Lesson #5: "I took some time out for life."

I've been back in Uganda right at a month now, and it's crazy how much can happen in 4 weeks. Sometimes I feel like more has happen in this 1 month than in the whole previous term in Uganda before Christmas. Some things good, some things bad. But life has definitely stayed eventful. Here's a summary of what's been going on these days...

GOOD: Kenyan Adventures.
Before returning to the States for Christmas, I spent a week in Kenya, primarily on a safari in a game park called Masai Mara. This park is most famous as the site of the great wildebeest migration, although I was "off season" for that particular event.  Even still, it turned out to be a really spectacular trip, as the park is just an extension of the Serengti Plains into Kenya. Our whole safari was literally driving down the middle of the Great Rift Valley. So many Lion King quotes, not enough time!! It was absolutely beautiful, and icing on the cake was that my roommate and I were the only people to book with our safari company for those particular days, meaning more or less a private safari! We rode around in a van for 3 days, which had one of those pop up roofs so you could stand and take pictures. I learned why a dog likes to stick it's head out the window, wind in your hair and a much better view, it was a feeling of freedom. On our drives, we saw all the big animals: elephants, leopards, cheetahs, lions, gazelles, giraffes,  hippos, zebras and even others I can't name. My favorite moments were on the first and the last days. The first day, we saw a cheetah stalk and catch a baby gazelle. I defnitely felt bad for the baby, but it was just a really fascinating thing to watch. Felt like I had stepped right into a National Geographic scene. The last day was also great because we got to watch a pride of lions feeding. There were 2 males and a bunch of females. Apparently, the females are the ones who hunt but then the males always eat first (typical?). So the females were trying to creep in to eat and the males were flipping out! They're really impressive animals, especially the males. They have gigantic heads and manes. All in all, a really wonderful safari, and definitely one of the more surreal moments of my life so far. All I kept thinking was, "how did I get lucky enough to end up here?"

So after the safari, I headed back to Nairobi for a day or two before flying back to the US. While in the city, I spent part of a day at a sanctuary called The Giraffe Center. At the center, they breed a certain type of endangered giraffe and then release them back into the national parks in Kenya. In order to make some income though, the sanctuary lets tourist come and feed the giraffes. They have a platform that you walk up on, and you're face to face with a hungry giraffe. There was actually a sign when you walked up that said "Beware of head butting". Apparently they get grumpy if not constantly being fed. I some how managed to avoid the head butting, and it was such a great experience! You'd hold out pellets, and the giraffes would just stick out their fruit roll up of a tongue and take it fairly gingerly. As I was feedng them, one of the guides at the Center started talking to me and asked if I would like to kiss the giraffe. Intriged, I said sure! and he demonstrated that all you had to do was hold the pellet in your lips, instead of your hand, and the giraffe would take it from your mouth. The guide made it look so easy and about as eloquent as kissing a giraffe could be. So ok, my turn. Held the pellet between my lips, puckered up, and waited. My kiss was not so eloquent, as the giraffe literally licked half my face, haha. As the picture below shows, my initial response was not so pretty, haha. But it was a really cool experience and a lot of fun to get to be so close to giraffes.

Not-so-romantic giraffe kisses

GOOD: Ugandan returns.

My initial days back in Uganda felt much like the first days back at Clemson each term. The excitement of catching up with friends and remembering all over again just how wonderful some of the people are in your life. Within the first couple days, I got to catch up with my Ugandan mom, Jenipher, who gave me a big hug and an “iyiyiyiyi” [high pitched voice] in excitement of all being back together again. I got to catch up with some of the teacher’s at the school, one of whom invited me over for a little while and we ate some delicious pineapple and mango! It was great to see my roommate and our dog as well, who has grown SO much. And perhaps my favorite of all was reuniting with my 5 year old friends, the teacher’s kids who come visit me in my office. Within the first couple days, I also got invited to the birthday party for one of these kids, my Ugandan “boyfriend” named Emma. His mom had dressed him up in a suit and bought him a cake from town. They gave me the best seat in the house, sitting next to him during all the festivities. I brought bubbles and bouncy balls, it was quite the party.

The other great thing about coming back was that I travelled with AAH volunteers this time, our first volunteers to visit during my time in Uganda. They were super great, 3 education students and a professor from Marymount University. The professor was either the dean or chair for the education department, and definitely one of the coolest motorcycle driving, zumba instructing, sign language master of a professor I’ve ever met. Her students were lots of fun too, really enthusiastic and up for anything. They came to put on a Teacher Training Workshop for one week before first term started, and we had a pretty good turn out! There were about 60-70 teachers from our district each day. The response was definitely positive, and some teachers even showed up whose schools weren’t even notified of the workshop, haha. But these volunteers as well made for a really good Ugandan return. Unfortunately, they left a couple weeks ago, but I’m hoping to make a trip up to DC this summer to visit everyone.

Teacher Training Workshop

Emma's 5th Brithday

Looking smart in his suit

Yaya, our dog... Yaya means "child" in the local language

GOOD: Climbing Mt. Nusu.
I have a pretty simple bucket list for Uganda: raft the Nile River, hike to Sipi Falls, kill a chicken, and climb Mt. Nusu (part of Mt Elgon National Park). I recently checked one of them off (twice!) as I got to climb Mt. Nusu with volunteers and Arlington students.

