Happy Easter to you all

Dear all,

Happy Easter to you all!  I made a trip to Gulu, taking a much-needed short break from teaching.

The five deaf primary students, Jackline, Vibrant,
Joel, Alafi and Jennifer (L - R)

Over the Easter break I travelled to Lira to see the deaf students at both primary and secondary school.  On my way I bought a live chicken and rice as an Easter present for the primary children.  Their faces lit up when they saw the chicken.  I had previously sent money to do the same to the secondary school at their request.  Nobody buys ready-prepared chicken here.  The climate and lack of regular refrigeration is against it.  It is good to know that a short time ago the chickens were living a completely free-range existence with a natural diet and no growth hormones, reproducing at a great rate.  I apologise to any vegetarians who may be offended.  Here, the basic diet for the majority of people is vegetarian out of necessity, so chicken is a huge treat.

I am glad to say that I was able to pay the remaining school fees for all the students last month, so it was good to be able to give the schools the bank receipts as proof on the same trip.  The schools were both happy with our children’s progress.  They have another month of school to go before the end of term holidays when Samuel will fetch them.  All except Vibrant and Joel.  Vibrant and Joel are now in the final year of primary school and will have an extra two weeks of lessons at school in preparation for their Primary Leaving Certificate exams at the end of the year.

The great news is that my final Primary 8 class got their leavers’ results.  They all passed really well, even those for whom I had had some fears.  Their marks ranged from 87.2% down to 71.8%.  They started at their new secondary school in Senior 1 towards the end of March.

Jamila, Peace and Lamunu (L - R)

I was in Gulu for Easter Sunday and visited three girls at their boarding school for the first time.  These girls were members of my first Primary 8 class at Cece Primary School in 2024.  They did not go to Kings Way Secondary School with the boys of the class because they were accepted for full scholarships by an American charity called Drop in the Bucket, who specialize in girls’ education.  They are now in their third year of secondary school.  They used to visit me in Nimule in holiday time, but that is no longer possible as I am no longer there.  One of the girls sent me a Facebook message saying how much she missed me.  Realising that I had time to see them at Easter, I said that I would come and visit.  I really appreciate their wish to still be in contact.  I had a very close relationship with all my pupils in that class because I was their classteacher from start to finish.  Like all my Primary 8 classes it was a very small class, so I was able to give a lot of time to each of them.  I have not been responsible for their fees or requirements up until now, but when I visited they told me that the school is requesting smartphones for each of them so that they can learn research skills.  Apart from lessons, the phones would be locked away by the admin department.  Their families are too poor to be able to assist and Drop in the Bucket has refused saying it is a parental responsibility. So, naturally enough, they asked me.  The going rate for one smart phone is around 200,000 Uganda Shillings or roughly £40.  Is anyone able to help?

The two blind children, Mary and Bernard

Next month will be holiday time for three weeks.  Schools resume on 25th May and I will need to pay school fees for all at Kings Way and Queensland in Nimule, as well as the deaf and blind children in Uganda.  Based on last term’s school costs from all these schools I can expect to pay around £5,200 for next term.  This includes a deduction for one-off costs for new school uniforms and other costs for new students as these are already paid for.  There is an enormous shortfall: right now Opportunity Through Education has £850, which is nowhere near enough.  If you are able to contribute, I would be most grateful.

Please feel free to contact me on rebeccamallinson1@gmail.com.  I am always happy to answer any questions or give more detail.

Back to school

Dear all,

Since I last wrote, I am now back in Africa.  I travelled through Uganda to South Sudan, narrowly avoiding the Ugandan elections as I arrived in South Sudan just before they began.  What I had not expected was that the Ugandan government would impose a complete media and network blackout for around a week, starting just beforehand.  This hampered communication across the country, so that it was impossible to communicate with anyone in Uganda. The Salesians in Palabek were completely incommunicado so that I was unable to organize my move there.  Even once communication became possible it took weeks for the rector of the Salesians to be able to communicate with his staff and get things up and running again. 

The positive result was that I ended up with plenty of time to hand over to Samuel and visit the two schools in Nimule where my pupils have transferred, Kings Way Academy for the secondary students, and Queensland Primary School for the most needy of my primary students.  I paid all the necessary costs of the secondary school, but ran short when it came to the primary school, although I covered the essentials. 

