Hazel’s Footprint’s Quarterly – The Final Quarterly! Wow. Bananke. I’ve been home for just a month today, and it feels like a year ago that I was in Entebbe airport, struggling to get my mats, my five–foot mingling stick and my banana fibre hat through customs! I left Uganda, my home away from home, and its impact on me I can’t see going for a very long time. My last few months were spent running reading classes for p7 pupils at St. Noa’s, ending in […]

My name is Keziah Berelson, and in less than two weeks, I will be leaving for Uganda to undertake a voluntary role for a year! I will be working at the Good Hope Initiative in Kisweera village, just outside of Mityana, where I will be teaching literacy and numeracy skills to 4-7 year olds. The Initiative was set up in 2006 in order to empower the rural and marginalized disadvantaged children in the community so as to enable them to participate in a grass-roots process […]

And I am back again! Well, I’ve now been 6 months in Uganda and in the face of 3 tropical illnesses. I’ve been pretty safe and sound no broken bones and still 10 fingers and 10 toes! I don’t think I’ll get over how incredibly welcoming my community has been … well past the “fitting in” stage we find ourselves able to walk down to the trading centre, chatting to every third person we see (this does double the length of time it takes to […]

KB v. YKM: And I’m finally back to Myanzi for the new school term, after travelling over 800 kilometres across East Africa! We’ve headed home at the end of the dry season, and its astounding to see how far the landscape is affected. What once used to be lush red soils filled with weaving deep greens of maize fields and papyrus plantations has given way to an orange dust track complete with yellowing banana plants an upsetting lack of ripe fruit. The school term has […]

Mango, mango, mango! Well, it’s finally here … mango season, after weeks of sour, unripe mangoes with salt (don’t knock it …), the moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here! Rather a let-down to be fair, the mangoes are delicious, but haven’t grown past a fist size. Nevertheless, we still wake up to a small pile of them at the door every morning – and I’m not complaining. Ultimately, as we’re seeing off the last of the rainy season by early December, it’s […]

2 month anniversary … I’m currently sitting in a youth hostel in Kampala having had my first hot shower in weeks! Amazing! We’ve had the week off this week, due to P7 exams, so we have finally started to explore Uganda. We began by travelling past the equator (not too exciting when you’re squeezed onto a minicab with 20 others, a chicken under your legs and an unusually dusty/potholed road for Uganda). To the Queen of Peace project in Nabiawanga to watch their music, dance […]