Pizza and Frogs

30 June 2012

Second week of teaching did not really involve any teaching. It is midterms which means that all grades except Senior4 (sophomores) and Senior 6 (seniors) had three tests per day for the five days. I proctored the Senior 1 (7^th grade) history exam- this consists of passing out the exam, going to the staff room for 1.5 hours and then going back to pick them up-I left three rooms of 75-80 boys each alone in their rooms with an exam and each time I went to check on them, it was quite as a church, pen to paper. No one talks, no one cheats, no one gets up- and they are sitting three to a desk. I really can’t do it justice here, it is one of those moments that I just went “wow”.  S 4 and 6 have mock exams starting next week- basically like the PSAT except no multiple choice!  These are the years that they take the national exam to determine if they can either continue on to S5/6 (O level exams) or go to university (A level exams). Basically their lives are determined by a single exam. A similar process happens at university- if you score well on the exams you can continue to study for law or engineering or medicine- if not…(you get to be a teacher!)

We have been getting rain pretty consistently every day- usually in the late afternoon or evening. On Wednesday we had a fabulous storm- it started with about an hour of amazing lightning and thunder- several of us just pulled chairs up on the porch and just watched the show. Then it started to rain, first just drops and then pretty consistently. Jessica and I missed dinner because we had been at Mother Theresa’s, so we ordered pizza from the little restaurant across the road from us. When we left the rain was moderate, by the time we crossed the street it was torrential. So we decided to eat there. Again hard to describe but- torrential rain, metal roof, no windows, and a frog hopping across the floor. TIA! (This is Africa). When we finally braved the gullies, puddles and downpour- we ended up being locked out of the gate, because the guards had disappeared.

We are multiplying and not John Travolta style…

Group two arrived on Tuesday- 13 more teachers. We are now 27 in the house with 19 high school students arriving Sunday (tomorrow). It should be interesting! The kids are coming as part of the Schools4Schools program- they raised the most money this year.  They will be out of the house most of the time visiting the different schools. Our cook Grace will be now cooking for all of us. Speaking of Grace, after going with her to see her village, I asked if she knew a good tailor (that is how most clothes are made –not mass produced, but by hand using a pedal sewing machine.) Anyway, her sister and sister-in-law are both tailors, so she took me to see her sister and she us currently making a dress, skirt and …(surprises for the girls). The work is amazing and she did it all in three days- picking them up tomorrow. Cost- about $10.00 per item. Her name is Florence.

We are running out of weekends…next weekend is the conference, the weekend after the Safari, and then rafting the Nile and home. Headed back to Mama T’s (Mother Theresa’s) this afternoon with Kristine- who will probably be back to stay one day, and tomorrow it’s St. Jude’s Orphanage.

Mother Theresa’s Primary School (Mama T's)

Monday 25 June

My partner teacher or religion is Sister Hellen Lamunu. A truly amazing woman who was not only inspired by Mother Theresa, but is following her path of selfless devotion to the most affected by the war, the children. There are around 250 children ages 3-17 about 50 of whom are deaf. The school just goes to Primary 7 (6^th grade) and she has her first set of students taking the national test this year. Even the oldest are just reaching P7 due to missing school when they were younger. While not all the children are orphans by definition, if Sister did not  take them in, they would be on the street. You know all those fairy tales about the wicked step mother…well I am pretty sure they originated in Africa.

When a man divorces his wife, or marries another wife, he will effectively give control of his children to the new wife (step-mother)- in most of the cases at Mama T’s the step mother gave the father the ultimatum- either I go or the kids go- so the kids get kicked out. Since it is the women who rule the home front, her word is law. 

But let me back up a tell you  how she started: she began a vocational school for young (read teenage) mothers who returned from captivity with no way to take care of their children. They went to school to learn tailoring and Sister started a nursery school for their kids. As fewer women need the vocational part, the school expanded to include primary. Then one day, Sister received a call from the police that they had found an baby in a village that had just been raided by the LRA- everyone was dead or gone and an 8 month old baby boy was found in a hut. She placed him with a foster family until she could set up the accommodations to take children full-time. It took 3 years and he is now 11. So from one little boy to 250 since 2006.  Many have parents who died of HIV, some just came out of hiding to find their family gone. Many were born in displacement camps, then their parents died in the camp, so they have no idea where their ancestral land is. And then others where just abandoned either because they were deaf or due to the divorce scenario. One little girl was found in a trash can.

