On the way to our schools today we visited a small village by the secondary school. Bucarasi village was hit by tragedy on 1st March 2010 when the start of the wet season brought extremely heavy rain which caused a huge landslide. It happened just as children were walking home at the end of the school day and over 300 people were killed in the disaster. Parents lost children, other children were orphaned and many of the survivors lost their homes and belongings. The local secondary school was used as an emergency medical centre for those injured; everyone in the village and schools has very raw memories of the incident.
The disaster happened because so many of the trees on the hills around were chopped down for firewood or building materials. Without their roots making the ground compact and firm, the rain just washed the whole hillside away. The village is now learning from this and is replanting many new trees where mature ones were removed. The school is playing its part by growing young trees in its grounds - once big enough, children take these home and plant them near their homes on the hillside. Its a wonderful idea and shows just how a 'community' school should work. The longer I am here, the more I realise we can learn so much from these communities and the partnerships really do work both ways.
The children of the local primary school were so excited at our visit to the site that they flooded out of the school to join us (as can be seen by many of the pictures below). Once again it shows that people can move on from such tragedy and try to correct the mistakes made in the past.
I was dropped off at Buchanya late morning and once again received the warmest of welcomes. First up were showcase games of football and netball with the school teams. All the children involved demonstrated great skill and incredible speed, I was very impressed. Next up was a warm lunch cooked over a fire in a hut just outside the school grounds (staff only, children receive nothing even though they are in school 10 hours a day!) This consisted of matoki (a type of banana like mashed plantain), boiled spinach, rice, chapati and goat meat. It didn't look the most appetising meal I have ever seen but was absolutely delicious! Eating with fingers was good fun too, though I evidently didn't have the right technique as the staff kept laughing at the mess I was making.
The rest of the day was my chance to teach the oldest class of the school. I was a little intimidated by the thought of teaching a class of over 100 children. This was made worse when half of the staff came in to watch but the experience was wonderful. They were all so well behaved and really understood what we are trying to do with the garden mural - some of their designs were excellent! They loved the fact they could use colour for the first time and were so grateful for all the art materials you donated! To end the afternoon, I taught them a little Welsh and filmed them performing the welcome song from the day before. It was another great day but following another long hot journey back to Mbale, I was exhausted!
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