I Am on Leave from This Friday...

This is perhaps my last post in Kazo for the months to come. Some family issues have forced me to leave early indefinitely. I will transfer this blog to, if possible, someone responsible, working here as a part of KICVOP.

News will not, I hope, stop from here, but start, in a different perspective, from here.

Chics, Chics, Chics

Crucial Moment now. The chicks are on their final stage and eating like there is no tomorrow. We definitely need someone who could volunteer to take care of the chicks. So I can take some sleep, don't need to wait until 2 to sleep and get up at 8.

When the chicks were young, They were,as I said, lovely. But now, they are just nightmares, each single one of them!

Just hope we are not going to make a deficit on those chicks, which is highly likely to be the case this time!

The Power is Cut

Sorry for not updating the blog. The power has been cut in the centre for more than a week now. The only thing I can do now in the centre when night comes is to either read under the dim candle light or play the flute. Blogging? It is absolutely a luxury!

About Boda Boda Bar-This is not a promotion!

Power has been cut in the centre for three days up to now. The best place to go during the time of austerity is either, into the field, or Boda Boda bar. One of the most attractive features of the bar, apart from its attentively and naturally decorated environment which creates an native African style with Western novelty, the wireless internet covers the majority of the places within and is free of charge. Get a soda for yourself and then sit there for the whole afternoon, enjoying the sometime slow, but all the time, free internet! Since the power has been cut for long in the centre, I became their frequent customer this week. I went there when I desperately needed internet excess. Of course, it was usually the case for me to try for an hour before the internet picked up its speed. For reasons which are still unknown to me, the manager of the bar offered me a complimentary lunch for tomorrow. I did not promise to come and could not tell her that I only came due to the lack of internet.

Anyway, the main topic of this post is to introduce you all about the bar which has a restaurant and a lounge as well. If anyone of you visit here, I would suggest us to hang out there! Check out its new website which I just discovered today in the bar.

An Encounter Yesterday When Power Was Cut. I Finished Writing It Down Today

Had my dinner as usual in the newly-open local restaurant beside the centre, until I started chattering with the young boy who was looking after the place while doing his homework. I always felt bad when seeing him, after serving my food, go back to focus on his study, but never took my chance to get to know him. Today I got the chance as he was giving me a cup of tea I ordered as usual. I asked where he studied from and how had he been performing and got to know that he has always been the first in class since Primary-he is in Senior one now. I inquired if he loves reading books, he murmured with an yes. So I followed up by asking for the type of books he loves to read. He told me Chemistry and Biology. I laughed, saying, 'no, I don't mean textbooks, other books, apart from school, do you like those?'

Oh, I don't have money to buy such.'

My heart stiffened. I even started regretting about the laughter I gave out upon receiving his previous answer. A sense of guilt maliciously occupied me without my acknowledgment and my conscious acceptance. 

'Well, you know, you know where I live right? We have lots of books in the centre, you have to come and I'll lend you some of them!'

He looked at me with cautiousness and relied, 'Thank you, Sir.'

I hastily finished my meal and went back to the centre, where power was cut long ago and everything, including my mood, was in darkness. The kid's image stayed firmly in my mind of emptiness, the harder I tried to erase it, the more fresh and spontaneous it became. After a short but bitter struggle, I gave up. I went into my room with the help of several clicks on my lighter, from where a very dim but penetrating frame was emerged. At one corner of my room, I found the paraffin lamp and lighted it. The room immediately became familiar again, but was shaded with a warmer, comforting colour. After leaving the lamp in the main room, I went out to find the kid. I needed him to come now rather than later to the centre, to look for the books he likes, to take borrow them away as tonight's surprise, to then let me redeem myself for my intolerable laughter.

He looked and searched the books, as one never had a chance in life of discovering new fantasies. I waited, while pretending tidying up some other books in order to give him some undisturbed freedom of enjoying himself in a strange new place. He was so nervous and in so good manner. Although I asked him not to hurry, he hurried. Although I asked him not to call me Sir, he replied each time to my offers with a very soft 'Sir' relentlessly followed at the end of his response. The room was dark, though the bouncing flame inside the lamp spread rays of delightful lights into the air. It was silent also in the room. I tried several times to break up the silence by guiding him to look through dozens of books on the shelf, but my effort was so insignificant and useless, comparing to the thick slice of silence which was soaked in his nerve and conspicuous concentration.  He took in the end several books, for which the contents various significantly. I told him to come back as soon as he finished reading the books, to exchange for some new ones. He gave me a wary, but sincere, smile as he approached the door and faded away in complete darkness with his enigmatic silence.

I still now sometimes wonder if the smile was a sign of gratefulness, of happiness or of anxiety, or of all of them at the same time. It would be forever a secret. He would, I guess, still be the same person but with a different, more relaxed, attitude, when he came next time to get some more books.

My Day!

Got up, chasing after chicks which ran out of gate. Breakfast? None! For chicks? Yes!

Feed the chicks, let them drink...

Now it's time to move the chicks to their permanent home! Carrying 8 each time out of 600...

Lunch? A cup of tea! For chicks? Yes, French cuisine with three courses-mixed feed, mineral water and fabulous vaccines!

