It's only been a week, but a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. For the sake of not turning you all away from reading my blog, I think I'm just going to brief you on some of the highlights.
Girlfriends: Ok, so I know that I came here in part for a unique experience that would force me outside of my comfort zone and I have definitely found that, but I have also been lucky enough to make a couple of friends that make me forget where I am. My running buddy, Eva, and Caro (Caroline) have essentially taken on roles as my key go-to companions when all I really need is a good chatting outlet. Eva and I run twice a week and she does me the favor of translating what men are saying as I go by. This way, I know who to wave at and who to ignore completely. Having the motivation of knowing I will have someone to talk to and joke around with has increased my average run from half an hour to 45 minutes and I am hoping to be running an hour at a time starting next week. The running is fantastic, but, even more important, is my friendship with Caro. We stayed up so late a couple of times this week that Edward came looking for me to make sure that I hadn't gotten lost somewhere. Not to say that any single one of my girlfriends at home is even remotely replaceable (because none of you are), but it has been comforting to have someone that serves all of the same purposes here. Caro knows just about everything about my personal life and has really opened up to share with me. She is impressively strong and motivated, despite everything that has happened in her life and talking with her, hearing her views on everything from dresses for Martha (her daughter) to feminism is truly a blessing. She undoubtedly has one of the strongest wills I have ever encountered and she has made me reconsider much of what was once important to me and begin to focus more on what I will do with my life. Leaving her behind will be the hardest part of going home.
Saturday Rugby Game: A group of the volunteers went into Kampala to hang out for the weekend and watch a Uganda vs. Tunisia rugby game. Uganda didn't do too well, which was a little bit disappointing, but it was still definitely worth the experience. With all of the running I've been doing lately, I've been thinking it would be nice to get into a sport when I return to the states. I think I might have found my new passion in rugby. I think I could definitely get into a game where you tackle people to the ground with no padding and very few rules limiting brutality. I know most of you are probably thinking that I could never make it in rugby, probably due to the fact that you probably envision my wearing pigtails and twirling around in circles of excitement when you think of me. However, I have recently been missing my Taekwondo "glory days" and I'm really looking for a sport to repeat them with.
Girls vs. Boys: In an effort to increase class participation in my lessons, I have initiated girls (Arsenal) vs. boys (Manchester United) competitions in my P4, P5, and P6 classes. The competitions have been phenomenally successful in bringing some of my more timid students to the board and have given me confidence that they actually do understand what I am teaching them. On the other hand, I think that I am going to have to start moving my classes to a new location if I want to continue the games. Some of the other teachers have scolded them for disrupting other classes while they are cheering and clapping for their teammates. Granted, I find the scolding somewhat unwarranted due to the fact that most of my colleagues require their students to repeat everything they say, which means that other classes are consistently so loud that I cannot be heard over 20-30 voices obediently reciting every bit of information in their lesson in the next room.
I don't want to get my students in trouble though. Trouble here means discipline by the stick, a sight I really can't bear to watch at lunchtime, but find myself frequently exposed to. I'm trying to help end the cycle by discouraging students from hitting each other in my own classes...without hitting them myself. This has proven to be a somewhat difficult task. On Tuesday, a few of my girls in P1 were fighting over seats. They stopped after I asked them to, but my students found it so strange that I didn't hit them that one of my boys came forward with a stick and offered to discipline them for me. I snapped the stick into pieces and made them all sit in silence for 5 minutes before I continued my lesson. I wish I could communicate the reasons I don't hit students to them, but the language barrier between me and my younger students is too big to be able to have that kind of conversation with them. I don't want it to seem like my placement doesn't treat children well, the beating aren't even really enough to leave welts most of the time. It has just proven very hard for me to overcome cultural differences in child rearing. Comparatively, my students are living the good life just by going to school. I have no complaints about that.
District Tournaments: Starting yesterday, my school began competing in district sports tournaments in netball (Ugandan basketball) and football (soccer). Yesterday, our girls owned the courts in netball and this morning, our boys' football team won 3-0. It has been a lot of fun walking all over the area to go to different games with my students. Not only have I been able to see more of the surrounding country, but I have also been able to experience sports culture in Uganda. The games have much of the same feel as an American game, but they are more casual. There are no stands or arenas, just makeshift "nets" and goals on long dirt fields. The players' classmates sit on the sides of the field and occasionally poke fun of their friends on the field until they make a goal, at which point they all erupt into scream of joy, literally falling over with happiness...sometimes for so long that another goal has been scored before they stop cheering. I think going to football games is driven more by the desire to make noise than it is by an actual interest in the game.
Saving Lives: I went to do counseling of HIV positive community members with Jimmy on Tuesday. Being exposed to conditions of extreme poverty and knowing that the people you are talking to have come to terms with their death is hardly what I would call uplifting. We visited 11 houses and I was both physically and emotionally exhausted. However, one man made the trip worth it. He told me that, without CODEAPS, he would not be alive today. Maybe there is something to be said for the work we're doing, even if the benefits aren't always as obvious as one would like.
