6/6/21: thank you, Ranelagh School!

When I returned to school in September 2019 after I visited Kampala Christian Orphanage, I found myself on the 6th form assembly rota when the theme was, “Give us today our daily bread.” So I based the assembly around my visit, and served up my version of posho and beans, the staple meal here, the main ingredient of posho being ground maize. I permitted myself a bit of a rant at one stage, along the lines of, “Do you understand how fortunate we are to live in a country where health care is free at the point of delivery, education is free to the age of 18, where we continue to paid at least something even if we’re unemployed?” It seemed appropriate at the time.

A week or so later a sixth form student whom I did not teach, Dan, came to find me to offer to organise a sponsored football match to raise money for the orphanage. Of course I was absolutely delighted. The football match itself did not go ahead because of COVID 19 restrictions, but the appeal nevertheless raised a substantial amount of money, a large chunk of what was necessary to build and equip a much needed kitchen.

I then moved here to Uganda and have kept in touch with Dan, having become Geoff rather than Mr Tennant / Dr Tennant / sir as previously as I no longer teach at the school. Dan then contacted me to offer to organise a second fund raiser, this time around a game of rounders. Absolutely fantastic! And succeeded in raising a huge amount which will massively help the orphanage going into the future.

Because the fund raising was based around a game of rounders, Dan and the organisers were keen that children at KCO also should play the game. So, on Thursday – a public holiday – I set out to buy the equipment on behalf of the appeal, not as easy as it sounds as rounders doesn’t seem to happen here, so substituted a small cricket bat and cricket stumps, hope that’s OK! And then off to the orphanage yesterday (Saturday) with as much equipment as I could carry on the back of a motorcycle, thank you Vicent (Michael is away at the moment) for your help both with the shopping and also getting me to the beginning of the taxi (inter-city small bus) journey.

So we played rounders! Those of you who know me well will be raising an eyebrow at the prospect of Idiot Features Tennant teaching children how to play sport, well, I tried!

Here we are practising basic skills:

Organising the teams is not easy!

Please admire the athleticism as I try to teach the concept of rounder:

Afraid I don’t have a video showing us putting it all together, but believe you me, we gave it a good go. Looking forward to finding a proper rounders bat and trying this again soon.

Meanwhile, really pleased to be able to take a couple of much needed footballs:

Some hard wearing skipping ropes:

And two basketball rings and a ball:

So, lots of stuff for the children really to enjoy, once again, thank you, Dan and the whole school community for making this possible.

But this is just the beginning! The appeal is able to pay for the completion of the kitchen which is already underway, here is what it looked like yesterday:

Compared with the last time I came:

Not sure how clear it is from these pictures, the brickwork is complete, windows and door in place, there is also a servery, the floors have been finished so that the store room to the left can now be used a such. Few things to finish then the kitchen is done, ready to serve children for many years to come.

And more to come which I look forward to writing about in due course. Meanwhile, thank you, thank you, thank you, Dan, Mr Griffith the head teacher, and all students and staff at Ranelagh School for their amazing and generous support. Let me finish with a clip as I lead the children in sending their thanks. It’s a bit rough and ready, particularly, it starts after we’ve already said thank you to Dan (sorry, Dan!) but please believe me when I say that it comes straight from the heart. Thank you.