Thursday, November 13, 2014

Typical Thursdays......


Tomorrow, I will be going down to London ready to jet off to Uganda. Today was a typical Thursday in the Wren house, except I have been thinking about what we’ve being doing with water in light of my trip next week.

So here we go. As normal, I was jumped on by 2 children at 7 o’clock, my daughter Poppy who is nearly six and Lucy who has just turned three. I had a quick shower, we all got dressed and then we had breakfast. Water out of the tap, in the kettle and a cup of coffee made in 30 seconds. Easy.

Then I washed up – the dishwasher is on the blink – which has been a big headache for us over the last 3-4 weeks. Perhaps what I experience next week will give me some perspective on that. I do after all have hot water on tap.

We walked to school, and dropped Poppy off, with her drink bottle filled with water. Many of the schools in Uganda have no water, so the children spend much of the morning collecting it. The average ratio of children to toilets is 70 to 1 in Ugandan schools and plenty are built with none at all, so when I see the three child-sized toilets in the cloakroom for her class, it makes me think.

Next stop home, to meet the plumber, we’re having some building alterations done in the new year, so he wanted to work out how to re-route the pipework for our new ensuite bathroom. I don’t think I’ll be telling the Ugandan’s about my stress in organising that.

Then on to the village toddler group with Lucy. There are usually around 30 toddlers clamouring over biscuits and juice. We take it for granted that we can just pick up a drink for our children and it’ll be fine, they won't get sick. And all those toddlers – it can get a bit whiffy. I can’t begin to imagine how you deal with toilet training in some of the villages we’re going to next week. I’m intrigued though.

All that water for swimming in
This afternoon involved swimming lessons – it’s a necessary ‘life skill’ to be able to swim in Britain, but a whole swimming pool full of water treated to incredible standards. An impossible comparison I think.

Then, home for tea, bath and bed for the kids. And finishing off the packing for me. At the moment I’m apprehensive about saying bye-bye, but excited to be going and daunted by what awaits. All those emotions before I’ve even left my village.

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