We are in Masaka, Uganda building two playgrounds in one month. We have built two small playgrounds, one at St Joseph’s Primary School, Lwanunda and the other at Step Up Infant school in Nyendo. We thought it would be tough and tight for time, but in fact we have finished early, thanks to our speedy team!
Our team of 8 volunteers have been staying at the rural school, St Joseph’s, where we have been made welcomed by the staff at the Primary school and the local Women’s group. We came to build here after being shown a, once-was fantastic, playground that had decayed over time. Using the ideas and some of the materials of the original playground we built; a baby swing set, a big swing set, a slide, a seesaw, a rope climber and a rope v-bridge. The rope work is new to our playground design thanks to the UK playground company Rubicon. The whole community is really excited about the build and all the children cannot wait to get a play on it, on our open day this Wednesday 13th July.
At the same time as building at St Josephs we have been building at the town school of Step Up Infant School in Nyendo. They also had a playground that was not in full working order, so it was agreed that EAP would take out the old and replace it with a higher quality version. On this site we built a seesaw, a swing and a baby complex with slide, climbing wall and steps. We also painted a mural on the wall. The volunteers went into class’s to find out what the children wanted on the wall and then once it was drawn out, we got the children to help paint, the younger ones did hand-print, it looks fantastic!
We had an interesting start to this build, as always we started the build by asking the school if it was safe to dig there and if they knew of any water pipes below, the school assured us that there was none. But sure enough on the first hole we dug, we managed to burst a water pipe! Opps! Luckly the school had just brought an extra bit of land that was actually more suitable, so work began again there! However we had agreed to paint a mural on the wall next to where the original playground was meant to be, so now we have a pretty painted wall one end of the school and a playground the other end! Oh well!
The volunteers have had a fun-filled and busy stay with us, every Wednesday afternoon we have held a women’s group and a kid’s club. The ladies have taught our volunteers a variety of things such as local language, songs, dances (lots of bum wiggling!) and craft making, they all have made some great friends and had lots of laughs! In the Kid’s club we taught cricket, dodge ball, british ball dog, rounder’s and duck, duck, goose (now named chicken, chicken, LION!). The children were fantastic at cricket and continue to ask everynight after school ‘cricket? Cricket?’! The volunteers have also enjoyed three weekends away at Nabogabo, Ssese Island and Lake Bonyoni. They have been a fantastic bunch of volunteers, providing us with lots of giggles and games.
The volunteers on this project have been helped along by Lydia Gill and Brad Reed, two Group Leaders that came out with us last summer on the Buwagi project. These two have been priceless to the whole group and a real asset to EAP. We hope they can continue their work with us in the future.
July 31, 2011