Race2Paris

Gordon with Eggbert

8:30 – Potterrow, Edinburgh

All 17 teams gathered to be reminded of the rules, receive our goody bags, and discuss strategies; East coast or West seemed to be the question everybody was asking…! We were also presented with an egg, (we called ours Eggbert) which we had to get all the way to Paris, unbroken!

All the teams ready to go

9:15 – Bristo Square, Edinburgh

Everybody lined up, counted down and we were off – some teams ran very purposefully in various directions, others wandered off casually and a couple just didn’t seem that bothered. Gordon and I had decided to try our luck at Waverley station first so we headed in that direction, unfortunately, a couple of other teams had the same idea and the zebras beat us to it – but, it didn’t seem like they had any joy at the ticket office so we decided to cut our losses and head out towards the bypass to try and hitch our first lift. We tried to hitch from Cameron Toll but were asked to move on by the guys in the Sainsbury’s garage so carried on walking in the direction of the bypass….

11:15 – Edinburgh, 1st Hitch

…Until we got to the next garage which was on a much better stretch of road and seemed to be a fairly sensible place to hitch. On our five mile route march from Waverley to our first hitch we discovered just how warm the penguin onesies were and both slightly regretted the number of layers we’d put on underneath. Standing on the side of a road, dressed as a penguin, holding a banner which says Paris at 11:00am on a Friday morning was definitely one of the strangest things I’ve ever done, we got a lot of funny looks from people driving past (and I can’t say I blame them), but after 15 minutes a guy in a van pulled over and said he could give us a lift to Glasgow. So, West coast it was.

Gordon was fairly shocked we managed to get
our first lift!

12:30 – Central Glasgow 

We arrived in Glasgow, bid farewell to our first lift and started to work out our plan of action. Gordon, being a local, had a few ideas, but thought we’d try our luck at the train station first – the main ticket office & the Virgin ticket office both said no but said we could try speaking to the train conductors on the platforms. 
We spoke to a guy on the platform who worked for Virgin (not the train conductor), he was lovely and very determined to get us on a train – the first and second conductors both said absolutely no way. Our assistant, & his friend who’d joined in as well, were getting quite annoyed, they didn’t understand why no one would let us on. There was a Transpennine Express train at the platform heading to Manchester so we said we’d try one more time and if we didn’t have any luck we’d think of another plan. To cut a long story short, the conductor, after hiding us round the corner from his boss let us onto the train and said we could stay on as long as we wanted!

On the train!

13:09 – On a train to Manchester

We were pretty pleased with ourselves at this point, we knew we had guaranteed progress and a comfy seat for the next few hours! We spent a while deliberating where to get off the train, Manchester Piccadilly at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon didn’t seem like the best idea. We eventually decided to jump off at Chorley, just north of Manchester since it was pretty close to the M6 and getting off a bit earlier gave us a decent amount of daylight to hitch our next lift.

15:56 – Chorley

Getting off the train at Chorley we weren’t entirely sure where we were heading, but wandered off in what we hoped was the right direction. Stopped for a bit of food and to work out where we wanted to get to. Carried on along the road which we thought would take us to near the M6, it turned out we had taken a slight detour, but eventually got ourselves back to roughly where we wanted to be….

17:00 – Chorley, 2nd Hitch

We got to our second hitch spot, which was slightly less ideal than our first, but decided since it was starting to get dark we really just needed to get someone to take us out to near the motorway. It was much more difficult to hitch once the light was going, and the traffic was going quite a lot faster than on the road in Edinburgh, but again, after 15 minutes, a guy in a white van pulled over and said he was going home but had driven past us once already and would take us out to the garage by the M6. 

17:45 – Garage, 3rd Hitch

Hitching at the garage

We were very grateful to be somewhere which was properly lit & had food.  Lots of cars came in & out but none seemed to be going South. We collected a decent amount in donations from people who couldn’t give us a lift so that was awesome. We were still in really good spirits, very excited by the fact we’d made it as far as we had! The garage gave us a chance to speak to people properly, & everyone seemed convinced we wouldn’t be waiting long for a lift. 

