ACIA COMPETITIONS 2016

A day came sooner than we had planned for it. We had thought it would find us done with creating a digital map of Katoogo slum. But unfortunately there was still unfinished bit of the wetland, Katoogo that we had not put on our map. However, that would not stop us from going for the competitions. It was the D-day!
I rose up before dawn and my boots crunched on the gravel of st. Denis path ways. A few students were there already. All smartly dressed in their full school uniforms. quickly I looked for the laptop which we had to go with. I had met our teacher on the way, just a few yards away from school and he had told me to look through the presentation which we had worked on for the past three weeks, to make sure I was conversant with the editions he had made the previous night.
No sooner had I gone any further than Tr. Martin- the ICT teacher we had to move along with- came driving in a small nursery van. Being for nursery kids was not that that was embarrassing but instead its dirtiness. The van was brown, the color of mud. And all mappers including myself twitched our lips into a smile that was more jeerful than impressive. But that was just a funny bit of it. In actual sense, none of us could have any substitute means of transport. So we had to bear with it.
Tr. Martin can really drive. He branched from a certain junction and moved past other vehicles with accustomed ease. Then he sloped downwards as we could see another slum there down. At that time, all mappers were impressed because that could have been the next slum they would have had to map as it was their theme "COMMUNITY MAPPING FOR SLUM RESILIENCE".
I liked the way Tr. Martin drove, with no time, we had reached UCC ( Uganda Communications Commission) which was our venue of the day. A few schools were there already. And students had taken up their seats_ their coign of vantage.
We were talked to and we had fantastic break which a cup of coffee and somewhat snacks. It was fine! At least I liked that. I had last had such a break fast when I was in an E-learning conference. Now it had been so long ever since.
We were the first secondary school to present. No pitch our idea. It was even easier than I had expected it. It was just a matter of confronting the judges and say out your idea. At the end of the five minutes in which you had to do this, you had to be questioned and required to answer accordingly. Many schools presented after us and the end of the day, we had emerged the second.  We were congratulated and awarded for our selfless performance. We had fun there after. We took pictures of ourselves and toured the entire institute. It was full of lurk. At the end, we got into our van at dusk and drove back home.