Only 20 minutes of battery remaining on the laptop so this will have to be a short one. The power here cuts out every evening, usually sometime between 8 and 9, so we have to remember to charge everything up before then.

Yesterday's sex education class was pretty interesting - the kind of information we take for granted just isn't available for these girls. They asked things like "Why am I bleeding?", "Am I going to die because it hurts so much?", "Can I wash pads and re-use them?". And then they told us about things their peers tell them - like you're strange if you don't have a boyfriend - which don't seem so different to the UK. Several of the girls (who were aged between about 13 and 18, I guess) said they had been pressured into sex by boys who offered them soap and vaseline in return. Horrible. One of the volunteers from Kampala gave a really powerful speech to the girls about how soap, vaseline and even money might seem really tempting now - but if they have sex and catch HIV, they may have to give up all their dreams and plans for the future. It's a really big problem round here, especially as about half the kids in this school are AIDS orphans.

The village visit in the afternoon was great fun, even though it was all in Luganda so I only understood occasional words (amazzi = water, that came up a lot). I introduced myself in Luganda and told them I couldn't speak much Luganda. They thought it was hilarious. Then I took photos of the kids wearing my very British sunhat and they were delighted.

First marriage proposal yesterday! From a drunkard in the village. He even bought me banana pancakes to try to woo me. But I showed him my ring and told him I'm already engaged, haha :-).

The power's about to go now, so I'll write more another day. I'm looking forward to tomorrow because the kids will be at school so I can go and see how I can be useful. Hopefully in the science labs cos one of the problems they've reported recently is that they have equipment but don't know how to use it! So I'm going to go tinker with whatever they have.

Love to everyone. Please leave comments - missing you all!