Turkey Day Warmth and Relaxation

The sun rises at around 6:15 am everyday for just about the entire year. It reaches around 80 degrees by about 9 am. Come about 11 am the heat is in full effect and my mental capacity is substantially hindered. I reserve all heavy mental tasks a start time of 8 am with a full stop at around midday at the latest. The rest of the day I can spend doing productive though not so mentally demanding tasks.

This warm weather has not prepared me adequately for the journey I’m about to make across the ocean to NYC in one week’s time. I’ve told my family to bring me lots of warm clothes. I don’t really have a huge need for those here.

I’m excited for New York. I’m excited to see my family and indulge in all of the offerings of one of the greatest cities in the world. But I fear the cold. Maybe I can bring some Ugandan sunshine with me … somehow.

The third and final school term for the year has ended. It ended two weeks ago. I finished marking 200+ exams, returning results to students, and entering final marks in report cards about a week ago. It was an exhausting process, but one that is important nonetheless. Exhausting for one reason because the marks have to be entered in manually by hand onto a double paged report card with a carbon paper insert that has to be slotted in and removed after every entry. Oh Uganda!

My stream of S3 students during last week of classes

It has been a relaxing week of spending time with my fellow PCVs and enjoying good food over the long Thanksgiving weekend. By the way, Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of you. This was definitely my warmest Thanksgiving on record. We had a great time eating good food and enjoying good company at a volunteer’s site in Kisubi.

Cutting green beans with Pauline for Thanksgiving Dinner

It was a special experience to be able to share a small, small portion of our American culture with Ugandans. We ate turkey together and talked about the holiday of Thanksgiving and what it meant to us and the craziness that happens in America during those few days. They all seemed really interested to hear about it.

Enjoying some turkey, Uganda style

Taking in the finer things in life

Earlier last week, while at site, I was invited by a friend to go see a biogas digester that was being installed at one of his neighbor’s homes. A biogas digester is a chamber that takes some sort of raw input, usually cow manure, and processes it into fuel used for cooking and lighting the home. It’s a really cool concept.

Anyways, I went for a walk with my friend deep into the village and met this family that was making this installation. It was a really cool experience. I talked with the family for a long time about all kinds of issues. They served me way too many sweet potatoes and lots of milk tea, both of which I really enjoy.

After receiving a tour of the digester, I was escorted once again deeper into the village and wandered onto about five other compounds. Where I was introduced to about five other families, all of whom were incredibly happy and excited to see me. These experiences bring a great sense of warmth and belonging to me.

We then managed to wander back to the original compound with the digester. The family then offered me one of their hens and some fresh milk to carry home with me. I was not expecting such an offer, but ended up carrying this chicken back indeed. It is pretty much considered an insult not to accept something that is offered to you here in Uganda. So you always accept.

But before we went home, I of course had to go back with my original friend and drink some more tea and some more food. Even after being completely stuffed from our earlier meeting, I tried to partake in as much as I could. I arrived home to have an amazingly delicious dinner waiting for me prepared by my house girl. I somehow managed to eat that later on in the evening. I have to say that there are some amazingly delicious dishes here and Ugandans really know how to cook with what little they have.

Recently a friend and I were getting on a taxi and the conductor shortchanged us on the taxi fare. We pleaded our case with him and told him not to charge us mzungu price and that what he was doing was wrong, since he was basically charging us more money because we were white.

He refused to give us our full change back and we just had to sit there and take it in stride. There really isn’t much we can do and even if there was we don’t have the patience or interest in wasting time doing it. Right after he refused to give us the regular price, some Ugandans seated behind us in the taxi started talking about the man and criticizing what he was doing.

A few minutes later, he gave us our full change. It was out of the ordinary to see someone choose to do the right thing after feeling so strongly that he needed to rip us off. Even if he did it as a result solely from the peer pressure of his fellow citizens criticizing him, it was still really interesting to experience.

I like looking at people during the bumpy matatu rides that too often fill my days here. During this one ride I glanced out at another conductor who was staring right at me. We locked eyes on each other and didn’t break contact for a few seconds. He had a pretty stoic look on his face. I wanted to see if his expression was ever going to change. It didn’t. Finally, I gave him a smile. He smiled back at me, his face lit up and he waved.

Sometimes I feel like some people have so much happiness inside of them but are somehow fearful to show it. Maybe that is a Ugandan thing. A product of the culture they were brought up in. Maybe I’m just rambling on about nothing. But it feels good to be a part of helping to release some of that happiness contained within some of the Ugandan people I have come to meet and adore.

A Few Recent Pictures

So I realize all these pictures are different sizes. Bear with me here. I'm working with a terrible internet connection. So they aren't perfect. But hopefully you can view them ok. Enjoy.

On the canals in Amsterdam back in August

On my front porch with my house girl, Harriet, and my friend, Gerard

On my front porch with Moses, an S4 student

In my front yard with Gerard again, looking smarter than me of course

Workin' for the Weekend...or maybe just last Sunday

Greetings everyone!