Its funny because most things in Uganda are described as “just near”. If I want to walk to the next trading center or to Kenya, its all said to be “just there”, with a casual flip of the wrist, haha. So I never quite know what I’m getting myself in to. I live at the base of Mt. Nusu. It reminds me a lot of the grinch’s mountain because it has a little crook to it. I've been hearing since September that you can hike to the top of Nusu and the view is supposed to be amazing. So a couple weeks ago, I finally found the time to go for it with our Marymount volunteers (and actually just hiked to the top for a second time today with some volunteers from DC and AAH students). I was told the hike wasn't too long, and then 4 hours later we reached the top, haha. It was a strenuous hike, with some steep inclines at parts and not so definitive trails, but also really beautiful, as you hiked through all these little villages on the mountain, and the view of the terrain kept expanding. By the time we reached the top, the view was pretty spectacular, as I could see many of the villages that I work in and my house in Kikholo on one side, and the ridge of Mt. Elgon on the other. A good work out and fun trip, I'm hoping to do it again one more time before May if I have the time.

Our final destination, Mt. Nusu

The view from the top of Mt. Nusu of the foothills I live in.

Although you can't see them, my house and school are on the right of this picture.

The ridge of Mt. Elgon

GOOD: Completion of Bulobi Primary School.
My "problem child" project from last term, Bulobi Primary School was just completed due to hard work and dedication from a lot of people in the community! This school, which used to operate out of only 3 finished classrooms, 4 incomplete classrooms (no doors, windows, or floors) and a mud shack for an office building, now has 15 finished classrooms! Eight of which are brand new. The school is completely transformed, and the facilities have become the nicest in the district for a public school! The other really neat thing about Bulobi is that attitudes about education are being transformed as well. The school has made a commitment to try to limit class sizes to around 60 students. Still sounds big by American standards, but last year their largest class had 170 students, one teacher. So this is a major improvement and going to be key to creating a better learning environment for the students. In addition, the school has implemented a feeding program, one of the first government schools to do so as a school wide initiative. By offering food, we anticipate that school attendence and student attentiveness will increase with a full belly. I'm really excited to see in the coming months how these two things impact the performance and livelihood of their students!

Now that Bulobi is complete, we are off to our second rebuilding project, Bumwalye Primary School. As you can see in the picture below, they have 5 classrooms that were left unconstructed by the government. The plan is to finish those 5 classrooms and perhaps renovate 2 other classes if funds allow.

The new and improved Bulobi Primary School!

Bulobi students enjoying smaller classroom sizes

The next school rebuilding project, Bumwalye Primary School

BAD: The state of the Ugandan Education System.
With Bulobi's completion came some new challenges. Uganda does not have school zones, and public schools theoretically cannot refuse any student from coming to their school. Students are more or less free to switch between schools whenever they please. Kind of disfunctional, but somehow it works out ok. For Bulobi Primary School it would not though, because with the new facilities kids were likely to flock to this one school from all over our area, which would make the goal of small class sizes impossible. So Bulobi decided that they wanted to hold interviews to try to avoid this problem. They decided to open up the interviews to the whole area. My logic was different from the schools on this point. The school wanted high performing students, hence interviews. Lacey wanted everyone to have a shot at the school’s special programs which the students were likely to benefit from, hence interviews. I had asked people from the school administration and management committee before if they thought Bulobi people would be upset if they/their child could not come back to the school next year. The response was, “well, they might be upset but they’ll have to accept” or “we want students who are willing to try in school”, as if poor performance was an indicator of non-compliance. Possible, so we moved forward. During the interview process, there was a former Bulobi student who came to sit for the P6 entrance exam. He politely turned in his test to me, flashed a big smile, and ran off. Five minutes later, I was grading his exam when I realized that this boy couldn’t read. He had taken words from each question and just rewritten them on the answer line. It was extraordinarily sobering, as I thought about his situation and what that must mean for several others at Bulobi, even more students in Bududa District, even more students in Uganda. I was holding in tears for the next couple minutes as the magnitude of all this hit me, and I realized that what we were doing was wrong. Probably one of the first times in my life that I thought I was doing a good thing to realize half way through it was very short of good. This boy wanted to be at school, he paid a small fee to interview and sat for the test. It was obvious he wanted to be there, but he just didn’t have the foundation to perform. I started trying to think of ways to fix what I felt had turned into an injustice. These kids shouldn’t be sent to other schools if they were trying, and if it was the school’s OWN fault. But the immediate alternative was hard to come by. All I could do was encourage their selection committee to try to retain as many former students as possible but I doubt how doable or successful these suggestions were. This problem though is much larger than that one school and one interview process. The problem is that that boy was “left out” more or less a long time ago, and just passed along each year. There is a national policy that students should not be held back, they are supposed to be automatically promoted. I don’t know who was on crack when they thought of that?! It just doesn’t make any sense. But probably combined with a lack of parent involvement and teacher apathy, it produced an illiterate 6^th grader. A reflection of hundreds of others like him in my district. I haven’t felt that sad in a long time, and honestly, its tainted a bit the triumph and pride I described above in finishing Bulobi.