To Mr Nilson, from Sweden!

Dear Mr Nilson,

I have paid a brief visit to Allan in the past few days. He has been working hard in school as what was told by his class teachers. Since his past education has been unsatisfiable, he is still having hard times catching up with the majority of students in his class. Both himself and his teachers are working hard on his academic improvements. We will see how he perform by the end of this term.

He does lack some proper causal clothes apart from the school uniforms we purchased from the school. We will try to ask his family to take care of him on that matter. We will also get closely involved in Allan's education back at home, since it would be where Allan actually revises what he learned during the day. His health has been fine with no illness at all and we will keep monitoring, updating you with new information if anything popped up.

Allan is a lovely boy. We realised this more and more after you sent him to a proper school. He also possesses a pair of unique eyes. We still have difficulties in deciding with in the management whether it was a pair of mischief or smartness. I think the final answer has to be given when you come here and spend some time with him!

I will try to get some photos here if my internet showed some mercy in the next few days,

Best regards,

Landon

A Very Important Announcement from the Management of KICVOP!

To all friends who have or have not worked with us,

Please do not offer any financial help to anyone who claims to be working with KICVOP, unless you have consulted the management of KICVOP. We have received several cases of our former volunteers offering financial help to youngsters who claimed to be working with us. The money was in the end never recovered and wasted for some personal gains.

Please be also aware that KICVOP will not ask for any financial help from you either through the organisation or our employees. All people who are officially qualified to work with us have been listed on our website: www.kicvop.org

If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me,

Email Address: landonmeng@gmail.com

Best regards,

Landon
Programme Coordinator of KICVOP

When Chicks are Hungry...

Poultry Business Updates!!!!

Those are chicks are wonderful eaters... of our money! When I stepped into their territory to put down their feeders, they would excitedly and fanatically squeese each other around my feet and then jump on my shoes without fear. It is just lovely to spend some time with them; something like 2 minutes?

Timothy's Birthday, on Sep 23th (Photos)

Timmy's Birthday! It was one day later than the Chinese Mid-autumn Festival. It has been an occasion for family members reunion and the tasting of all kinds of moon cakes!

Spenthrift Chicks!!!

Those broilers are growing unbelievably fast and consume one sack of mashes every two days now. The market price for the mashes has been increasing rapidly as well. We are wondering how we are going to continue raising them since they are becoming more expensive than most of us!

I think we should give the chicks some entertainment facilities so that they won't keep eating for the whole day, but have some time during the day to lay back and enjoy themselves in some low-cost ways!

CAUTION!!!

Power has been cut in Kazo for two days and the power was finally back this afternoon. I did not go to the conference today since I woke up too late to even catch the first tea break-my cellphone, of course, was dead completely. I still need to fix my laptop somehow since the battery cannot be charged and may collapse at any moment from now on.

I recently found a lot of anonymous visitors on my blog! Be aware, I can see you all even you don't leave any trace!

A Longer Break than the ones in the Conference Hall

Power was cut for the whole night yesterday, so by the time I arrived at the centre from the conference, there was literally no way for me to check the internet and upload anything. I still should be in the conference of the Annual Paediatric HIV&AIDS Conference now, but I escaped since the start of the tea break, left Mac there alone with five hundred participants. The conference is held in Hotel Africana, which is quite close to Garden City and is within my walking distance. So I took a longer break than others, coming to a internet Cafe here to check my mails and respond to birthday wishes. Asa you may have suspected, the conference has not been fun at all-lots of different people talking about various similar issues again and again, and again. However, some of them were quite fine, not too dry. I just wonder for the money they spent to host hundreds of people in a luxury hotel for a conference, it could save a lot of children whom we have been talking about for the whole morning!  

My Birthday Tomorrow!

Forgot to mention,  we celebrated Timothy's birthday on 23th. I'll post photos in the next day or two depending on my financial status. And tomorrow is my birthday, on 27th! But don't worry, I rarely celebrate it! I'm now too old to want to remember my birthday!

SAVE

Everything has been moving smoothly forward here. I cannot write long here since the cable to my laptop is partly broken, so the laptop may collapse it anytime! The reason why I haven't been to an internet Cafe is that I have been surviving on my last two dollars in my wallet for two days, and probably have another two or three days to go, so it is time for some emergent savings now!

It is not that hard to live on 1 dollar for the past two and a half days. One just need to shrink his meals to one time per day and have some beans only for the meal. But one needs to be careful of when exactly to have the meal-it cannot be too early, nor too late-so I choose to take it at around two in the afternoon. So I would not feel terribly hungry either in the morning, before the meal, or in the late evening, after taking the meal for several hours.

It had rained heavily for an hour this afternoon. I opened the front door to the centre and sat on a chair near the door, reading my new novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and meanwhile enjoying the chill wind. I felt a little cold while in the middle of my reading, but my whole body and soul was involved in Marquez's graceful telling. I was completely lost, confidently, stealthily, in his fantasy. OK, I know this is not a place talking about literature, so I stop here.

The chicks have been growing well, too well in fact! They are getting extremely big in size considering the days we have been raising them! I'll try to put some new photos on here, but HOW is the question now!

