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!