Saluwa's emergency

I have finally been able to take all the deaf children back to school after two years in which they had only a term each year of education. I am really hoping that this time they will receive a full year’s education with no more sudden school closures. According to Ugandan government policy all of them have to be promoted to the next year of school. This means that they will have missed almost two whole years of the national curriculum. For example, Alau was at the start of Senior 2 in 2020 when the schools closed down. He was promoted to Senior 3 when schools reopened in 2021, but again the schools closed down after only one term. This year he is in Senior 4, which is the O’ level year. Alau wants to become a teacher, which will require him to go on to A’ levels afterwards, but this is dependent on O’ level results. The same rush through the year groups applies to every child in Uganda and is bound to affect standards of education very badly for all children currently of school-going age. I hope that the teachers will take a really holistic approach to make up for the chaos caused by Covid closures. Thankfully this will be easier to do in the case of classes in specialized units, such as those in the primary schools attended by most of our deaf children. 

 At the same time as returning the children to school, I brought a pupil from Cece Primary School as far as Gulu together with her older sister, to act as carer. Her name is Saluwa. She is 17 years old and is in Primary 5 in Nimule. She is an orphan, cared for by her sister, who is not much older than her. Over the past five years she developed a serious eye problem in her left eye. It became progressively more painful until she could no longer see on that side. The eye also slipped downwards making her face a bit lobsided. 

Typically for people in South Sudan it took years for the family to take Saluwa to hospital. The doctor at Nimule Hospital checked her eye and noticed a ‘dark mass’ which he suspected might be a tumour. He made a referral to see an eye specialist in Uganda, but the family lacked the means to take her. Saluwa’s sister came to see me and asked if I could help. I said yes, of course. 

I felt overwhelmed by how much needed to be done. In order to cope, on arrival in Gulu I enlisted the help of a partner organization called Mission Uganda.  Mission Uganda (mentioned in a previous post) assisted me with buying the requirements for the two deaf little boys who were to go to school in Gulu, Joel and Alafi.  Alafi was starting deaf school for the first time. I put the eight pupils bound for Mbale in a taxi so they could continue their journey without me, under the supervision of Alau, with a promise that I would meet up with them at Budaderi Primary School the next day. I also called the headteacher at Budaderi so she was forewarned that they would be arriving unaccompanied by me and without anyone who could hear or speak.  It is a very good thing that Alau is very mature and capable in spite of his deafness.

I then accompanied Saluwa and her sister to Gulu’s referral hospital, which has a very good eye department. Saluwa was referred for a CAT scan, where the tumour behind her eye was very clearly shown. The next appointment was the following day, so I had to leave them and resume my journey to Mbale to meet up with the eight deaf students and complete all their school requirements. 

The tumour over Saluwa's eye socket.

I stayed in contact with Saluwa’s sister as I continued my journey. She put me through to Saluwa’s consultant, Miti Moses, who told me over the phone that the tumour was pushing on her optic nerve and needed to be removed. This would entail a referral to a larger hospital in Kampala for major surgery. As Moses is a consultant in both hospitals and was due to travel to Kampala he agreed to take the two girls with him. The bombshell was that the medical costs would come to five million Uganda Shillings, the equivalent of almost £1,050, which needed to be paid in advance. I had not budgeted for such big expenses. In order to send money for Saluwa’s treatment, which was potentially a matter of life or death, I had to rob Peter to pay Paul. 

I explained the situation to the schools in Mbale and requested that I pay some of the school fees late, although I bought the usual school necessities such as toiletries at once. After saying goodbye to the deaf children at their schools, I travelled on to Kampala. When I arrived at the hospital I found Saluwa’s sister in a very distressed state. Neither of the sisters had ever travelled so far afield. They felt very foreign and daunted by the modernity of everything they saw. Coming from a very insular tribal community they were deeply suspicious of everything, including the hospital staff. A further 3D CAT scan revealed that the tumour was attached to the skull, not the eye as previously thought, and was made of hard tissue. In removing it the eye socket would need to be reshaped. I was due to take a flight to the UK, but the operation had still not taken place. This was a great worry to me. I asked HUMAES, my partner organization in Nimule, to take responsibility for keeping in contact with the consultant and with Saluwa’s sister and also to liaise regarding extra expenses, which were definitely going to be needed. 