Today I’m writing from the close comfort of my spacious office at school. Today is Monday. Another week of teaching begins as educationalists and students embark from their homes to their schools via any available means of movement (footing, bicycle, motorcycle, taxi, what have you).

I’ve really got it rough with my commute to and from work everyday. I wake up, walk outside, continue walking for two minutes and I’m at work, if you can call this work? Can you? In Uganda, they have a very common phrase. Gyebale (pronounced Jay-Bah-Lay), which roughly translates into “Thank you for the work you have done and are doing.” I get this phrase quite often, so I guess its work to some.

Sometimes it feels like work, in the sense that on occasion I just don’t have the motivation required to enjoy it as much. Other days, it feels like a vacation or a spiritual release. It is hard to describe. I guess a healthy balance of both enables me to keep a level head most of the time.

Yesterday, it felt magical. Last week, one of my students in S3 invited me to her home to meet her family this past Sunday. I kindly accepted and she told me to arrive around 2 in the afternoon.

So I did…almost. If I hadn’t been waiting for transport for so long I would have been on time! I walked about half the distance until a taxi arrived to take me the rest of the way.

When I arrived, I was immediately greeted by the father of the family who welcomed me by greeting me in Ateso (which is the language I know more of and enjoy speaking) and giving me the friendliest, closest, tightest hug I’ve had in a long time. I thanked him several times for having me and my colleague (geography teacher at Kamuge High) over and immediately we were escorted to a shady patch of his plot underneath what appeared to be a Mango Tree, although I can’t be certain anymore.

This family was amazing. It was really incredible to see what they had accomplished with their small but fertile plot of land that was everything to them. They had orange trees, lemon trees, avocado trees, banana trees, JackFruit (most in the US don’t know this one but I assure you it is delicious) trees, papaya, ground nuts, yams, maize, beans, pumpkin, cotton, greens, etc. This family had utilized every square foot of their land in the production of … something. They were completely self sufficient, and they ate well, not only did they eat well, but they ate a VARIETY of foods. The usual daily meal in Uganda consists of one carb (posho, rice, potatoes) and one protein (beans, fish, meat).

Not only was I overwhelmed with what this family had accomplished with what little they had, but also by their incredible hospitality, warmth, and genuine interest and concern for my well being at all times while in their home.

As I said, after greeting, we retreated to the cool shade of a Mango Tree and enjoyed some fresh picked oranges while conversing about family, Uganda, America, politics of both, agriculture, and education among other things. The father spoke English very well, which made it easier for me with my broken Ateso skills.

Afterwards, my friend and I were escorted to a room where there laid a smorgasbord of Ugandan food for us to consume. I mean, this family prepared all the greatest staples of Ugandan cuisine. And then they left us to eat alone, as if eating in peace by ourselves was more important than the whole family eating together, I’m not really sure. Maybe they just weren’t hungry or there wasn’t enough food for the large family to eat inside that room. Anyways, it was delicious and well appreciated.

After eating, we were brought back outside underneath another patch of shade to continue our conversation. The father spoke about how the farm and the family were doing well. Every once and a while he would explain some of the problems they were having with not being able to afford school fees for advanced education for all of his children. It seems his kids are very smart too. His daughter, whom I teach, is one of my best students. And his other kids had the ability to reach university but not the financial means to do so. So they were now pursuing opportunities in Kampala.

We talked about corruption in the education and employment sectors of Uganda. And how problems are viewed by villagers versus the urbanites in the larger cities and towns of Uganda. We talked about progress and how it is viewed in Kampala and other large towns. And how that progress doesn’t always translate into any sort of tangible hand of opportunity or improvement to those citizens living deep in the village of rural Uganda. I felt a little more enlightened. I felt close to this family. And genuinely perplexed with their situation and what could be done.

But that solution is for a different blog entry at a different time, hopefully with the help of some spiritual deity, because these are no easy problems to solve. Especially when we live in a free (somewhat) world with sovereign (sort of) nations that are granted the right to govern their own states and decide their own fates.

What can be done? Change is incremental. We each have a role to play. And maybe that is all that can be said about it at this time.

My Day in Kamuge

The roosters start to crow about 45 minutes to an hour before sunrise. This is my gradual awakening. By 6am they’re in full force. And so are my neighbors headed out to do a good two hours worth of planting/digging/harvesting/clearing, whatever the current month or day entails. This is my true awakening.

For me then it’s a quick pit stop to the latrine, a few morning rituals such as placing my solar panels outside to charge my lamps for the following night. I let the cat in after being out all night and proceed to pet him for a few minutes (an important component of his day).

Here is where I branch into one of three options. I then either (a) go for a good morning run, (b) work out to my favorite P90X videos (ok I don’t really do all of them, just X-Stretch and X-Yoga) or (c) skip both and proceed right to breakfast – one of the best highlights of my day. Why? Because I prepare it myself and I’ve discovered the amazing world of breakfast foods. Pancakes, French toast, eggs cooked any way, oatmeal, bananas, toast! Need I say more! I love Ugandan food. But nothing gets me prepared for my day than a LARGE pseudo-American branded breakfast festivity.