They are so starved for personal attention, that each time we go we have 8-10 just holding on…

The biggest concern for Sister now is that even if the 10 or so students taking the exam do well, there is no money to send them to secondary school. She hopes one day to build a secondary school on the land (she has 11 acres)…but in the meantime she does what she can.  Kristine and I are talking about setting up a foundation to provide scholarship money for the ones with no relatives. There is no future for these kids with no education.  Keep them in your prayers.

Sister Hellen and some her kids

one side of the girls dorm

She just laughed and laughed when she saw me!

Uganda and the West-Unintended consequences…

While Uganda is a very poor country, especially by our standards, the influence of the west is everywhere.  This is both a good thing and in many ways a very bad thing. One of the questions that we were asked in our orientation is if we thought colonization (by the British) had a positive impact. This is a difficult question- some people said yes, because it brought education and advanced technology- others, myself included, believed that Africa in general, and Uganda specifically would have developed on its own- maybe not at the pace or in the same way as Europe, but they had education- again not like Europe, but appropriate to their culture. The also had technology and a religion that was appropriate to their culture. It is probable that through trade, many of the advancements that came to Europe through trade would also have come to Africa without disturbing/eliminating the existing culture. Recovering from colonization, aid in the form of money or goods paid to the government in the hope it would reach the people has proven difficult for the Africans to overcome.

Other observations: plastic is evil. Obviously introduced by western culture but without the means to recycle or dispose of it (i.e. there are not nice little trash bins on every corner with a service to come pick up weekly). It litters the streets, the fields, it is everywhere- plastic grocery bags, plastic bottles and containers, bottle tops, white plastic, black plastic, and now they use it to start their fires- because it burns so well- and then all the toxic fumes add to the vehicle exhaust and garbage burning fumes…

I also learned this week that the clothes we donate to say Goodwill, Red Cross, etc. if they are not sold in the thrift stores at home, they are packed up into huge bales and sent over here to be sold to Ugandans who then resell them in mass markets. While the idea of the people having a small business in used clothing is definitely a good thing, the down side is that now the Indian and Arabs are buying the best stuff, marking it up so the regular Ugandan can not afford it and leaving the lower quality clothes for the small merchants.  Another negative is that this has increased the demand for western clothes, thus taking business away from the local tailors- who rely on making all kinds of clothes for adults and children. It is really important to keep in mind the unintended consequences of everything we do.

Coffee- so with the demand for coffee worldwide- and especially in the US, more Ugandan farmers are growing and selling coffee- another plus for their economy- and yes there is a downside…they have cleared fields that had been used to grow food crops and planted coffee plants… result will mean that they will be dependent on food imports because they do not have enough land available to grow the food to supply their needs.
Even for us spending money here- we were told to always bargain the price- because they will try to sell things for the munu (white) price. Of course it seems ridiculous to bargain a ride home from .50 to .35 when I would happily pay more...the result is that it raises the price across the board for everyone, causing inflation and basically messing up their economy. Unintended consequences... just something to think about.   Apwoyo! (means hello and thank you pronounced afoyo)

I guess it rains down in Africa…

Today we went to the Recreation Project. It was started by an American as a way to bring Ugandan youth affected by the war to come together and learn teamwork, communication, overcoming obstacles. The staff is Ugandan and they do teambuilding games and trust games, similar to what we do at Hancock with the 7^th graders, or Katie organizes. Then we zip lined- whoo hooo- see the video- and then climbed the rock wall. We were joined by some of the partner teachers and they are so open and welcoming, sometimes the people here just amaze me with their perspective and how they do not wallow in the incredible hardship they have lived through. 