BAD (albeit probably natural): Organizational transitions. 
I won't write about this for long, but one of the harder things for me since coming back is how our organization is experiencing some growing pains. We're expanding faster than we have the systems and capacity to keep up with it. In the big picture, its a great problem!!! In the immediate, its difficult because many people are stretched too thin, things fall through the cracks, and sometimes people can be quick to point fingers at everyone but themselves. Recently, our director from the US came to visit, and it was honestly kind of a difficult week or two for me because some people were out to impress him by putting others down. It was pretty hard to watch, since many of the people coming under criticism are my close friends, who DO work really hard. All in all, things turned out fine with all this, and we're now working to find a better structure for everyone to feel more comfortable about their roles. It will just take some time and patience, but is hopefully a good start to transitioning to more clarity and structure.

BAD: Traveler’s diarrhea. 
Following a wonderful staff social hosted by my roommate, Cait, I went to sleep happy from a night of dancing, bonfiring, and noming delicious food. However, at 4:30 am, I woke up with the worst pain in my stomach. I then proceeded to throw up the entirety of my stomach, took 4 peptobismol, and forced myself back to sleep. 3 hours later, I woke up again with the worst pain, this time in my whole abdomin. Usually if you lay down, things get better, but not with this! It was like my entire abdomin was being expanded, and then every couple minutes there would be waves of pain. Thankfully, the husband of an American doctor who works in the next district had come to the party and spent the night at the guest house. His name is Doug, and he's just so energetic, outgoing, and kind. He listened to all my sypmtoms and quickly said I'm 99% sure you have traveller's diarrhea. No one else at the party had gotten sick, so it couldn't have been the food. But thinking back, I realized that Doug and I had eaten with our hand because they ran out of silverware. So I must not have washed thoroughly enough and hence, sickness. Doug fed me some Cypro, and then sat and talked to me for the next 2 hours to distract me from the pain until the medicine kicked in. Gosh, I can't thank him enough!! And after that, I was more or less ok.

I learned two things that day though. One, since I hardly ever get sick, I'm such a baby when I do. And two, Cypro just wipes you out. It kills both the good and the bad bacteria. I looked it up on wiki and it said they use it to treat first exposure to anthrax if that's any indication of strength. Anyways, alls well that ends well, and I was definitely thankful Doug was there to fix me up!

My "doctor" Doug and I at the party, pre-sickness

The source of my stomach's misery

GOOD: TOMS Shoes distribution.

Great news came recently that the TOMS Shoes, which have been held in customs for over a year now, were just recently released! We have a list of almost 30 primary schools whose students are to recieve. I can't tell you how excited I am to be involved with this and get to help organize distribution. Its going to be a lot of work, especially in a culture that sometimes doesn't value the idea of planning, but definitely well worth it in the end.

Yesterday, I went to a local primary school to take a sampling of sizes, and got a little taste of the excitement. When I told each class what I was doing, didn't even have shoes with me that day mind you, they all started clapping and had big smiles. I had "laminated" some shoe size charts with clear tape and took measurements of about 50 kids in each class. I have never been so happy to touch dirty feet. You couldn't help but smile knowing that these kids with dusty, calloused feet, some with open sores, some with jiggers, were going to get their first pair of shoes soon. I can't wait for distribution! We'll be starting in a couple weeks.

GOOD: Nile River Rafting!!!
Meena, be prepared to be proud. Last weekend, I took a trip to Jinia with some volutneers to go rafting on the Nile River. It was SO aweomse! This segment of the Nile is known for having intense rapids, almost all of them are class 4's and 5’s. The weather was great, not a cloud in the sky, and I started off the day by riding on a bus to the starting point and eating my first Rolex. Not the watch here, its actually a breakfast food. An omelet wrapped in a chapatti. Mmm mmm good! We got to the water and divided into groups. Our raft was made up of 4 other volunteers from my village, and a guy from Germany and a guy from Colorado who topped off our boat. When we went out on the water, the first thing they made us do was practice flipping the boat (because its so common), and that’s when I got scared. Our guide had us go under the boat to simulate if we got trapped under there. It was a claustrophobics worst nightmare, and the guide was standing on top of the boat, rocking it back and forth so it was hitting your head, saying this is what it would be like in a rapid. I came out strongly questioning how fun the experience was going to be. The first rapid was a class 5, literally looks like a small waterfall, and they take you down one side of the rapid that’s less crazy if you stay on the right path. Luckily, we got through the first one without flipping and somehow it really boosted my confidence, I was good to go for the rest of the day! Most rapids were really intense, literally we were going toward waves that were over our head! But all the rapids were followed by flat water, and sometimes we could get out and swim. It was a good mix of relaxation and high adventure. The whole day was so fun, got the adrenaline going, and I ended up havng a lot of faith in our guide. He had amazing control over the raft and a really good dry sense of humor. He enjoyed lying to us, primarily for his own entertainment I think. We called him Alex, and when I asked if that was his real name, he said no, it was Al Shabab. He also told us floating water bottles were crocodile markers (this wasn't true, but I actually did see a crocodile while we were on the raft wayyy in the distance), and his former employment was too dangerous to tell us. Once I figured out what he was doing, I actually enjoyed it a lot, haha. We were all having such a good time by the end that we actually asked the guide to let us flip the boat on the last rapid. He definitely granted our request, haha, as we all got eaten by the last class 5 wave. After the last rapid, they gave us this big barbeque of sorts, and we all hung out in a pavilion next to the water. This rafting trip was also kind of like Masai Mara, one of those things that just seemed too surreal. I have some pictures to post next time I'm in town hopefully!