Tomorrow I am scheduled to attend in Hotel Africana the 4th National Paediatric HIV Conference which is going to last for three to four days, each day from morning to dawn. It is still too early to  determine how much of what will be told tomorrow in the conference is true in reality, but as a golden rule for me and for some others working here in the community-the problems which are yet to be solved are always true, but with less exaggerations; the numerical achievements are always proved to be false, but with even more exaggerations.

MOSQUITOES!!!!!!

How many times have you been bitten by mosquitoes per day in average?

For me, 20 times when sitting down at midnight to write the blog...

Visa expired, but it is easy to be prolonged!

My visa for Uganda has expired for ten days without me knowing it, until Mac had a look accidentally into my passport two days ago. I went to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to inquire for the possibility of applying for a working permit here, but received nothing but a list of excessive requirements. I went there today with Madame Josephine in hope of having my visa extended at least for another three months, but was told in the beginning that the request was impossible. Madame Josephine plead for me hardly so the officer changed her attitude after writing down stealthily a long number on a draft paper which was immediately pushed away with her hands covering it at all time. She explained that the reason we had to pay for the extra 'fee' was that she had to, because my trivial issue, leave where she was sitting and go to another room to explain to another officer about my problem which might have serious consequences. In the end, without any other resorts, I accepted the payment for speeding up the process. And it worked! I had not even find a comfortable position to sit on a bench before she came back with my passport with a stamp and a sentence into saying my visa was prolonged.

I was delighted for quite a well afterward, but just wondered for a transit moment that how come the long and hard process which was explained with great effort and length was executed within such a short period?

I had my another lesson today-a fairly good one!

Why God Forgot about Me Totally...John told us after getting better

1. Caught Malaria
2. with at the same time, 3 sick teeth
3. having flu now
4. ugly looking
5. being an not-so-famous DJ
6. working long distance four o' clock in the morning coming back from work
7. Lack of money
8. Lack of decent clothes to wear
9. stopped studying, due to the lack of funds, in a crap senior school
10. being mistaken as terrorist with Landon and was arrested once in Kabalagala
11. does not smoke and drink
12. Hair style is in need of fixing

John is ill, seriously ill.

I'll write this post as it was not in the early morning now, but as before mid-night, just to make my story easier to be told.

I sent John a message yesterday, asking him to come as early as possible on Monday, the day when Tal and her new friend would come and do the community visiting. I then went to sleep without receiving his reply until I woke up early in the morning. He told me through a message followed by a missed phone call, saying he caught a serious fever and might not be able to come for work. I was then worried, for him and for the task I had to cope with in few hours' time.

After receiving Tal and her friend, and sending them to job with Andrew, one of our local volunteers here, I went to see John. I took only one Kasawa from my breakfast and then took them with me for John. I walked terribly fast to his place where I found him lying in bed lifelessly. I was worried in the beginning, but then calmed by the fact that he was still responsive. I called him. He turned his face so slowly in bed that one at the time could not figure out whether he had finished, and responded to my call by using his eyes looking at me miserably. Without a rest, I told him I was here to pick him up and take him to the centre where he could go to the nearest clinic there. He agreed in silence. I then asked him if he wanted to share my breakfast, but got a murmuring refusal in response.

After him being checked in the clinic, we were told he caught Malaria. Mac and I were so grateful that we had took him to the clinic this morning, otherwise, he might end up passing away in his bed. John did not feel well for the whole day. In fact he felt awfully bad-throwing up several times and the lying uncomfortably in the grass nearby. In the late afternoon, I decided to cook some porridge for him which contained plain rice, cabbages, carrots and some ginger to empower his body. In the end, the porridge was shared by more than five people in the centre. They loved it. Mac even told me why did we not cook it everyday. I said I could cook something else which would be much better and suitable for daily consuming if that was the case. We were so glad to see John getting well after drinking the porridge. In the late evening, I walked to Boiwse where I bought two tins of milk for John. I told him before I left the centre that he would feel rather hungry later tonight, but he firmly denied. An hour ago he finished his second tin after saying he was very hungry. 'Just hope everything gonna be alright.'

Just been to see the chicks for quite a while. Now they can jump out of the little fence and bounce back when they are scared by the outside world in the garage. They are just simply cute and annoying, like most of the people I met on earth. 

 

Poultry Business Updates!!!

Our Beads-Making Ladies' Group

Very Late Now~

I cannot believe it is nearly four already. After checking the chicks for the last time, I think I need to have some rest before sunrise and kids start shouting in the centre!

Little Update

6 hundred chicks were brought into the centre on Tuesday. They are staying in the garage and will remain there for the next two weeks. So far 3 are dead, so the mortality rate is 0.5%, not high at all comparing to the average in the industry. I'll post some photos of it in the next day or two.

Since baby chicks need a lot of care, everyone has shrunk his or her sleeping hours. Mine has been reduced to around four to five hours per day in average. The scarcity of internet is another major problem in the centre. Mac and I both need to diminish into town to find speedy internet. But as a golden rule here, an expensive internet access may not be fast, a cheaper one is definitely unbearably slow.