As we were sitting eating banana’s and resting in between events, I started talking to a one of the partner teachers from Gulu Secondary School- first you must understand that Gulu SS is basically the school for all the kids who could not get accepted at all the other schools- the school for problem students. We had already learned that Alex’s baby had been in the hospital for three days for treatment, and then his son, who has sickle cell, had to go for a blood transfusion the same week- so here we are talking and I ask him how many children he has, he tells me four. I tell him I have four as well.  Then he says, “but I am responsible for 24 people” and he then tells his story: he was taken by the LRA when he was 29, in 1996. He was forced to stay with them for 10 years before he escaped in 2006. After he was taken, the people in his village retaliated against his family- because he was in the LRA- it did not matter that it was not by choice.  They took his sister and her family and put them in their hut and burned them alive. Then they killed his brother.  He talked of the many horrible things he was forced to do, so bad that it makes him sick to even think about them. When he escaped he came home and now takes care of his grandmother who is 101, his mother, who is 80, his four children, wife, and 17 children who were orphaned because of the war.  He works and lives in town during the week and on the weekend, goes back to his village which is about 15 miles away to cultivate the land and do other work to help with the upkeep of all his dependents.  He feels this is how he can atone for some of what he did- and given all that, he took the day to spend with us basically playing- all with a smile on his face and eagerness to participate.  A truly humbling conversation.

Here we all are!

Yes-me falling backwards into the hands of new friends

the rock wall- I look like a dork

awesome climb

waiting for the rain to stop with chickens

So about the rain… see the pics and video- it started right after we got to the road to go home- ran for shelter under the roof of a random building across the street. Waited it out- about 20-30 min. and then started walking for home- with virtually rivers running down both sides of the street. It was awesome!  And the chickens where pretty cool too. 

The First Week of School…

I just completed the first week of school. Here is a typical day…meet my partner teacher in the staff room (a room about 20x30 with school desks around the perimeter for each teacher, a large table in the center of the room and a TV- yes- and it is on all the time)- I sit and watch him copy notes from the text he is using for East African History- literally word for word with possible some additions of his own.  We then walk across the courtyard (the big grassy/dirt area) to the classroom where the 76 Senior 1 boys are waiting for us. You see in Uganda, the teachers do not have a classroom that the students come to, the student stay in the classroom and wait for a teacher to come- sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t- but the boys stay just the same. I included some pictures because it is hard to describe- one big room, rows of benches with maybe 8 in. writing surface attached and they sit three to a desk. All have notebooks of varying sizes and styles, and blue pens. My teacher brings a chair for me to sit in and then proceeds to dictate the lesson to the boys, occasionally writing whole paragraphs on the blackboard (and by that I mean the concrete which extends out from the wall by about a ¼ inch and is painted black) with chalk- yes chalk.  When I say dictate- I mean saying each sentence or part sentence over and over 4 or 5 times while the boys write furiously in their notebooks. This goes on for either 40 or 80 mins. Then another teacher arrives (or not) and we head back to the staff room to wait for the next class he teaches. My teacher has three sections of Senior 1 (basically 7^th grade, but the boys can be anywhere from 11-16ish) and three sections of Senior 4 (that would be 10^th grade or age 15ish to 18ish). He meets each sections three times during the week for 40 min- sometimes the blocks are back to back, making an 80 min. class.

The reason for the age range is that some boys either missed some years of school because they were abducted, or in some other way affected by the war, or they could not pay the fees to attend, so missed school until they could pay again. There is no free school in Uganda- all the government schools cost, the boarding ones, like St. Joseph College Layibi ( or Layibi College as it is commonly known here) cost more-as the parents have to supplement the food. The government pays about 15cents per student per day for food.

As one of the schools connected to Invisible Children, Layibi has received new roofs on many of the buildings, new labs for science, some books and other refurbishments.  There are up to 30 or so boys in each class who are also part of the legacy scholarship program which helps to pay some of their fees- it is available to students who were directly affected by the war- usually those who were either abducted by the LRA or who lost parents etc. 

