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on Sabrina and Geoff Slide in Kamwenge (Uganda), 30/Mar/2010 16:56, 34 days ago
Meet Francis.Francis is the headteacher of Nkangoro, one of the schools we work with. He passes our house every school day on his journey to and from work and always has a smiling face when he sees us. He is a couple of years younger than Geoff and has been a headteacher since 1987, in 7 different schools.He has 5 children, although his father had 15 children. The oldest is 34 and the youngest is 18. The second born, Patrick, has just qualified as a doctor and has started work at the referral hospital in Fort Portal. Francis is paying fees for all his children through their secondary and tertiary education, on a salary of just£120 a month. Patrick is getting married on 17th April in Kampala. The youngest has just finished S6, their equivalent to A levels, and will be going to university in September.He lives in the village of Rukunyu, 6 km to the north of Kamwenge, and his school is in a village 6 Km south of Kamwenge, so he has to travel 12 km every day. He uses a very old bike with completely bald tyres to make the journey every day, although because Kamwenge is very hilly, he has to push the bike up a hill for about half the time. The journey takes him nearly 2 hours each way. This means he leaves home soon after 6 in the morning and gets home at 7 in the evening.Geoff met him last week whilst driving his motor bike, which is provided and maintained by VSO, our supporting organisation, so we can visit far schools. It is thought provoking to realize that due to different countries of birth, the lives of headteachers in Uganda and the UK are so different.