a year to indefinite: All the small things

Bouncing around in a truck for two hours on my way home the other day I was complaining to myself about the discomfort I was experiencing. The first part of the road out of the refugee camp is bumpy and at times as the truck tilted I seriously contemplated my plan if the truck tipped over. Then Anne was telling me about how she used to have to use public transport. Not the organised, safe, runs on a timetable even if it is sometimes late kind of public transport that you probably have in your mind. I mean the Ugandan kind of public transport, a car or van (taxi) stuffed full of people and things. And full is not just a passenger per seat, usually more a ratio of 2:1. She described catching a boda (motorbike taxi) to a certain point and then waiting on the side of the road for up to an hour for a taxi to go past, waiting for one that wasn't already full.

And then my complaints stopped and I started thinking how good I had it in the truck. That I wasn't out in the blazing sun walking kilometres with a bundle on my head. That I didn't have to push a bicycle loaded with charcoal or maize or matoke. That I didn’t have to wait by the side of the road for 'public transport'. And as the road transformed from scary to graded to bitumen I reminded myself to be grateful.

We had been to Nakivale to deliver desks and books that were bought with funds raised by Aussie school children. It's unthinkable in Australia that teachers would be able to teach without students having desks and that any meaningful learning could happen without books or access to information. Yet this is a daily reality for many of our schools. We managed to give three class sets of books - a picture dictionary, an upper primary dictionary and an atlas. Each class set fifteen books. With seven of the ten classes having more than fifty students using the books might be an issue - but it's a start. When we handed the books out one of the kids asked if they got to keep the books. I'm wondering if he thought I just wanted to take photos and then take the books away again. And so, what may seem like a small thing to us who have everything, was accepted with great joy and wonder. That these things are now theirs.

This year HOPE is focussing its fundraising on Nakivale school, where we need to build new classrooms as well as finishing off the already existing classrooms. Imagine the joy of the students if we were able to raise enough that those classrooms could also be filled with desks and enough books purchased so that the current ratio of 1 book to 14 students is reduced.