This Is One of the Families I Saw Today

I cannot express it in English, neither in Chinese, how I felt the moment I got to know Ritah's family. Ritah is a six-year-old girl, always silent in the centre in where I barely noticed her among other kids. She and her mother were chased out of their home by their landlord not long ago for not being able to pay the rent. Since then we accommodated them in our centre. Although I was already familiar with the girl, their family story was completely new to me until I went to profile them.

The first thing I saw was her mother's little shop, too small to be called a shop since it could hardly be noticed by the passers-by. The total capital of what she sells does not exceed 1.5 dollar per day. She told us in a very calm and motherly tone that in average she earns 0.25 dollar per day. Sometimes business is better and sometimes it is worse, so it is quite often by the end of the day nothing is left for the two to buy food since money has to be reinvested into the business for the luck of tomorrow. She had a husband deep in the village where she tasted a life of worse than absolute poverty. So she decided after her husband betrayed her to come to Kazo to earn a living. But life was found even harder than in the village. Leaving another two older daughters with their grandmother, she took Ritah to Kazo, where I got to know them. Ritah's mother struggled hard to send her to school where they paid 10 dollars per term. Despite the poor quality of the school, Ritah performed well and was positioned the first in her class. Of course, as all others, she was sent home regularly for being unable to pay the school fees. So what happened so often was that when the mother raised a dollar or a half, she gave it to the school to let Ritah continue her study. Life went on like that, smoothly but disturbingly. When it was the end of school, Ritah had to take off her shoes and hold them in hands while walking back to our centre, where they are living now, because if the shoe were worn out, they would not be able to buy another pair.

After visiting Ritah's family and her school, my heart was left with completely emptiness. There was just no feeling, let it be Eastern or Western, that could well suit the situation at the time. What I knew was I had to start immediately looking for sponsors for her as well to go to a better school and rescue her family from where it is. I knew she was one of the million reasons why I am here and why I should help them and embrace my life with whatever I have. But I also realised there were already more than thirty children waiting to be sponsored on my list, and she was just one of them, though far worse in some ways. I asked John, who had been working with me, several times without expecting an answer, "what shall I do and what can I do..." He did not answer me straightaway, because we were all in our emotional world where the reality was too painful to see and too hard to bear.

Walking aimlessly beside the pitch in Kazo, I looked up into the sky where dark clouds already started gathering recklessly and said, "We'll do something, John, but let's go first, let's head to the next family..."

Ritah's Mother's 'shop'

Ritah's Report Card from Last Term

Ritah and Her Mother

Where Ritah Studies Now

Some Photos in the Field and My Working Place in Boda Boda Bar

Working in Boda Boda bar....

A Conspiracy?

Today has been too long to be called a day.  I was awaken by the arrival of Tal, a lovely volunteer from Brito lam. I could not find any local volunteers at that time(I called John, but he's phone was off), so I took Tal to see Allan first in Kazo Summit. The headmistress was so surprised of us visiting Allan that soon and told us to better come again next Tuesday. They needed more time to observe Allan's performance. So we then went into a community with a local volunteer, for whom we waited for nearly thirty minutes.

The family visits were interesting as a whole. We encountered a big family where 7 kids were discovered. Fortunately, they were not from the same parents, but three different family units. Two kids were from a tailor whose wife was deceased; two were from a young lady who sells milk; three were from a couple for whom we were told the death of them both was due to HIV and were now taken cared by a man riding a bike for living. We also got to know one of the kids from the family of three studied in Kazo Summit, an expensive school with fantastic education quality. I wondered how the family could afford his school fees. I did not get reasonable answers from the family members, so I kept the question until the answer was unexpectedly revealed after an hour. After we done the interview and another family visit, we happened to pass by Kazo Summit. So we went in to look for the boy called Reagan. We did not find him in the first place until the headmistress recalled a name which was similar to what we suggested and he turned out to be the right one we was looking for. We did not know why he was registered with another name, but what we found out was more than interesting. With a very calm and thoughtful expression on his face, he told us both his parents were alive and paying his and even his cousins' school fees. The man riding the bike, though taking care of his two cousins in name, did not provide any money for their education. Although we were told by the family an hour ago that all seven kids went to school, the boy told us that apart from him, everyone else struggled to go to school and one of them did not go to school at all. I was shocked by this new discovery, but soon calmed down by the fact that such stories happened nearly everyday in the community. We had always needed to double check or even triple check each new fact which might be a lie instead. After all the fuss, we went on to visit other families.

Tal was not so well for the day. She had some kind of headache and was joking about having caught Malaria which seemed very unlikely even from my point of view. But I was still surprised to know that she took weekly tablets for preventing Malaria. I was told in the UK that only daily pills were available on earth! I brought more than four hundred pills with me when I came here! Life is unfair!

She got much better and happier after the discovery of some sticky tattoos came with the chewing gum she bought from a local shop and putting all of them on my arms. The last time I can recall of putting such things on my arms was like more than ten years' ago. It was a revisiting to my childhood!

