the many, many of you who simply signed cheques or donated via the website with such open-handed generosity. I had hoped to raise perhaps £2000 for my appeal and the total was three times this figure: I am so tremendously grateful to you all. To those of you who have contributed so significently to CHIFCOD's general work I also give deeply-felt thanks. Every penny of that money is going directly to improve the children's lives and next week I will report on how it has been spent, and the effect it has had. It is a great privilege to act as a channel for your kindness and I hope you will all feel the gratitude of the little community here winging its way across the air-waves to you! For the parcels of books, too, that so many of you sent off before and after Christmas, I thank you enormously. Again, more about that in the coming week or two – but be assured that their arrivals are causing great excitement! Three groups of school children also deserve a special mention: my former school, St Edmund's in Canterbury where the Pre-Prep raised a substantial amount to donate to the NetBook appeal; my even-more-recently-former school, Highgate Pre-Prep School, who raised money to buy equipment for the Nursery at Kirima; and Highgate Junior School who collected a huge number of books - and the money to ship them out. Thank you all!

It has been touching too to have heard so many people say over Christmas and New Year: "We've been following the blog", "We really enjoy the blog "- and even one who said " I think most of North London is reading the blog"! Friends, family, pupils, parents, friends-of-friends….I am so surprised and delighted that what began as a way of recording my experiences largely for my own selfish reasons has become the means of bringing the daily lives of the people in this very remote, poverty-stricken village to an astonishingly wide and distant audience. Such are the wonders of modern technology! Thank you, so very much, for your support, interest and enthusiasm – and, most especially, for your marvellous generosity. This has been the best possible of starts to the new school year here – and you have made it so.