Somewhere in between selecting and executing one of my three A, B, or C options, I pop on BBC for my world updates. Sidenote: I love BBC.

After breakfast, I fill my jerry can with water and prepare a delightful shower with hot or cold water, depending how I’m feeling that day. I put on my “smart” dress and pack up my electric equipment for charging and head off to my school.

I usually arrive at my school sometime between 8am and 9am. Walking across the large plot of grass mixed with barren dirt between my house and my school is one of the favorite parts of my day. The temperature is still quite cool from the night before and I’ve usually still riding the tailcoats of the endorphins I produced while working out before breakfast. I’m ready for the day.

I arrive at my “office” inside the lab building at my school and prepare my first lesson. I teach mathematics to anywhere from 30-90 (depending on attendance that day) Ugandans aged between 15-18 for 1,2, or 3 hours and then it’s time for break tea at 10:40 am. Break tea is a HUGE part of Ugandan culture. You do not miss break tea.

I shuffle across the school walking from the classroom to the staff room, my legs a little tired from standing all period. I find a chair in the staff room and collect my tea and mondaz (Uganda’s version of donuts, I guess). I take a sip of the extremely hot, extremely sweet tea the cooks have brought to us (presweetened with about 2 kg of Kakira sugar no doubt) and bite into a delicious mondaz, my nostrils inhale the scent of chalk from my dry hands.

I shoot the breeze with some of the other teachers and then wander on back to my office to prepare for my next lesson.

Once lessons are complete I do everything necessary to prepare for the next day. Prepare lesson plans, correct quizzes, read essays, etc. Sometimes I will chat my students up or entertain the random mathematics and physics problems they bring me and seem to think I know how to solve. For some reason, they think I’m like freaking Einstein and can just solve every single physics and math problem they come to me with, some of which are extremely difficult. I try my best on those I can, and kindly refuse on those I can’t.

Then the school days ends and the students retreat to their homes in the village. I stroll back with my charged gadgets and spend the early evening studying, reading, talking to teachers, or just laying down for a rest. Usually this is where my second shower (more of a light rinse) comes in. Nothing refreshes me more at this time than standing under a stream of room temperature water after basking in my own sweat and dirt all day.

I finish my evening activities and feast on the delicious Ugandan meal my house girl prepares for me almost every evening. I would not survive without her! After dinner, it is shower #3 that I thoroughly clean myself before jumping into the clean and soft comfort of my mosquito netted sanctuary of a bed.

I watch movies, read books, talk to friends on the phone, or just sleep. The next morning it’s rinse and repeat. And it’s a pretty stable repeat. My days in the village are highly routine and shockingly repetitive. But there is a certain peace in my heart and in my head that comes along with them.

“You have a valid complaint.”

I say to one of my students in S3. This was in response to an issue he had just raised.

The class of Senior 3 is split into two streams (classes) of equal sizes, S3 Green and S3 Red. Last term, I taught math to Green only while my colleague taught Red. This particular student was from Red and was raising the issue that last term they had not received nearly as much instruction as Green and that they had missed crucial topics, matrices, for example.

There are a few reasons for this. Perhaps the most substantial reason is that our school lacks enough math teachers to begin with. During Term II, we had three. This term, we are down to two, myself included. I’m working to do the best I can with my assignments and am actually teaching both streams of S3s this term. This is great because I feel like I can make the largest impact on this class specifically. Come next year, they will be S4s and will sit their major UNEB exams in October 2011. With me teaching them the entire duration leading up to their exams. I’m excited to see how well they do, even though it is still very far away.

So I’ve been at site for nearly six months now and feel more and more at home with each week that passes. That’s not to say that there haven’t been challenges and frustrations along every step of the way. However, overall I have no major complaints.

Teaching is going significantly better this term compared to last. A lighter class load and more focused instruction has no doubt contributed to this improvement. I’m able to devote more time and energy to each of the streams I am responsible for. I’m able to give my students at least one quiz per week, which is awesome for multiple reasons.

One, it gets their minds into the exam taking mentality. Most of these kids only get one test per term (at the end of the term) with no quizzes or performance measures taken during the term itself, at all. Many kids do not even get homework. So my strategy and commitment this term has been to assign homework after every class and sit at least one short quiz per week. I think they really value these informal feedback systems and it gives them one more reason to come to school instead of dodge since their quizzes go towards their final marks.

I got to attend my first Ugandan burial last Thursday. This, like most thing here, was a truly unique experience. My teachers approached me the day of the burials saying that they were taking donations because the brother of one of our colleagues had passed. I told them I would contribute. They then informed that they planned on attending the burial service that same day and asked if I would attend. It seemed like a good decision to attend with the rest of my school community, thus I did. I figured I would be gone from the school for a couple of hours max.

That was a large mistake that I should have foreseen from the outset. We departed towards the burial around 11 am and I reached back home around 5 pm. It was a long day. Needless to say, the school was basically on a holiday that day since almost no classes were taught.