The Next Big Marvel Comic

White girl powers. The force is with me. Since arriving last year, I learned very quickly that being white, blonde, and blue-eyed somehow entitles you to respect. Its kind of a weird thing because in general, my opinion can often be heavily weighted, and my presence not often overlooked.  Initially, my response to all this was pretty strong frustration, as I don’t think someone’s nationality should play any role in determining competence. I would much rather earn respect the old fashioned way by how you live. But, regardless of my sentiments, I realized that that was many times not going to be the case here. So do I agree with it? No. But do I capitalize on it? Definitely yes. My justification: I use my powers for good, not evil. Even if the sway is unjustified, its still sway, and if it can be attributed to getting things done for my community, I’m all for it. In a small part due to white girl powers, Bulobi Primary School was just completed and the local government speed tracked a grant for this school as well. Da-nah-nah-nah-nah, White Girlllllllll!

Incredibly Cute Kids!

Yes, this might be a ploy to get you to donate to Arlington Academy of Hope (www.aahuganda.org). I know a lot of us are in transition states in our lives right now, so if you don’t have disposable income, please no worries at all! But for anyone with job or who maybe has a little bit to give, the kids here appreciate your help more than you know. All of the kids at AAH need sponsors (the first 4 pictures are all P1’s, up for grabs). This covers their books, uniforms, lunch, and school fees. It’s a big commitment, but you automatically become a hero to a kid half way around the world. Our kids know their sponsors by name, and write to them every term. In a district where 1/3 of the children fail their Primary Leaving Exam (PLE), the opportunity to have a quality education is a huge gift. In our entire district, only 83 students scored in Division 1, the highest distinction, on their PLE last year. 34 of these Division 1 students came from Arlington, out of a class of 49 students. I’m mighty proud, and definitely thankful for the opportunity to be around some inspiring kids. So all that to say, if you have the means to donate, they value it a lot. But either way, please enjoy the pictures of some incredibly cute kids! :)

 

**So, I wrote the post above in a word document a couple weeks ago, and since then, 3 specific people have also come to mind if anybody would be interested in offering support…

1) There is a little boy in my district who just started P6 at a local government school. His name is Joseph, and we’ve bonded. He can’t be more than 11, but is SO charismatic. He’s one of those people whose presence is impactful. Very upbeat and super smart, he performs well in a government school with the normal problems, such as limited resources, high teacher absenteeism, and no feeding program. He’s just one of those kids that you know will do BIG things if they have the support and opportunity. I’d like to find him a secondary school sponsor if anyone is interested. It would cost about $500/year, which is definitely no pocket change. But again, I think this kid is pretty exceptional, so if anyone has the means and is interested, let me know!

2) The second request comes from a good friend of mine, named Naomi, who is the leader of the women’s microfinance group in our community. Naomi is a wonderful person, very caring and involved in the community. She is never one to complain or try to pull strings. She just works hard, and I like that about her. She came to me this week trying to find help for a young girl that she heard of in our area. The girls name is Mercy, and she just finished P7, which means she should be starting secondary school this term. Mercy also went to a local government primary school, and performed amazingly well on the Primary Leaving Exam (PLE). This exam has 4 subjects, with the highest score in each being a 1 (as in being in the first percentile). So the highest score you can get is a 4, and Mercy scored a 7. EXTREMELY impressive for a student from a rural government school. She’s got some brains. This score easily earns her a spot in a secondary school, but her family does not have the money to send her. Apparently her father passed, and her mother was recently diagnosed with HIV. Her mom had fallen very ill before the diagnosis, so is currently weak and unable to earn much income. The cost to send her to a local secondary school is only $100, and from talking with Naomi, it sounded like her family would be happy to split this cost 50/50 if someone was willing to help. So if anyone is interested, it would be about $50/yr as I understand it, and the family would be extremely grateful.

3) Last but not least, my Ugandan “mom”, Jenipher, is one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. She literally laughs all the time and its infectious. She is someone who is really important to me here and has taken good care of me. Jenipher has 2 sons. One is at Arlington Academy of Hope, but the other missed the opportunity to interview and is in a boarding school in Mbale, about 2 hours from my village. Boarding schools are expensive, but offer a better education than most government schools. I know Jenipher works hard for AAH to make sure she can pay his school fees, even if it’s a struggle sometimes. Jenipher is more or less a single parent, and although she’s never asked for it, I think it would help her out to have some extra support in paying his boarding school fees. So if anyone is interested, let me know!

Lesson #4: It's universal, the "coolest" seats are in the back of the bus

Hello everyone!

Sorry that it has been soooo long since my last update. The month of October just flew by because I was working a TON, like 60+ hour weeks. I’ve sent some of this post out via e-mail, so sorry for the repeat if you’ve already seen it. But I think it’s the best summary I have of the past MONTH, can’t believe it!

