Back to School ...

 Last week, there was a mad rush all around Uganda to get students back to school after an almost two year break.  Supermarkets and stationary shops could barely keep their shelves stocked fast enough.  Motorcycles were loaded with kids, suitcases, metal boxes, and mattresses as they headed off to boarding schools in various directions.  Buses were overcrowded and taxi parks were overflowing.  The line-ups out the bank were hours long because all of a sudden, every parent across the country had to find and pay school fees.  

I don't know how some families can actually get their children fully prepared for school.  It's a long, tiring, expensive, and yet rewarding experience.  Many families in Uganda send their kids off to boarding school, and our household is no different. The children (and parents) have so many things to factor in:

• school fees
• uniform - black shoes, polish, grey or white socks, Caribbean skirts, ties, shirts, sports wear, black sandals, black belts, etc
• mattresses, labelled bedding, mosquito nets, toilet paper
• personal toiletries, buckets, jerrycans, basins, soap, toothpaste, pads
• snacks - biscuits, peanuts, sugar, milk powder, juice boxes
• backpacks, monkey bags, padlocks, key holders, and labelled boxes
• medical forms and PCR clearance
• a two page shopping list - including pens, pencils, math sets, rules, box files, graph books, 3 quire notebooks, atlas, Bible, art books, colours, sharpener
• flashlight, umbrella, raincoat, aprons, pocket money, and family photos

Parents didn't really know if school was going to start up again, and because the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the economics of families, school fees are a struggle for many.  A very remote local village school can be 60,000 shillings a term, and city schools can be almost 2 million, so there is a wide range of financial planning.  Some parents will even hold their children out of school under they can beg, borrow, or find enough money to put the kids in class.  There are also some parents who don't want to pay school fees, in case the government will again close school in just a few weeks, due to the rise in Covid cases.

Moses and I drove to Soroti to do back-to-school shopping with Sarah and Becky.  We found a hotel on main street so that we could be at the heart of the shopping area and we made numerous trip up and down the stairs with all the goodies to get ready for school.

The view from our room.

This is maybe, just maybe, half of the list for one girl.

The girls were exhausted.  We shopped until they dropped.  :)

Then, the long trip to Kampala was filled with traffic jams, and of course, what's an Odel family excursion without some sort of roadside problem.  I had to pull over with a punctured tire. A piece of metal was shoved in to the tire, that it is now beyond repair.  :( Thankfully, Moses is great with these kinds of things.  He hops on a motorcycle to get the parts that we need to continue on our way.

And the girls are also learning to take things in stride as we awaited the repairs.  We just had a friendly competition of who would see someone we knew first.  Being 23 km north of Kampala, a wonderful voice yelled out the window of a black vehicle - "Hi Karen! We are just returning from dropping Victor off at school!"  I love it.  Such a small world.

I pray that the girls do well in their respective Secondary schools.  They are excited and nervous. And I'm a mix of emotions.  I think they are too young to be sent off for school, but I'm the new kid on the block and I won't mess with culture.  So, I pray for their hearts and minds and encourage from afar.