Saluwa has now had her operation. A biopsy revealed that the tumour is of a type called osteoma, which is benign. She had another CAT scan which showed that she will need further surgery as some of the tumour is still there.  That will be done in April.  She has now been discharged. Her eye is swollen but she will regain her eyesight. I am truly thankful that Uganda has such good hospitals and especially for the help of her eye consultant Miti Moses. I want to thank Mission Uganda and HUMAES so much for their help for Saluwa and her sister and for me. As you will see, I had a huge amount to do, with tight deadlines, making the whole episode very difficult logistically. I could not have managed alone.

 

Saluwa waits for her operation.

Saluwa is a very bright pupil who has always done very well at school. I should explain that it is quite normal in South Sudan for pupils to start school very late due to both family and the country’s dire circumstances, which is why she is still at primary school at the age of 17. Her great worry from her hospital bed has been missing lessons. I am sure that she will be keen to thank donors herself via the internet at HUMAES office once she is back in Nimule. 

Is anyone able to donate towards Saluwa’s medical care? Because it was an emergency situation, costs had to be taken out of unintended budgets, such as regular school funds and the deaf children’s sponsorship money. All the deaf pupils’ school fees have now been paid. As mentioned, there will be further medical costs as Saluwa will need a second operation in April and reviews. 

We have had a donation of £1,000 from a very generous donor, which has gone part of the way. The full cost has come to a little over £2,000. This is the first time we have had a pupil at Cece Primary School in such need of help. We have twelve pupils with HIV, but their condition is well controlled with drugs from the local hospital and to look at them you would never guess that they had any health problems at all. There are also children with minor hearing or sight impairments, but who are getting on fine. 

I have been reassured by Opportunity through Education (our supporting charity) that OTE’s overarching criteria for assistance is relief of poverty. As nothing could have been done for Saluwa without the help she has received and she will be enabled to reach her educational potential, there is no problem from that perspective. My email address is rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk. Please get in touch if you are able to help.

Christmas Greetings

Dear all, 

 I hope you have a lovely and restful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Looking at the news, I can see that this year in the UK has been a second year of great difficulties with Covid. I do hope this improves in 2022. As far as Covid is concerned South Sudan has been probably one of the least affected countries in the world, so we have really been very fortunate. Of course, objective figures have been masked by lack of testing and general problems of poor infrastructure and logistics. However, it is still remarkable that a country with such poor health infrastructure can be so little affected compared with countries such as Britain or America which have plenty of medical resources. There are always a lot of funerals here, but this hasn’t noticeably increased. Most people are not complying with the Covid regulations, largely because of the far more pressing problems faced by South Sudanese on a daily basis – such as where to find the next meal. If people are living from hand-to-mouth, there is no way they can self-isolate. They simply must cultivate and sell their crops or starve. It is extremely rare for anyone to have the luxury of a room of their own, so isolation at home is not physically possible in any case. Another major reason for lack of compliance is that many people view Covid as ‘Satanic’. Anything to do with it is shunned – Covid testing, facemasks, handwashing, social distancing and vaccines. Some even propagate the myth that the sign of Satan (666) will appear on a person’s arm after receiving the vaccine, or that they will die soon afterwards. This is having a very serious effect on vaccine take-up in Uganda too, which will unavoidably lead to many teachers leaving the profession and stop many older pupils from finishing their education. I have personally seen young people who were mid-course, unable or unwilling to complete their courses because of the mandatory vaccine requirement. Enough about Covid! 

