Hello everyone! I hope all is happy and well with you on your side of the world! I want to apologize for the enormous amount of grammatical and spelling errors in last weeks blog. I promise to proofread this one to some extent before posting.

I cannot believe I had forgotten to write about this earlier, but a few weeks ago I was conducting a workshop on thematic curriculum. Upon my arrival at the school I was greeted by the headmaster who greeted me with a couple of slaps on the face. I was absolutely flabbergasted and I can only imagine what my face had to have looked like. To my surprise I ended up really liking this man at the end of the day.

Last weekend before Jackie and Sam left Lisandro and I took them out dancing at a club in Masaka town. While a decent amount of people were drinking alcohol there was also a decent amount of people drinking milk out of box with a straw. It was like a juice box of milk drank by grown men at a club. How often do you see that in the states?

Every week I do something and realize that I am becoming a bit more Ugandan. Most of the time I think it’s funny until I realize what consequences this will carry once I return to the states. Yesterday small children were playing with magnets (which they love Kelly!) and I decided it would be a good idea to give them five rusty nails to play with. I was a teacher and a nanny before I came to Uganda. I spent most of my time keeping things like rusty nails away from children and now I am giving them to them.

When I first moved to Kiyumba my supervisor and I stopped at the police station to introduce myself. One of the first things they said to me was that Kiyumba is very dangerous and that I needed armed guards. Amber and I laughed about this for the past two months because it seemed ridiculous to us. Well, the other morning the local chairman, the deputy of the school, and two armed guards showed up at my house. Apparently they are going to start patrolling the village at night. I’m not sure if the are going to be patrolling all of the village or just my house, but I was in shock. I have armed guards wondering around outside of my house at night. I have no idea who’s idea this was or who’s money is paying for these men, but hey, I have armed guards.

I think I had mentioned last week that Sam had witnessed a male teacher beating some of the students and that I had a talk with him about copral punishment. On Monday I was walking over to the school and I witnessed a female teacher with the students lined up beating them with a stick because apparently they were not cleaning the compound as they were supposed to. I really like this teacher and she was completely mortified when she saw that I was upset and promised it would not happen again. On Tuesday I made myself lunch and was on my way to my front porch to eat when I saw a student laying on his side and a girl in his class beating him with a stick. She seemed uncomfortable about it, but the same male teacher I had a talk with on Friday was encouraging her to hit him harder. On top of this, the entire class was purposely gathered around to watch. This time the male student had stolen sugar cane from the girl’s farm. I again talked with the teacher and he was completely baffled. He said, “But you said that I couldn’t beat the children. I didn’t know they couldn’t beat eachother.” It seemed ridiculous to me. Can you imagine giving a student a stick and having him beat another student? We talked for awhile and he asked what he should have done with the student. I told him that he should have to go and apologize to the girl’s father and pay for the sugarcane taken and if he could not pay he should do some work at the man’s house to make up for the cost. He seemed to agree with me. When I asked him if he felt that beating the children was working he agreed that it was not. Later on that day I was walking through the school and this same teacher and another female teacher stopped me. They had just found a group of girls that were out in the bush picking jamula (similar to grapes) while they were supposed to be at school and they wanted to know what an appropriate punishment would be. I told them that the girls should not be allowed to play during their lunch time the following day and that they should instead be kept inside writing sentences. They agreed and wrote the girls’ names down to miss free time the following day. While the past week’s events have been rather frustrating I am hopeful that change will come about. I talked with my counterpart and we are going to plan a workshop on classroom management/discipline. I am a big believer that a well managed class will not need discipline and I have been been posting my procedures, classroom rules, and consequences in my own classroom. The classroom I have been using in the same room that we hold workshops so it is good that I will be able to show them partly why my students are so well behaved.

Today I taught a couple of the teachers and students how to make the paper beads and they loved it. It is great because they are all very eager to learn and contribute to the library through the profits made off of the beads. They are a bit difficult to make at first and some of them turned out rather bad. I know they are capable of making really good beads with a bit of practice, but right now they are not as good as I want them to be and it is hard for me to tell them they are not as good as they need to be. I have learned that many of the people I work with tell me what I want to hear, but never follow through with their promises. I have one teacher who has really surprised me with her enthusiasm with the project and has even brought me some beautiful seeds from some plant that she was hoping that I could find something to do with. Luckily, the day she brought the seeds Jackie happened to be wearing a beautiful bracelet made out of the same beads. Today after school some students came over to my house and made the paper beads while Paulo made bracelets out of the seeds. So far this project is going just as I would like it to. I have shown them how to make the things, but they are taking complete ownership of the project and I am mearly supervising.

Jackie and Sam I just want to tell you what I have witnessed this week after you have left. The other day I was standing in my kitchen cooking and outside my window I hear “ch ch ch ch ch ch woo!” They were singing the part of singing in the rain that they remembered. I watched Martin place three sticks in a row and play the jumping game by himself. I found out Madagascar was a boy, despite the fact he only ever wears dresses, and he actually talks and smiles all the time. He must have just in muzungu overload. Oh, and as I expected I have received a numerous amount of requests for the photos you took of them. Lastly, I have also finally tired of “Wagon Wheel,” somehow. Believe it or not, as of Monday, it has only been played forty-three times.

I got mail and tons of it the other day; seven packages in total! Thank you Julie, Carla X2, Kelly X2, and Lindsay X2! You are wonderful and the kids and I are really enjoying everything! Geoffrey that postman now also knows that I am incredibly loved!

Peace and love,

Autumn