The community really got involved in the ceremony there. There had to be around 500-600 people there, at least. This particular gentleman happened to be a teacher and he grew up in a family full of teachers. So there were hundreds of students at the funeral from the various surrounding schools in addition to the many adult friends and family.

Most of the ceremony consisted of a plethora of Ugandans standing up to speak about the late and what a tragedy it was that he had passed. Some speeches were in Lugwere, others in English. I tried to pick up on some of the Lugwere words and was intrigued to hear the English speeches. However, it did become a struggle to sit in that hot Ugandan sun after about the first hour, and after the fourth hour, I was pretty well bruised and drained of all mental energy. I returned to site and enjoyed my weekend at peace in the village.

Shifting topics, I wanted to remark briefly on a recent conversation I had while talking to a fellow PCV in Mbale a few weeks ago. I often times draw comparisons between Uganda and the U.S. It’s just a part of my nature/personality to do so. We were talking about the relative difficulty of life in general between the two countries.

“Do you think life in the U.S. seems easier?” I asked him. We got to talking for a few minutes and concluded that the two countries really do have their own separate but distinct stressors. Here in Uganda, people have to work exponentially harder to accomplish the simple tasks of cleaning, washing clothes, bathing, cooking, working, etc.

In the U.S., we are blessed with mass automation and consumer appliances to help us accomplish these seemingly simple tasks. Here in Uganda, people have to struggle with the stress of getting their daily tasks done, which consist of all the tasks mentioned above.

In America, we may not have the same degree or even type of stress. But we do have stress nonetheless. And maybe it’s a different type of stress. The stress that comes with a challenging or frustrating career. The stress of trying to do your best all the time. The stress of trying to do things in the most time efficient manner and always be punctual for everything. The stress of balancing all the major components in life (family, friends, career, etc.) while trying to excel at all of them. So it seems life isn’t always that much easier when you really take a close look at different societies.

I do accept that life here can be extremely difficult and in most cases much more so than the U.S. But there are more similarities than we often think.

I Can't Fight These Feelings Anymore (Or at least some of them)

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to attend a church service in the Jinja region of Uganda. The service lasted for about an hour and a half. When we first arrived I was overwhelmed by a flourish of young girls shouting and singing their prayers to their God. Filled with exuberance and happiness. It was an incredible site to see.

It is surprising to discover the small, unpredictable experiences you can have in the Peace Corps that make you swell with one emotion or another. In this case, it was amazement. I had never seen Ugandans so energetic and enthusiastic about something in what is my relatively short tour of the country thus far.

Someone asked me what my favorite thing about Uganda was this past weekend. I’m a bit hesitant to answer this question for a couple of reasons. First, I haven’t really been in Uganda that long to accurately answer. And second, I don’t really know. But I did have an idea in mind.

My answer is those small, crazy emotional experiences I get at different times throughout my service, this past Sunday’s church service being one of them.

But there is the feeling of accomplishment that comes when I’m standing in the back of a hot, overcrowded Ugandan classroom and the students are actually listening, learning, and performing in front of my eyes.

There is the feeling of comic disbelief when the sliding door falls off of a heavily overloaded taxi travelling at 30 MPH.

There is the feeling of incomprehensible appreciation when a random person on the street offers you a ride for free to anywhere you are going or gives up their seat so that you can be more comfortable.

A feeling of sadness and frustration when you arrive at your school at 9AM and you are the only person there besides the 593 students waiting for a teacher.

A feeling of humble importance that comes with sharing a private dinner with a new friend while knowing you are probably the only mzungu (white person) ever to visit their home and that they will be talking about it for weeks or months to come. Especially when this family gave up so much of what little they had to accommodate you for one night.

A feeling of baffling confusion when your taxi switches drivers three times in a two hour journey. The hand signals these drivers give to one another as they speed down the road is enough to bewilder any gazing eye.

A feeling of delight you get from watching your students commit themselves to try so hard even though they’ve been given so little. They make the effort each and every day to make their hands with the unfortunate cards the world has given them.

A feeling of emptiness you reach after reducing all your personal expectations for the day because no matter how much you account for, most things go wrong A LOT.

And so on and so forth.

I guess, taken together, those are a lot of different things I appreciate on a personal level. It’s not so much the actual experiences themselves that I can appreciate, but the reactions they provoke and the mental agility they build within my own intellectual capacity.

So returning back to my church experience this past Sunday. The service started out great. Then the main speaker was called to the stage and began to give his sermon. He basically began by saying that American celebrities worshipped the devil based on some arbitrary hand signal they make in public which means “I Love You” in sign language but is somehow similar to “I worship the devil” in this guy’s analysis. Then he went on to berate Obama for supporting abortion worldwide. One of Michael Jackson’s album covers supposedly represented the face of Satan. This guy covered everything with propaganda that would be sure to offend just about every Western nation. It was a little awkward being in the room, but just a little.

It didn’t really anger me though. I was actually glad that I came that day. I found it to be a revealing culture insight into why and how Ugandans have some of the thoughts they do. Afterwards, the volunteer we were staying with informed some of her students that most of what the man had said was not true and that he was just confused. I was surprised when I found out that most of the students she was talking to already seemed to have doubts and didn’t believe much of what he was saying. Pretty cool how they knew that.

