Buvuma Island school

Thursday 24th March 2011

The ACET team picked us up early on Thursday morning to make the hour and half drive to the lake shore where we met up with Bernard Kiribiri who began the Buvuma school with his wife, Annette. We learned our lesson from last year's trip in the open boat, and whilst watching the fishermen mend their nets, we slapped on suncream by the bucket-load!

Being carried out to the boat went without a hitch, and an hour or so later just after 11am we landed on Buvuma and were making the short walk through the bush to the murram road leading to the school. Lessons were still going on as we arrived, so the Headmaster, John Bosco, and his deputy, Robert, accompanied us into each class to exchange greetings with the children. They certainly seemed very excited to see us and also fell about laughing at the novelty of being greeted in luganda by a muzungu when Tanya tried out her smattering of the language!

As we walked around it was great to see the work going on on the new classroom block being supported by Rianna's Fund. As Jon and Steve inspected the building site, JK was very taken by a large impressive-looking building a short distance away....before realising it was the recently completed new girl's dormitory! Bernard invited us inside where around 60 of the parents had gathered for a formal welcome. The school is growing - there are 280 children attending this year. Bernard explained that the dorm will allow more girls to attend from the outlying islands. It is impressive on the inside, too, with bunkbeds for 70, a solar panel to run the electricity, and glass windows protected by decorative iron grills. Bernard told us it will be in use as soon as a perimeter fence is put up around the school site. Afterwards one of the parents spoke of the community's appreciation for the new facilities and Bernard made the formal request that the dorm might be named after Rianna, to which Steve agreed.

Afterwards we spent time mingling with children, all vying to have their photo taken. They were particularly delighted when we presented the headmaster with some colourful posters for the classrooms, and other learning materials and skipping ropes. As we said our goodbyes and headed back to the boat, a stream of giggling children walked along side us and waved us off. It was a really enjoyable day for us all, although the hundreds of kilometres we've travelled this week are finally taking their toll....and for the first time all four of us fell asleep on the long drive to Kampala, our base for the remainder of this trip.

Rianna's Fund