Sooo where to begin. First, I have a funny story to tell from a several weekends ago…I went to
watch the Uganda vs Kenya soccer game on TV in Mbale, and we met up with one of the other teachers at the school to watch it at this bar called Thatch. The bar was really nice, and had a big thatch roofed building and a gated grass/patio area. So anyways, after the game, they turned on music and eventually the placed turned in to this huggggeee dance party, haha. It was amazing! As you all well know, I am not a good dancer by any means, zero rhythm. And I rank that by American standards and now I'm in Uganda were I feel like almost everyone is an awesome dancer. I have little kids shimmy better than me, haha... But anyways, at this dance party, my roommate made friends with these 2 guys who took pity on my white self and taught me how to dance Ugandan style, hahah. It was GREAT! I may have also shown them how to crip walk, that was the only dance move I had to offer that they seemed even a little impressed with, haha. All in all, it was a really fun night!

Other than that, its been mostly work work work for me. At the beginning of October, AAH started a new outreach project where we distribute practice PLE exams to local government schools who normally can’t afford to print tests for their students. The PLE is a national exam that 7th graders have to pass in order to continue on to secondary school. Our district has a pretty high failure rate, around 35%, and to fail these exams you have to score below a 30% in 4 subject areas. It is reflective of the many challenges in our district's school system that the failure rate is so high. In addition, the student's score determines how good of a secondary school they can go to, so the PLE is a pretty big deal for them. In the initiation of the program, I was new and didn’t know anything, so the headteacher put together the list of schools that were to participate and the number of 7th graders at each school. Unfortunately, the contact he used for schools in the district next to us got the numbers wrong. Sooo we were short by about 150 “sets” of exams (include 4 tests/set) that we had already promised to these schools. We had ordered the tests from Kampala and to order more would be too expensive, so instead, we decided to print them at AAH on our duplicating machine. Tests are 8-10 pages each. Power was gone most of the time. Then, even when power was there the duplicating machine “on” switch would not work. So we hand cranked 3 sets of 150 exams each with 4 subjects. Do the math, and that’s about 1,800 tests… Times 10 pages each, makes about 18,000 pages copied, haha. You either laugh or you cry, right? It. Was. Epic.

This PLE outreach project has been such a crazy crash course in working/supervising in a developing country. I’ve learned a TON and I think overall the program did a lot of good. Schools are already talking to me about next year, and starting earlier, and trying to get more tests, so those are all good signs! But man o’ man, its been a learning experience from the beginning. I realized very quickly that I was going to be expected to do pretty much everything without knowing pretty much anything, haha. So the headteacher at my school wanted to have a teacher grading workshop (motivate teachers to grade… pretty crazy huh? But surprisingly necessary). Unfortunately though, he had to go out of town because of death in the family, so I planned a workshop for 70 local teachers in one week pretty much on the fly, haha. It felt like craziness, but actually came together pretty well. We had exactly 70 teachers attend and were expecting 72. The only drawback in the whole day was that one of the teacher’s collapsed. We took him to the FIMRC clinic where they gave him an IV, and then we got him a car home. But when I got back up to the school, one of the AAH teachers told me that the man smelled like alcohol.. sooo he had probably been drunk last night, got dehydrated, came to my workshop, and passed out. Ohhh child educators. I’ve had a couple other crazy things happen with the project. We had reports of one of the receiving schools selling our free practice exams to their students, making them pay to take the exams and then to grade the exams. When I went to investigate, the teachers told me that they actually had their own program where the parents paid for the school to order tests from Mbale. The more I followed up with them though, I realized that they had ordered the tests, but not given them to the students. So in essence, the students had paid, and then received the free tests from AAH. That was kind of a tricky one to deal with, and eventually, I think I pressured the teachers into giving at least one of the exams from “their program” because I visited the school every day for a week to follow up on it… I also had a school call me during the program and ask if they were getting a monetary “allowance”. I asked, “for what?” and he said for giving out our FREE tests and grading them…. Ummmm I don't think so! I told him that the tests were a gift to his students and it was his job as a teacher to grade. I’ve learned to be a little blunt since coming here, haha. Ugandan English can be pretty basic, so that’s the only way to get a point across clearly. Anyways… that’s all the crazy things because they are more interesting. Most everything else with the project has been good and most schools say their students were improving and test anxiety was reducing, so I’m really happy for that! Overall, its been a pretty successful first go at a project!