This week I’ve been struggling a lot with culture change. Coming back to Kamuge after nearly four weeks away has made it ever present in my mind. We are repeatedly told that our jobs are not to change the culture, that isn’t possible they say. I agree. But I’m not sure how much I can agree with them when every ideal we seem to be working for seems to originate from the West. If it comes from somewhere else, then it’s obviously not a part of the original society. Isn’t that culture change in a way? I’m not sure on the answers, it’s just something that I’m struggling with.

I guess if you define culture as a society’s values, morals, and beliefs, you could somehow extrapolate that what we are doing here as volunteers does in fact align with Uganda’s vision.

Anyways, after being in Kamuge for almost 40 hours now, I’m beginning to feel at home again (a good thing). I should start teaching this week. My goal is Wednesday. Our teaching timetable is a train wreck. And I’ve got a lot of tweaking to do on my end with improvements from last term. But I’m looking forward to getting back to what I am here to do.

Peace.

I Can't Fight These Feelings Anymore (Or at least some of them)

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to attend a church service in the Jinja region of Uganda. The service lasted for about an hour and a half. When we first arrived I was overwhelmed by a flourish of young girls shouting and singing their prayers to their God. Filled with exuberance and happiness. It was an incredible site to see.

It is surprising to discover the small, unpredictable experiences you can have in the Peace Corps that make you swell with one emotion or another. In this case, it was amazement. I had never seen Ugandans so energetic and enthusiastic about something in what is my relatively short tour of the country thus far.

Someone asked me what my favorite thing about Uganda was this past weekend. I’m a bit hesitant to answer this question for a couple of reasons. First, I haven’t really been in Uganda that long to accurately answer. And second, I don’t really know. But I did have an idea in mind.

My answer is those small, crazy emotional experiences I get at different times throughout my service, this past Sunday’s church service being one of them.

But there is the feeling of accomplishment that comes when I’m standing in the back of a hot, overcrowded Ugandan classroom and the students are actually listening, learning, and performing in front of my eyes.

There is the feeling of comic disbelief when the sliding door falls off of a heavily overloaded taxi travelling at 30 MPH.

There is the feeling of incomprehensible appreciation when a random person on the street offers you a ride for free to anywhere you are going or gives up their seat so that you can be more comfortable.

A feeling of sadness and frustration when you arrive at your school at 9AM and you are the only person there besides the 593 students waiting for a teacher.

A feeling of humble importance that comes with sharing a private dinner with a new friend while knowing you are probably the only mzungu (white person) ever to visit their home and that they will be talking about it for weeks or months to come. Especially when this family gave up so much of what little they had to accommodate you for one night.

A feeling of baffling confusion when your taxi switches drivers three times in a two hour journey. The hand signals these drivers give to one another as they speed down the road is enough to bewilder any gazing eye.

A feeling of delight you get from watching your students commit themselves to try so hard even though they’ve been given so little. They make the effort each and every day to make their hands with the unfortunate cards the world has given them.

A feeling of emptiness you reach after reducing all your personal expectations for the day because no matter how much you account for, most things go wrong A LOT.

And so on and so forth.

I guess, taken together, those are a lot of different things I appreciate on a personal level. It’s not so much the actual experiences themselves that I can appreciate, but the reactions they provoke and the mental agility they build within my own intellectual capacity.

So returning back to my church experience this past Sunday. The service started out great. Then the main speaker was called to the stage and began to give his sermon. He basically began by saying that American celebrities worshipped the devil based on some arbitrary hand signal they make in public which means “I Love You” in sign language but is somehow similar to “I worship the devil” in this guy’s analysis. Then he went on to berate Obama for supporting abortion worldwide. One of Michael Jackson’s album covers supposedly represented the face of Satan. This guy covered everything with propaganda that would be sure to offend just about every Western nation. It was a little awkward being in the room, but just a little.

It didn’t really anger me though. I was actually glad that I came that day. I found it to be a revealing culture insight into why and how Ugandans have some of the thoughts they do. Afterwards, the volunteer we were staying with informed some of her students that most of what the man had said was not true and that he was just confused. I was surprised when I found out that most of the students she was talking to already seemed to have doubts and didn’t believe much of what he was saying. Pretty cool how they knew that.

This week I’ve been struggling a lot with culture change. Coming back to Kamuge after nearly four weeks away has made it ever present in my mind. We are repeatedly told that our jobs are not to change the culture, that isn’t possible they say. I agree. But I’m not sure how much I can agree with them when every ideal we seem to be working for seems to originate from the West. If it comes from somewhere else, then it’s obviously not a part of the original society. Isn’t that culture change in a way? I’m not sure on the answers, it’s just something that I’m struggling with.

I guess if you define culture as a society’s values, morals, and beliefs, you could somehow extrapolate that what we are doing here as volunteers does in fact align with Uganda’s vision.

