My First Visit To Ndali - Mbuga Primary School

One of the incredible views from the Lodge

My first visit to Ndali in February 2011 was also my first experience of solo travelling, my first visit to Uganda and in fact, my first visit to Africa - suffice to say, I was fairly clueless about what I was doing or how my trip would pan out. My journey to the Lodge was something I will never forget (and don’t really want to relive), but I got there eventually, and once I did, I knew that I would never want to leave.

Aubrey & Some of the Mbuga Students

Having had a few days to settle in, I walked to the end of Ndali’s drive to Mbuga Primary School, where I would be helping out for the next three months and where I was greeted by the sight of 1000 children in bright pink uniforms. I had no idea what to expect and, as it turned out, I was the first long term volunteer which the school had so they weren’t sure what to expect of me either.

Their first idea was to hand me a P6 (the 6^th year of primary school) science textbook and tell me to teach whatever I wanted – a quick glance over the book revealed a syllabus which stretched beyond what I had just covered in A-level biology into material which I knew was undergraduate and above, all explained using exceptionally long words and full of linguistic errors. So, whilst I was very willing to help, I explained that I didn’t myself understand everything in the book and as such wasn’t sure that I should be teaching it to the kids – the teachers didn’t appear to think this was a valid reason, and simply said “but you have the textbook”. A long discussion ensued and, feeling rather overwhelmed by the whole thing I persuaded them to let me observe for the first couple of days before deciding exactly what I could do to help.

It was decided that I would teach English to P3, P4 & P5 (or at least try to).  The classes all have about 100 students in them, you might think that discipline would therefore be a problem – but in fact, the opposite is true, I found it very difficult to elicit any kind of response from them, and when I did get a response, it was only ever “yes”.  The education system in Uganda is such that, for the first three years of primary school everything is taught in the local language, but from the 4^th year up, everything is (supposedly) taught in English and all their exams are in English. I persevered but only felt increasingly frustrated at how little difference I seemed to be able to make.

The Ndali Planets Classroom at Mbuga

I eventually abandoned the substandard textbooks in favour of “The Hungry Caterpillar” and “The Gruffallo” (a definite favourite). I’m pretty sure the children all thought I was mad, particularly when I took them outside and started teaching them the hokey-cokey, but I simply wanted to engage them in some way and it seemed to work.

Whilst I didn’t feel like I made a huge amount of difference at Mbuga it gave me a clear picture of the implications of the UPE policy and served as great motivation for me (& Ndali Ventures) to embark upon new projects to try and improve the opportunities for education in the local area.