In the end, about two hours after we arrived, a lovely woman who had walked past us twice already came back round the corner (at least 45 minutes after the first time) & said that herself & her husband could give us a lift to Ashford, in Kent! It was a massive relief to have secured progress for such a long distance – a huge thank you here to Jed and Judith, who provided us with a warm car, sherbet lemons, midget gems and lots of amusing stories! We said goodbye to them at Maidstone Services at about quarter to one in the morning.

00:45 - Maidstone Services, 4th Hitch

A little unimpressed at
Maidstone Services

...and said hello to two other teams, one of which had been there three hours already! After a couple of hours swapping between the services and the garage, having spoken to a lot of people & been rejected by a Russian coach driver we were starting to feel just a little bit cold and tired...when the guy who worked in McDonald's came outside and asked me if I'd just been speaking to a fireman - no one had told me he was a fireman but I was pretty sure I knew which guy he was talking about, a lovely man in a blue jacket who I'd been chatting to for a while but who was heading back to London, and I was right, anyway, the McDonald's guy said "He's on the phone, he said he can get you to Paris"...! So we were taken through the McDonald's kitchen into their office (unfortunately we were a bit too excited to get photographic evidence, but I promise it did happen!), the guy on the phone just gave me his number so I could ring him back, which I did, straight away - he then said "I've just spoken to my sister, she works in the reservations office for the Eurostar in Paris and she says if you can get to Ashford, which is 20 minutes down the road, by 5:00am then she can get you on a train to Paris" - it was only 3:00am at this point so we were very confident we could make it. We were talking to a lovely couple outside who had just come from Ashford and were going back to London but they said they would give us a lift back to Ashford - they took us all the way to the Eurostar passenger terminal! 

Nap time outside the Eurostar Terminal

04:00 - Ashford - 5th Hitch
So we got there at about 4:00am and it was all shut, to cut a VERY long story short...from this point on the dream of getting on the Eurostar just seemed to be getting less and less likely. At about 6:00am we decided to give up and try to hitch a lift back to Maidstone. This was probably the worst point of the journey, wandering round a random town at 6:00am, freezing cold, having not slept for 24hours and fairly unsure about which direction we needed to be going - there was hardly any traffic but eventually we got a builder to give us a lift back to Maidstone.

06:50 - Maidstone Services, 6th Hitch

Wandering round Ashford - definitely didn't feel like Gordon
or Cordelia was close to anything at this point!

We got to Maidstone and realised that both other teams had gone, and we think another had been through as well. We tried the garage for a while but with no luck so went back to the services, and, after driving round the car park a couple of times a car pulled over, at about 7:40 and said they could give us a lift to Dover. We hesitated slightly because of the horror stories we had heard about getting stuck at Dover but decided that any progress had to be a good thing and so jumped in. At which point we found out they were actually going onto the ferry and so asked if they would give us a lift, and luckily they said yes. They then said that if we didn't find a lift off the ferry then to come back to the car and they would take us to a garage on the road out of Calais towards Paris.
After freshening up a little on the ferry and making ourselves feel slightly more human, we set out on a mission to find a lift. It was getting much harder at this point because a lot of people weren't English or simply didn't understand why two people were walking round the ferry dressed as penguins with a sign which said Paris (we didn't have the whole banner out so there was no explanation)! Anyway, we didn't have any luck so went back to the car and set out on the Paris road to find a garage.
We thought there would be on within 5-10 minutes, we were very wrong - it took about an hour before we got to a garage and said goodbye to the absolute heros who got us there - such a great lift and they went so far out of their way to help us - they were meant to be going to Belgium...for the day!

10:30 - French Services, 7th Hitch

Gordon & Maria!

We're in Paris!

