It was at 6.40 pm on Sunday 03/05/15 when I arrived at Gayaza High School to report for the WSWM workshop that had started on the previous day Saturday 02/05/2015.
Loaded with my luggage, I entered into the computer room to be received by one of the facilitators. To my surprise, I was told to immediately finish up an assignment which I did not even have any prior knowledge about.
Hardly had I sat down on the computer, the facilitator at the time called us to the working table whose location I was not aware of. I however tried to figure out and before anything was done, we were told to make sure that we create time to do all the previous day assignment by the next morning.
Another facilitator started briefing us about the DOs and DONTs of the area and we were cautioned about the security and therefore were meant to move with all our valuables.
This was a big challenge to me since I had reported with a big luggage given the fact that I had a baby. With my luggage I was told to go to the dining hall for supper from where we were to be directed to the next level.
After supper, we waited with our luggage at the quadrangle of the dining hall where we looked stranded, tired as I was. I was relieved when one person told us to move to where we were to get the mattresses. Thanks to some facilitators who helped me take care of the baby and mattress since I had a big luggage to take care off.
At night, I had not carried a mosquito net and therefore had to dance to the tunes of mosquitoes which were so many in Gayaza High School and dormitory.
On this day one, I was assigned a task of moving around the room to find out the names of all the facilitators, their emails and telephone numbers. I was to type some information concerning in my school WSWM club and send it to their emails which was a hard task since I had never used the Internet this far.
Fortunately I opened an email account with the help of a few colleagues and tried out the work which I had not finished by 12.30 pm.
On my Day 2, I was to wake up every early to start the work of the previous days. I was to research a topic in my academic field and send it to the various emails of participants and facilitators. This was a complicated talk given the fact that I did not have enough knowledge on computer use. It was worsened by the busy signals and slow Internet that made it hard for me to process any data.
I kept on trying but in vain. Participants who were trying to help also seemed not to have deep knowledge on the activity and they were too fast. Some were too busy and unwilling to help. By 11.30 am, I had not finished and therefore I had a big pile of work and this made my life hard. Besides, the lead trainer was too fast that he could not give us enough time with the computer or to finish up any task.
More duties were assigned to us and I hardly had any time to even go for lunch. The facilitator kept on reminding those who had sent nothing to send emails to him. I had only sent only one activity and I had to struggle to send more emails in vain since the computer rejected my password. The whole day was spent with me struggling to do the assignment and by about 3.00pm I successfully changed the password.
However, more activities were still waiting and immediately after lunch we were made to watch a video on child sexual violence and we were to arrange for health talk.
A panel discussion on child sexual violence was screened to illustrate how a panel discussion is conducted. So Day 3 was conducted with many activities including all participants writing a composition about their experience at the WSWM workshop of 2015.
At night, I decided to embark on composition writing and a layout of the plot for the a health talk.
For 3 days enough sleep was denied to my brain and on Day 4, I woke up with a big headache and a lot of sleep but many activities were already waiting for me by Wednesday.
Immediately after breakfast, I went inside the computer room to continue with the assignments.
In all this I learnt how to create time and realized how I had delayed to use Internet. The first 3 days of the workshop gave me many challenges and therefore a determination to work harder on my ICT skills. Thanks to WSWM.
