Newsletter 4 : The Smiths in Kabale, Uganda
September 2008
Dear Friends,
Well, we have arrived! Hard to believe we left
the UK a month ago today. It is lovely to be
back on African soil after all the preparation
and to be able to begin the settling in process.
We had lots of sad farewells and quite an
unsettled time as we moved from All Nations
back to Redhill and then after a month, from
Redhill to Uganda. So it is really helpful to
now have our home in Kabale which is going
to be our base for some time to come.
Kampala
We had a lovely 2 weeks in Kampala, staying
in a house organised by other Crosslinks
mission partners (also the Smiths!). This was
a great base from which we were able to
organise collection of our freight, purchase a
car and buy a cooker and fridge to take to
Kabale. Apart from dealing with the madness
of Kampala roads, this was quite a restful
time for us and we thank God for how
smoothly all these things went.
Kabale
Kabale
is
more
picturesque
and
cooler than Kampala
and it was great to
arrive back in the
‘mountains’.
The
NTC has gone out of
its way to help us be
comfortable in the lovely house they are
renting for us. They are finishing renovations
now and the kitchen will soon be done – we
hope! There is more to the town than we
really appreciated during our short visit last
year and it has most of what we could want
from a town (except maybe a swimming
pool!). Every day begins cold and misty, but
quickly heats up by midday. It is set in a
beautiful valley and there is much to explore.
We take regular trips down from Makanga Hill
where we live to visit the milk cooling station,
local market, post office, MTN shop (for
mobile top ups) not forgetting our trusty Royal
Supermarket. So no more one stop Sainsburys
- shopping involves going to many different
shops dependant on what you need.
NTC (National Teacher’s College)
The NTC is a government training college
catering for around 1000 student teachers in
their early 20s, who mainly live on site. Being
government funded it suffers from a lack of
investment and has very few resources – chiefly
blackboards (of sorts) and chalk. Class sizes of
70+ will lead to challenging teaching
conditions – especially as I seek to demonstrate
effective teaching methods to the trainee
teachers. Many of them will, however, go to
face class sizes of over 150 in the local
secondary schools. I am
excited to get started at the
end of September and the
college has been most
welcoming. I will also be
‘upgrading’ primary school
teachers during the holiday
time – so no rest! There is a
Christian Union group that
meets at the college as well –
so we hope to get involved with them once
term starts. The NTC is also very keen to have
Claudia come and take a counselling role, since
there is no counsellor at present (but there is an
office!). We will be the only western staff at the
college. After all the uncertainty of the
placement over the last year, it does now seem
this is the right place for us to be – God
knows what he is doing!
New Routines
Boiling water for washing up; Cooking
porridge for breakfast; Making bread, beans,
Matoke for lunch; Shopping at the market
and filling bottles at the milk cooling shop;
checking for mail at the post office mail box.
Burning rubbish in our pit; Feeding the
chicken; Filling the water filter; Lunches for
many!; Sleeping under nets; Paraffin lamps
and candles when the power goes off; The
children helping with planting in the field ;
Trying to avoid potholes in the road; Making
sure Leo doesn’t fall again into the open
sewer drains that run down the pavements (!)
Things do take longer here in Kabale, with no
dish washer or washing machine and more
dirty dishes and clothes than normal (more
visitors and daily African dust) – someone to
help in the house is essential. Charity our
housekeeper arrives every morning at 8am,
which although we’re still getting used to
having someone around the house, is a real
blessing and means I can look after the
children far more easily. Her salary means
she can pay fees for her children to go to
school.
The Blog
The internet in Kabale has been a bit better
than we thought (although very slow) and we
have been keeping the blog up to date. We
hope to continue this even
after work starts at the end
of September – but may
not be quite so regular!
Nearly 120 people are
regularly viewing the blog,
which is really encouraging for us. We will
always post current prayer needs there as well
as pictures and news:
http://www.smithsinafrica.blogspot.com/ Don’t
forget to leave us your messages, we read them
all!
Prayer and Thanks
• Thank God for how smoothly all the admin
things in Kampala went – it could easily
have been a different story! The car has
been fantastic and we hope to use it as a
great resource.
• Thank God for the provision of a great
house and garden for us which the children
can have freedom in and has the potential
to be used in many ways. It has really made
the transition less difficult for us all.
• We thank God for Charity and Junior and
the people we are getting to know now
including some lovely neighbours.
• We thank God for providing our link with
Oscar and pray he will be a way through
which we can work effectively with the
church.
• Please pray for Claudia’s and Craig’s roles
at the NTC and that Craig can work well
with George, the main other maths teacher
there.
• Please pray for us as we settle in church,
find our place there and explore how we
might serve our new home church.
• Leo in particular as he is very aware of the
differences here and as he starts his nursery
place on 15th Sept.
Thanks again for everyone’s love and
support,
Craig, Claudia, Leo and Bethany