Private maths lesson for Alice

For me, a great highlight of the last few months has been the teaching of a few of our deaf children by the eldest, Alau, who is the only one at secondary level. The picture shows Alau teaching Alice. He has decided that he wants to become a teacher for the deaf when he leaves school. This will involve doing a teacher training course at a specialist training college. He particularly wants to teach in South Sudan because there is no help for deaf children here. I am hoping that once he is qualified we can open a deaf unit in our school and stop sending primary level deaf children to Uganda. We would be able to help more children at a smaller cost and without the long journeys and school fees. We have been paying him out of what should have been school fees for the deaf children if their schools had been open. Thankfully Alau has been vaccinated so he will be able to move ahead with his plans.

 

Foundations for a block of 4 classrooms

Another achievement was the building of foundations for a new block of classrooms. This is just a large slab of concrete right now, but hopefully we will be able to raise funds so that classrooms can be built in the not too distant future. 

Our contribution to the anti-Covid effort has been to have school in two shifts. This has had the added benefit of making the school less crowded and quieter. However, some parents of ‘afternoon’ pupils complain that their children are not attending because they dislike coming in the afternoons. Once we have more classrooms, we will be able to rethink our school day. 

Schools in South Sudan have just broken up for a two week Christmas break. On our last day, the lower school (who operate in the mornings) all did Christmas story related activities. I was teaching Primary 2. We told each other the story of the nativity and then improvised a Christmas play. There were a lot of applicants to be Mary, Joseph and the Angel Gabriel. The smallest boy in the class was the baby Jesus. The sight of some of our boys who are almost street urchins being angels with flapping wings was very funny. In the afternoon, the upper school was very poorly attended and so we played board games together. I had very recently taught some of the oldest pupils to play Scrabble. This is a huge success and very educational for them too, helping with vocabulary, spelling, spelling rules, strategic planning etc. We have three sets of Scrabble and also several of Lotto. They were donated by UNICEF. 

We go back to school straight after the New Year. However, I will be in Uganda for the first week as our school opening coincides with the post-Covid reopening in Uganda. I will need to take all the deaf children back to school. Thank you all for your support for the school during 2021. I am really so grateful, particularly at such a difficult time for all of you. 

Once again wishing you a lovely Christmas.

World AIDS Day 2021

On the first of December World AIDS Day was celebrated in Nimule. This is held every year and is very close to the hearts of many because Nimule is one of the most seriously affected places in South Sudan. The main reasons for this are that Nimule is a stopover for many truck drivers coming from Uganda, who lodge in what amount to brothels, and also because polygamy is the traditional norm in all the local tribes. As families with HIV are the main target group for our school, Cece Primary School always takes part.

Primary 5 and Primary 6, our two highest classes, took part. This year our pupils surpassed themselves. By popular request they repeated a performance of a poem and song which we composed as a class exercise several years ago on the subject of the devastation caused by HIV. This was followed by a new song called ‘AIDS you are merciless’. Our school finished the day by performing a Madi traditional dance in the lyrics of which a girl is warned not to go to the disco because she can end up with HIV. This contribution was our first performance of a traditional dance. It was taught to the children by one of our new teachers, Habiba. Afterwards we were complimented by many people on how well our children had done. I have to say that I was very proud.

You may notice from the photos that the majority of performers were girls. I am finding that as adolescence hits our pupils, the boys have become very resistant to taking part in singing, dancing or drama. I was glad to see that this wears off. One of the secondary schools which took part produced a comedy drama about a schoolboy who went off the rails and ended up with HIV. The ratio of boys to girls was roughly equal. In spite of the subject matter, it really was very funny. Thank you all for making it possible for our children to go to school in the first place. All other schools in Nimule are fee-paying, with a lot of additional financial requirements as well. Our particular children, those from families with HIV, disabilities and orphans, are the least likely to be able to attend school under normal circumstances because these problems all create destitution.

Recent highlights from Cece Primary School

Dear all,

I am writing to update you on the progress of Cece Primary School.