Did I mention I called John in the middle of our trip in the community? We went pass a place which was so close to his home to let me recognise. I went into his home and found him sleeping in bed sweetly! I woke him up by calling his name and found him afterward only wearing an underwear standing in front of me with his sleepy eyes looking at no one in the room. He has been struggling with his tooth pain since two days ago. I hope he will get better in the next few days. He needs to raise some money to see a doctor for his troublesome teeth!

It's one in the morning and I'm praying for the weather in the morning!

Let's all wish the weather tomorrow, or should I say this morning since it is already one here, in Kampala is going to be chill, no sunshine but wind only! I have a lot outdoor works to do either in the community or in town. The HIV focal person has to be visited tomorrow in order to be updated about new movements in the district, the possible cooperation and to get the report of the test we did several weeks ago. The technical team has not given us the report, but I suppose it was submitted to the district.

I will also go back to Kazo Summit to talk to Allan's teachers, get to know his performance last Friday. He has to finish P1 this year and cannot be asked to redo it for another year. I just hope the kid gonna be smart enough for catching up! But, hey, what more can one expects even from his own son?

Six profiles of disadvantaged children also need to be executed by the end of tomorrow. Sometimes I just wondered how come these children did not live closer to each other, in which case they were easier to be found. I always knew afterward it was me who was mad...

One tip for living in Kazo: buy a bottle of drinking water during the day, in case you get thirsty during the night. Now is one of those embarrassing occasions when I get terribly thirsty but have nothing to drink..

Photos, from the Wedding Yesterday!

Some photos today. More to come, and hopefully a video! Due to the internet speed today, only four were uploaded! Be patient!!

Power is cut, again and again, and again!

When I left the centre this morning the power was cut completely. Ten minutes after I came back tonight, power was cut again. What can a young man do in the dark with his laptop left only with 30% battery? ( the battery is second-hand...)

Take A Wild Guess Everyone!

I am just back from the wedding ceremony in town and I am not going to say much about the experience today for the moment, since the experience has been great!! Not only the wedding part. We had an totally unexpected incidence! Now I need to sort out all the photos and, most important, the videos. I will edit them from tonight, so it will hopefully be put on the blog by the end of tomorrow. Please forgive me for not uploading photos here today, my internet allowance is limited at 1 G per month, so I have to use it wisely. I will go to Boda Boda bar to upload when everything is ready.

Four hundred people have attended the wedding. I suppose they were all the couple's friends and all contributed financially to the ceremony.

Please take a wild guess, by leaving comments here, on what had happened today apart from the wedding. If you were right, which is very unlikely, I will buy you a big cup of cappuccino when you visit us!

Wedding Tomorrow, Not Mine!!

I'm heading for a wedding early morning tomorrow at around eight. I cannot remember it's Mac's brother's wedding or his brother's brother's wedding. Ugandans seem to have lots of family members, so it is usual for me not to member everyone I was introduced to. When a couple here wants to have their wedding ceremony, the first thing they need to do is to, two months prior to the ceremony, hold a meeting every week in which all their friends are invited to attend. During the meeting, all kinds of activities need to be presented in the aim of raising the money needed for the ceremony. I attended one of the meetings weeks ago and was since then too busy with other things in the community. The organiser of the meeting, a relative to the new couple, asked Mac several times about my whereabouts. In the end Mac plead 50 thousand shillings for me as my contribution. I told Mac that I would empty the bar tomorrow for my part of the contribution! When was assigned the job of setting the reception for the wedding tomorrow, I asked Mac for a possible change to the kitchen for which he firmly refused. Everyone knows my love for food, so no one ever put me anywhere near food when having such occasions. 

Since it will be a formal occasion tomorrow, I have spent the past hour ironing a shirt and a jacket. I even washed my trousers just for tomorrow's occasion (In fact I need to wash them anyway since all my trousers have been dirty for days without me washing any of them)! I hope they will be dry on time! Otherwise....I don't even want to think about that now....

Afternoon Updates

A new sponsor is secured today from China! Now I need to go into the community to finally execute three profiles of disadvantaged children. I can imagine how hard it would be for a sponsor to choose one from three children who equally deserve the sponsorship, because I have always needed to choose three each time from a score of children.  To most families in the communities, 120 euro or 100 pound per term in a primary determines their future. That is the moral dilemma I have to face, but I know no matter which child is chosen in the end, the change has already been made and hope seeded. 

I just got to know that the chicks are coming next Tuesday. The chicks the company has now are in bad conditions, so we decided to not to take them this time!

Latest Updates

After a long working day yesterday, I was told, from yesterday, the following three days were public holidays. But how can we have a holiday here when six hundred chicks are coming today? I will go and pick them up this afternoon at around four. I will post some photos perhaps tonight. How can I find free internet?

I have started two new sections on the blog, one is for the photos of out sponsored children and their sponsors in which I will post more photos in the next few days; another is for my compositions. So next time I don't need to disturb the main page by posting anything about music!

Please also take some time to read the announcement below the photo under the title of the blog. I am still waiting for more photos from you to come!

Finally, some photos and a video!

I have changed the template of my blog, hope it will not cause much trouble. I believe the blog now is much easier to be read. The internet has just started getting faster in Boda Boda bar. So I think I would try to upload some photos of Allan's shopping day!

