Day Six

Today we travelled to Otici, a very rural village north west of Gulu, right out in the bush. There we were welcomed by three communities – St Peter’s Nursery and Primary School, Kanerac and Olinga. Kane Rac and Olingo were two farming communities.

The road to Otici was treacherous. Halfway through our journey there, after watching Elly navigate us through the muddy dirt track, filled with enormous, water-logged holes, I couldn’t help but exclaim that Elly must be some sort of magician, much to my embarrassment after uproarious laughter from everyone else in the car. My outburst seems far-fetched, but you would understand if you had seen the conditions of these roads!

When we finally arrived at Otici, we knew that St. Peters had clearly been dutifully awaiting our arrival for some time. A young army of 30 or more singers immediately burst into song as we climbed out of the jeep; our musical greeting was in English to properly accommodate these very English-looking guests. Both children and farmers made sure they had properly greeted us with formal introductions and songs; we could clearly distinguish “welcome!”, “welcome!” punctuating nearly every song. Once we’d been introduced, we got going with the singing and Tim taught the children a song that was made into a round.

I’d noticed by this point that the rain had started splattering through the trees…and right on queue, I could hear Elly fretting about the rain rendering the roads mud. Our life really is in Elly’s hands this trip and by this point we trust him entirely, so on his command we rushed through a final song with the farming communities, before taking a quick couple of selfies with the children and jumping into the car. We were sad to leave Otici so soon, however Elly’s premonition about the state of the muddy roads was painfully accurate…we nearly got stuck and had to be rescued by some nearby truck drivers, who were armed with bags of charcoal to plug the muddy holes in the road!

The “road” in question!

Late this afternoon we drove to our next hotel in Kitgum, a town smaller, remote and further north than Gulu. We’ll be spending a couple of days here and after a fascinating conversation with James, I particularly can’t wait to visit his school Vision Hope. James has big ambitions for his school in terms of gender equality and girls’ education, and is keen for me to have discussions with his teachers about girls’ health education.