Three weeks ago now, I went on a field trip with our 6^th and 7^th graders to Kampala, Uganda’s capital, and it was really fun/ exhausting! We went to the zoo, airport, weather station, parliament, museum and a sea port. It was quite an experience going through a field trip “Ugandan style”. The first day, we were supposed to leave at 6 am, left closer to 7:30 am. Arrived in Kampala around lunch time, then went to the port, parliament, and museum straight without taking a lunch break because they had already paid for all these other things that were about to close. So I ate “lunch” at 5:30 pm, haha. Then we got to the hostel at the zoo (so cool!) that we stayed in, and everyone was sooooo tired, but they had also paid for dinner. So at 10:45 at night, dinner arrives and they made everyone come out the pavilion and eat, haha. It was pretty crazy and illogical, but such is life these days :) The parliament was pretty nice, similar in set up to ours actually. Except much more antagonistic, the tour guide said that the “ruling party” and the “opposition parties” sat on opposite sides of the room and if they crossed the midline then they were kicked out of their office position. Not super conducive to compromise I wouldn’t think… The next day, we started in the zoo which was really great actually!! Usually I find zoos in developing countries to be depressing. (The one in India was not so great.) But this one was actually really nice, the animals had a lot of room and it was right on Lake Victoria which was great to be near water again! They had ostriches and warthogs which were cool! Everything else was pretty standard zoo animals. Some of the kids also paid to go on a boat ride on Lake Victoria which was great/hilarious. None of these kids can swim, and you could tell the ones that went were really proud of how brave they were being and the ones that stayed kept giving the excuse “I cannot take the risk. They are risking their lives!” :) (They gave them live jackets btw, and it was a huge metal boat). It was just so interesting because most of these kids have never left the village life, except through our school’s field trips, which means there were so many things that were novel to them. For instance, the fire extinguisher at the hostel… they had never seen one before, so a teacher was telling them all about it and how to use it and running around “chasing fire” to demonstrate. It was funny. We also had to teach the kids how to use flush toilets and showers. At times, I kept feeling like the Beverly Hill Billies, haha, but in the BEST sort of way! All in all, a very good trip!

Then, two weeks ago, I got to go with ninety of our 4^th and 5^th graders to Jinja, most famous for being the mouth of the Nile River. This was also a really great trip, and I was happy to get to travel some more, especially with the students. We started off by going to a textile factory, which I guess was good for exposing the students to industry and mass production. Then, we went to a cool sea port, where boats would dock from the islands on Lake Victoria. And the final stop was to the source of Nile, by far my favorite part of the day! The source of the Nile is more of a compound/park, and they took us on a boat ride to a small island to show us the source. (These kids did not fear the water at all.) After seeing it, I think the “source” definitely deserves quotation marks, as I’m pretty sure its all for show. It was just a very small part of the river near the island with no current from an underground spring. The story is that this supplies the water source to the whole river = Highly unlikely (for the Knoxvillians out there, the whole thing reminded me of the Lost Sea) But it was really fun to hear the story though, take a boat ride on the Nile, and see the kids get so excited. On the bus ride home, there was loads of singing in cute Ugandan accents, which I thoroughly enjoyed and made me fall asleep happy.

Lesson #3: Uganda Does Not Have a 4th Dimension

Hello everyone! Sorry it’s been a couple weeks since my last post. Work has officially kicked in to full gear, and the power has been out for going on 9 days now. Not super conducive to blogging, haha. The word for power here is “umeme”, so I find myself talking to light bulbs, begging for umeme to come back. (Signs you need to make more friends, haha.)  I feel like a lot has happened in the past 2 weeks, so I’m making two posts if that's ok; One talks more about day-to-day stuff and the other more about the culture. I was trying to combine the two posts as one, but the tone and lines of thoughts with each are pretty different. So be prepared for a mega post, and I thank you in advance for reading! 

Two weeks ago now, I found American heaven in Uganda, a coffee shop called Chat n’ Chino. Its located about an hour away in Mbale, which is the closest city to where I live. We got there by taking a taxi (picture a large 1970’s van rather than a yellow car) with more people than seats, and a slab of raw meat in a bag pushed under my seat bench in particular, haha. The roads are sometimes dusty and always pothole-y, but they take you through many small towns and beautiful countryside which I really enjoyed! It was cool to get to see my community of Kikholo in the context of the many communities surrounding us. The taxi dropped us off in the town, and we ended up eating lunch at Chat n’ Chino which has FREE unlimited wifi and GREAT American food. I had a PB&J, French fries, and a brownie, and could not have been more satisfied! Best $4 I’ve spent in a long time. Another exciting thing about this restaurant was the group of Peace Corp volunteers hanging out there. Excellent friend making opportunity :) I met up with some of them again this weekend, and it was really fun to hang out for a little while! I’m looking forward to getting to know them more in the coming months.

Another good thing that has happened in the past week or two is that several outreach projects are off and running, which in turn, has helped me develop a much better understanding of my job. In the beginning, I thought that I would be in charge of initiating outreach programs, but I’ve quickly realized that AAH already has so many projects going on. So instead, I think my job will more be to reign in, organize, and facilitate the projects that they already have. My main projects will be the rebuilding of a local elementary school, the distribution of practice PLE exams, and potentially, the distribution of TOMS shoes (depending on when they are released from customs). In addition, I will serve as a liaison/consultant between AAH and our outreach schools, as well as a couple independent community organizations. Not gonna lie, I still feel very much in the fake it til you make it phase. But everyday feels like a huge learning experience, and the pieces are coming together slowly but surely.

I’m sure I’ll touch on these projects more in later posts, but I did want to share some pictures from the local elementary school that is being rebuilt. It is called Bulobi Primary School, and AAH has a grant to renovate it by adding on 8 new classrooms and a kitchen. Right now, the students do not receive a school lunch, so we are really hoping the kitchen will help segway into a school feeding program down the road. Here are some of the before and after pictures on the progress that has been made during the pas couple weeks.

Former school classroom building, which is currently still the principal's office.

Obviously in need of some love.

One of the new classroom buildings being built through the grant.