The weather today has been very cool and it had rained a little bit immediately after I arrived at Garden City. On my way to the bar, strong wind blowing straight at the Boda made me feel that we would never be able to make the journey. The stronger the wind, the faster the Boda Boda man wanted to ride the Boda. If you have ever been to Kampala, I hope you can still remember that on the way to the Garden City, Boda Boda has to bypass a majestic golf court. It was the huge golf court today, I believe, caused the strong wind.  However surprising the journey was, I arrived with a refreshing mind.

Today is Allan's first day of school. I hope his mother has sent him to school on time this morning. I will go and check him out next week. Mac and I agreed on how to deal with those sponsored families, that is to be seriously involved in each child's education.  We have to let the families realise how important it is to provide their children with good studying environment in their own homes. Sponsoring a child in Kazo is a significant responsibility for any current or potential sponsors, so does being sponsored! If one part of the burdens is removed by the sponsor's altruism, the family has to therefore move forward in a more rapid pace and bite their teeth into the remaining hardships. As the programme coordinator of KICVOP, I face moral dilemmas nearly every single day, from which I have to make painful choices. What I only hope is that each choice made will bring a real change rather than a simple temporary improvement. I hope the families in the community will work with us and work harder with themselves, and therefore bring some real changes to the current and next generations.

How Much Does It Cost to Sponsor A Child in Kazo?

To sponsor a child in Kazo for a term in Primary, one needs to give up one of the followings,

33 Big Macs or 33 Starbucks Grande Cappuccinos:

18 packs of Morlboro;

5 visits to the London Eye;

1.5 month's unemployment benefit in the UK if you are single and over 25;

1 mid-range, non-flexible ticket to Paris on Eurostar from London or 1 month's unemployment benefit in the UK if both husband and wife cannot find a job;

 1/2 of an Ipod;

1/4 of an Iphone;

1/11 of the monthly income after tax from each of the bottom fifth of the households in the UK;

1/127 of the monthly salary of the prime minister of the UK;

or 1/274 of the monthly salary, without bonus, of a portfolio manager in a bank.

So how much will it cost for a mid-level civil servant in Uganda to afford a child to read a mid-level private secondary school for a term in the UK?

10 years' saving without any expenditure, and with no other options available.

The Second Post from the Club!

It has been more than three hours since I first came into the club. I took a Boda from the centre and arrived here after more than thirty minutes for a journey which normally takes only fifteen minutes. The reason for that is that it was me who found the Boda Boda man and told him where I wanted to go. I told him, 'no Wandegeya," after he said yes, I repeated myself "no Wandegeya do you understand?' In the end it turned out he did not understand at all what I told him. He brought me to a place I had no idea about, especially at the time when it was late in the evening and street lights are on main roads only. I suppose that Mac knew I would get lost, so he called me at exactly the time when I felt I was getting completely lost (there are usually three stages of getting lost. First, feel might get lost; second, feel getting lost; third, feel getting completely lost). I have never been in the first two stages but always gone straight to the last stage-everything was so familiar before a sudden feeling of everything getting completely unrecognisable. After Mac's magical instructions on the phone, the Boda Boda man sent me straight to the club, where, in front of the club gate, he asked me to put an extra thousand shilling on top of the bill. I refused firmly and went into the club.

Although I have bought a modem which enables me to get access to the internet everywhere I go, but the volume of one G per month is far below what I actually consume. The 2 G per month subscription is far more expensive than I can psychologically accept-it tops up around 64 dollars per month. So I decided to come to the club to continue my work. The compromise is the speed of the internet. The internet speed here is of great slowness which one can hardly imagine. Loading one photo already took me an hour. 

I have just had my third soda today and is going to ask for another one to cherish the attitude of working in the very early morning. This is the second post from the club. This is a sleepless night. This is a night with loud local music and quite darkness.

Quick Updates!

Today is much hotter than ever in Kazo. Went to the Stanbic bank this morning in Wandegeya to pay for Allan's school fee. I took the boy to school this afternoon where he was so shy to say anything in front of the teachers. We were told to let the boy come tomorrow morning to attend his first class since it was too late for him to join the class today. The warm weather has forced me to drink two sodas (when you do something not very healthy, some excuses are needed to beautify everything) and I'm still not thoroughly satisfied.

I have purchased a mobile modem for my internet yesterday under the desperation of having no internet. The subscription here is very expensive. Leave alone the modem, the subscription alone for only one G a month costs around 22 pounds, 34 dollars. I bought three months' subscription with one G per month. I will use it for updating the blog and sending emails which do not require pictures or videos. I thought I would completely forget about the internet provided in Boda Boda bar, but now it seems quite impossible. I have to go there if photos or large files are required. Now is the moment like such-I want to show some photos and a video taken when Allan was doing shopping for his first class in life.

There is no moment in Kazo which is in the midst of complete silence, even very late in the night. Night can be holy, but never silent.

A Moment in Life-A New Piece

Click on the link below to download:

A Moment in Life

A moment when life is no longer weighted by its value but its lightness. As soon as the moment is embraced without its societal meaning, the existence of sound becomes strangely beautiful. The soul is then discovered in light.

