March 14th Public holiday

March 7th
Our teaching sessions start at 10 am In our group there are 4 men and 2 women. ( Frederick, Tonni, Rukiya. Aidah, Joseph, Godfrey). Two of the students are from other African countries: Rwanda and Tanzania. We are a very multi-cultural group as they speak many different languages. We had some sharing of introductions and we played our staff DVD to send good wishes from SLT in Middlesbrough. This was our first day with the students on our own and we discussed disability and an introduction to the definitions of cerebral palsy. We are all getting used to each other’s accents and pronunciations which can cause some hilarity.
We are getting used to the numbers of people around the hospital. Many relatives stay and sleep in the balconies and corridors around the grounds as they have to help care for their families.
At lunch time there is a cooked food and snacks to buy. The Ugandan diet consists of a lot of starch; potatoes, rice, and matoke (which is a dish made from bananas) are around at every meal. We are now into the routine of taking our own lunch boxes.
At the end of the day about 4 we had our first experience of the local transport system. There are boda bodas which are motor bikes and we are all advised not to get on one of them. They are the cause of many accidents and injuries and the traffic is a site to behold. I think there are some rules of the road but they are hard to fathom! The next type of transport that buzzes about the city are the matatas. They are a Toyota Hiace with seating. They take 14 usually but we are having a competition to see how many people they can get in. Our last ride we had 16 and a baby, a large wash basket and a cardboard box!
March 8th Tuesday
After one day at work we had a day off! It was Women’s International Day and this government is making great effort to give more recognition to gender
issues. This gave us some time to review our previous day and do some more planning in the light of this first experience.
We had a walk to the supermarket and tried to get our internet connection set up with the help of a lovely young woman called Evelyn. We are making more friends with the staff and being greeted by the locals.
Wednesday March 9th.
On Wednesdays and Thursdays we get a morning lift with Marisse. She is an SLT trained in the UK which she does voluntarily. She is developing services for Adults (acquired) and works 2 days a week. She is a petite Indian lady with loads of energy and drive and is a great support to visiting SLTs and the present long term placement coordinator Helen.
Today we continued with cerebral palsy and the areas effected in the brain. We were pleased that we had taken videos and photos to demonstrate and explain signs and symptoms.
Every day is a new learning experience for us; from the major issues to the minutiae. There are many challenges of resources and access to an SLT service for the local people. The government has still to decide if it is going to fund some posts so that some of the first graduates are doing teaching jobs and similar posts. We met Clemence (she is the lady speaking on the U-tube clip) who is employed as an SLT and another graduate David who is working voluntarily whilst trying to get a job in Kenya. They are both a credit to the course.
March Thursday 10th
Our lift from Marisse is always very welcome as it is very hot here at the moment. The locals say it is unusual and too hot for them too. We are still waiting for the rains although there have been some showers in the late evening. The change between day and night is quite dramatic and over in half an hour. Outside our kitchen window across the estate road is a large tree which is the roosting home for 3/4 storks. They absolutely fascinate us. They are very large birds and when flying overhead they look positively prehistoric! They come into land about 6.30 and perch on the very top of the branches and sleep standing up with their wings around them like a large black cloak. They are a distinctive silhouette in the evening darkness. They are a very common sight and a great number of them gather and forage around the hospital grounds.

Today at work we did introduction to assessment and a first discussion about PMLD.
As far as we can make out there are no special schools and the students were somewhat puzzled by the extent of the disability of the children that we see. The students felt they perhaps didn’t have very disabled children in their community but it is more likely that they are not seen but kept hidden away in back rooms Today at work we did introduction to assessment and a first discussion about. This was certainly a challenging afternoon but we wanted to do some preparation work about early stages of pre-linguistic assessment as the next day Helen had arranged a trip to a school in Masaka which is supported by SENSE. (The charity for multi-sensory impaired children).
March 11th
A very early start today! We had to be at the hospital for 7pm to get the bus for our 2 ½ hour ride to Masaka. Oh the roads!! We might complain about ours but at least they are there. There would be some stretches of roads without too many potholes and then some which were not much more than mud tracks. There are workmen about doing some stretches as there is still a fair amount of traffic. This is also the main road into Rwanda so it will keep improving. We stopped at about a 1/3rd of the way to take photos of the line of the equator that passes through Uganda(pics to follow eventually). Some bone rattled time later we arrived at the school. The school is for Deaf and hearing impaired children with 16 places for Deaf-Blind children and is run by a Catholic sister and her staff and some trained teachers. This is a very innovative and new venture for Uganda and they have outreach workers who are going door to door to find these children. The head of the SENSE project in Uganda was there to greet us and explained that nearly all of the children were damaged as a result of mum’s contracting Rubella during pregnancy. He confirmed that there are probably a lot more children like this across the country but they are not seen in public. They have no idea of the numbers of disabled children generally in Uganda and this school is doing pioneering work helping families and children be more integrated into their society.
They were very gracious in the welcome and Sister is hoping that there will be a valuable link between the school and the SLT course and students in helping develop services for the children.
We spent some time visiting the class rooms and as you would expect Lorraine and I enjoyed the younger more disabled children. Their classrooms were sparsely furnished and equipped by our standards but there was a commitment and desire to improve learning and development for the children which was very evident.
It was a long bumpy ride home and we were very tired, but we are hopeful that some of this experience will help our students begin to understand about disability particularly PMLD.