Less Uplifting News: I woke up this morning with a cold. I was in the process of feeling cranky and sorry for myself, when I got to school and found out that Michael, a student of mine in P2, has mosquito malaria. He has been throwing up, has a really high fever, and can barely move on his own. He has been taken to a clinic so there isn't much I can do right now except hope that he will be ok. I'm mostly just writing about this so I will have the sense of solidarity of knowing that there are others out there hoping with me. Malaria can be fatal if it's not treated early enough and Michael is only a little boy so battling the disease will not be easy. I am confident that he was taken to a clinic in time, but I still don't want to dismiss it at that.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Gifts
Wow! This week has been completely all over the place! On Tuesday, it was Hero's Day (which no one seems to know anything about) so I ventured into Mukono to run some errands and catch up with the other volunteers. About 20 minutes after I got to the guest house, Jesse showed up with a rooster that he had purchased at the market and decided to slaughter. Leslie, one of the volunteer coordinators, recommended that he wait until he had a Ugandan to help him because a lot of the volunteers fail to do it right and then panic when they haven't killed it. We waited for Moses, who does the laundry at the guesthouse for around an hour before the deed was done. In that time, Jesse named the rooster Kernel Sanders...and also made the grave mistake of untying its legs. It walked around the guesthouse crowing at the top of its lungs before making a break for it and almost succeeding in jumping off the balcony. Unfortunately, the noisy beast met its end later in the day and became what I was told to be quite a tasty dinner.
I spent the rest of my week in Nsanje, having a blast with the kids. I have been playing games in P4-P6 and I've found that a good, friendly good vs. boy competition is the best way to guarantee class participation. My girls would honestly trump the boys, but I've been giving them help so they won't become too discouraged to try. I also had my P4 students doing some group work on Thursday, which I'm pretty sure confused the heck out of them, but seemed to be a generally positive experience. On Wednesday, I sat in on crafts in the afternoon and started to learn how to make a basket. It was a great time to really bond with a lot of my more reserved female students and also to get a lesson in Lugandan. They gave me way too many new words for me to actually remember them, but I wrote them down and I am really looking forward to improving on my ability to have a conversation. Joyce was teaching me words for the school, like student, teacher, and headmaster. I told her that she had become the teacher and I had become the student.
On the whole, it has been a fantastic teaching week, but the longer I am present at my placement, the more my eyes are opened to the way it is acceptable to treat children in Ugandan culture. Teachers do not do anything for themselves; they get students to do everything. So, when Madam Jannepher spills porridge, all she has to do is call outside and get the first unsuspecting student she sees to come and clean it up for her. Despite the fact that Ssebo (Sir) Herbert is much bigger and stronger than most of the students are, he feels no necessity to haul his own water. Instead, he has Jonathon, one the smallest boys in P6 haul it for him. I wouldn't be too bothered by this, but it is a standard that the other teachers seem to expect me to maintain and I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm bothered, not pleased, when my students feel they must bring me a bench to sit on when I am standing on the school grounds during lunch. I'm also struck by the method of discipline here. Everyday, the students that have misbehaved must line up during lunch to be hit by a stick. Frankly, I think this might be the reason I have problems with them hitting each other in class. I have told the students that if I see them hitting each other anymore, they may just leave my classroom because they cannot learn from me if they are going to behave that way, a solution that has proven to be (temporarily) effective.
I've begun blowing off a lot of steam by increasing my daily runs to twice a day on Tuesday and Thursday. It's provided me with a wonderful opportunity to see more of the community in the evening, while people are out and socializing. I also befriended a couple of high school girls, Eva and Mary, who have followed me on both of my evening runs this week. I don't think it would be acceptable for them to go running otherwise, but as the resident Muzungu, I am immune to just about everything and if they are accompanying me, they are just being polite. They are actually fairly good runners too. I had to sprint full out to beat them, but I might have only won because they were being polite...or because they were wearing skirts and clogs, not running shoes and pants.
I spent yesterday afternoon doing community outreach and going to visit HIV positive community members in their homes. It wasn't nearly as depressing as I expected it to be, but they were living close to the school, which means that they are very close to most of the resources available in the area. I visited 5 homes, but one of them stood out to me more than the rest. An elderly woman named Jawe was taking care of 10 orphans on top of trying to take care of herself. Apparently, she has just become a dumping ground for unwanted or uncared for children because she will take them in and try to feed them and put them through school no matter what her personal situation is. Jawe told me that she was suffering pains in the bones in her chest, but she hasn't gone to a clinic for them because she was bewitched and the clinic can't do anything to solve that. We had a fairly good conversation about health, including medication, hygiene, water sources, and diet. When I got up to leave, she insisted on giving me 5 avocados...to prove that she was eating well. My stomach dropped. Here I am in the middle of Uganda, trying my best to help those that have been less fortunate than me, and they are giving me much more than I have been able to give them. I fully plan on buying some fresh pineapple for her family while I am in town and explaining to her that, in my culture, when you receive a gift from a friend, you give one in turn.
I spent the rest of my week in Nsanje, having a blast with the kids. I have been playing games in P4-P6 and I've found that a good, friendly good vs. boy competition is the best way to guarantee class participation. My girls would honestly trump the boys, but I've been giving them help so they won't become too discouraged to try. I also had my P4 students doing some group work on Thursday, which I'm pretty sure confused the heck out of them, but seemed to be a generally positive experience. On Wednesday, I sat in on crafts in the afternoon and started to learn how to make a basket. It was a great time to really bond with a lot of my more reserved female students and also to get a lesson in Lugandan. They gave me way too many new words for me to actually remember them, but I wrote them down and I am really looking forward to improving on my ability to have a conversation. Joyce was teaching me words for the school, like student, teacher, and headmaster. I told her that she had become the teacher and I had become the student.
On the whole, it has been a fantastic teaching week, but the longer I am present at my placement, the more my eyes are opened to the way it is acceptable to treat children in Ugandan culture. Teachers do not do anything for themselves; they get students to do everything. So, when Madam Jannepher spills porridge, all she has to do is call outside and get the first unsuspecting student she sees to come and clean it up for her. Despite the fact that Ssebo (Sir) Herbert is much bigger and stronger than most of the students are, he feels no necessity to haul his own water. Instead, he has Jonathon, one the smallest boys in P6 haul it for him. I wouldn't be too bothered by this, but it is a standard that the other teachers seem to expect me to maintain and I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm bothered, not pleased, when my students feel they must bring me a bench to sit on when I am standing on the school grounds during lunch. I'm also struck by the method of discipline here. Everyday, the students that have misbehaved must line up during lunch to be hit by a stick. Frankly, I think this might be the reason I have problems with them hitting each other in class. I have told the students that if I see them hitting each other anymore, they may just leave my classroom because they cannot learn from me if they are going to behave that way, a solution that has proven to be (temporarily) effective.
