The Best Worst Weekend Ever

Greetings everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! My apologies for taking so long to write, but I have been rather busy in the past couple of weeks.

Last week a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and myself decided that we would like to go camping over the weekend. On Friday I made the six and a half hour trip out west to Fort Portal to meet him. On Saturday morning we made our way to the taxis and told them that we wanted to go to the Rwenzori Mountains. Now, most of you have probably not heard of the Rwenzori Mountains, but they are humongous. Of course the drivers tried asking where at the Rwenzoris, but we had not thought this far. One driver told us he new a place and to get in the car. Once we were in the car we waited for about an hour for him to find a spare tire, but eventually we made it to the mountains. At this point we were told that we would need a guide and porters to carry our things, but we decided that we would be able to carry our own gear and that we would only take the guide.

In all honesty, I had no idea what I was about to get myself into. We were told that it was about a two hour walk to the park boundary, with twenty some pounds on my back I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant, but I didn’t think it would be too bad. Within the first hour I thought I was going to die; this was not a walk by any means, but a serious climb. I know I am not in great shape, but I did not think I was by any means out of shape until this day. For the first hour, or so, I insisted on carrying the tent; I had my pride to keep, but after some time I realized that if I didn’t give it to Robert I probably wouldn’t be making it to the top of that mountain. It was also at this point that Patrick told us that we were going to start climbing. We just spent the last hour climbing some rather steep inclines and we were just now really start climbing? He was right. I cannot believe we were able to climb some of these inclines. We were making our way through trenches dug out by the rain. I felt like I was at fat camp or on “The Biggest Loser.” I would have to stop to rest for a bit and Robert would keep saying, “Just keep going if you stop it is going to make it harder. You can do it; we are almost there.” I don’t think I responded in anyway to Robert’s comments, but I wanted to push him off the mountain a few times. If I was able to move on without taking a break I would have. I didn’t need motivation, I needed someone to carry me. After a couple of hours we made it to the park boundary and headed farther up the mountain where it only became more steep. Most of the time I refused to look up because just when I thought we would get a break from the climbing I would find another difficult climb ahead of us and want to cry. Thanks to some blue monkeys we were able to take a bit of a break and not long after that we were finally at the top of the mountain, 2000 meters high. Eventually we did make it to the top and it was absolutely amazing. We were in a jungle on top of a mountain.

Despite how much we wanted to, it was still a bit too early for bed when we arrived so Robert and I decided to go for a walk. Patrick stayed behind supposedly to watch the tent. We came to an overgrown area and stopped only to discover what sounded like rain, but the sky was blue. I looked down at the ground and realized that the sound we were hearing was not rain, but millions of ants eating the leaves around us. I then noticed that ants were crawling all over my shoes and making their way up my pants. Now, these are not just ordinary ants. These ants bite and it does not feel good. Robert was trying to knock them off the outside of my pants while I was trying to smash the ones inside my pants. Robert of course found it amusing that I would have ants in my pants. I, on the other hand, did not find it one bit amusing. We spent a good while trying to kill the ants before I realized that some had make it all the way up the back of my shirt almost to my neck. At this point the only thing I could do was take off my shirt. Just as Robert is finishing knocking off the ants off of my back Patrick comes strolling around the corner. I am not exactly sure what he saw, but I am sure it didn’t look too good. I cannot quite figure out why the ants liked me so much more than Robert, but he seems to think it is because I had sweated out the immense amount of sugar I eat weekly.

When we began climbing the mountain we noticed that Patrick was carrying a very small bag; not even a backpack. Once we got to the top of the mountain we noticed that Patrick has stuffed a large jacket in the bag and that there definitely was not a tent, sleeping bag, or food in that bag of his. When we asked him where he was sleeping his response was, “You don’t have two tents?” I don’t know why he would have thought we would have two tents, but my tent is big enough for three so it was no problem. Now, 2000 meters up it gets rather cold so I ask Patrick if he has a sleeping bag, but of course he does not. Robert and I decided that we would share mine and give Patrick his. Now, as far as food goes, we are not sure what Patrick ate. It was suggested that we give him 10,000 shillings to buy food before we left the town, but all we saw him with was a 1,000 shilling bottle of water and a pack of cigarettes. Patrick also smelled of alcohol, so I guess we know where our money went and why he wanted to stay behind and watch the tent. The only food I brought on this trip was an apple and a box of crackers. Robert brought a smashed loaf of bread that tasted like play-dough, an avocado, peanut butter, and some jerky. So him and I took turns sharing the one spoon we had eating a spoonful of peanut butter and stuffing bread crumbs in our mouth. Needless to say, Patrick did not ask to eat any of our food. Around seven-thirty we were exhausted so the three of us and Patrick’s riffle climbed into the tent; Robert in the middle. Within five minutes Patrick was snoring quite loudly and within a half hour Patrick was practically sleeping on Robert. A few hours later and Robert and I still cannot sleep due to Patrick’s snoring. It begins to rain and of course we did not fully put the rain cover on because Patrick told us the rainy season was over so we ended up with wet and cold feet the rest of the night.

