Settling in

Hello! I'm back in Jinja after a week that has flown by.. Last night me and the girls travelled to Mugaluka to stay the night with some AV's which was really fun! So this morning we packed our rucksacks and hit the road to Jinja to stay at a Nile River campsite for the weekend and tonight we are going on a booze cruise....should be interesting with unlimited alc ! There is also a clothes market here because my clothes (thank u han) have become sweaty moist holey rags from so much trekking around and endless games of duckduckbloodygoose. Other news is there is another Mzungu (white man) who lives a few huts away from us, she is an American called Katy and is 23. She is here for 2 years and has been living alone for 8 months which I can't get my head around. So we love having her nearby because so far she has made us a batch of banana bread and 2 exquisite stir frys and we are yet to make her anything.

I'm finding teaching lessons to the 13-18 year olds mildly terrifying but luckily Kasokwe is so unbelievably chilled that Alice and I can turn up at 9 and can get away with a 1 hour lesson of hangman and word searches. I still hate standing up like an imbecile in front of 100 expectant faces so me and the ladies usually spend our evenings planning lessons and it is worth it when you see a student is understanding what you are teaching. We have learnt also to go easy with the stickers because as soon as a class of 100 sees there are stickers it becomes pandemonium. I find it is not so much the lessons that are making a difference at our school it is the supplies we are providing- we brought in some net-balls yesterday and the entire staffroom like bowed to us. Even coloring pencils for the younger classes are really appreciated so that's nice. We want to run an art club with the younger years so today once I've finished this I'm going on a hunt for some paint. We also want to paint the walls in our house , Alice wants to fill the house with painted cats but I want to paint a milkyway or solar system or something.  We also did our first ever Zumba class this week with the older girls at Kasokwe which was quite lols but prancing around to Flo Rida under the African sun is hideous but hopefully makes up for the amount of Chapattis (flat greasy dough) we eat everyday.

For pancake day we went to Nambaale to make pancakes with Ed and Dom and traveling by motorbike through rural Uganda it was so beautiful and me and Alice were screaming WE LOVE UGANDAAAAAAAAA! despite Lucys bike running over a chicken......... .I keep forgetting I am here, it is starting to really feel like home and I'm honestly not finding it daunting that I'm here until the end of May.  All the AV's are really cool and I'm enjoying exploring Uganda with these people, wearing no makeup and spending the evenings with them learning about peoples backgrounds and stuff. There is a dutch girl here and an American boy and lots of people from the North (so many geordie accents which I am loving). For valentines day us girls lit some candles and made a beautiful dinner of rataouille, tuna and tomato pasta and then some watermelon haha.

Going to have to wrap this up. Not feeling homesick but I think of you guys everyday and on Wednesday I get to open my first letter!!!!! very exciting. Off to Aussies now ( a restaurant which apparently does good chips but the service will be shite) But TIA!!!! (this is africa) <3 Lots of love. Polly x