I've begun blowing off a lot of steam by increasing my daily runs to twice a day on Tuesday and Thursday. It's provided me with a wonderful opportunity to see more of the community in the evening, while people are out and socializing. I also befriended a couple of high school girls, Eva and Mary, who have followed me on both of my evening runs this week. I don't think it would be acceptable for them to go running otherwise, but as the resident Muzungu, I am immune to just about everything and if they are accompanying me, they are just being polite. They are actually fairly good runners too. I had to sprint full out to beat them, but I might have only won because they were being polite...or because they were wearing skirts and clogs, not running shoes and pants.
I spent yesterday afternoon doing community outreach and going to visit HIV positive community members in their homes. It wasn't nearly as depressing as I expected it to be, but they were living close to the school, which means that they are very close to most of the resources available in the area. I visited 5 homes, but one of them stood out to me more than the rest. An elderly woman named Jawe was taking care of 10 orphans on top of trying to take care of herself. Apparently, she has just become a dumping ground for unwanted or uncared for children because she will take them in and try to feed them and put them through school no matter what her personal situation is. Jawe told me that she was suffering pains in the bones in her chest, but she hasn't gone to a clinic for them because she was bewitched and the clinic can't do anything to solve that. We had a fairly good conversation about health, including medication, hygiene, water sources, and diet. When I got up to leave, she insisted on giving me 5 avocados...to prove that she was eating well. My stomach dropped. Here I am in the middle of Uganda, trying my best to help those that have been less fortunate than me, and they are giving me much more than I have been able to give them. I fully plan on buying some fresh pineapple for her family while I am in town and explaining to her that, in my culture, when you receive a gift from a friend, you give one in turn.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Family
I just got back into town from what was truly the most amazing experience of my life. I spent all day Saturday rafting the Nile in class 5 rapids. I won't go into too many of the details because this trip is really intended to be more about the human connections I make than it is my tourist experiences, but I can tell you that it changed my life. There were a couple of moments I had under water in which I truly wondered whether or not I would resurface in time to breath. Granted, they were short moments, made to seem longer from panic, but they definitely made me appreciate my life more. Add that to the list of things I never knew I had.
I've also been fortunate enough to start really getting to know some of the new volunteers that will be here for a while over the weekends. I can't possibly do them justice in this blog, but I will say that their presence has made me increasingly optimistic about humanity.
Besides rafting, the past week has been excellent. I have fallen in love; fallen in love with teaching, with my village, with the kids, with Uganda, and with the world as a whole. There is not a moment here which is not completely blessed. I've been filling my time with a multitude of small projects. David, my host father is learning to use his new computer. I taught him how to play music on there. Joyce, on of my P6 students, is learning how to take pictures with my camera, an activity that the rest of the school enjoys so much that I killed two camera batteries in the course of one week. I have had my hands full as a teacher as well. Teaching English to six different classes is definitely not easy, but is also the most rewarding thing I have ever done. On Thursday, my P6 class had an exam, which I am supposed to grade. The grading is a real chore, but I am thrilled to see how much it really seems like they are learning and understanding the language. In my spare time, I go down to the well after school to gather water with my students, play games with the nursery kids (they particularly enjoy tickle tag), and run or do yoga. Little interactions are what lift me up the most: the kids shaking mangoes out of a tree to eat them (and getting in trouble for it), the little girl that makes helicopter noises at me when she wants me to swing her around in circles, and having children at my window to get me to come out and play in the morning have been some of my favorite moments of the week. Granted, I wasn't too happy to see them at the time because I was changing after a shower, but it dawned on me that that was just their way of expressing love. Love is basically the staple of my life out here. I know that, no matter where I go for the rest of my life, I will not be nearly as accepted, appreciated, and embraced as I am as the one Muzungu in Nsanje. If I could summarize my life right now, I would quote my friend Christine, one of the teachers at the school. I was playing with the kids during a break time and she stopped by to tell me, "Well done." As I blankly stared at her, wondering what I had actually done to receive the compliment, she looked at me and said, "You have found family here." I most certainly have.
I've also been fortunate enough to start really getting to know some of the new volunteers that will be here for a while over the weekends. I can't possibly do them justice in this blog, but I will say that their presence has made me increasingly optimistic about humanity.
Besides rafting, the past week has been excellent. I have fallen in love; fallen in love with teaching, with my village, with the kids, with Uganda, and with the world as a whole. There is not a moment here which is not completely blessed. I've been filling my time with a multitude of small projects. David, my host father is learning to use his new computer. I taught him how to play music on there. Joyce, on of my P6 students, is learning how to take pictures with my camera, an activity that the rest of the school enjoys so much that I killed two camera batteries in the course of one week. I have had my hands full as a teacher as well. Teaching English to six different classes is definitely not easy, but is also the most rewarding thing I have ever done. On Thursday, my P6 class had an exam, which I am supposed to grade. The grading is a real chore, but I am thrilled to see how much it really seems like they are learning and understanding the language. In my spare time, I go down to the well after school to gather water with my students, play games with the nursery kids (they particularly enjoy tickle tag), and run or do yoga. Little interactions are what lift me up the most: the kids shaking mangoes out of a tree to eat them (and getting in trouble for it), the little girl that makes helicopter noises at me when she wants me to swing her around in circles, and having children at my window to get me to come out and play in the morning have been some of my favorite moments of the week. Granted, I wasn't too happy to see them at the time because I was changing after a shower, but it dawned on me that that was just their way of expressing love. Love is basically the staple of my life out here. I know that, no matter where I go for the rest of my life, I will not be nearly as accepted, appreciated, and embraced as I am as the one Muzungu in Nsanje. If I could summarize my life right now, I would quote my friend Christine, one of the teachers at the school. I was playing with the kids during a break time and she stopped by to tell me, "Well done." As I blankly stared at her, wondering what I had actually done to receive the compliment, she looked at me and said, "You have found family here." I most certainly have.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Life on the Other Side
I'm in Mukono again, but only for a short time after doing a bit of traveling. I wasn't planning on posting this often, but I have a couple of thoughts that I really wanted to share.
