Experiences: St Paul KAASO

A letter from Spanish volunteer Theres Pihlblad who volunteered at the beginning of 2009

Hi Casey!!

I have to tell you that I can't thank you enough for approving our applications. I don't have any words for what my staying at KAASO have meant to me. I miss them so much I cried for two days when I got home, and if it wasn't for my boyfriend, I would have stayed. I know Marianne felt the same. Even if her English was bad and she's 58 years old, she did great work and had a wonderful time. Because of the English, she couldn't mark or hold classes but she spent a lot of time with the children, loving and caring for them. And they really loved her for that. In the end, her English had developed so she did very well, I only had to translate once a day or so. My English is not the best either but I could do some marking up to P.4

Our work was to provide filtered water to each of the classrooms and it was good to have that job. In the beginning, I carried the jerrycans to the classrooms but after a week or so, I asked Ssekamanya and some children for help, they are so strong!

I think it was the second day, Marianne made friends with a 5 year old girl named Carlo and since that time, then she carried her almost everywhere. In the end a child drew a picture for us, on one side it was me carrying jerrycans and on the other Jjaja carrying Carlo, it was so good.

After filtering water I marked or helped with other things and spend a lot of time with the children.

After one week I started a new project; the Dog- Police. I noticed many of the kids were unkind to the dog and pupils threw rocks at him and he was very scared. He also tried to bite the children when they were mean to him. I started to feed him with things that I bought from my own money and the second week he let me pat him. All the children were exhilarated about that. They asked me why the dog didn't bite me and I explained that it is because we are friends.

I have always loved animals, and many times more than people so I felt this was important. And I know that if someone would only teach the people here how to train a dog, the dogs could be so useful. So when I trusted the dog, me and Marianne went into every classroom and told the children about the language of a dog, how to behave near a scared dog, friendly dogs or angry dogs etc. Why they shouldn't throw rocks on him and most important, if they treated the dog right he would guard them better and not bite them. After that the children really wanted to become a friend to the dog and one even let the dog have his bread and you know how precious that is for them! They all monitored me when I patted and played with the dog and in the end I had my hand in his mouth to show them that dog doesn't only bite. Many was very excited to see the dog do as I told it and that it followed me everywhere.

But I really wanted to teach the night-guard how to be with a dog and train it because he was the one who spend most of the time with the dog. Every night I went to him and his dog with gifts in form of sweets and food for both of them and tried to get him to understand, and he really tried and wanted to learn.But unfortunately his daughter and child passed away and he wasn't at school for many days.

Some of the children also wanted to pat the dog but I told them that it would take time before he trusted them and it was not safe for them to do that yet because some kids have hurt him and he could not tell the difference between them because they are so many. The last week before we left I didn't see or hear any children throw anything at the dog so I hope I have planted a seed in their minds. I know the dog could do a good work there now because of the kidnapping of children and the fires in many schools. And I hope one day they see the joy of having a dog to play with and a friend for life.

We also tried to teach them of how important clean water is. They never put the lid back on the jerrycans and one day there was a dead mouse in the water so we talked about that too, and tried to get some system in the filtering. In every classroom they had to choose one child who was responsible for cleaning the jerrycan and bringing it up to the water-room in the evening. I have now made small nameplates; water-boy, water-girl and I will send it to them so the chosen feel more responsible.

We also had a hard time to remember all the staff names so I have taken pics of everybody and names and now I have printed them and laminated them and will send them too so they can put them up in the office.

They asked us to tell good and bad with KAASO and so did you but it is very hard to come up with the bad. The two only things I can think of is about the dog and the hens but I have already told them and they try to change that and the second is that we saw 2 teacher beat the children but we reported that to Director & Headmistress and we know that they work against it.

I can only say that I loved it and I think it's a very good school and project to raise money for.

Thank you again Casey and please write to me as soon as you have the time :-)

- Writen by Theres. Volunteers early 2009.