From absolute privilege to absolute poverty

 

Our trip to Dr Ruperalia's school did not materialise but we couldn't grumble as he had been so generous to us after the lateness of our itinerary change.

Thankfully we were saved by Mr Poxon. Not directly by Brian himself but recently when he was running the Birmingham half marathon, he sent out a Just Giving link for a charity called 'Kids Club Kampala'. Intrigued, knowing our links to Uganda, I asked him about it and he sent me the email address of the CEO in the UK. I got in touch with her and did not think much about it until yesterday when it become increasingly clear that our planned day would have to change. 

We could have done a day by the pool but that seems a tad normal for this group of intrepid explorers and so I emailed Kids Club Kampala and a trip to their head office was organised.

We set off at a rather relaxing 10am (by far the latest departure time in our time away) and set off to yet again fight the Ugandan traffic (we didn't make it back for swimming yesterday as a 20km stretch managed to take us 2 hours! We went so slowly that our phones thought we had walked it! But yet again, no moaning, no silliness and just 11 angels travelling with us).

Today, the traffic was again awful but Alex and Moses used their knowledge of the streets to wind away through the Kampala side streets past store after store selling tyres, strange iron bar constructions, hair dressers, bed makers, playground equipment sellers and street food of every type you could imagine. We managed to get into central Kampala in less than 90 minutes (Google thinks its a 20 minute drive with no traffic).

The HQ of Kids Club Kampala was a lovely little building at the point that the embassy and high rise district nudges up next to the miles and miles of slums that fill the remainder of Kampala's land mass.

We met the entire team at KCK and ended up in an office with the CEO who happily accepted his new Dean Close hat with pride. He then led us into the conference room and we were treated to a talk and presentation that informed us of all the amazing work this charity does.

They talked about their schools that they set up in the slums; the skills work they do to help people get jobs and their orphanages that currently help nearly 60 children in Northern Kampala. It all looked amazing and we could see why Mr Poxon had chosen this as a charity. 

We said our thanks, handed over some Dean Close rugby balls and children' s books and were then guided to their gated school community.
Again, this gated and patrolled area was right next to the slums and the juxtaposition of the privilege of Speke and the desperate conditions of the slums could never have been more stark.
It felt odd looking at the slum and the poverty of the children from the other side of the fence, almost like watching a rare kind of zoo experience; although the difference was here there was no zookeeper to look after and feed the residents.

We walked,sombre and reflective, up to the school building and we were treated to one of the most memorable experiences of my entire life. Jamie had said that yesterday's river boat was a top 3 life experience and this one safely fits into my top 5, although for very very different reasons that the kingfishers and tree frogs of yesterday.

As we walked in, the children were being led energetically by their teacher in a song and dance rendition about an elephant fitting into a fridge. It may or may not have been a fridge, I don't remember, but it was certainly a great little performance and the smiles of the children sent warm shock waves to our hearts that had been temporarily frozen by the poverty seen on the other side of the fenches. Lydia asked why it was that every pre school teacher has the same energy levels (this is both a compliment to the Kids Club teachers and also those at Squirrels back in Cheltenham).

Soon, the children all sat down and Mr Pitt was asked to speak. It is quite infamous how bad Mr Pitt is at speaking to little children and he again showed why this is the rumour that circulates around him. He introduced himself, saw a boy in an Arsenal shirt and asked him what his favourite player was. Mrs Pitt then nudged him in the side as it was soon obvious that this boy was just wearing whatever top he had been given from the charity pile. Just like the boy sat next to him with the 'I am mummy's little princess' T shirt on. I assume that there was no irony in that T shirt considering Uganda's current political decisions.
Mr Pitt was then saved from his awkward silence by one of the lovely teachers at the school who asked every pupil to introduce themselves. This they did one by one with names ranging from Andrew and Isaac, through to precious and princess. They were lovely and we happily accepted circle time and an opportunity to join in their singing and dancing.

Another elephant song was performed with us as part of the circle and then we were then asked to carry out our own song and dance. Thankfully Fenella was on hand to suggest 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes' and Niamh and Lydia were our performers in chief in the middle of the circle.

The song was a hit; we performed it three times with increasing speed and the increasing crowds of children outside the school also began joining in.

Unfortunately, we needed to leave after our final and quickest round of the song and the children all smiled and waved with huge enthusiasm as we put our shoes back on and reluctantly headed back to the bus. I think it was Lydia again who said that she could not believe that a place that looks so sad can have a place that is so happy at the very centre of it.

As the doors closed on the bus  we could genuinely hear some of the nearby slum children singing some lines from 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes) and this experience will take a lot longer to fade away in our minds than those sounds did as they echoed around the baron, self made buildingsjust on the other side of the cage.

As Charlie Currie said when we first got off the bus, "the world is just not fair".

The bus journey to lunch was in near silence and our KFC after KCK was an opportunity to chat and reflect on what we had just been part of and had the opportunity to experience. Katie and Charlie were talking about their favourite child that they had just met and the sympathetic smile as I looked at Jess told me everything I needed to know about how hard hitting that morning had been.

A few hot wings and tower burgers later, the energy was back up, the talking and chatting was back in full force and although there will be a lot more reflecting over the coming days, especially when we are in Nyakatukura from tomorrow, seeing how this group handle these moments is important and they handled this one amazingly. I know that this blog is meant to be positive with tales of fun and frivolity (with some elements of artistic licence take by the author) but the compliments about this group are 100% genuine. They really are a special group of young people. 

Thankfully we did today get time at the pool and seeing all 11 of them laying on the circular loungers at the side of the water, you would have thought that this was just a normal holiday.