I have been talking to David, my host father, about getting together funds to provide Edward, a boy in our community, with the education he needs to become a doctor. When David and I first started talking about getting funding for Edward to go to a better high school and then to Bugema University, I thought that it would be an easy thing for me to do. Wrong. University tuition aside, Edward will need over $1,300 just to finish high school at a good enough school to get into a university. I'm afraid to learn the cost of tuition, room, and board at Bugema. I've become really grateful for public education at home. Here, you pay tuition no matter where you go or what grade you are in. It's no wonder it's so hard to make it all the way through college. Anyways, if anyone has any ideas for how I can get the funding to make this possible, I would really appreciate that. Edward has become really important to me in my stay here and I really believe that, given a bit of assistance, he will make a fantastic doctor. He actually wants to become one for all of the right reasons and I would hate to see him miss out on the opportunity to do so.
I also wanted to share my experience from today. Today is Martyrs' Day in Uganda, which is a celebration in honor of Uganda's first truly influential Christians. When Uganda was still ruled by an animist king, missionaries began coming to Uganda and beginning to convert a few of them, including several of the page boys in the royal court. When the previous king passed away, his son decided that he would no longer allow this conversion to continue. He told the page boys that they must choose between Christianity and their king. They chose Christianity. They were consequentially sentenced to be burned to death. The king thought that this would put an end to the continued converstion, but on the boys' hanging day, they walked out onto the stage with smiles on their faces and sang Lord's Prayer together until their death. Every year, they are commemorated by pilgrims that go to visit the site of their burning on foot. It's a very serious journey and some people walk all the way from countries like Sudan and Kenya to complete it, taking up to two months to get there. Ashley and I decided to go. Granted, we walked only a short distance, but I became suddenly aware of what it is like to be a true Ugandan, rather than a Muzungu. Normally, I am granted a good deal of respect when I travel in Uganda, but today, I was just a part of the crowd. It has taught me where Ugandans get their patience from. Standing in line was incredibly uncomfortable and cramped and since they would not let Ashley in with her camera, we had to stand in that line 3 times....just to be uncomfortable and cramped a bit closer to the church. It was a rather frustrating day since I spent my entire morning being shoved around in the sun, but it gave me an appreciation for what it is like to be part of a crowd when no one thinks you are more important than anyone else. I've honestly never felt so undervalued as an individual, but it was just to gain some humility.
I have been talking to David, my host father, about getting together funds to provide Edward, a boy in our community, with the education he needs to become a doctor. When David and I first started talking about getting funding for Edward to go to a better high school and then to Bugema University, I thought that it would be an easy thing for me to do. Wrong. University tuition aside, Edward will need over $1,300 just to finish high school at a good enough school to get into a university. I'm afraid to learn the cost of tuition, room, and board at Bugema. I've become really grateful for public education at home. Here, you pay tuition no matter where you go or what grade you are in. It's no wonder it's so hard to make it all the way through college. Anyways, if anyone has any ideas for how I can get the funding to make this possible, I would really appreciate that. Edward has become really important to me in my stay here and I really believe that, given a bit of assistance, he will make a fantastic doctor. He actually wants to become one for all of the right reasons and I would hate to see him miss out on the opportunity to do so.
I also wanted to share my experience from today. Today is Martyrs' Day in Uganda, which is a celebration in honor of Uganda's first truly influential Christians. When Uganda was still ruled by an animist king, missionaries began coming to Uganda and beginning to convert a few of them, including several of the page boys in the royal court. When the previous king passed away, his son decided that he would no longer allow this conversion to continue. He told the page boys that they must choose between Christianity and their king. They chose Christianity. They were consequentially sentenced to be burned to death. The king thought that this would put an end to the continued converstion, but on the boys' hanging day, they walked out onto the stage with smiles on their faces and sang Lord's Prayer together until their death. Every year, they are commemorated by pilgrims that go to visit the site of their burning on foot. It's a very serious journey and some people walk all the way from countries like Sudan and Kenya to complete it, taking up to two months to get there. Ashley and I decided to go. Granted, we walked only a short distance, but I became suddenly aware of what it is like to be a true Ugandan, rather than a Muzungu. Normally, I am granted a good deal of respect when I travel in Uganda, but today, I was just a part of the crowd. It has taught me where Ugandans get their patience from. Standing in line was incredibly uncomfortable and cramped and since they would not let Ashley in with her camera, we had to stand in that line 3 times....just to be uncomfortable and cramped a bit closer to the church. It was a rather frustrating day since I spent my entire morning being shoved around in the sun, but it gave me an appreciation for what it is like to be part of a crowd when no one thinks you are more important than anyone else. I've honestly never felt so undervalued as an individual, but it was just to gain some humility.