School in South Sudan began at the beginning of February.  Originally Ugandan schools were due to start at the same time, but the Ugandan government announced that due to the elections schools were to start a week later on 10^th February.  Why this was necessary is beyond me, seeing that the elections were held on 15^th January and all polling was over.  What do schoolchildren have to do with politics?

The South Sudan primary leaving exam results for last year’s primary schools have not yet been released, so first year secondary students are left at home waiting, unable to attend school yet.  Last year, our students had to wait up until April.  The Ministry of Education has promised that it will be quicker this year, but who knows?  Marking only started nationally last week. 

I moved to Palabek at the beginning of February.  It was hard to leave Nimule, where I have lived for over twelve years and have established many friendships.  There are no amenities such as easy public transport, banks and shops in Palabek, so a lot of adjustment is needed. I am still finding my feet here. 

The journey from Palabek to Gulu, which is necessary in order to get funds for all my students in Nimule and the deaf and blind students, is not at all easy.  It involves taking a ‘taxi’ filled beyond capacity with passengers and huge amounts of goods.  The taxi only sets out when completely full with the passengers crushed together and vast amounts of luggage tied to the roof and on people’s knees.  It travels slowly and carefully for 145 kilometres along very rutted tracks to Gulu, stopping along the way to offload and reload.  If the taxi leaves at 8am, it may reach Gulu around lunchtime.  On the way back it is worse because such care is needed by the driver in the pitch-black night.  Last week I made the mistake of taking an afternoon taxi back to Palabek.  It left at around 5pm (I had waited for the taxi to fill up since 3pm) and arrived at 11pm.  There was no onward transport, but fortunately a member of the Salesians came with a motorbike and took me back to the school.  He said that sometimes the taxi doesn’t arrive until 1am.  Never again.  In future if I need to go to Gulu, I will stay overnight and return the next morning.  This description is of travel in the dry season.  In the rainy season, which is immanent, the roads will become as slippery as an ice rink with mud and journeys will become even longer.  Last year on a visit to Palabek I experienced the vehicle being stuck in deep mud for ages, while we unloaded everything and all the passengers pushed until we eventually got out of the mud, covered in mud ourselves.

Some of the deaf students about to travel to school.

Last Saturday Samuel collected all the deaf students, both primary and secondary and escorted them from Nimule to Gulu to meet up with me.  As mentioned in my last post, the primary students were transferring to a new school in Lira to make things easier for Samuel.  He told me that they were clearly delighted to see each other again, exchanging big hugs when they met up and signing a lot to each other.  Life during the holidays is very isolated for these children, who have no means of communication with their families.  My original plan had been to start a deaf school in Nimule.  If that had been possible, we would have taught the families to communicate in sign language.  If only.

I withdrew funds and we spent the afternoon buying all the necessary school requirements at the excellent local market.  I had already partially paid their school fees through a bank on a previous trip.  As with Queensland Primary School in Nimule, the rest is reliant on more funds arriving.  I booked a ‘private hire’ taxi to take all nine students, supervised by Sam, and all their luggage direct to school in Lira early on Sunday morning.  Fortunately for them the road to Lira is paved, unlike the road to Palabek.  Private hire sounds very luxurious but in fact it is very reasonable.  To take ten people complete with five large metal boxes, five mattresses and all their personal belongings and stationery in backpacks and carrier bags 110 kilometres costs a little over £50.  It is a great deal more practical than carrying all the luggage to a bus station, taking a bus to the centre of Lira and then finding means to go to Nancy School for the Deaf, which is about 5 kilometres outside the town.

The two blind students have travelled to their school in Gulu with their parents.  All their school fees and requirements have been paid for.  Bernard and Mary did extremely well at school last year, and I still haven’t got over the joy of witnessing their progress when they returned to Nimule last December.

It is great to have got almost all the students back to school.  As mentioned, it remains to complete their outstanding school fees.  It also remains to see last year’s primary students go to secondary school, which cannot happen until their leaving exam results are released.  I think another £1,500 will cover everything.

Please feel free to contact me on rebeccamallinson1@gmail.com.  I am always happy to answer any questions or give more detail.