Laying the foundations

In spite of my previous pessimism about our prospects for building a new block of classrooms, one of our donors came forward with enough money to start work and lay the foundations.  Work has been underway for a week now and is nearly complete.  We are using the same team of workers as previously as they have always been very efficient and hard-working.  To be honest I don’t know how they keep it up in the sweltering heat of the day.  They start work before I arrive at 7am and are still working when I leave at 4pm.  All their work is done manually.  They are sleeping on site and receiving meals cooked by our school cooks.  Once the foundations are complete, we will need to fundraise for classrooms.  We constructed our previous block of classrooms over the course of around two years, building one classroom at a time.    Very likely we will do the same again.

We have also been producing uniforms for the many children who had outgrown their old uniforms.  This cost was assisted by a final donation from Pencils for All.  The actual production of the uniforms has been an uphill struggle because previously there were two tailors working together, but this time one decided not to take part.  This left the remaining tailor struggling to make over 60 uniforms on his own.  To make matters worse, he collapsed at one point and was hospitalized for some time.  Since he measured the children, more children have joined the school, who also need uniforms.  It seems to be a never-ending battle.

One of our two new guards.

I have mentioned the poor security situation in the school compound before.  We have finally managed to find two ex-soldiers to be school guards.  One is a school parent with five children in our school, so he has a vested interest in our school.  They started work last week.  The difference is immense; no more gin bottles and used condoms to greet us in the mornings.  They are also assisting with clearing the compound of long grass and bushes.

Another great boost has come from a donor in Australia, who has started a crowdfunding page to help generate funds for the school.  If anyone else would like to do the same, I can put you in contact for advice on how it is done.  As mentioned in a previous blog post, I cannot easily travel to the UK due to the Covid situation, which makes it difficult for me to fundraise for the school face-to-face as I did previously.  Another reason for being unable to travel is the very short school holidays, which are the South Sudanese Ministry of Education’s way to help schools catch up on the year without school in 2020.  Crowdfunding is a really helpful way of reaching new people, who might like to support the school as it expands.

Alau teaching Alice maths.  She had forgotten a
lot, so this 'private' coaching is a real help to her.

Also as a result of the Covid lockdown in Uganda, Alau, who is the oldest of the deaf students, currently at Senior 3 level at secondary school, has been working with the younger deaf children, so that they don’t lose too much of their education.  We are paying him using some of the school fees sent for the deaf children, as these are not being used otherwise.  Schools in Uganda have now been closed for two terms in both 2020 and 2021, leaving children nationwide completely without education.  In other words, they have only had one term of schooling each year.  Schools are supposed to reopen in Uganda in January 2022 – let us hope it will be continuous education from then on.  Alau has been doing a really good job, which makes me think he might like to have a career in teaching for the deaf.  If so, we might consider starting a Hearing Impairment Unit at our school once he is properly trained.  This would enable us to provide schooling for more deaf children at a lower cost and without the current long journeys.  At the moment this is all speculation however.  It would be a groundbreaking venture, as there is no special needs education in South Sudan at all.

The main needs of the school are for money for more uniforms, the usual teacher salaries and other running costs.  As mentioned, crowdfunding seems to be the way to go forward due to the difficulties with travel at the moment.

Firefly School for the Blind

I wrote in a post early last year, that there is a young man called Peter Ngong living in Nimule who is completely blind.  I have been trying to help him since he was in his mid-teens.  He is now around twenty years old.  His situation is as difficult and unsettled as ever.  His school place, which I mentioned in the previous post fell through because he got too frightened at the last minute by various gloomy predictions from those around him in Nimule.  In the end he completely refused to go.  This is the outcome of a lifetime of traumatic experiences.  A few months ago I suggested to him that he might do a vocational training course, but neither of us had any idea what would be possible at that time.

Two months ago we acquired a new teacher at Cece Primary School, who comes from a town called Atiak in Uganda, around 40 kilometres from Nimule.  One day I was telling him about the deaf children who I take to school in Uganda.  He responded by telling me that he has a good friend in Atiak called Alfred Okello, who is completely blind and has founded a vocational training institute specifically for blind people.  It is called Otet Uganda/Firefly School for the Blind.