Monday, June 1, 2009
271 Speed Bumps
I've just returned to Mukono after my first week as a teacher and a safari with the other volunteers. On the way to safari, we discovered an interesting fact about Ugandan roads. Instead of posting speed limits or patrolling the highways, Uganda instead utilizes series of speed bumps to keep people from driving too fast. The resulting effect is that drivers swerve all over the road and sometimes drive halfway on the shoulder to avoid destroying their vehicles on the road. Today, Ashley and I sat through and counted 271 speed bumps.
It's funny, and admittedly cheesy, but I feel like speed bumps are a pretty adequate metaphor for life here in Uganda. Some of my speed bumps are small, like living without running water or electricity, coping with bugs, and overcoming language barriers. However, others of them are much larger. I think my biggest oncoming challenge is to become an effective teacher; it is definitely not an easy thing to do. My students are used to recitation, which means that if I asked them to repeat after me for an entire class period, they would perform phenomenally. However, if I ask them questions, such as, "What does this sentence mean?" or "Why did I use this word?" they have no idea how to answer me. Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy teaching. I also enjoy the fact that my students are eager to learn, eager to please, and even (oddly enough) eager to receive homework. The only problem is that they have not been taught to ask why or expect a conceptual understanding of what they are learning. It has become my top priority to turn that around in at least one student while I am here. They might not learn that much from me, but I hope that I can at least teach them to expect more from their education.
Aside from that, I am really enjoying Uganda. I have made a few friends here already and learned quite a lot from them. In my free time, I go down to the well to help the kids haul water or learn how to do the laundry and dishes Ugandan style from my friend Caroline. She has even promised that I will learn to make Ugandan meals before I leave, which should be interesting considering that Caroline is the matron at the school and often cooks for 366 people. I have also started attending prayer every morning and evening with the teachers at my school. They mostly just sing hymns in Luganda so I don't understand very much of what is said, but I find it rather calming. I have, so far, opted out of Friday mass and church on Saturday, but I have a feeling I will be attending them soon enough. I have no plans to become a Seventh-Day Adventist, but I enjoy participating in activities that I know are important to my community. Ultimately, the amount of good I am experiencing here overcomes all of my frustrations so my sense of optimism is still fully intact.
This weekend was also a great deal of fun. I have spent most of my weekends with the other volunteers, who are generally wonderful company. Getting away on the weekends has also provided me with the opportunity to get to know other travelers, such as a doctor named Siameck who specializes internal medicine. I learned more in a 3 hour conversation with him over dinner on Friday than I normally learn (and actually retain) within an entire semester of school. He also plans on sending several of us articles and book recommendations and I have never been more excited for information.
I guess that's about it right now. Safari was great. There were a lot of baboons and they were not at all shy so some of them were jumping on the safari vans. I got to see elephants, which was probably my favorite part. We also took a boating trip down the Nile and saw a bunch of hippos and went hiking at Murchison Falls. Next week, I while be going white water rafting with a few friends, which sounds really intense so if you don't hear from me in 3 weeks....start to worry. Just kidding. I will be plenty safe and I am looking forward to trying out some class fives and a waterfall.
I suppose I should apologize for how poorly written most of these are. I really wish that I had the time to sit down and write a higher quality blog to better represent my experience, but I really don't. I hope you don't mind my rambling too much and that you're doing well-wherever you all are at this point.
Peace,
Catie
It's funny, and admittedly cheesy, but I feel like speed bumps are a pretty adequate metaphor for life here in Uganda. Some of my speed bumps are small, like living without running water or electricity, coping with bugs, and overcoming language barriers. However, others of them are much larger. I think my biggest oncoming challenge is to become an effective teacher; it is definitely not an easy thing to do. My students are used to recitation, which means that if I asked them to repeat after me for an entire class period, they would perform phenomenally. However, if I ask them questions, such as, "What does this sentence mean?" or "Why did I use this word?" they have no idea how to answer me. Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy teaching. I also enjoy the fact that my students are eager to learn, eager to please, and even (oddly enough) eager to receive homework. The only problem is that they have not been taught to ask why or expect a conceptual understanding of what they are learning. It has become my top priority to turn that around in at least one student while I am here. They might not learn that much from me, but I hope that I can at least teach them to expect more from their education.
Aside from that, I am really enjoying Uganda. I have made a few friends here already and learned quite a lot from them. In my free time, I go down to the well to help the kids haul water or learn how to do the laundry and dishes Ugandan style from my friend Caroline. She has even promised that I will learn to make Ugandan meals before I leave, which should be interesting considering that Caroline is the matron at the school and often cooks for 366 people. I have also started attending prayer every morning and evening with the teachers at my school. They mostly just sing hymns in Luganda so I don't understand very much of what is said, but I find it rather calming. I have, so far, opted out of Friday mass and church on Saturday, but I have a feeling I will be attending them soon enough. I have no plans to become a Seventh-Day Adventist, but I enjoy participating in activities that I know are important to my community. Ultimately, the amount of good I am experiencing here overcomes all of my frustrations so my sense of optimism is still fully intact.
This weekend was also a great deal of fun. I have spent most of my weekends with the other volunteers, who are generally wonderful company. Getting away on the weekends has also provided me with the opportunity to get to know other travelers, such as a doctor named Siameck who specializes internal medicine. I learned more in a 3 hour conversation with him over dinner on Friday than I normally learn (and actually retain) within an entire semester of school. He also plans on sending several of us articles and book recommendations and I have never been more excited for information.
I guess that's about it right now. Safari was great. There were a lot of baboons and they were not at all shy so some of them were jumping on the safari vans. I got to see elephants, which was probably my favorite part. We also took a boating trip down the Nile and saw a bunch of hippos and went hiking at Murchison Falls. Next week, I while be going white water rafting with a few friends, which sounds really intense so if you don't hear from me in 3 weeks....start to worry. Just kidding. I will be plenty safe and I am looking forward to trying out some class fives and a waterfall.