On the Road

I now realise that I was wrong to say yesterday on the blog that I felt having nothing too serious to be written down. Madame Josephine had a car accident yesterday in town where she was knocked down by a big vehicle. I am still not sure about why and how it happened, but from what I was told, it was a serious incidence. She has been in bed and on medication. I am supposed to visit her with Mac today but have to postpone the visit, since we need to purchase Allan's school materials first this afternoon in Garden City. I have drafted and calculated the shopping list before lunch. We will head to town in about two hours time.

The transportation system in Uganda is very unpleasant most of the time-the worse road condition, the excessive amount of different type of vehicles and malfunction of the traffic wardens. John and I were knocked down several days ago in a very busy conjunction from our Boda Boda(local motorcycle) by a car trying to join the line. It was hard to tell whose fault it was, but, fortunately, our Bota fell down immediately the car knocked us from the side, so we were lucky to be able to keep our legs from being crushed by the car.

After the incidence, I felt more safe than ever on a Boda. I know anything may happen unexpectedly on a road, but everything is to be expected for a life on the road.

In Makka Terrace.

It is the first time I feel like having nothing to serious to write about. I'm now in Makka Terrace, a cafe store in a big shopping complex, trying out its wireless internet. Although the speed is relatively faster than the one in Bota Bota bar, the duration is limited at an hour and a half. I haven't got to know what will happen after that. It has to be mentioned that the cappuccino here is far worse than the one in Cafe Papa in Garden City, though drinkable. I asked for a double cappuccino, though I had no idea what it meant but suspected it meant to be as twice strong as a single. The real thing turned out to be like doubling the amount of water in the coffee. Should I complain?

Everything has been going on smoothly in the centre with little surprises mingled in between. Timothy went back to school yesterday with all the shopping bags he got from Uchimi supermarket several days ago(check my previous post for photos and a video!).  When we arrived at his school, all his schoolmates looked at him and his bags in abundance with surprises. He was as reticent as he always was. The schools in Uganda are extremely strict on students' requirements-goods which are required by the school which have to be purchased by the families before each term starts, such six bags of sugar and a box of milk biscuit. I wanted ask to ask the school officials what if some students do not like milk biscuits, but gave up the idea by the fear of causing unnecessary meaningless conversations. The problem, from my point of view, is that most students can hardly even to pay the nominal school fees, let alone all those unnecessary goods required by the schools. If one of the goods is missing when the term starts, the student is to be sent home. If schools can focus on the necessity of education, rather than those extra needs, more children may be able to receive education as a result. We will soon need to start buying things for Allan, the latest boy being sponsored, and Milli, another girl from the community being sponsored.  I have not yet seen Madame Josephine to ask about the chicks which are supposed to be brought in tomorrow. Apart from Tal's visit, an Israeli volunteer from Brito lam now working with us twice a week, today has been rather quite. I even managed to learn a piece from Les Miserables on flute. It was not working hour, since I practiced during my lunch hour! It rained so heavily in the morning while I was still sleeping until John knocked on my front door, the sound of knock woke me up suddenly and completely. So the weather has been so chill for the whole day and I loved it! Even when I went for lunch in a local restaurant, it cannot be even called a restaurant due to its small size, in where the air was always humid and hot, the meal was miraculously finished without me sweating at all.

I had a chance to talk to a local politician several days back, with whom in the middle of talking I asked him to find me a peppy if possible, since I saw him having a nice-looking foreign-breed dog. I am still waiting for his response which is seemed highly likely.



   

The First Post From a Club, Maybe Several More to Follow!

I was recommended to come to one of the nightclubs in Kampala for its wireless internet connection. The internet speed is moderate, fast enough to write new posts but slow enough to put any other kind of attempts off. I accidentally subscribed it for 24 hours. Since I came in here at around half past ten in the evening, I have to use it until morning, at least, to consume some of what I have paid for, in order to satisfy my vanity! Internet became a luxury the day we lost it, the same is true for everything else I suppose.

A life like this in the UK, or any other more developed countries, is perhaps unimaginable, but I already started to enjoy it. Oscar Wilde once addressed living a consistent life as suffering a lack of imagination. Life here, however, lacks consistency.

Clubs here have several unique features-loud African modern local songs with videos displaying on Teles everywhere in the room and unknown football matches showing on Teles which are left from the videos, and Mosquitoes, which will start biting you severely once you decide, like me, to stay in the dark using the laptop for hours without obvious moving around!

An One-Off Improvisation on the Keyboard This Morning

Some exotic flavours again here. I played freely on the keyboard this morning(how much I hoped it was on a piano). It was an one-off performance. I had to listen to it several times after it was recorded to figure out its meaning. Please don't take the noise in the background as the drumming, it was someone digging the road outside the centre! There were also lots of kids in the centre at that time who contributed to the extra sound in the piece. At the moment, I call the piece 'One Saturday Morning', please feel free to tell me if you have better names!
One Saturday Afternoon

The Story Continues Here...With Video!!!!