Anyways, after being in Kamuge for almost 40 hours now, I’m beginning to feel at home again (a good thing). I should start teaching this week. My goal is Wednesday. Our teaching timetable is a train wreck. And I’ve got a lot of tweaking to do on my end with improvements from last term. But I’m looking forward to getting back to what I am here to do.

Peace.

I AMsterdam

I'm back in Uganda! Fresh off a relaxing week in fantastically beautiful, delicious, cold, and rainy Amsterdam! I actually feel physically healthier for having spent the week there. Crazy how that happens.

Amsterdam was wonderful. I got to spend some quality time with my Pops and take in the sites and culture. We rented bikes and rode them over just about every canal and back alley in Amsterdam. We ate fantastic food and way too many delicious deserts but made up for it with afternoon runs every day. We relaxed in the hotel room with our favorite TV shows or took in the comedy and sin of Amsterdam nightlife in the evenings. Overall, it was a very successful holiday.

After being in the land of affluence for a few days, my perspective remains mostly unchanged. I had a good week and now it is back to the grind. Like any real job I guess. I did find that I have become a little more patient and laid back when it comes to the hustle and bustle of the day's activities. I may have already been pretty laid back I guess, but it has shifted that way a little more.

We have our massive, complex, dynamic, punctual, safe, secure, clean, comfortable (relatively speaking) and efficient transportation system to get me from Uganda to London Heathrow to Amsterdam Schipol. To get me from Amsterdam Schipol to Amsterdam Central. To get me from Amsterdam Central to Leidsplein. And from Leidsplein to my hotel. All within about 12 hours time. And I'm one of the hundreds of thousands or millions that must be accommodated each and every day in this world. This is affluence. This is accomplishment.

Now we have our All Volunteer Conference which began last night. This is a chance for all the volunteers in Uganda to get together and share their experiences and ideas with each other. Ideally, this will help us become more effective and productive volunteers in our work at our respective sites. I'm anxious to get home. However, there appears to be a lot of value that can be extracted from these two days. I'll just have to wait until the weekend.

Being gone from site for almost three weeks now, my return to Kamuge will bring with it a stronger sense of internal and external purpose. Maybe not so much purpose, but reason. Reasons for why I am here. In this tiny village, in this tiny country, on this gigantic continent. Reasons why I should do some things I have not yet done. Reasons why I should continue not to do certain things. And motivation to do some things I've been meaning to do but not yet done.

The Best Laid Plans...

Greetings everyone. I apologize for the large gap in blog entries this past month. I attribute it to a combination of slow internet connections and Joe laziness, mostly characterized by the latter.

This week marks the last of the term. We give our final assessments (report cards) to our students on Friday, so I’m told. I’m also told that most of the teachers will not have finished marking all the final papers by this time so this could be slightly (or largely J) delayed. Neither would surprise me.

So this week I’m finishing up random tasks before the break begins on August 7. I have a few days off then I’ll be in training for our Language IST (in service training) where we meet with our language groups and review any questions or difficulties we are encountering so far at site. This is also a time to learn more about a specific area of our language that we are interested in.

Then next week my entire cohort meets up in Mukono (outside of Kampala) for our Technical Training IST. This is more concerned with our actual assignments and how they are going. We will learn more about our respective programs and out Ugandan counterparts will also be joining us for the week.

For both of these training I’m generally just happy to see and spend a little time with my fellow volunteers. I see other volunteers in the East quite often but a vast majority of the volunteers in the Central, West, and Northern regions I haven’t seen since swearing in back in April. It will be a fun experience.

Then come August 23^rd I’m jetting off to Amsterdam for one week to meet up with my Pops. I’m looking forward to delicious food, FAST internet, and maybe a little air conditioning if I’m lucky. If any of you have any must sees/dos in Amsterdam hit me up, I’d be interested in hearing them.

I come back from Amsterdam on August 30^th. I have a couple free days and then September 2-3 we have our All Volunteer Conference. Most of the 120-130 volunteers in country will be there. It will definitely be cool to meet everyone who is in country, as I still have not met most people here. Throughout the day we will be attending workshops and sessions to help us out once we return to site.

Then, finally, I’m back in Kamuge on September 4^th for third term teaching.

So that’s the plan for the next month or so, let me shift gears to recap what’s happened since my last post.

I think I left off sometime around Week 6 of the term. Well, both of weeks 6 and 7 were met with further interruption to my regular class schedule.

On Monday of Week 6 during assembly, our “Games Master” announced that we would begin practicing athletics in preparation for the upcoming competition on Thursday. He apologized for not starting at the beginning of term for some unclear reason. Anyways, the plan was to start practice this week. This translated into the entire school taking off the entire afternoon on Tuesday, the entire day on Wednesday, and the entire day on Thursday.

Tuesday was practice. Wednesday was inner school class competition. And Thursday was the district competition. It was definitely fun to watch. I would compare their athletics practice to our track and field events. There were sprints, long distance runners, high jump, long jump, javelin, and something called the triple jump, I’m still not quite sure what that is. And their high jump is quite different from ours. They pretty much just run really fast at a horizontal pole and leap as high as they can bending their knees up and hoping not to catch the pole. They could jump surprisingly high for this style.