The next morning we made it back down the mountain in one piece. Robert and I figured I would fall down multiple times, but in reality, I only fell once and was while walking on flat ground after stumbling over a rock. It is a week later and I am still exhausted.

The thing that really gets me about this mountain is that Ugandans live here. They farm on the slopes. They walk up the mountain to school everyday. They fetch water from one of the two streams that flow down its sides. They carry babies tied to their backs with who knows what on the heads. They walk their cows and goats to the top to let them graze and they carry loads of bamboo down the mountain to build their homes. These do these things everyday. I cannot even imagine how strong they must be.

My counterpart arrived a couple of weeks ago and now I am incredibly busy. While it is great to be busy, I miss out on spending a great deal of time with my village which makes me sad. It also leaves me little time to do all of my chores. For the past week or two my counterpart and I have been visiting schools in our area handing out invitations to come to a workshop we will be holding next week. We have around seventy schools and hand delivering them gets a bit old real fast. We stopped at some of the schools and Fredrick would put me on the spot by telling the teachers that I wanted to talk to them, but I had no idea what I was supposed to be talking about. I would ask them questions about whether they had been trained in thematic curriculum and if it was being taught. I would ask about their lesson plans and schemes of works and most times I would get blank stares. I could be talking to ten teachers and not one would answer me; most of them would be looking at their feet. The reason for this kind of response is because they are not doing the things they should be. These teachers are always so excited to see me until they hear that I am an education inspector and from that point on I will not get a single one of them to look me in the eye. Eye contact is a hard thing to come by in Uganda and it drives me crazy at times. I was in a meeting with the head teacher of the primary school that I live and my counterpart and the head teacher spent most of the meeting playing with his radio. At times the radio was so loud that I could not hear a word that was being said. He was doing anything he could to avoid eye contact. I was completely baffled. Could you imagine a school inspector coming to visit your school and your principal was playing with a radio the entire time? However, Fredrick did not seem to mind so I guess it is nothing out of the ordinary. It is a sign of disrespect for children to look an elder in the eye so when children are greeting me they look at their feet and are so quite I can barely hear them. Coming from America we teach our children to be confident and eye contact is important. How many times have you heard your parents or teacher say, “Look at me while I am talking to you.” Luckily for me the children that have gotten to know me no longer look at their feet while talking to me. Now if only I could get the teachers to stop fearing me and start looking at me and answering my questions.

While visiting one of the schools the deputy informed me that they had computers, but that they did not have anyone to train them on how to use them. I am hoping to go next week to check out the computers and see if I could start teaching computer classes at both the primary school as well as the neighboring secondary school that is supposed to be sharing the computers. The older children have also been begging me to teach them more English and after examining their PLE (similar to the I-Step) I noticed that they are really lacking in English. I, however, have no idea how to go about teaching a language especially when I am not fluent in Luganda. However, I think I am going to start a writing club and encourage them to write in English. They know enough to get started and I can help them fill in the blanks. Eventually, I want them to write story books that can be used in the lower primary grades. If you have any ideas on how to go about teaching a foreign language please be sure to let me know! I also had the opportunity to visit a school funded by a Canadian and it was fantastic. They had a fabulous library that I am hoping to duplicate at Kiyumba. I believe I have found an organization that is willing to donate some books, but I am hoping to find more. I am just glad that I have found a library in which I can model Kiyumba’s after.


As Said By Ugandans:

Frank: “So if I go to America my skin will turn white?”
Me: “No, it doesn’t work that way.”
Frank: “But Michael Jackson turned white”

Fredrick:“I don’t want to have women working at my school because they get pregnant and become week.”

Carol: “Where did you learn to eat corn?”

Anyway, I hope this message has found you all happy and well! Happy Father’s Day dad and Happy Birthday Mom! As always, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read!

Peace and Love,

Autumn


p.s. I would love to have some Cliff bars for my next camping trip!

p.s.s. It was brought to my attention that I may have given you the wrong address. The correct one is listed on the top of my blog. There is no zip code. Thanks!