Day Six: Monday 18.06.2012

We went to the Joshua Primary School, and helped out in the classes. I managed to get into P2, and so got lots of opportunity to see my Shamim. She is a very conscientious student, not the fastest in the class, but very thorough in her work. She is also quite shy, and so she didn’t push to be in photos like many of the children. She smiled at me a lot, a serious smile, especially as the day went on.



We had lunch in the library, and the school gave us a lot of the more expensive food – meat, rice and matoke – while the students had posho and beans. While I love rice and matoke, I would have preferred the cheap beans to the meat. We only had the meat sauce, and left the chunks for Linus and Dan.



After lunch I stayed in the library for two library sessions with P1 and P2 (prep and year 1). P2 is one of the biggest classes in the school, with 55 students. They start with around 30 in P1, but children sometimes fail and repeat, or drop out and start a few years later when they have money (or are sponsored). Sponsor children are the most likely to actually finish primary school because all their fees are paid, so unless their sponsorship stops and they can’t get another sponsor, they continue as long as they are willing to stick at their education.


Library time was interesting – it was a combination of a story, a drawing activity, and free ‘reading’ of the different Picture Story Books. I read a few books to the children, which was great. I also wrote the first draft of a grant proposal for a building extension for the library. The library is a public library and a school library, but it is difficult for both groups to use the library at the same time due to distractions (for both the kids and the adults!)

We went home and had dinner. Anne came home after we had finished, and told us about a boy who had written a book in his library time, and Anne was wandering if it would be possible to get it bound for the Commissioning Day. I told her it wouldn’t be possible for then, but that we could announce it at the Commissioning Day, and get it done afterwards. We could also look at getting it published, either privately or professionally, to encourage the children and to let people know more about the work that is happening here at Bushikori. I will view the book tomorrow and that will give me a better idea about how to proceed with this.

Above: Ivan, the author.

The other big this that happened was that a little after 4PM, when the younger children had gone home, and just the P6 and P7 were still at school, one of the P7 students, who comes from a family know for its occult activities snapped and screamed for about 20minutes before they were able to calm him with prayer and praise songs. It isn’t the first time (either with him or generally in the school) and it serves as a reminder of the spiritual forces at work in Uganda. Truly, we do not war against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of darkness.