Well this is a very late update regarding my Project Trust training week... it was back in July that I returned to the Isle of Coll for the first time since my unforgettable selection course. Well, where do I start? It was an intense and very exciting week! I can now say for sure that all the mystery surrounding my year in Uganda has been unravelled and all my curious questions have been answered as we were bombarded with so much information! Steph and I found out lots more information about our project in Bulenga, including our address:
Nicola Cameron,
Bulenga Modern Primary School,
PO BOX 29967,
Kampala,
Uganda,
East Africa.
So please write to me while I am away I'm sure it'll be really exciting to hear news from home, and any parcels will, of course, be greatly appreciated!!
Our training timetable was filled up with a rotation of classes covering different topics from health & safety to house keeping to insurance so I'll spare you the boring bits and all I'll say is that they went into great detail!
My typical working day is from Monday to Friday, having to be up bright and early for the first lesson starting at 7.30am (!) and finishing at 5.30pm - so a much longer school day than here in the UK! Then somehow we'll have to fit our extra-curricular clubs around these hours, in the evening perhaps, we'll have to wait and see.
During the week I was also given the chance to practise my teaching skills and learn new tactics that will help me in the classroom, these range from how to keep the children's attention to how best to gain their respect as their teacher through fair discipline methods.
Other than these few days I've had absolutely no experience, so it'll be really strange going straight from being the pupil to taking on the role of the teacher!
Aside from all the hard work, I was told about the time off I will receive in the holidays. I get two months at Christmas and one month in the Spring which gives plenty of time for travelling into Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya and visiting other volunteer's projects around Uganda. The no go areas include Sudan, The Congo and anywhere in Uganda north of Lake Albert (which there are no PT projects) for safety reasons.
I also found out that there are internet cafes in Kampala so I'll be able to update this blog regularly, when I have the time and money to travel the short distance into the capital.
The aspect I was most looking forward to about my week in Coll was finally getting to meet the other volunteers; the people I'll be spending my year in Uganda with. We're a fantastic bunch of people... eight guys and eight girls which I think is an ideal number because it'll be good fun in a large group but its small enough to get to know every individual.
The guys are: Chris and Josh, Nathan and Peter, Kieran and Richard, Mark and Ollie.
The girls are: Steph and I, Jess and Sarah, Ashleigh and Kimberly, Kasia and Siobhan.
We all got on really well at training and I'm sure we'll have a great year together!
The photograph I've included is of all the Ugandan, Guyanese and Japanese volunteers posing briefly before the start of the traditional PT ceilidh :)
Our departure date is 5th September which leaves... 15 days to go! I can't believe it is getting so close! While I put all my final preparations into place, I'm thinking its going to be harder and harder to say all my goodbyes!
