Sarah and Eric who works at Brovad Sands

Over the past few days I've had several conversations with Eric, who works here on Ssese as a sort of assistant manager. He is delightful and keen to please. For example, he worked hard on cleaning the swimming pool for 3 days because we told him we were disappointed that it was all green and murky when we arrived. Finally we did have a quick dip today - but kept our heads above water!
I was surprised to find that Eric is a trained school teacher. He has also lived in UK for 4 months on an exchange with a Welsh student - a chance he was offered because he had consistently been top of his class since his first year at school. Very sad that a young man with so much to offer is not encouraged to be a teacher and role model for the new generation, but the fact of the matter is that teachers in Uganda are underpaid (often not paid at all for months) and undervalued. One day when I was in the bank, I couldn't understand why there were so many more customers than usual at 11am. I was told that they were all teachers who had just received their salaries after 3 months of waiting so had rushed to the bank to pay off their loans, leaving their classes unattended in school for hours!