Needless to say, classes were not taught and students did not learn during those days.

Week 7 it was announced that we would be having some guests from UNEB (Uganda National Examinations Board) to test the S2 students in Math, Biology, and English. So I was unable to teach my S2s all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning. I guess it was good to see UNEB making an effort to acquire some actual data. What results this data will yield still have yet to be determined and explained to me.

That brings us up through July 12. From there I had two more weeks of official teaching and then the next week final exams were set starting on July 27.

So, officially, the students received nine weeks of actual classroom instruction for term. Seven of which had major interruptions to the students even being in class. This translates into a 27 week school year spread out across the three terms. That’s almost seven months, with a five-month summer. Kids in America would love that!!! Furthermore, the nine week term was a result of the government shortening the second term!

I digress. About a week ago there was an announcement on the radio stating that the Ministry of Education had moved the end date for Term II from August 13 to August 6. Also, the government would be moving the start date of Term III from September 6 to August 23. I asked several of my teachers why this had been announced to which I received a plethora of differing explanations ranging from concerns about the election in FEBRUARY 2011 to concerns about the length of term breaks for teachers. I never found out the actual reason.

Now the critical reader may have noticed that the change or dates for Term III start conflicts directly with two major events in my schedule over the next month. However, the plane tickets are already bought and the hotel and workshop are already scheduled. Nothing we can do really. The Peace Corps Program Manager of Education is writing a letter to the ministry to inform them that we will not be able to be at our site performing our jobs because of their last minute “change of schedule”.

So final exams kicked off on July 27. The first day was a total cluster. It opened with a small assembly organized by our Master of Examinations in which the Head Teacher announced that the semester had been shortened by one week and that the students would now be sitting three exams per day instead of just two.

Once the assembly concluded, all 593 students just sort of scattered to different classrooms. The plan was to arrange their seating by class according to the colors of their t-shirts to prevent cheating (S1 – green, S2 – blue, S3 – yellow, S4 – white). But no formal announcement of just how exactly we were going to accomplish this was made during the assembly. All the students simply migrated to different classrooms. This resulted with one of our best teachers (my favorite) and myself organizing 593 students into 10 different classrooms by telling them exactly where to sit. It took forever. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we only had about four teachers there that day to help us proctor exams for 593 students spread out over 10 classrooms.

I don’t know why I continue to be surprised, but I’m trying to desensitize myself to the whole spectrum of possible things that could go wrong. I find that employing this method of thought is best for my mental health and sanity.

For every exam that week, there weren’t enough copies for all the students. The copies we had were riddles with typos and missing information, making the questions unanswerable or impossible. There weren’t enough chairs and stools for the students. They had to stand up for six hours while trying to write their exams. Apparently this is just business as usual. TIA!

So that’s enough about education (or lack thereof). That is just one hue of my experience in Africa.

It was fantastic watching the World Cup in Uganda. Even though the US didn’t win, I still had a great time. One of the most entertaining experiences I had was in Mbale the night the USA was playing Ghana. It was great because I was watching it with some fellow volunteers and enjoying their company. But it was also great watching it with other Ugandans, all of which were routing viciously for Ghana to take it.

One particular Ugandan woman whom I estimate to be in her late twenties was very excited about the game. She repeatedly chimed the words “thank you” every time the USA did something bad OR Ghana did something bad. I say chimed because the said “thank you” the exact same way every time much like a doorbell or a clock tower. It was great. She was very excited. I found listening to her to be quite hilarious and a little aggravating.

I was sad to hear that the overall spirit of the World Cup had taken a turn for the worst on July 11 when Somalian terrorists operating under the cloak of Al Shabaab bombed several locations in Kampala during the Word Cup final.

I want to assure everyone that as volunteers, we are very safe in our little villages and huts out in rural Uganda. As of right now, the only threat is against Kampala according to US intelligence from the embassy. And no volunteer is authorized to travel to Kampala at this time unless it is an emergency. Peace Corps is doing an excellent job at monitoring the situation and we are very safe here at our specific sites.

I’ve managed to stay really healthy the last couple of months and feel fortunate for doing so. I get a fever here in there but nothing too serious. I hope I can continue this trend.

That’s about it. Anyone wanting to hear more can email me at joepmathias@gmail.com. Your emails and phone calls are welcome. It’s definitely nice to get them. I will write more again soon.

Joe

“You’re not dodging only your marks eh, you’re dodging your life. This is your life.”

Week 5 marked yet another disruption in my ill-fated class schedule. Surprisingly, this was one of my most enjoyable days since I’ve been at site.

It all began on Wednesday afternoon when I noticed a handwritten bulletin announcing a “Staff Meeting” on Thursday. “Please attend as the matters to be discussed are important”, the note read. There was no time mentioned, only the day.

Naturally I went to school on Thursday knowing that this meeting was supposed to occur sometime on this day. I got caught up teaching two double sessions of math and physics that morning and come midday that meeting was one of the last things on my mind.