Hearing about Firefly School, I immediately thought of Peter, who is sorely in need of education and work skills.  As mentioned in the previous blog post, he loves music.  Currently his sole occupation is playing the electric keyboard at church and setting up and repairing electric keyboards at other places such as churches and schools.  Although he gives a valuable service, he is not paid and relies completely on handouts from well-wishers.

My networking hat firmly in place, I thought of a woman called Sharon, who lives in Gulu and who is the founder of a local NGO called Mission Uganda which has a strong disability remit.  Sharon has a passion for assisting people with disabilities.  Here is a link to the Mission Uganda website. 

I decided to put Sharon in touch with Alfred and we all corresponded by email.  Alfred, on hearing about Peter, said that we really must meet up.  Alfred and Sharon made a day trip to South Sudan to meet Peter and me at the school. 

The meeting at our school.  Peter is standing
next to me, third from the left.
Alfred is next to him, followed by Sharon.

Peter arrived in his usual unkempt state, the result of lack of help from those he lives with.  He made a sharp contrast to Alfred, who was neatly dressed and shaved and very articulate.  Peter is so much in need of help to improve his life.  He is very bright, and I am sure that once he has found the right place and people his life will be very different.

The outcome of the meeting was beyond my wildest dreams.  Alfred offered Peter a job teaching keyboard and possibly also bass guitar and drums at Firefly School.  At the same time he will get plenty of opportunities to learn other skills which are on offer there, such as Braille, computer skills (using specially adapted computers for the blind) and academic subjects.  It will also be possible for him to learn livelihood skills such as agriculture, basket weaving, making liquid soap, making shoe cream out of burnt charcoal and beekeeping.  Beekeeping is extremely lucrative in our part of Africa as most people have very sweet teeth and the wax can be used for making shoe polish and candles.

One of many
aubergine plants
grown by Alfred.

Currently Firefly School is closed due to the Ugandan school lockdown, but Alfred is taking advantage of this time to do construction work, including accommodation and classrooms.  Once all is in place, Peter will finally be in a conducive environment where he can earn his keep without begging, and gain a much needed chance to develop his talents.  I am glad to say that Peter accepted the offer at once.  Let us hope he has learnt not to listen to his pessimistic neighbours and doesn’t change his mind.

Blind-friendly latrines

I made a trip to Uganda to visit Alfred at his school and was very impressed.  The school is in the countryside, a few kilometres out of town.  In spite of his blindness, Alfred is very keen on environmental issues and organic farming.  He uses his hands to feel the different leaves and identify the plants.  He has organised the construction of latrines with separate exit holes for urine and faeces.  The urine will be used as a pesticide and the faeces as manure.  This is the first time I have seen toilets of this type.  During the school lockdown he has been working with his family cultivating vegetables.  This will continue once the school reopens.

I am very happy to have found this new contact.  If Peter will accept the post there, he will be in a very conducive atmosphere, where he can build his self-confidence (sadly lacking) and earn his own living.  It will change his life.

 

A hope for a better life

“A hope for a better life” is the motto of Cece Primary School.  We chose that motto because our students have nothing and have no chance of any change for the better without education.  Our school criteria is for children from families with HIV/AIDS, disabilities and orphans.  These categories of people are at the bottom of the heap in South Sudan and very much stigmatized.  To make matters worse, like the rest of the population, they have been driven here, there and everywhere by civil war, each time leaving everything behind or watching it being looted by their country’s soldiers.  Many lost relatives as well.  However, many are now returning from the refugee camps of Uganda as the UN is trying to close the camps down.  This is because, at least officially, there is now peace in South Sudan. 

In fact, things are far from peaceful.  There are frequent ambushes of civilians on the road between Nimule and Juba, one of which made the international news because of the deaths of two religious sisters.  In Nimule itself, since Covid broke out and the schools closed, a lot of older youth have joined gangs which destroy property and people’s lives just for the fun of it.  They have not disbanded since schools went back and the authorities are overwhelmed and unable to cope with them.  Our school playground was destroyed by some of them.  For this reason, we are wanting to build a strong wall around the school buildings.

