Living Music Foundation Uganda was blessed to host Kate Wages as a volunteer student from The United States of America. She arrived on the 17th of June at 11:00 pm East African time. She is training as a music teacher back in the US, and her primary Instrument is the Oboe. Oboe…Living Music Foundation Uganda was blessed to host Kate Wages as a volunteer student from The United States of America. She arrived on the 17th of June at 11:00 pm East African time. She is training as a music teacher back in the US, and her primary Instrument is the Oboe. Oboe is not a common instrument in Uganda. Luckily, Kate has training in basic Piano, Guitar, and all of the wind instruments and continued to come to share what she knows with communities of Living Music Foundation.

On arrival in Mbarara, Kate was brought to her homestay to rest. Because she arrived during the weekend, the band had performances as usual, that evening at a wedding function. Kate requested to join the band and was exposed to how traditional marriage functions are done in Uganda, particularly western region. As a foreigner, she was amazed and admittedly slightly embarrassed at how everyone was looking at her in surprise. The coordinator of the function kept introducing her as a guest from abroad. What an experience!

The first project and first week of her journey was training community members at the LMF center piano. The group was compromised of school going children and a few young adults. She learnt that most of our people lack basic knowledge of reading staff notation. This led to a focus on how to write, read, and score staff notation. This was a nice introduction and she quickly blended with the students.

Community Training (Katukuru Community)

Before Kate arrived, there was an ongoing community project in the outskirts of Mbarara in the local village of Katukuru. Here a group of boys and girls were learning basics with the local LMF teachers in Keyboard/piano, drums, and bass. She gave an international perspective to the piano/keyboard class for she joined the training to teach scales, and how to build chords, as well as chord progressions in the keys they had learned. For fun, Kate even introduced improvisation.

Kate in Kashaka Girls

Kashaka Girls’ Secondary School is one of the schools that have previously worked with the LMF. Unlike other previous volunteers that have visited and trained with Kashaka girls, Kate was female only slightly older than students. It was easy for her to interact and understand them. She also came in as an encouragement to the girls to learn the instruments breaking down the culture norm that instruments are for men and women can only sing. Kate also got a better understanding of cultural instruments and led drum circles with the students. Because she was staying at the school for some days, she got chances of engaging with the girls beyond the music lessons, and they had fun together before retiring to her residence.

The Brass band in Kyamate – Ntungamo

Kate’s university training was in Wind Instruments, the trumpets, the trombone, saxophone etc… LMF had to connect her to the brass band of South Ankole Diocese at Kyamate in Ntungamo to use these talents. This is one of the communities LMF works with in many areas of music. She was hosted at the bishop’s residence and worked with brass band for three days. It was a nice experience! Most of the boys have their training by ear making reading staff music extra challenging. The students could play many songs but were not sure of what note they were playing. Regardless, they made much progress in the sound quality and understanding music theory.

She concluded her three days by joining the bishop on his pastoral visit to Kyamate Church of Uganda where he was confirming Christians.

Excursions

Like any other LMF volunteers, Kate Wages too was driven to the Western Uganda national Parks of Kibale and Queen Elizabeth National Park. Her main interest was to see some animals in their natural wildlife. The focus was on the monkeys and the Elephants. She was very lucky that we were able to track all these on her one-day road trip. Additionally, she was able to see the block mountains of Rwenzori from Fort Portal up to Kasese, the escarpments of the East African Rift Valley, the famous Kazinga Channel, Lake George and Lake Edward, and other african cultural items along the way where she bought some items to take back home in the US.

Kate’s month-long trip ended a few days earlier than originally planned due to flight arrangement but was filled with many enriching experiences. Before leaving, Kate even helped paint the office walls with the LMF logo. She plans to continue sharing her gift of teaching and music making and will be back to Uganda in the future!