I suppose I should apologize for how poorly written most of these are. I really wish that I had the time to sit down and write a higher quality blog to better represent my experience, but I really don't. I hope you don't mind my rambling too much and that you're doing well-wherever you all are at this point.
Peace,
Catie
Friday, May 22, 2009
Appreciation
The list of things I never knew I had:
Electricity
Being able to see at night
A night life
Clean water
Running Water
Toilet seats
Hot water
Shampoo
Open communication
The ability to learn about world news
Transportation
Couches
Comfy chairs
Carpet or wood flooring
Fruit
Vegetables
Tofu
Deserts
Milk
A balanced diet in general
Sunscreen
Listening to music
Having an understanding of technology
Having an understanding of the modern world
Being able to travel
Clean air
Going Green
Organization
Traffic lights
Seatbelts
Big busses
My rights as an American
clean towels
sunrise
having time to reflect
peace and quiet
being able bodied
snow
family
lightning bugs
free public education
being able to talk to strangers
toilet paper
My Life
I will be adding to this list indefinitely as I continue to realize how absolutely lucky I have been my entire life.
Electricity
Being able to see at night
A night life
Clean water
Running Water
Toilet seats
Hot water
Shampoo
Open communication
The ability to learn about world news
Transportation
Couches
Comfy chairs
Carpet or wood flooring
Fruit
Vegetables
Tofu
Deserts
Milk
A balanced diet in general
Sunscreen
Listening to music
Having an understanding of technology
Having an understanding of the modern world
Being able to travel
Clean air
Going Green
Organization
Traffic lights
Seatbelts
Big busses
My rights as an American
clean towels
sunrise
having time to reflect
peace and quiet
being able bodied
snow
family
lightning bugs
free public education
being able to talk to strangers
toilet paper
My Life
I will be adding to this list indefinitely as I continue to realize how absolutely lucky I have been my entire life.
Week 1
My first week at my placement in Nsanje has been a completely mixed bag. The location is absolutely beautiful and fairly rural with a lot of cows, goats, and tea farmers. The people that I have had the chance to meet so far have been fairly excited to see a Mzungu so I have received countless warm welcomes during my stay so far. The family is an absolute joy to be around. The younger boys, Sam and Mark are fascinated by my hand-crank radio and camera. I don't think that Mark has ever seen himself before because when I showed him his picture, he pointed at himself and said, "Sam." The girls, Especioza and Tina were shy at first, but opened up when I offered to help them work, hoeing weeds. Edward, the oldest family member is not actually a relative, but a boy they are helping to put through school. He is incredibly bright and showed me around Katosi, a neighboring village. I enjoy his company and the fact that he can speak English rather well. I plan on asking him to teach me some Luganda while I am here.
On the other hand, I have been somewhat bored this past week. I think this was mostly due to the fact that my work will not begin until Monday so the combination of having nothing important to do with myself and not knowing the area well enough to get around on my own put a bit of a damper on my spirits. The parents of the host family I am staying with weren't around the house very much and since the kids aren't strong English speakers and the only thing I can say in Luganda is "I don't speak Luganda," I felt a bit lonely. Finally, on Wednesday night I realized that I had to take more control of my own happiness. I walked across the street and visited a woman named Caroline. Caroline is from Kenya and is a wife of one of the teachers at the school. She is an incredibly welcoming and talkative woman with an adorable baby gir and I ended up staying at her place talking until the mosquitos were biting. I learned about her transition from Kenya to Uganda and that she converted from being Born Again to Seventh-Day Adventist in order to be involved at the school. I am very excited to have a new friend and I have the feeling that I have a lot to learn from her when we spend time together in the future.
The next day, I had David, my director, show me the CODEAPS office where I will be volunteering when I am not teaching. They have some awesome programs, but David feels like they are going to need a lot more funding to really get off the ground. For example, they provide goats to families with HIV positive members, but are unable to provide any to over 45 of them. They also sponsor orphans to go to school, but can only cover the expenses of 7 out of 93 of them and the numbers continue to grow. It is clear that I have my work cut out for me. After visiting the office, I headed to a neighboring town to spend some time with some of the other volunteers, Kendyl and Spenser. I accompanied Kendyl to local clinic where she plans to do a majority of her volunteering and was lucky enough to actually get put to work in the maternity ward. It was amazing. I was taught how to determine how far along the pregnancy was, whether the baby was properly positioned, and how to listen to a baby's heart. It blows my mind away how women go through pregnancy here. They have far fewer accommodations for a woman's comfort here than they do at home and carrying a child is considered to be a difficult task even in the states. One woman was on her 7th child and wants to get her tubes tied after that one because she thinks 7 is definitely enough. While that same woman was there, we had a hard time getting a heartbeat from the baby. One of the more experienced nurses spent what felt like an eternity trying to find it and the entire room was paralyzed. I can only imagine how hard it would to lose a child...even a child that you weren't necessarily planning on.
Despite how difficult pregnancies seem to be out here, I was also to learn a few things that absolutely lifted my spirits. I think the best thing I have heard since I got here was from one of the nurses. She said that she has delivered 500 babies to mothers who are HIV positive. Out of those 500, 3 of them have had HIV themselves. This small bit of information gives me hope that those children can have a much better future than I think most would expect for them.
I also went with Kendyl and Spenser to work on a village health survey. Their program director, Festus, is trying to encourage the community to live a more healthy lifestyle by surveying the surrounding area on their living conditions and encouraging them to make improvements. It was frustrating work because most of the work seemed to fall to our translator. However, it seems that they have more success when a couple of Muzungu are around. It makes it seem more important to actually clean up your latrine or to get a mosquito net for everyone in the house.