Foundation for the kitchen. You can see what they were using

formerly as the kitchen in the background.

New kitchen built over the past 2 weeks.

In Math class, I always learned that time is considered to be the 4^th dimension. That concept did NOT originate in Uganda, haha. The concept of time, or lack thereof, is a funny thing here. I’ve been in meetings most days over the past two weeks, and the shortest of those meetings was 2 ½ hours. The longest of those meetings was 5 HOURS LONG, and just so happened to start at 4 pm, haha. My American ADD was going crazy. Another example, the other day at school, Caiti and I were helping some kids fill out profile questionnaires, which relay information about the student to their sponsor in the United States. One of the questions was, “How long does it take you to walk to school?” Simple, right? But we helped probably 8 or 9 kids fill out profiles, and literally none of them could answer this questions, haha. They would read it and then look to me for explanation, so I’d say, “does it take you five minutes to walk from your house to AAH?” and they would nod “yes”. Then, I would follow up with, “or does it take you an hour to walk from your house to AAH?” and they would nod “yes”. It’s interesting because the student’s arrive to school on time for classes, but I’ve figured out that time isn’t by a clock. The question should read “when do you leave for school?”, to which I think the response would be, “whenever I finish feeding the chickens and grazing the cow”, haha. But it works for them, its just an interesting difference.

One final story and then on to part 2 of the blog… there are two 4^th grade girls at the school who are very friendly and have taken a liking to Caiti and I. Every day last week, they would write me a note which said something along the lines of “we love you so much Tr English our best friend” :) (PS. they call every friend their best friend, but still really sweet!) And in keeping with true girl note standards, there are usually hearts, flowers, or both drawn all over the paper. In the last note, they wrote, “please reply”, so on Friday, I went way back in time and wrote a 4^th grade note to 4^th grade girls, haha.  Drew flowers with hearts as the centers and everything. I think it went over pretty well, both girls squealed and gave me a hug after reading it :)

Mayimuna and Brenda, my note girls

Ok, on to part 2…

Lesson #2: Rain boots are not solely for water

Mulembe!

I hope this message finds you well! Enjoying the beginning of Fall, and equally as important, the beginning of Clemson/UT football!

This week has been a bit of a whorlwind as school started on Monday, and Caiti and I truly began to dig in and work.  On the first day of school, there was a morning assembly where all of the students lined up by grade in the school courtyard, around 300 students total. They looked extraordinarily cute in their uniforms, red checkered shirts or dresses with a maroon sweater. At the end of the assembly, all of the 6^th grade students danced and sang songs of welcome for us, into which they actually inserted our names. I am now known as Teacher Lacey, although most students can’t say that so it becomes Teacher Lac. The 7^th graders have all decided to call me Teacher English, which I think they find kind of funny because of the irony of being from the US. It has been really nice to start getting to know some of the students and kids in the village this week, and I’m looking forward to meeting more of them and getting to know them better as time goes on!

School days are long at AAH. The students report to school at 7:30, and classes start at 8 am. The younger students get out of school at around 4:30 pm, while the older students have lessons until 6 pm. Each day, they break for breakfast and lunch which is provided by the school. There is a national standardized test that all seventh graders must pass in order to advance to secondary school. If they don’t pass, that is the end of their road for school, so the older students seem to work extra hard to do well on this exam. Our students at Arlington are very bright and motivated!  I’ve been continually impressed by their work ethic and dreams for the future. I’ve had students tell me that they want to doctors, lawyers, teachers, and even chemical engineers, and each day, its very cool to observe how hard they work to earn these dreams.

On a different note, I’m also learning very quickly how multifunctional rain boots are. The rainy season in my region of Uganda runs from March through November, so almost every afternoon, it rains for a little while. The road up the mountain to the school is made of reddish brown clay, and many people had told me that the road became muddy when it rained so BE SURE to have rain boots. In my ignorance, I just kind of thought, “Sure, that makes sense. It becomes muddy, but I’ve dealt with mud in the US too so no big deal.” FALSE. The first time we got an afternoon shower, I was not expecting it and had walked up to the school in only my sandals. It was when we went to leave and began walking down that I realized “mud” for them was similar in magnitude to flooding in downtown Charleston. So I’m attempting to walk down this MOUNTAIN as mud is piling on the bottom of my sandals and creeping up my legs. We must have looked so funny. We already stick out because we’re white, but that afternoon, we were also the foreigners taking baby steps and sliding down the mountain as small Ugandan children went gallivanting past us barefoot, haha. It was an experience. The trip down was full of laughs though, and by the time I reached the bottom, I felt triumphant for not falling although my feet and calves were brown. So lesson learned, rain boots combat mud as well as water. I have them with me at all times now.

In addition, I have slowly but surely been starting to wrap my head around my work. AAH has so many different projects going on, that it has been difficult to get a handle on them all and discern my place. The main things that I think I’ll have a hand in this semester is the rebuilding of a local elementary school and the distribution of practice tests to outreach schools (most schools here cannot afford printing costs). In addition, I’m hoping to partner with the FIMRC clinic to start health education in the outreach schools, as well as do some library training for local teachers to help them prepare for lessons. I’m going to be traveling around in the next week or two to visit the government schools that AAH partners with, and I’m sure I’ll gain a much better idea of feasibility at that time.