Looking at the current situation I have really seen the importance of schools for a country where lives and futures are so fragile.  Schools provide regular occupation, discipline and the only opportunities for learning and a means of escape from the vicious cycle of destitution and violence.  To help steer our pupils away from gang membership, we have recently started a girls club and a boys club for the older pupils.  These clubs are following a Christian curriculum aimed at inculcating respect, responsibility and a lot more.  The idea comes from a network of schools called Cornerstone Schools, which are spread across several African countries.  The sessions are led by a local pastor who is a youth leader at their secondary school in Nimule, Leadership Academy.  He is assisted by one of our teachers, who attended Leadership Academy herself and is very enthusiastic about this method.

Schools in South Sudan have now been fully open since May, but there has been a second lockdown of schools in Uganda which shows no sign of lifting in the near future.  This is causing many South Sudanese families and teachers to return home.  The parents are looking for continuous education for their children, and the teachers are looking for employment.  Coupled with the refugees returning from the camps, this creates a huge demand for school places, but also a new pool of trained teachers who were not previously available.

Our heaviest expense, which goes up each year as the school grows, is teacher salaries.  We now have 13 teachers and lack the regular income necessary to pay them.  We have recently replaced a teacher who resigned with an excellent new teacher with diploma-level training who has just arrived from Uganda.  He should be of great assistance as the school advances.  While carrying out the teacher interviews, we found that the general standard of the applicants was a great deal higher than at previous interviews, which is very encouraging.

Teachers are a major investment in our school and our children’s future, ahead of anything else.  Please can I ask for monthly donations for teacher salaries.  Currently regular monthly donations come to a total of £115 plus Gift Aid, leaving a shortfall of nearly £500.  We also have additional regular expenses such as fuel for cooking, internet, stationery etc.  The only reason we are able to keep going is because of occasional large donations from a few generous people, which is an alarming situation if the school is to be sustainable. 

Under normal circumstances I return to the UK every two years to fundraise and I usually find new donors.  This has not been possible during the crisis caused by Covid.  I would be very grateful if all who read this post can spread the word to potential donors, whether individuals or organisations.

I would be very grateful if there is anybody who has experience of crowdfunding, as this might be a way to broaden awareness of the school at the same time as helping us to build a secure wall around the school because of the security situation.  We have been quoted $80,000 for the wall, which is a huge amount and well beyond my capacity for fundraising.  If you are able to assist with crowdfunding, please let me know on the email below.

I am happy to say that our end of term exam results were our best ever for a first term with a 62% pass rate.  This has come as a very pleasant surprise as the children had all been without education for over a year.  It is a very positive start to the year.  In past years, the pass rates have gone up each term to the end of the school year, so we are hoping for a bumper year of academic achievement. 

Another piece of good news is that our oldest deaf pupil, Alau, has agreed to teach the youngest deaf children Ugandan Sign Language at our school until they are all able to return to school in Uganda.  There are four children who will benefit from this, one of whom is not yet old enough to go to a boarding school.  The other three are among those I take to Uganda. 

Lastly, thank you very much to Pencils for All, who paid for our school uniform, school playground and various other things in 2019, and who have agreed to pay for more school uniforms this year.  These are much needed because many of our pupils have outgrown their old uniforms and there are also new students without uniform.  The outgrown uniforms have not been wasted; they have been passed down to smaller children.  See the picture for to see the children in their uniforms and also their long skipping rope which is completely made of plastic bottle top seals.  Making handicrafts from bottle top seals is the current children’s craze here.

