Week 3 and more than half way!

March 21st
Thank you to all who posted comments on the Blog. Can't tell you how supportive that feels and its great to know that you are following our exploits.


Beginning of a new week and we have planned two days of Dysphagia. We did normal swallow and treated the students to banana yoghurt, crunchy crackers and some dried chewy banana chips to practise their eating and chewing skills and help them appreciate some of the difficulties our children with disability might have. There was a very African thunderstorm last night and I said to Lorraine that I was very worried about Tom, Dick and Harry! They perch right on the top of the tree and I can’t explain why they don’t get struck by lightning. In the middle of the night I did consider getting up to see what was happening and then thought better of it and went back to sleep.
March 22nd.
Today is revision day as the students have their first internal exam on Wednesday. The first one is based around a case study of a child with cerebral palsy. We have given them lots to think about so I hope we have given them enough information so that they can pass. The final University exams are in May.
As we let them go home a bit early it also gave us some extra time at home. Lorraine has a small video camera so she had a wander around the flat recording for posterity our time in the Brown Flats!
We had some down time that evening watching a DVD accompanied by chocolate a cuppa as we thought we deserved it.
March 23rd.
Exam day for the students.
They have to work in very difficult circumstances. The internal exam is taken in the room where we teach. As we have said there is no lighting and there is only one table in the middle of the room and some of them are writing with paper and a book resting on the knee. The outside corridor is noisy and there is a television just outside which can be quite loud and is on to entertain the waiting patients. They had plenty of time and most finished in about an hour and a half. The good news for me is that my part of the module is now finished and it is over to Lorraine.
Around the hospital today there seems to be more washing laid everywhere by relatives than ever. The day has been warm and sunny and we haven’t had rain for over 24 hours so everyone is taking advantage of it. After a warm day it is almost inevitable that we will get a thunderstorm.
We had a longer break today and I have been trying chai which is a Ugandan tea with ginger in it. It was very nice and I had a doughnut which was still warm but rather solid and sticks to your ribs. I think that is typical of most Ugandan food that it is solid and filling.
Today Lorraine saw a hospital porter moving 4 huge vats of steaming matoke covered by banana leaves through the hospital. It could probably feed a small army!
We are still a source of fascination rather than the WOW factor; we are still waiting for any evidence of that. People still stare as they pass us whilst we are waiting for our lift home and the children are particularly curious. Some of them wave and say “hello” and in best Uganda style we respond and then they get shy and giggle. Lorraine says they are more puzzled by me because of the fair hair. There is a school nursery matatu which arrives about 4 o’clock as we are going home and we now have a bus load of children giving us a shout and a wave. Yesterday whilst we were doing our household chores we had the door to the flat open and the little boy across the landing was crawling about and when he got to his door grill pulled himself up and shouted to us. When we first came he was struck dumb by our appearance but he’s used to us and wants our attention. We have both decided he is absolutely SCRUMPTIOUS!
We have done our planning and whilst writing up this journal we have been watching a fantastic lightning storm which has played across the sky for the last 45 minutes, but strangely no thunder to go with it. I think we are going to have a big rain storm tonight!
Will I need to check on T, D and H? I will let you know.