I hope to post pictures of my home-stay family soon, but this will probably not be possible until next week at the soonest.
On the other hand, I have been somewhat bored this past week. I think this was mostly due to the fact that my work will not begin until Monday so the combination of having nothing important to do with myself and not knowing the area well enough to get around on my own put a bit of a damper on my spirits. The parents of the host family I am staying with weren't around the house very much and since the kids aren't strong English speakers and the only thing I can say in Luganda is "I don't speak Luganda," I felt a bit lonely. Finally, on Wednesday night I realized that I had to take more control of my own happiness. I walked across the street and visited a woman named Caroline. Caroline is from Kenya and is a wife of one of the teachers at the school. She is an incredibly welcoming and talkative woman with an adorable baby gir and I ended up staying at her place talking until the mosquitos were biting. I learned about her transition from Kenya to Uganda and that she converted from being Born Again to Seventh-Day Adventist in order to be involved at the school. I am very excited to have a new friend and I have the feeling that I have a lot to learn from her when we spend time together in the future.
The next day, I had David, my director, show me the CODEAPS office where I will be volunteering when I am not teaching. They have some awesome programs, but David feels like they are going to need a lot more funding to really get off the ground. For example, they provide goats to families with HIV positive members, but are unable to provide any to over 45 of them. They also sponsor orphans to go to school, but can only cover the expenses of 7 out of 93 of them and the numbers continue to grow. It is clear that I have my work cut out for me. After visiting the office, I headed to a neighboring town to spend some time with some of the other volunteers, Kendyl and Spenser. I accompanied Kendyl to local clinic where she plans to do a majority of her volunteering and was lucky enough to actually get put to work in the maternity ward. It was amazing. I was taught how to determine how far along the pregnancy was, whether the baby was properly positioned, and how to listen to a baby's heart. It blows my mind away how women go through pregnancy here. They have far fewer accommodations for a woman's comfort here than they do at home and carrying a child is considered to be a difficult task even in the states. One woman was on her 7th child and wants to get her tubes tied after that one because she thinks 7 is definitely enough. While that same woman was there, we had a hard time getting a heartbeat from the baby. One of the more experienced nurses spent what felt like an eternity trying to find it and the entire room was paralyzed. I can only imagine how hard it would to lose a child...even a child that you weren't necessarily planning on.
Despite how difficult pregnancies seem to be out here, I was also to learn a few things that absolutely lifted my spirits. I think the best thing I have heard since I got here was from one of the nurses. She said that she has delivered 500 babies to mothers who are HIV positive. Out of those 500, 3 of them have had HIV themselves. This small bit of information gives me hope that those children can have a much better future than I think most would expect for them.
I also went with Kendyl and Spenser to work on a village health survey. Their program director, Festus, is trying to encourage the community to live a more healthy lifestyle by surveying the surrounding area on their living conditions and encouraging them to make improvements. It was frustrating work because most of the work seemed to fall to our translator. However, it seems that they have more success when a couple of Muzungu are around. It makes it seem more important to actually clean up your latrine or to get a mosquito net for everyone in the house.
I hope to post pictures of my home-stay family soon, but this will probably not be possible until next week at the soonest.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Smiles are Free
I have finally reached Uganda! We arrived at the Entebbe Airport yesterday around 2:00 made the two hour drive to Mukono town, which is close to where I will be teaching. We have met most of the volunteers who will also be working in villages and I love getting to know all of them. My personal favorite, a lady named Dee, is actually a middle-aged Australian and probably has the most energy out of anyone I have ever met. We met Dee initially as we were boarding our plane in Addis Ababa and she really knew how to get things moving so that the entire flight would make it onto the plane. She also provided Ashley, Aureliene, Madyline (the volunteers with GlobeMed) and I with money to buy much needed water at the airport. She also gave me what was probably the best advice of my life yesterday as we were driving through Kampala. A little girl had approached the car with an infant sibling on her back, hoping for money. If you know me, you know that not having anything to give her was incredibly hard for me to cope with. Dee turned around from the front seat and said, "I know it's hard, but smiles are free and you can give away as many, many of those as you like."
In the short amount of time that I have been here, that has been my motto, and it really seems to work. After staying at the guest house last night, Leslie (one of the coordinators for the Real Uganda) took us on a tour of Mukono. People here think that white people look incredibly funny and jokingly refer to us as "Mzungu." I have found that the best response to this is to just smile. The people that I have met here are very friendly. One man, David (a friend of Leslie's) almost scared me out of my skin when he came up behind us and introduced himself with a big booming voice and proceeded to give each of us a bear hug.
On the other hand, the "facilities" are less friendly. Our bathroom consists of a hole in the ground and there is no running water. The power at our house also went out last night and has not gone back on since then. I know this may sound a bit odd, but since it's me I'll just go ahead and say that I really enjoy having fewer conveniences. I really feel like this trip will help me to get in touch with the way the seeming "other world" lives and also, to get in touch with myself.
I will move to my placement tomorrow, which means that I might be a bit out of touch for a week or so, but I hope to make it back into town in a week or so. I hope you are all doing very well.
~Catie
P.S. Mom and Dad-I will not be able to get a phone until tomorrow because the shops are closed today. Know that I am well and that I will text you when I am able to.
P.P.S. My apologies for how abrupt these blogs are, I have only limited time in which to write. Hopefully, I will be able to post pictures sometime. I want you all to see what I am using as a bathroom.
In the short amount of time that I have been here, that has been my motto, and it really seems to work. After staying at the guest house last night, Leslie (one of the coordinators for the Real Uganda) took us on a tour of Mukono. People here think that white people look incredibly funny and jokingly refer to us as "Mzungu." I have found that the best response to this is to just smile. The people that I have met here are very friendly. One man, David (a friend of Leslie's) almost scared me out of my skin when he came up behind us and introduced himself with a big booming voice and proceeded to give each of us a bear hug.
