Day 7 - Paul Brewster
So for the third day in a row Paul set off down town to locate fifty-five mosquito nets. Luke had been down with me on the previous two days, but no room in the people carrier today as some of the others wanted to buy some European food to cook for the kids. Now here is the irony, in Mbale it's easier to buy spaghetti for five dozen children than it is to purchase mozzie nets for them!! So first call whilst the others were in the supermarket (trust me not Tesco), I went to see the friendly pharmacist who had promised to get them sent down overnight from Kampala, "sorry sir, not yet" was his reply. Caught up with the others who were just going through the checkout. Now forget self-serve, the checkout was a desk with a calculator and Peter going "bip-bip" as the goods were passed along the counter! Off to the market next, pictures will follow, but I still take photos old school, think Diagon-Alley with fruit and veg, and you are about half way there. An hour passes, so back we go to my friendly vendor, but still no joy, another hour and still nothing, so I send the others back to school to cook and sit myself down in his shop doorway. Nothing is said, but he gets the message, I am not leaving without my cargo. Livy our friend, our guide, in short, our man on the ground catches up with me, and we sit together occasionally passing the bloke a knowing glance. Then from nowhere a bail arrives, maybe 30kgs, and as usual for this part of the world, carried on the man's head. Could, at last, this be them, more seconds passed than Chris Tarrant waiting to tell you that you've won a million, and then out it popped, 1, 2, 3...46 nets, add these to the nine that we had got locally, and we've got enough to keep the kids safe at night.
We leave our £300 purchase behind the counter, and I follow Livy up the street to collect the goal posts and netball nets that he's had made. He takes me to what can only be described as an engineering district. Lock-up after lock-up of men with tools, tools that Europe hasn't seen for thirty years or more. But in this town if you own a piece of kit, you own a business. Together they all club together and get the job done. Along with men and old tools, is a feeling of being caught up in an episode of Scrap Heap Challenge. For sure you will be able to purchase a part for any and every vehicle on any Ugandan road in this back street motor heaven. The games kit is finished, the mozzie nets are waiting, a bag of cement to collect, and we can be away. So now we locate a pick-up taxi, again if you have a truck, you have a business in this town. The journey back to the school is hot and cramped, driver me and Livy all wedged in an eighties Nissan Cab-star, but it's worth it to see the faces of 54 children who know the worth of a £6 piece of mesh - don't be fooled by what Sports Relief tell you, the £5 ones aren't worth having. For those of you still awake, you will know that the school has 53 children; the last smiling face was that of my Luke, twenty years old it's true, but my kid nevertheless. Luke has taken this lack of insect protection seriously, and I honestly thought that if they did not arrive, I would not have been able to get him back to the hotel tonight, he was a man on a mission, and he weren't leaving until it was done.
The next two hours was spent putting the nets up. It went easier than we thought as the kids helped, and I mean helped. Please never under estimate any African child's perception of what that vile bug can mean in terms of life and death. They know, and they weren't spending another night with no net, or otherwise one that was a useful as a chocolate teapot. Just when we thought the day could get no better, we discovered that we had over bought. The type of net that we got, cover both the upper and lower bunk..."overspending charity money - good news!" I hear you say. Well yes, because this means we have enough nets to cover all the teacher's beds as well. After all the kids are our purpose here, but we support a school, and a school is not that without teachers as well as children.
Paul Brewster
We leave our £300 purchase behind the counter, and I follow Livy up the street to collect the goal posts and netball nets that he's had made. He takes me to what can only be described as an engineering district. Lock-up after lock-up of men with tools, tools that Europe hasn't seen for thirty years or more. But in this town if you own a piece of kit, you own a business. Together they all club together and get the job done. Along with men and old tools, is a feeling of being caught up in an episode of Scrap Heap Challenge. For sure you will be able to purchase a part for any and every vehicle on any Ugandan road in this back street motor heaven. The games kit is finished, the mozzie nets are waiting, a bag of cement to collect, and we can be away. So now we locate a pick-up taxi, again if you have a truck, you have a business in this town. The journey back to the school is hot and cramped, driver me and Livy all wedged in an eighties Nissan Cab-star, but it's worth it to see the faces of 54 children who know the worth of a £6 piece of mesh - don't be fooled by what Sports Relief tell you, the £5 ones aren't worth having. For those of you still awake, you will know that the school has 53 children; the last smiling face was that of my Luke, twenty years old it's true, but my kid nevertheless. Luke has taken this lack of insect protection seriously, and I honestly thought that if they did not arrive, I would not have been able to get him back to the hotel tonight, he was a man on a mission, and he weren't leaving until it was done.
The next two hours was spent putting the nets up. It went easier than we thought as the kids helped, and I mean helped. Please never under estimate any African child's perception of what that vile bug can mean in terms of life and death. They know, and they weren't spending another night with no net, or otherwise one that was a useful as a chocolate teapot. Just when we thought the day could get no better, we discovered that we had over bought. The type of net that we got, cover both the upper and lower bunk..."overspending charity money - good news!" I hear you say. Well yes, because this means we have enough nets to cover all the teacher's beds as well. After all the kids are our purpose here, but we support a school, and a school is not that without teachers as well as children.
Paul Brewster