Day 2: A tour of our Schools, Miss Griffith's Birthday and Joseph's house
After a busy time travelling, today was the first time we would be visiting our link school, Mulatsi Primary school. To make the day even more special, it was Miss Griffiths' birthday! She was thrilled to be welcomed to breakfast with a plate decorated in icing from the staff at our hotel, wishing her a Happy Birthday, as well as with a card which Dosbarth Elm had asked Mr Prewett to smuggle into his suitcase.
She was less thrilled, however, with the sight of 'Fried Gizzard' at the breakfast buffet. This is a traditional dish in Uganda, normally saved for special guests, which comes from a bird's stomach and can be a little chewy! Luckily, as a vegetarian, Miss Griffiths missed out on having to have any!
As there are 6 schools travelling together on our trip, we planned to spend the day moving from school to school, to meet all of the children and teachers. We did not expect such warm welcomes and the day was very exciting and full of the children's amazing singing and dancing.
The first school we arrived at was Nauyo Primary School. The welcome we received was overwhelming. The children were singing beautifully and clapping, as lots of the teachers spoke. Joseph, who we mentioned yesterday and is with us for the whole trip, surprised Mr Prewett, as this is the school his children go to. Joseph's children are very special to Mr Prewett as, on his first visit in 2015, Jerry's oldest son was born. He even has a middle name with part of Mr Prewett's name, being called Jeremiah Preweluke Nataka!
Mr Prewett was not expecting this and it was lovely to see Jerry, his sister Joanna (who often sends messages to Mr Prewett's daughter in Wales) and his brother Joshua.
Miss Griffiths was trying to keep her birthday a secret up to this point until someone gave the news away and before we knew it, all 2700 of the children in the school were singing 'Happy Birthday' to her!
The time went quickly and we soon moved on to Nyondo Demonstration School where the children greeted us on the road up to their school. They had a wonderful banner welcoming their link school and sang and danced their way alongside us until we reached the school. We were blown away by the welcome, again, with the children singing and dancing.
Next up was our link school, Mulatsi Primary School. Having had such incredible welcomes at the first two schools, we were still not prepared for what was to come. As we arrived, the children were cheering as we turned into their school. They had set up a special banner welcoming us, made a ribbon for us to cut and were singing as we arrived. The children danced alongside us as we made our way to cut the ribbon.
As we crossed into the school, the children from their 'Wildlife Club' stopped us to give all of the visitors hand made, wooden zoo animals. Mr Prewett got a cheetah and Miss Griffiths had a rhino! We were already so taken a back when they then continued to sing to us, moving into the school grounds. Above our heads, flying high in the clear blue Ugandan sky, we spotted the Welsh flag on top of their flagpole, taking pride of place next to the Ugandan flag. It was a lovely thing to see and so kind of them! In their grounds, we then had the most amazing dancing and singing performances and it was clear we had a wonderful school to work with.
Mr Prewett and Miss Griffiths met Loyce, the headteacher of the school. This was a special moment as we have been sending messages on WhatsApp for a number of months and it was fantastic to finally meet her. Loyce also knew about Miss Griffith's birthday (I am not sure who kept giving this secret away!) and so the whole school again erupted into singing 'Happy Birthday'.
This, however, was not the end of the celebrations. Miss Griffiths was taken into one of the classrooms, where the children and staff had decorated the room for her and one of the teachers had even made her a special cake! It was very emotional and hard not to be touched by the kindness the school had shown to Miss Griffiths and all of their visitors. They asked Miss Griffiths to cut her cake and it was so delicious that, before you knew it, the whole cake had been enjoyed by everyone there!
Once we had been treated to some fruit, nuts and drinks, Loyce (the Headteacher) asked us to help in planting some trees. This is often a tradition when visitors come and Mr Prewett was asked to plant a 'Jack Fruit' tree in the school grounds. The staff had kindly dug a hole ready, so Mr Prewett began to plant it, covering it back over with soil and watering it.
