Saturday, November 3, 2007

JOSH IN VENNESLA

Life in Norway looks very different from that of Uganda everything looks to be new to The environment, climate and the social life of the people is absolutely another world to me I mean the food, dressing and the means of transport is not the same with that of Uganda. For my first six weeks I was staying in mandal where life was boring for a week since I was still new in town but after some time when I got used to the environment and meeting people from different parts of the world most especially people from Peru, Bolivia, Brazil,Norwegians of course and same people from East Africa like Kenya and Tanzania who are my neighbours. I really felt at home though some time I would become home sick looking back on the friends and the lovely children in child restoration outreach that I was missing since I grew up knowing them as my sisters and brothers. And here comes another moving moments when we were to go to our practise places in different towns of Norway and also the Norwegians were to go to the southern countries. I felt there was something that I was going to start missing that was my friends at hald since we had become one family and now I was to go to Vennesla were I had no friends with no idea of shopping places than I knew at hald or Mandal.On the day of departure, I almost cried when seeing my friends leaving. My first day in Vennesla was the most boring moments that I have ever experienced in life. The place was very quiet with few people in the centre and this made me ask myself questions where the people in this town? Have they got a party to attend and how many people live here? It looked like some place that have been attacked by rebels some few minutes before my arrival. On getting used to a place, life started changing in vennesla.Its no longer a boring place than when I just got here. I have managed to make new friends and this is through football, right now I have ten friends that I play football with and what a nice moments that we have after playing, we sit down to relax and talk together ourselves what we like doing I mean hobbies. They some time invite me to their homes to watch movies also we ride bikes around vennesla.
While in vennesla I go to Samkom School on Tuesdays, wednessdays and Thursdays. I teach English in grade five, six and seven and some time I teach about my country Uganda and tell them about Africa since Uganda is in Africa. The schools in Norway different from that in Uganda. the population in class is less than that of Uganda here 18 to 20 pupils in one class with two to three teachers managing the class but in Uganda you find more than hundred pupils in one tiny class room with some time one or two teachers managing the class.Another amazing thing is that children some time don’t respect teachers while the teacher is teaching.
The pupil does what he feels like doing in class while the teacher is teaching.
We also work with mentally hand capped people and at fast I asked myself what I was going to do with this people, I was a bite scared since in Uganda, most hand capped people are left to move in town and be in garbage places. This made me ask person in charge of this place what type of work I was to do here. He told me that we actually don’t work I mean he said there was no work but the most important work here is to make this people happy, they need care just like any other person. What I learnt is that people like this should not be seen as useless people since they never wished to be like this they should be given respect, care and love but they should not be considered as useless people in the community like the way they are treated in my country Uganda. This is the most thing that I enjoy doing in my practise place is to be with this people talk to them and to bring smiles to their faces.
I live in an apartment with Moses from Uganda and I enjoy being with him since we come from the same country and same project. Finally, I dearly enjoy being with my contact family since they are so caring to us and I truly a appreciate them for the wonderful things they are doing to us.
Joshua.Life in Norway looks very different from that of Uganda everything looks to be new to The environment, climate and the social life of the people is absolutely another world to me I mean the food, dressing and the means of transport is not the same with that of Uganda. For my first six weeks I was staying in mandal where life was boring for a week since I was still new in town but after some time when I got used to the environment and meeting people from different parts of the world most especially people from Peru, Bolivia, Brazil,Norwegians of course and same people from East Africa like Kenya and Tanzania who are my neighbours. I really felt at home though some time I would become home sick looking back on the friends and the lovely children in child restoration outreach that I was missing since I grew up knowing them as my sisters and brothers. And here comes another moving moments when we were to go to our practise places in different towns of Norway and also the Norwegians were to go to the southern countries. I felt there was something that I was going to start missing that was my friends at hald since we had become one family and now I was to go to Vennesla were I had no friends with no idea of shopping places than I knew at hald or Mandal.On the day of departure, I almost cried when seeing my friends leaving. My first day in Vennesla was the most boring moments that I have ever experienced in life. The place was very quiet with few people in the centre and this made me ask myself questions where the people in this town? Have they got a party to attend and how many people live here? It looked like some place that have been attacked by rebels some few minutes before my arrival. On getting used to a place, life started changing in vennesla.Its no longer a boring place than when I just got here. I have managed to make new friends and this is through football, right now I have ten friends that I play football with and what a nice moments that we have after playing, we sit down to relax and talk together ourselves what we like doing I mean hobbies. They some time invite me to their homes to watch movies also we ride bikes around vennesla.
While in vennesla I go to Samkom School on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I teach English in grade five, six and seven and some time I teach about my country Uganda and tell them about Africa since Uganda is in Africa. The schools in Norway different from that in Uganda. the population in class is less than that of Uganda here 18 to 20 pupils in one class with two to three teachers managing the class but in Uganda you find more than hundred pupils in one tiny class room with some time one or two teachers managing the class.Another amazing thing is that children some time don’t respect teachers while the teacher is teaching.
The pupil does what he feels like doing in class while the teacher is teaching.
We also work with mentally hand capped people and at fast I asked myself what I was going to do with this people, I was a bite scared since in Uganda, most hand capped people are left to move in town and be in garbage places. This made me ask person in charge of this place what type of work I was to do here. He told me that we actually don’t work I mean he said there was no work but the most important work here is to make this people happy, they need care just like any other person. What I learnt is that people like this should not be seen as useless people since they never wished to be like this they should be given respect, care and love but they should not be considered as useless people in the community like the way they are treated in my country Uganda. This is the most thing that I enjoy doing in my practise place is to be with this people talk to them and to bring smiles to their faces.
I live in an apartment with Moses from Uganda and I enjoy being with him since we come from the same country and same project. Finally, I dearly enjoy being with my contact family since they are so caring to us and I truly a appreciate them for the wonderful things they are doing to us.
Josh.

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