The boys have morning parade at 7:30 every morning (pretty much like a parade- raise the flag, sing the national anthem etc). Then classes start at 8. They sit for four classes and then have break around 10:40- when they are given porridge (picture cream of wheat the consistency of water). Classes resume at 11:05 and they have four more- till 2:00 when they go to lunch- which consists of posho (picture cream of wheat the consistency of jello) and beans. They get meat twice a week on Wed. and Sun.  At 2:30 they go back to class for four more classes until around 4-5 and then they change into T-shirts and maybe athletic pants if they have them and hit the fields for recreation time- futbol (soccer), rugby etc.  There are also some clubs that meet at that time and there is even a scout troop.

Chalkboard

Senior 1 (7th grade)

Senior 1 History

Classroom blocks

Boys in line for lunch

Where they wash up

The kitchen- I'm not kidding

One of the many signs on the school lawn

View after IC renovation

view before IC renovation

science lab

Me playing Mwasu with Moses

Our house

Gulu Town

Acholi Food- posho, sweet potato, beans, boo (pronounced bow), malakwang and rice

our room, with mosquito nets on the beds, mine is bottom rt.

Gulu Town- check our the man's shirt!

At MEND- there are currently 22 women who support their families by making the bags.

Outside the MEND building

This is the gate to our house- yes he really is that tall.

poisonous Caterpillar hanging in our yard

Yes, that is me an Jollie! She came to talk to us- how empowering.

Five Girls, Two Bodas and a thundershower

So I have settled in to our house, which is really lovely. It is more of a compound and we have 24 hour guards- the night time guards even have a really scary looking gun. It is not really because there is a danger to us, but to keep out thieves. I share a room with 7 other women with two more coming in the second group next week. We have 5 bedrooms and three bathrooms, a cook for breakfast and dinner, and pit latrines in the backyard... We try to use those only in the daytime as the cockroaches come out at night. We get around on motorcycles called boda bodas- kind of like a motorcycle taxi. They cost about 35cents to get into town. We can also walk to town, about 3/4 - 1mile from our house. It is pretty hot- more because of the humidity- it is very much like Mexico and I am reminded of Zijuatenejo on a daily basis.

The Acholi people are soft spoken, and very welcoming. I am currently sitting across the street from the bus depot where the children night commuters came to sleep during the height of the war. It was recorded on the Invisible children rough cut.

The other night all of us went out to a local hang out- futbol games on TV etc. and when we left there were only three bodas for five of us, so we doubled up and the minute we left the skies opened up and it poured down rain. We laughed the whole way home and looked like drowned rats. I am going to upload some more pictures...

Goats on a hill

Spencer, I thought you would like this... Done by one of the artists at the Lugoflow.

All of us with the Lugoflow artists

This is called a Rolex- basically a really thick tortilla with egg and spices

Cow crossing!

June 11, 2012

Arrived in Entebbe one suitcase missing- that’s what I get for not insisting on paying the fee for the extra 5 lbs. So all my shoes are traveling somewhere in the world. Luckily I wore my sneakers and have my flip flops.  The drive from the airport reminded me a lot of Zijuatenjo- same lush green terrain, banana trees, funky little 6x8 shops sporadically place along the road, little boys hawking their goods right up to the car window.  Kampala is packed and I am pretty sure there are absolutely no traffic laws. It’s basically drive fast and hope everone gets out of your way.  Motor cycles are the preferred means of transport- you would be amazed what can be carried on the back of a motorcycle.  Interesting observation- very few women out and about- hundreds of men, mostly hanging out in large groups surrounded by motorcycles.

Went to the “mall” to change money- 2650 shillings to the dollar. And to get a phone. I am sharing one Rebecca who will also be teaching at my school. We all got back to the hostel and discovered that the phones won’t accept the extra minutes- so basically the phones are useless.  Went to dinner at Sam’s- again very much like Zijuat- the whole front of the restaurant was open to the night and we had a large table just inside. They serve both Indian food and Continental food. I had the chicken biryani which was delicious. Then back to the hostel (backpackers) and went to bed. Slept like the dead until around 4:30. Now just waiting to finish packing up for our trip to Gulu. Stops today include the US embassy and  lugoflow a center that encourages the youth in artistic ways- music, art, etc.  The trip to Gulu is about 6 hours.