On the other hand, the "facilities" are less friendly. Our bathroom consists of a hole in the ground and there is no running water. The power at our house also went out last night and has not gone back on since then. I know this may sound a bit odd, but since it's me I'll just go ahead and say that I really enjoy having fewer conveniences. I really feel like this trip will help me to get in touch with the way the seeming "other world" lives and also, to get in touch with myself.
I will move to my placement tomorrow, which means that I might be a bit out of touch for a week or so, but I hope to make it back into town in a week or so. I hope you are all doing very well.
~Catie
P.S. Mom and Dad-I will not be able to get a phone until tomorrow because the shops are closed today. Know that I am well and that I will text you when I am able to.
P.P.S. My apologies for how abrupt these blogs are, I have only limited time in which to write. Hopefully, I will be able to post pictures sometime. I want you all to see what I am using as a bathroom.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Preparing to Launch
Yesterday, my dogs jumped in the car and refused to budge until they were literally dragged out of the driver's seat so I could use run errands. If nothing else drove the point home, this moment was the one that indicated the most pointedly that I am going to be gone for a long time-this is probably because my dogs know me better than I know me. However, I still feel like I have been a bit too busy to really make sense of what this trip means to me. I have been saying I was going to go to Uganda for just about 4 years now and now that I am taking off in less than 24 hours, I feel like I haven't had very much time to absorb the experience. Even though Uganda seems rather far away (which refers to time in this case), I am still very excited about the trip.
Ashley and I met with Marcellina and Albert Otii from Uganda last night. We went to their house and had a traditional Ugandan meal. We were able to talk about Ugandan culture, some of the logistics of traveling in the country, and (most exciting of all) what kind of activities we can do with our students. The food and conversation were both fantastic, which made me a lot less nervous and a lot more excited. Marcellina says that students in Uganda will be dedicated and eager to learn and that teachers are revered in their culture; students will even kneel before teachers until they are lifted up and given permission to continue walking. While I'm not sure how comfortable it will be to have my students kneeling before me, I am happy to hear that they will really want to learn. We talked a lot about what topics and lessons would benefit the students and I am now looking forward to a lot of different identification activities (for colors, numbers, animals, etc), posters of my students' favorite names, words, and colors; and a lot of singing and dancing. Ashley and I made plans to swap books halfway through the summer so our students can be exposed to the widest variety of learning materials possible and will be planning more lessons while on the plane from Texas to Dubai.
I am really pleased at how my flight itinerary worked out. Even though it will take 2 days to get to Uganda, the flights work out in favor of rest and relaxation. Apparently, the Dubai International Airport provides free hotel rooms for all of its passengers with layovers between 8-24 hours long. This means that I will actually get to shower and sleep halfway through our trip there....and I won't have to pay for it. I will also get to see more of the city than I was expecting, which is also a plus.
I apologize for rambling so much in these first couple of blogs. I can guarantee that future posts won't be nearly as long due to exhaustion and the price of Internet access in Uganda ($1 per minute). My future posts will also be infinitely more interesting because I will actually be traveling as I write them.
Ashley and I met with Marcellina and Albert Otii from Uganda last night. We went to their house and had a traditional Ugandan meal. We were able to talk about Ugandan culture, some of the logistics of traveling in the country, and (most exciting of all) what kind of activities we can do with our students. The food and conversation were both fantastic, which made me a lot less nervous and a lot more excited. Marcellina says that students in Uganda will be dedicated and eager to learn and that teachers are revered in their culture; students will even kneel before teachers until they are lifted up and given permission to continue walking. While I'm not sure how comfortable it will be to have my students kneeling before me, I am happy to hear that they will really want to learn. We talked a lot about what topics and lessons would benefit the students and I am now looking forward to a lot of different identification activities (for colors, numbers, animals, etc), posters of my students' favorite names, words, and colors; and a lot of singing and dancing. Ashley and I made plans to swap books halfway through the summer so our students can be exposed to the widest variety of learning materials possible and will be planning more lessons while on the plane from Texas to Dubai.
I am really pleased at how my flight itinerary worked out. Even though it will take 2 days to get to Uganda, the flights work out in favor of rest and relaxation. Apparently, the Dubai International Airport provides free hotel rooms for all of its passengers with layovers between 8-24 hours long. This means that I will actually get to shower and sleep halfway through our trip there....and I won't have to pay for it. I will also get to see more of the city than I was expecting, which is also a plus.
I apologize for rambling so much in these first couple of blogs. I can guarantee that future posts won't be nearly as long due to exhaustion and the price of Internet access in Uganda ($1 per minute). My future posts will also be infinitely more interesting because I will actually be traveling as I write them.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Hey guys,
I started this blog so I can (hopefully) keep in touch with all of you over the summer. I want to be able to keep you all in the loop about how I am doing, but I also want to hear what is going on at home so feel free to post lengthy comments about what you're up to. I am going to miss you all a lot while I am gone. In fact, I think I am looking forward to coming back home just as much as I am looking forward to going away. I think this is going to be an awesome summer and I can't wait to share it with you!
Love,
Catie
I started this blog so I can (hopefully) keep in touch with all of you over the summer. I want to be able to keep you all in the loop about how I am doing, but I also want to hear what is going on at home so feel free to post lengthy comments about what you're up to. I am going to miss you all a lot while I am gone. In fact, I think I am looking forward to coming back home just as much as I am looking forward to going away. I think this is going to be an awesome summer and I can't wait to share it with you!
Love,
Catie
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