In other news, this week I learned that our front yard is full of chameleons!! Pretty cool, huh? Also, I am finding that stickers are great ways to make friends. (If they don’t have elevators, I’ve got to meet people some other way, huh?!) I’ve gotten to meet some local children who are not at AAH simply by passing out stickers.

 

Well, that's all I have to report for now! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the Fall!

Peace,
Lacey

Lesson #1: English is not a universal language

Hello everyone!

Sorry for not getting to send an update sooner. The power just came
back on tonight, after being out for 5 days now (welcome to Uganda!
haha) so internet access has been brief in order to conserve generator
power. Needless to say, my headlamp has become by far my most valuable
possession, and its been an adjustment getting used to living here.
But I’m learning more and more each day about the culture and the
people, and am starting to settle in.

I arrived in my village on Monday night, after traveling for an epic
48 hours. During my long layover in London, Caiti and I got to leave
the airport and see the city, which felt very worthwhile once I got my
picture taken in a red phone booth. However, I literally could not
keep my eyes open on the car ride from the airport in Uganda to my
village. I was told that I would be living in a village, but it has
been a little bit different from how I envisioned it. Every house here
has a medium to large plot of land for farming and livestock, so
things are fairly spread out. I live in the district of Bududa, but
the school is in the village of Bumwalukani, which is up the mountain
from where I live. There is a small trading center at the foot of the
mountain with maybe 20 shops and a “roundabout” made from placing 7
stones in a circle. The hike up to the school is about a mile walk up
a mud road, but the scenery is just beautiful! Very green and lush. It
rains almost every afternoon, and you can literally see it coming over
Mt. Nusu (Zach and Emily, have you heard of it?)

The view from our front yard

Minus not having power, the guest house that I’m living in has been
really nice. I have my own room, and was pleasantly surprised to have
a flush toilet just about 10 feet outside the guesthouse. We have a
shower next to the flush toilet as well, but I’ve been choosing to
take bucket showers instead. I think the shower feeds from a water
tank, and I don’t want to deplete it for that. Plus, the beauty of a
bucket shower is that it can be semi-warm by adding boiled water to
the cold water from the water tank. AAH hires a “house mom” named
Jennipher to come and cook for us and help take care of the guest
house. She has been great to have around, and so far, I’ve liked all
of the food she has cooked pretty well! Its typically something with
potatoes, so that’s right up my alley. Last week, I had my first meal
of matoke, which is literally every Ugandan’s favorite food, and its
pretty much just mushed up bananas but not as sweet as a normal
banana. I also had another local dish called posho, which is
cornmeal+water. It kind of tastes like nothing, but I think they
usually serve it with beans during school and I could see that being a
relatively good combination.

Home away from home

Jennipher, our house mom

Their school year runs on a trimester system, so the students have
been on break for most of the month of August. Their third term starts
tomorrow, and I am really excited to meet the students! I think that
they will by far be the highlight of my time here. I have already met
some of them during walks to and from the school. Most people here
have been very friendly, and greet you as you pass. People that are
confident in their English will usually walk with you and talk. Many
of the children don’t know English as well, but they will yell out
“mzungu, how arrre you?” which really becomes more of a greeting than
a question because that’s all they know. I’ve learned the local
greeting as well, and am hoping to pick up more of the local dialect
as I go along.

The hardest part so far has been adjusting to their accent. For the
past couple days, I have had a hard time understanding them, and them
me, even though we are both speaking English. That has been really
frustrating, mainly because I think much of my work will depend on it.
Eventually, I will be going out to the local Ugandan primary and
secondary school, and trying to implement some outreach programs. If
they can’t understand me though, I was getting worried that I wouldn’t
be effective at all. But the past couple days, I can tell that I’m
getting better at picking up their accent, and that more people can
understand me. The accent is kind of a funny one, I have to talk
pretty slow and kind of slur my words in a way. I have also had to
laugh at myself sometimes because I’ll be going for the Ugandan accent
and somehow my fake Indian or British accent will come out instead,
haha. But all that to say, I’m getting the hang of it slowly but
surely. I’m giving myself a couple weeks to get used to the school and
community, but I already have a list of outreach ideas and if I’m
lucky, I’ll get to try a couple of them out before Christmas. I’m
excited to try! They might end up not working out, but I am at least
excited to give it a go!

The other interesting thing is how much the community LOVED the
previous volunteer coordinator for Arlington Academy of Hope. I’ve had
multiple people tell me that they hope that I’m just like her, haha.
Which in some ways is so good, because she set us up well in that
people anticipate good things from us. On the other hand, it also
feels like we have some really big shoes to fill. I’ve kind of decided
that I’m not going to think about it too much though. I’ve never met
her, so there is literally no way to emulate her. Plus, I’m so new to
everything that its just going to take some time to get going. But
hopefully, I’ll be able to do a good job in my own right eventually,
and with time, they’ll get to know me too.

Wow, sorry this has gotten to be so long!! I miss you all a lot, and I
hope that everything is going well with school and work and Peace Corp
planning! I will try to write again soon, and please keep in touch
with updates from your lives! Even if its what you had for dinner, I’d
love to hear about it!

Much love,
Lacey