An African Adventure

I've never been the outdoorsy type. Even as a child, I much preferred to be inside reading, making chocolate cornflake cakes or watching CBBC. Getting messy was never on the agenda. Growing up, I tried to venture towards the more active extracurricular activities: hockey, lacrosse, football. Football was a dare, I'll admit. Winning the dare however never really compensated for the number of matches lost. Lacrosse was an instant fail the minute I was winded by an overly-passionate player, dramatically falling to the ground like a wounded soldier. And in all honesty, I just hated wearing that horrendous mouth guard in hockey. I think this adequately paints the picture. I'm a home bird, a strictly indoors type of girl. Ask me any day about my political stance but just please don't ask me to catch a ball.

With this in mind, you will probably wonder why I signed up for seven weeks worth of volunteering in Eastern Africa. Yes, I single-handedly made the decision to travel to distant lands to try and 'make a difference', help some cute kids and catch a bit of sun. I'll admit, I was slightly delusional. Travelling halfway across the world to live without electricity seemed much more exciting than working in a soup kitchen in Manchester. This was what I tried to explain to my Dad when he suggested that 'charity begins at home.' He clearly thought I wasn't fully aware of what I was signing up for, and honestly, he wasn't entirely wrong. Although I went through the motions of looking at expenses, health, security and safety, I had already made my mind up. I was going.

I'm not a forward-thinker, and in true Rachel-fashion, the panic set in on the plane. Who was I kidding? I couldn't do this. I didn't even want to walk to the bus stop, let alone build a water tank. I liked my home comforts. After a couple of minutes, I decided that short of asking the pilot to turn around, there was absolutely nothing I could do about the situation. So I sank back into my seat, found Aladdin on 'Emirates Movies' and treasured my last few hours of familiarity.

It was only when I arrived that I actually began to feel excitement. Surrounded by chaotic, unknown territory I realised that I may as well have landed on Pluto. I could probably compare this to the mixed feelings most people have on a roller coaster; absolutely terrified but excited at the same time.

I felt I had so much to give. But even more to learn. The idea of 'cultural exchange' was something that was introduced in training, and one of the most valuable pieces of advice I've ever been told. The last thing I wanted to be was patronising, but I could see myself entering this world and wanting to change it in true Western fashion. But changing it wasn't the answer. The difference in wealth and prosperity didn't make me right and Ugandans wrong. It wasn't even a question of right and wrong, it was just different. We taught Ugandans how to improve their sanitation, make their cooking devices more fuel-efficient and purify their water. But we experienced an alien culture, a new language and another perspective on life. It would be hard to say who gained more.

With the physical challenges such as brick-laying, I quite simply had to 'man up.' There was this one mountain (or rather large hill) that never failed to leave me breathless, despite climbing it at least once a day. I'm not going to lie; there was a strong correlation between times of homesickness and the physically challenging incidents. Probably similar to those days at Uni when you can only be bothered to make toast, and wish your mum was around to whip you up a roast dinner.

On the whole though, stove building, brick-laying and painting the water tank proved to be good fun and great team bonding exercises. Without becoming sycophantic, it has to be said that if I weren't with such a group of wonderful people the experience would definitely not have been the same. Waking up every morning for seven weeks to look at the same five faces staring back at you could've proved the source of many problems, but I was incredibly fortunate. We were a diverse group of people with different interests, ideologies and perspectives but somehow it worked. Frankly I can't imagine the experience without them.

At the same time it wasn't easy. Especially when your greasy hair, hairy legs and overall grungy appearance had to face a bunch of boisterous albeit enthusiastic children. One of the comments of the villagers when we were leaving made me smile: 'we used to think it was just Africans who were dirty, but we have seen you and now we know that is not true.' Wow. It was nice to know we had made an impact, even if it wasn't in the way we hoped.

I surprised myself with the fact that I rarely got upset. Being someone who gets a lump in her throat during X factor auditions, I figured I'd need a lot of Kleenex in Uganda. But I began to look from a different perspective. Ugandans may have to walk a mile to access clean water every day, but the United Kingdom has one of the highest levels of obesity in Europe. Who's to say what's right and what's wrong? Ugandan life appeared hard to us because we were so westernised. We weren't accustomed to having cold bucket showers, sleeping on the floor or getting rained on in the middle of the night when there was a hole in the roof. But this was how the villagers had lived their entire lives. It seemed that living in the East enabled me to see the West with an entirely new outlook.

However I was upset by how widespread AIDS was. Twelve per cent of people in Africa have AIDS. It seemed that every Ugandan I met knew someone who had been affected by this disease. I met one man who was taking care of four children, in addition to his own, due to the fact that their relatives had died from AIDS. I was asked on more than one occasion 'how do we prevent AIDS?' The fact that this disease was so rife, and they didn't have adequate medical expertise was tragic. At the time, it was something that left me feeling frustratingly powerless, lacking any expertise in the medical field. It was around this point that I realised how big the problems were, and how finding solutions was no easy task.

Recalling these encounters makes me realise that this experience was real, as ridiculous as this must sound. Uganda was so far removed from anything I had ever been subjected to before that it almost seems like a dream, something I'm now detached from because life here is so different. Our ability to adapt as human beings amazes me. The expression 'a fish out of water' couldn't be more appropriate to describe how we were removed from everything we'd ever known to be placed in an alien environment with new expectations. You couldn't eat with your left hand. Going outside after 7pm was considered unwise. Skirts worn above the knee were inappropriate. Saying it was different was an understatement. Think Avatar!

The main lesson I learned is that you can't change the world. But it doesn't mean you can't try. Realistically, spending seven weeks in a country is not going to move mountains. However, I do believe there are some Ugandans in the village that will never forget us. And if they do, there's a 10,000 litre water tank there to remind them. And I won't forget them. A few people had a huge impact on me personally. Stephen, a preacher who, even if a little too religious for my liking, wanted more for himself and his family. Even though his house was better than most in the village, he knew that he could do better. And I really believe he isn't going to stop until he is content with his achievements. Mabala Wilson, the headmaster of Masaaka Primary School, where we taught lessons on sanitation. An absolute character with a permanent smile, an odd dress sense and a habit of using the phrase 'is it?' a little too much. Florence: our adopted mother and the woman we shared our living space with. Heavily pregnant with her fourth child yet still able to carry out all the daily duties expected of a wife and mother in Africa. This is no easy task when cooking beans on toast would probably take an entire hour on a sigouri (stove).

Returning home was strange. I ate with my hands for a while, found all my clothes too revealing and began to think hot showers were heaven on earth. But it didn't take long before I reverted back to my Western ways. So what changed? I spent my summer broadening my horizons; learning how to use a hoe, killing chickens, making bricks and eating lots of bananas. I believe we helped our village, even if it was just scratching the surface of problems that are over a hundred years old.  Finally I'd like to recommend this to anyone. Do something out of your comfort zone, and who knows where you will find yourself?