I am sorry about not putting the photos up yesterday. Our internet subscription was expired and may not be renewed for a while due to the lack of funding. The stories in Kazo, however, were not consequently stopped. Life goes on as usual with more surprises suppose. I am now hiding in the Bota Bota bar on top of Garden City, the big shopping complex in Kampala. The bar is quite western style in which a great number of African elements were integrated. The most important thing about this bar is that it has wireless internet. During the days without internet connections in the centre, I have to come here to carry on my writing.

OK, let's get to the topic for today: Timothy's shopping day in Garden City for his next term in school. A big thank you to his sponsor Orna who gives his the opportunity to enjoy a normal child's life(quite a good one in fact, I'm a little bit jealous sometimes. Only sometimes!!) I have uploaded several photos with this post and perhaps a video, depending on the speed of the internet here.

Attention, Timmy Fans! Shopping Is in the Air!

Mac and I will take Timothy, one of our sponsored children, to do some shopping in Garden City for his next term. We will set off at four this afternoon! Feel free to catch us there where I will offer you a cup of coffee in Cafe Papa, a Cafe store offering fantastic cappuccinos.  Apart from friends in America, Asia and Oceania, time is still in abundance if you book a last-minute flight ticket! Upon the request from his sponsor in Israel, all things have to be purchase in Garden City, the best shopping mall in Uganda, since, first, she wants Timothy to enjoy a life she could have given to any of her own children and, second, that is the only place where receipt can be given.

Since Timothy is in a boarding school, lots of things are required by the school, such as a certain number of pencils, coloured pencils, black socks and socks with stripes, five big exercise books and six small ones . The lack of any of them will result in temporary expulsion from the school. However, the strictness of the rules differ between schools. That is why in the future I want to start a school where the welfare and education of the children is put as the only priority.  And please mark my words!


I will definitely post the photos taken during the trip this afternoon later this evening. If you cannot come on time to join us, I strongly recommend you to wait for the photos which will be posted tonight!

A Bitter-Sweet Moment

It has become a daily routine for John and I to have one rollex, a local spring roll consisting fried eggs, cabbages and a half of a tiny local tomato. The taste is good, in the middle of being the fast food and Michelin-three-star cuisine. We then would sit in a small local pub across the dusty street, having couple of sodas. Occasionally, Mac would pop up surprisingly from the street and join us for a while before his figure diminish into the darkness of the street which is lighted up by Matatus' dim front lights.

I did not take soda as usual. Neither did John take any soda at all. I chose Tusker, a local beer, instead. I was introduced to it several days ago when I was busy drinking different brands of beers in which I completely lost my sense of time, direction and everything else. John and I talked as always. In the middle of our daily conversation, he asked me in a tone sounding rather like a statement, "how I'm going to live after you go back," he was in his usual way of projecting his voice while staring at the TV set, few metres from where we sit, on it a woman was singing about her love in Luganda in front of lots of vegetables, "I am going to be really bored"

The hand of mine holding a cigarette unconsciously stopped in the middle of moving closer to my mouth. My feeling was mixed. One could call that a real bitter-sweet moment. It was the first time in life anyone whom I knew had ever said that kind of simple statement to me. I felt more proud than receiving any of my past academic or social achievements and felt more bitterer than any solemn goodbyes I had ever been given. The statement he gave was too simple to be insincere. After a short hesitation, I replied in a mischievous way, 'John, your life sucks!'. We both laughed. I then recalled the past years I spent in China, the UK and several countries, where physical and spiritual goods were in abundance, where individuals' lives were too complicated to make daily sense, where nearly everything could be substituted by something else, and where the value of simple words were badly diminished by everyone's ambitions in life.

I thank John for giving me the moment of retrospect, of warmness and of comforting bitterness. I already started to realise that this place is changing the way I look at life. Maybe, the place is just helping me find the way I should look at life.

"...We don't create them, we discover"

Beyond the Surface

This small article is from another blog of mine. I believe people love reading things about KICVOP, so I put here something most people have no interests to read in order to mix some exotic flavour into this blog.

Rather than saying 'below the surface', I would say 'beyond the surface' to make more music sense. The word 'beyond', in an abstract way, is something requires a gradual action to be achieved. And one can possibly feel the process of intellectual inquiry into what is beyond the reach of our everyday vision. I can barely find a word in Chinese which can substitute the word 'beyond'. 'Below the surface' in Chinese makes more sense if one wants to express the similar kind of meaning of going beyond. From a scientific conception,  'below the surface' is what actually happens physically in the reality. What cannot be seen from the surface is therefore hidden and has to be below the surface. From a more metaphysical way of thinking, however, what cannot be seen is usually more than what we can physically reach and intellectually think about and therefore should be beyond the surface.

I has always been in agreement with the superiority of Chinese words in expressing abstract feelings, but I defected to English this time. The word 'beyond' is in itself a music note which conveys a flowing and circular life. The visualisation of the abstract action of 'beyond the surface'  requires both a scientific attitude and a romantic vision. Perhaps this is why the survival of classical music as a whole was made possible.

Afternoon Updates

I am terribly sorry about not posting the photos of the local food. I was busy eating though I did bring my camera with me. In compensation, I will post some photos of the products which are made by our women group. I hope the battery left in my laptop will allow me to uploading all the photos. The power has been cut again in Kazo.