So the last push started, we still hadn't slept, but were very excited to be in France, Paris was very much within our reach. We realised that this next, and hopefully last hitch could be very difficult since neither of us speak great French and trying to explain what we were doing in a different language was going to be almost impossible. But luckily, not long after we arrived, a couple of guys from Portugal, but who lived in London said they could give us a lift to Paris. So we jumped in their lovely Jeep with leather seats and their gorgeous dog Maria at 11:00am. We finally arrived at Orly Airport in Paris at about 13:20, jumped on the metro and got to the hostel second to last at 14:45. We were very happy to have made it, to have a proper shower and change out of our beloved penguin suits! Thank you so much to everybody who sponsored us - we raised a total of £1563.75 which will make an incredible difference to our projects, watch this space for updates about how the money is being used! 

At the hostel with Eggbert still intact!

The Newest Additions to Our Sponsorship Programme

From L to R: John & James' Uncle, James, John & Cordelia

Every time I walked to the school I walked through Ndali village to be greeted by the familiar sound of children, and in fact adults, of all ages calling “Muzungu” (meaning white person) at me. However, one trip was particularly memorable - I was walking home just before lunch, and so the village was quieter than it often is when a small boy came and asked me “What is your name?" This in itself may seem fairly unremarkable, however, the majority of children, and indeed a lot of the teachers, don’t seem to grasp the word “your” and so instead will ask you “What is my name” when meaning to ask for yours.

Already impressed I promptly answered him and asked for his, to which he replied John. He then proceeded to ask me where I was going, where I was coming from, what I had been doing there and a variety of other questions. He ended the conversation with a “thank you” and a huge smile and then ran off. The more I considered the conversation the more impressed I became with his confidence and level of English, but realized that since he was at home in the middle of the day and not wearing school uniform he must not be attending school.

Some of the students from the sponsorship programme with
Cordelia, Aubrey, Bill & Jill (Who sponsor 6 students) 

 The next day I asked Aunt Susan (who lives in Ndali village) about him, she knew exactly who I was referring to – she explained that him and his brother had both been attending her school but their father had left home and their mother couldn’t afford to pay the school fees so they had to drop out. She said that John had been top in his year (P2) and his brother, James, was also very nearly top in his (P3). 

Although most of the students who are sponsored through the Ndali Ventures programme are in secondary school, in special circumstances, and if a sponsor is found, then children can be entered into the programme at an earlier stage. John made such an impression on me that him and James have become the most recent additions to the Ndali Ventures Sponsorship programme – they will go back to school at the start of this academic year in February. If you are interested in sponsoring a child or would like more information about our programme then please get in touch.

Textbooks & "Read a book, give a book"

Teaching Maths to P6

I was very excited to return to Aunt Susan’s and start helping out. We decided that I would teach English, Maths and Science to P5 & P6 (a very daunting prospect), as well as assisting with the nursery when possible.

Textbooks 

After the poor classroom buildings, mud floors and distinct lack of windows one of the problems I noticed was the serious shortage of textbooks. The school had just one copy of each meaning that the teachers seemed to spend a large proportion of their time simply copying the textbook onto the board for the children to either read or copy down themselves. This poses a particular issue when teaching English since reading is such a fundamental part of developing language skills. 

Me with the nursery

There were only 8-12 children in each of the classes at Aunt Susan’s so Ndali Ventures purchased enough English, Maths & Science textbooks for P4, P5 & P6 to have at least one between two. I hoped that this might improve their lessons and give the teachers (myself now included) more time and therefore a bit more scope for teaching. It took a while for the teachers to get used to it – weeks later I would still walk in to find the teacher at the front with a single textbook copying passages out on the board whilst the new textbooks remained untouched in the office! They got the message eventually though and I think they have since found them a very valuable resource and one which we would love to expand further.

“Read a book, give a book”

Students from Aunt Susan's reading at Loren's holiday club

The (limited) teaching experience I gained on my first trip certainly impressed upon me the great importance of children’s story books – I found them to be by far the most successful way of engaging the students and helping to improve their English. This was reinforced completely by the response I got from the students at Aunt Susan’s.

