I Love Uganda

Hello everyone! My last blog took me so long to post that I was able to post again soon after! I hope all is happy and well with you and that you are enjoying your summer weather!

Last week Amber and attended a workshop that was training tutors on how to train teachers to teach students about life skills. The first question asked was how STIs were transmitted. The Ugandans all agreed that the only way that STIs could be transmitted was through sexual intercourse. I raise my hand and add that STIs can be transmitted through any sexual act, not only intercourse. They all get a confused look on their face and someone refers to instruments. At this point Amber and I are baffled about what they are talking about so I take it upon myself to clarify what I mean. Mind you, Ugandans are incredibly indirect. I stand up in a room full of fifty adults and say, “For example, lets say I have oral sex with one person and contract herpes. Afterwards, I kiss another person and they now contract herpes. That is one way an STI can be transmitted without sexual intercourse.” If I did not have everyone’s attention at the beginning, I definitely had all eyes on me by the end. I sat down and Amber burst into laughter. Everyone was shocked that I would say such a thing. On top of that I think they now believe that I have herpes. But hey, if it gets them to teach correct information then I will let them believe that I am promiscuous and have herpes.

After the workshop I headed to Iganga to stay with a friend of mine and visit another volunteers women’s group that makes the paper beads I want my students to make. I got there Saturday afternoon and met up with the volunteers in that area for lunch and headed over to meet Cate’s group and learned how to made beads. The work these women is absolutely beautiful. I tried to make one and it was a disaster. The worst part about trying to roll the paper is that you notice how dirty your finger nails are in this country. I think I need to invest in a bottle of black nail polish so I will never have to accept how dirty I am on a regular basis. On my way back to Masaka I stopped in Kampala to get some things from the Peace Corps office. During this time I get a call from my friends Jackie and Sam telling me that they are at the airport a half hour away from Kampala. Jackie and Sam are my friends from the states who have spent the past four weeks making their way up to Uganda from South Africa. I knew they were coming sometime soon, but I haven’t been to the internet for a while so I had no idea when they were coming. So that was a big wonderful surprise for me! When I got them to my village my villagers were on muzungu overload. They were going nuts over Jackie and Sam.

This week I started teaching English to the P6 and P7 kids and I was thankful Jackie and Sam were here to help me out for the first week. The first day we taught the P7 students and for the most part it went really well. I had them do a writing sample and realized that many them are having much trouble with forming basic sentences. The next day we taught P6 and it was a bit rough; they were having a really hard time understanding what we were asking them to do, but by the second lesson they were doing really well. Because both P6 and P7 were having a difficult time forming basic sentences we decided that we should start with the basics. The next day we went over what a noun was and had them work in groups using some flash cards of nouns and adjectives and had them pick out which ones were nouns. It was a great lesson because children here are not taught to work in groups and some of the groups were doing a really great job of discussing and thinking critically together. I also really liked it because we were using a resource we found in the box of unused resources and the children loved them. We had them do some fun appreciation cheers for right answers and at the end of our lesson they thanked up for teaching by doing the cheer for us. It was wonderful and I absolutely love teaching them.

I didn’t visit schools this week because I am teaching English at an odd time of day. We got to spend a great deal of time with the kids during their breaks. They have always known that I was a bit goofy, but once we added Jackie and Sam to the mix we were all kinds of weird and the kids loved it. We were teaching the kids silly songs, dancing, and just making fools of ourselves. The teachers thought we were nuts, but it was great to show them how teachers in the states interact with their students. The other day one of the teachers asked me to teach the students how we dance in America. I just laughed, I cannot think of anything worse than me teaching kids how we dance in America.

While I was developing instructional materials in the resource room Sam witnessed one of the teachers beating the children. I asked him about it later and he saw nothing wrong with it, although it is illegal. We talked for a bit about why, especially in a country with a history of violence, it is important that we are not being instigators. He did not agree and tried giving me the excuse that Africans are different from Americans and that they must be beat or they will not behave. He keeps claiming that other methods would not work and that beating them is the only way. However, beating them is not working either. What I find the most interesting is that the students he has the most trouble with I have no trouble with at all. He says that when he tells them to carry water they refuse. However, these children beg to carry my water. He says that in class they refuse to listen. However, in my class they are incredibly well behaved. I think the difference is that they respect me because I don’t believe in this whole hierarchy that Ugandans love and because I treat them as I would a friend. In fact they are my friends. If a child respects you they will do as you wish, but why would a child willingly do something for someone that beats them and pays no attention to them? I mentioned to the boys that I was told that they have bad discipline and they were mortified. On Monday I told that teacher that we could talk about alternative discipline methods so hopefully that will go well.

The other day Jackie and Sam offered to paint a wonderful quote on my wall that says, “I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy” by Ernest Heminway. I was joking with Jackie about looking out for Patu if she leaves the black paint on my back porch because last time he smeared orange paint all over my back porch. Well, I walk out on my back porch a bit later to find Patu sitting there with a big paint covered grin on his face. I am not sure what he was doing, but it looks as if he was tasting the paint. He is outrageous, but I love him more and more everyday. I am so glad that Jackie and Sam had the opportunity to understand why I love this naughty and strange little boy so much.

I have always loved my village and I hate when I have to leave it for more than a day at a time, but it was not until this week that I realized how attached we all are to one another. The other day I was talking to an older student and he told me that he was sad because his mom was going to die. She is in the hospital next to my home and has not ate, drank, or talked in the past week. He tells me that she is suffering from malaria, but he asked me to tell him about HIV/AIDS so I suspect that she may have AIDS. His Dad lives about four hours away and is a fisherman and his sister and brother have been taking care of him while she has been sick. It broke my heart to hear him talk about his mother and what he thinks will happen if (but as he says, when) she dies. I have noticed that he waits around until six or seven until he leaves the school, he is always wanting to help me, and very curious about my own mother. He is doing everything he can to take his mind off of his mother and I believe I am the only person he has told about his mother. When he left me the other night to visit his mother I burst into tears. Sometimes the reality of these children's’ hardships is too much to handle. Their strength is inspirational.

Yesterday when Jackie and Sam where leaving they were telling some of the students goodbye and even though the boys only knew them for four days they had tears in their eyes. I made a horrible joke with Martin, the boy I have known the longest, about how I was also leaving with them to go back to the States. Martin, a fifteen year old boy, burst in to tears; I cannot think of a time I have seen someone so upset. It took me a good five minutes to get him to calm down. It did not help that I did not know the word for “joke” in Luganda. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson about making jokes when you don’t know how to tell someone you are joking. I have often thought about how hard it will be for me to leave these people in two years, but this was the first time I really realized what my leaving is going to do to this village and how much of an impact I am making on these children. I have no idea how I am going to leave these people in two years.

Anyway, thank you again for taking the time out of your lives to read about my little life here in Uganda! I hope all is happy and well on your side of the world!

Peace and love,

Autumn