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.