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