A day in the life of a Ugandan Child
This description
of a Ugandan child's day is typical of the lives of the children of Kyabirwa Primary
School.
The lives of Ugandan
children are not that much fun. They aren't like those expected for children in
the West. There's very little in their lives but work. Every day is much the
same. Get up in the morning and work, work all day in different ways, work in
the evening and then go to bed late. It would be good if the day started with
breakfast, but it usually doesn't. Most children don't have lunch either. Supper is late
in the evening after chores and before the next ones.
A
typical day for a rural primary school child in Uganda
- 05:15am Go to
collect water from the well or bore hole – may be half a mile or more away
- 06:00 am Clean the compound at home, take the animals to
graze
- 06:15 am Most children don’t have breakfast. If
they do, it’s bread and Blue Band margarine.
- 06:30 am Start walking to school (some set off before this as some
children have a 6 mile walk)
- 07:00 am Arrive at school
- 07:15 am Clean school compound
and class rooms
- 07:40 am School assembly and prayers
- 08:00 am Go to class for lessons
- 01:00 pm Lunch break – most children don’t have
lunch
- 02:00 pm Back to class for lessons
- 03:00 pm Classes end, start work in school garden, clean classrooms, compound and latrines
- 04:00 pm School ends, start walking back home
- 05:30 pm Take off uniform & change into work
clothes
- 06:00 pm Collect water, animals & firewood, dig fields
- 08:00 pm Back home. Clean up and
start home work
- 10:00 pm Help to wash dishes, do the washing etc
- 10:15 pm Finish home work by candle light
So you can see that our children's
lives are not what your children are used
to!
Responsibility for child care can start at an even earlier
age than this. Children have to care for
their younger siblings while their
parents work in the fields or are busy with other work. Even after
school, children have to maintain the school grounds.
After school, at weekends and in the 'holidays' How do you smile when it's 10 o'clock pm and
or when you can't afford school because you you're carrying 20kgs of water, 10 of which is
don't have money for uniform, pens or paper. on your head? 20kgs is airline
luggage allowance!
Despite all this, our children are very cheerful. On Monday mornings, if you ask them how their weekend has
been they will answer that it had been good because they had had more sleep, or
meat to eat or that ‘nothing bad had happened’.
We do have fun sometimes!Thank goodness it's not all hard. There are times when we can play!
Children and adults follow British
football! Where someone in the village has a radio, they all gather
round to
listen to commentaries on British football matches. Most boys have their
favourite team and possibly even a poster for Manchester United, Arsenal,
Liverpool or Chelsea! They also pay a small fee to watch it on TVs at Trading Posts. Ugandans are avid supporters of British football.
Even
though they don't have televisions or newspapers they have seen pictures and
odd adverts, film posters, perhaps even a flash of a television screen as
they're passing some tourist hangout. So they do know there's a wealthy
world out there where people have undreamt of money and where of course, the
perception is that there aren't any problems.