When he was finished, Loyce asked Tavis to name the tree. This was such a tricky thing to do and Mr Prewett only felt it fair to name it after someone at Ringland and, as Miss Griffiths was there, felt we should name it after someone in her class. In a flash, Mr Prewett pulled out the Dojo app and used the random generator to give the tree a name. The onlooking Mulatsi staff were impressed by the Dojo app and it randomly selected.....
Mylah!!!!!! So in our school in Uganda, there will always be a tree named after Mylah in Reception!
The planting wasn't over there, as Miss Griffiths was also asked to plant a tree. This time we moved towards the front of the school and Miss Griffiths was given an avocado tree to plant. When she finished, she decided to name it after her Mum, Linda! We remembered where it was planted and Miss Griffiths will keep an eye on how it grows on Google Earth!
We had such a lovely welcome but, sadly, it was time to leave. We quickly met lots of the staff and off we were again, heading to the next school. We were so humbled by the kindness shown by Mulatsi and we are excited to return to visit them on Wednesday and Thursday, this week.
From there, we travelled to three more schools. The first school was Busiu Primary School, where Mr Prewett's Ugandan adventures had first begun. This was the first school he had linked with in 2015 when he was still at St Julian's. St Julian's have continued this link all these years and it was lovely to go back and meet the new headteacher, Moses, and to see what has changed at the school since his last visit. They have done so much and it was fantastic to hear about the hard work they had done.
From there, we moved to Nashisa Primary School where we were met on the road in to more singing and dancing. By now, we could hardly believe the effort all of the schools had put in to welcoming us and it was something which we will never forget. As we spent time in the school there were more speeches (Ugandans do love a speech!) and then we even had to dance our way back out to get on the coach (they call these 'taxis', here).
As we travelled to the last school, Nabisolo Primary School, it was now nearly 4pm. The day had been very busy and the final school was nearly an hour away. The school was sat at the top of a mountain, so the 'taxi' had to climb us up some very steep, very bumpy roads to get there.
Mr Mansfield had been messaging the school to say we were running late and we were feeling bad that we might have missed the children and kept staff waiting. We did however, save one of the best for last. Expecting an empty school when we arrived at 5pm, we were shocked to see hundreds of children on the field awaiting us. We could not believe so many children had stayed just to greet us. Their singing was one of the best of the day and we could not believe how kind this was.
We had made it round to all 6 schools and it had been a truly special day. As we drove back to the hotel, it was now getting dark and it was hard to take in all of the kindness we had been shown through the day.
The day was not over, just yet, however! We had more to come, as we knew we were going to Joseph's house for tea, as his family had been working hard through the day to prepare this meal for all 15 of us. We had a quick 5 minute turn around in the hotel and off we set again, on the bumpy roads, now in complete darkness.
As we mentioned yesterday and earlier in this blog, Joseph is a special person to Mr Prewett and it was lovely to be able to visit his house. The family had shown all of the teachers such kindness in cooking for them. The food was delicious and all of the people there were very impressed with Jacinta (Joseph's wife) and her hospitality and cooking.
Mr Prewett was so impressed with her 'Chipati' that he asked for the recipe. Jacinta went one better and showed Mr Prewett how to make them. Miss Griffiths joined him and, in a flash, we were cooking in the kitchen. Mr Prewett went first and was told his was a '4 out of 10'. He was quite pleased with this, for his first go! Next up stepped Miss Griffiths and, despite her best efforts, her chipati wasn't quite as round as Mr Prewett's so only scored a '2 out of 10'! Mr Prewett was thrilled; Miss Griffiths, less so! We cooked them up in the pan and enjoyed sharing them with some of the other guests.
The time went very quickly and it was not long before we were saying our goodbyes and getting back on the road. The day was not quite over and, although it was nearly midnight, we sat to finish up the blog with some of the other teachers and talked about the highlights from the day. It was lovely to remember all of the things that happened. There was however one last surprise; it was still Miss Griffiths' birthday and the staff at the hotel came out to give her the most wonderful cake! Although it was late, we enjoyed a slice of cake each and then headed off to get some much needed sleep. Mr Prewett was shocked when he set his alarm for 5.40am, realising he would only have just over 5 hours sleep, as he was planning a special job in the morning with Mr Mansfield....