We were planning to construct another block of classrooms, but this is beyond our resources right now and has had to drop off the list of priorities.  In any case the classroom situation has eased because we have adjusted the school timetable so that the school runs in two shifts, morning and afternoon, to help keep class numbers lower due to the Covid regulations.  This leaves a couple of empty classrooms which can be used next year for Primary 7 and then for Primary 8, the last year of primary education in South Sudan.  After that we hope to open a secondary section so that our pupils can get a full school education.  All this is reliant of funds however.

What would be terrible if the school collapses for lack of donations, leaving all these pupils high and dry, without any possibility of continuing their education to a higher level. 

Please let me know if you are able to help either with donations or with fundraising.  Rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk

An eventful journey

I thought I was going to pay next term’s school fees for all the deaf children and take the two new boys to school but the situation changed without warning.

Alafi and Joel (left to right) waiting for
Covid results before we intended to
travel.

On Friday I went to the local hospital with the two families of Joel and Alafi (who were supposed to start deaf school in Gulu on 7^th June) for our Covid tests and certificates, ready to travel on Sunday.  Alafi is a new deaf child, while Joel started very briefly last year before Covid closed the schools.  Unfortunately, on Saturday we heard the news that no Primary 1 children were allowed to go to school due to a surge in Covid cases in Uganda.  I had to phone the two families and inform them.  They were very disappointed, understandably.

I still needed to go to Uganda to pay the school fees for the other deaf children who were in Mbale, so I left South Sudan on Sunday morning, clutching my Covid certificate and hiding behind a facemask.  I travelled as far as Gulu uneventfully and on Monday morning boarded a long distance bus to Mbale.  After about an hour’s journey I had two phone calls within minutes of each other.  Both calls were from orphans whose schools had just locked down for 42 days without notice.  They were in need of funds to get back home to Nimule.  It was very fortunate that the bus was going to have a break at a town where I could send money to them both.  This alerted me to check with the schools in Mbale.  Like all other educational institutes across Uganda, they were also closing down.  So, my ‘fee paying’ expedition was turned into a picking-up-the-children expedition.  I spent the rest of the bus journey phoning families and assuring them that I would bring their children home.

Normally the two boys who attend the deaf secondary school travel by themselves to the primary school ready for me to fetch them.  However, this time I arrived at the primary school in the afternoon only to find that one of the two secondary students had gone back to his secondary school (about 40 kms away) for something he’d forgotten.  I had to call his headteacher and ask for him to return immediately ready to travel early the next day, Tuesday.  Fortunately he reappeared in time.

Early on Tuesday morning we left in a small minibus for Mbale, where I would look for transport to Gulu.  I worried that we would face difficulties as every boarding student in the country would be desperately looking for transport at the same time and the costs of transport would go up.  However, we were very fortunate.  Our driver, seeing me with eight students, realized that we would struggle, so he suggested asking a friend of his to take us all the way to Gulu in his minibus.  As predicted, the costs were considerably higher than those I’d paid the previous day (80,000 shillings each instead of the 50,000 I’d paid for myself coming to Mbale), but at least we didn’t have to face the mayhem of the bus station and were able to travel all together.

We stayed overnight in Gulu and then I put two of the students in vehicles going in different directions, before getting another privately hired minibus for myself and the remaining students to go to the border with Nimule.  Surprisingly, this time the cost was a bit cheaper than my fare on the way to Gulu – 40,000 each instead of 60,000 when I was travelling alone.  At the border we said goodbye to Aluma and Alice who were both being taken to the refugee camp by their families instead of crossing to South Sudan.

We made it back with a day to spare before the Ugandan government had said that they would stop public transport from making long distance journeys.  Thankfully, unlike March 2020, the border between Uganda and South Sudan was open, so we had no difficulties crossing.  It has since closed.

It was a trip that turned out very differently from the one I had planned, but at least I was able to fetch everyone in a timely fashion and the children arrived safely at their destinations.  I hope very much that the Ugandan government allows their educational institutes to reopen after the 42 days they have announced, instead of creating another dead year.  Alau, the eldest, is supposed to start his final year before the equivalent of GCSEs in August.  It would be a terrible pity if this is delayed.