Guests who are staying at the Lodge often donate very generous gifts of stationery and other school supplies which they have brought from home. Although, this is of course greatly appreciated, there is actually very little in the way of school supplies which can’t be bought locally – and buying from local stationers and school suppliers has the added bonus of helping the local economy. However, something the schools don’t have and which are difficult and often expensive to buy within Uganda are children’s story books.

Nursery students & Aunt Susan with a book read to them
by Poppy on her trip in March 2012

As a result we have developed our “Read a book, give a book” venture – we are hoping to encourage guests to bring a copy of their favourite story book with them on their trip rather than other supplies. The idea is that the guests will then have the opportunity to read the story to the local children themselves, and afterwards the book will be added to the “Ndali Ventures Library” from which the schools will be able to borrow books.

Fortunate, one of Aunt
Susan's nursery students

We understand that a lot of people reading this won’t ever visit Uganda but may still want to help – we are currently investigating the possibilities for shipping a large quantity of books from the UK - but until then, I am heading out in the summer and will be able to take some with me. Please do get in touch if you are interested in helping.

Our ultimate aim is to have a fully functioning community library - in the meantime, we simply want to build a useful resource for our affiliated schools and hopefully improve the children’s English, as well as allowing guests to engage with the local community. 

Visit to Nurseries Supported by VSO/UNICEF

Sue on the boda-boda
at Nkuruba

One of the next big projects which Ndali Ventures is hoping to undertake and one about which I am personally very passionate is the development of Pre-Primary Education. Our plans range from minor improvements to the existing nursery at Aunt Susan’s through to the eventual building and running of our own nursery (more details and background to follow).

Sue Galer, someone who I met briefly on my first trip has been working through VSO on a UNICEF supported project aimed at “Transforming children’s learning through play in the Rwenzori” since October 2010. I was very hopeful about the advice and support she might be able to give us in the creation of our own projects - unfortunately I didn’t have any contact details, so a few weeks after the start of my second trip I was just contemplating the best way of locating them when, luckily for us Sue came to stay at the Lodge! Although technically on holiday, she allowed me to rack her brains for ideas and also offered to take me, Aunt Susan and James on a trip the following week to visit two of the nurseries (or Early Childhood Development Centres, ECDs) which she had been working with. 

We set off, in true Ugandan style in a Matatu, filled with teachers (or Caregivers) from a selection of the nurseries which Sue had been working with. The first nursery we visited was at Nkuruba, pretty much Ndali’s neighbor! Sue chose this nursery as it has a model outside play area built entirely from local materials.  

It was incredible to see how they had made such a variety of play equipment using such simple materials. It was also great to watch the children interacting with it, taking an interest, and, sometimes, even being a little imaginative. The teachers were clearly trying very hard to engage the children through play, such a stark contrast to the rows of children on wooden benches which is the norm for nurseries in the area.  I could see Aunt Susan and James getting very excited about the prospect of having a play area when their nursery moves to its new location; they were full of ideas and very eager to tell me that their plot of land was bigger than the one at Nkuruba so we would be able to do even more. We were then treated to a variety of songs by the children - the lyrics of my favourite one went something like "To be a teacher is not easy, to be a teacher is not easy, to be a teacher is not easy, but is easy when you are able" (teacher was also replaced by politician, doctor and a few other choice professions).

The second nursery was just the other side of Fort Portal, and one which Sue chose to show us because of the model indoor play resources which the teachers have developed. The nursery was a collection of two small mud buildings and one structure made from bamboo, but the array of resources which had been collected and used in innovative ways was astounding. It would take me hours to describe all the different items they had collected but please take a look at the photos on our Facebook album

They also had a school garden which was tended by the children (from P1 rather than the nursery) and the produce of which the children got to eat as a much needed addition to their poor diet. Building on the work Loren did with Aunt Susan’s school on the importance of school gardens, Aunt Susan and James can’t wait to start developing their own when the new plot of land comes into use.

It was a truly inspiring trip which left us all full of ideas and eager to get started!