Around 12:20 in the afternoon, one of my colleagues informed me that the meeting was about to begin and that I should head into the staff room immediately. From my short time in Uganda I know that nothing begins immediately when they say it is going to. I used the restroom, washed my hands, got a drink of water and headed into the staff room. Quite surprisingly, this meeting started about 20 minutes later at around 12:40.

Lunch was at 1 so I figured ok great, 20 minute meeting then we will eat lunch and continue on with the rest of the day. The meeting ended at 6:30.

This was my first “official” Ugandan workplace staff meeting. It was quite an unexpectedly enjoyable experience. It was convened by our head teacher, the official “Chair” of the meeting. Ugandans are incredibly formal in their meeting style. Everyone thanks everyone all the time and uses formal language when making a statement or contribution. The meeting began with a reading of the agenda. Which consisted of the following:

1. Prayer

2. Opening Remarks by the Chair

3. Reaction to last meeting’s minutes (from 11 Feb. 2010) – open forum

4. Term II Strategy and Way Forward

5. Closure

6. Prayer

Now I said the meeting was incredibly formal, I didn’t say it was well organized. The meeting began with a prayer followed by our head teacher communicating his concerns about the conduct of our school and the way it was being run. He ran quite the gamut on issues ranging from teacher attendance to student discipline and nutrition.

I was happy to see that he was acknowledging some of the shortcomings of his institution and making an effort to tackle them.

People say that Ugandans are an indirect culture. I couldn’t disagree more. Ugandans are very direct, especially in large meetings. They repeatedly shut each other down or calling each other out on issues. Hey, at least they tell it like it is. (Caveat – this is all just my experiences, others may disagree but this isn’t their blog so yeah)

My head teacher basically lavished praise on me for doing my job – starting my lessons on time and attending every day. And asked the other teachers why it was so hard for them to do the same. This of course made me extremely uncomfortable but nonetheless I tried to pull off the most humble/non-offensive/subtle disagreement expression on my face for fear of backlash later on from my annoyed colleagues.

After opening remarks, four typed pages of meeting minutes from 11 Feb. were read WORD-FOR-WORD, reacted to and disputed for about an hour. Some of those in attendance disputed the attendance record of last meeting and declared they had very good excuses for not attending in February. The chair neutralized this complaint by telling them to document their excuses in writing and deliver them to the secretary promptly after each meeting. Their objections were noted, a common response throughout the entirety of the discussion.

We deliberated for about 3 hours and concluded with item six around 3:45 but then had a short break and transitioned to a follow-up meeting with all of the S4 students in their home classroom. It consisted of a panel of about 10 teachers (myself included) sitting on stools in front of about 90-100 students aged from about 18-20. We had sort of a miniature town hall meeting in which the S4s could air their concerns and complaints about the conduct and supervision of the school, put forth suggestions for solution, and hear reactions and solutions from us, the teachers. (Democracy in action at the lowest levels! Fantastic!)

Ugandan students are so disciplined…and yet they’re not. Their persistence to learn is astounding. They’re thirst for knowledge runs deeper than most people I know. The S4s were incredibly participatory and vocal in the open forum that was laid before them with the panel of teachers. So brazen, but collected, in their responses. These are the S4s, the overly confident teenage elite of the Ugandan education system. Not many Ugandan 18 year olds make it this far.

But then they dodge class, or they’re late, or they fail to turn in their workbooks for marking. These offenses usually result with the students getting beaten by the teachers with a handful of sticks (also known as being caned) – illegal in Uganda by the way. It is these offenses that led my counterpart to admonish to some students sitting in the grass one day, saying, “You’re not dodging only your marks eh, you’re dodging your life. This is your life.”

It is these inconsistencies that were the topic of discussion throughout the day. I gotta say that if my teachers at Roland-Story High skipped classes every week I’d probably skip too. So I can’t really blame the students to a certain extent. The conduct can only be attributed to those that run the school, in my opinion. It is a reflection on all of us as educators and administrators.

So we’ve somehow established a new path forward from here on out, as teachers, as students, and as professionals. I’m interested to see how it turns out.

When the meeting concluded, we were jubilant and clapping, shaking hands, and smiling with a great sense of accomplishment and relief that the light at the end of the six hour tunnel had come.

I’m called a barrage of names from my colleagues, I actually find it quite comical and just roll with it most of the time. I understand my name is hard for them to remember/pronounce. The assortment ranges from Mathias to Matheeus to Matthew. I actually find Matthew quite hilarious. For some reason they just started calling me by my surname, it works.

Earlier I mentioned the students’ eagerness to learn. I had a young lady from S4 approach me asking for my copies of the practice UNEB (Uganda National Examinations Board) UCE (Ugandan Certificate of Education) Exam. Basically this is the biggest exam of these students’ lives. It determines whether they’ll get to move on to Advanced (A) Level schooling and have a shot at getting a decent enough education to leave the village and get a good job (assuming the jobs are there when they graduate).

I asked her why she had not gone through the proper channels to check out the exams (AKA our lab master who is caretaker of all those documents). She said he would not issue her a copy because she didn’t have some “identity card” which is apparently a necessary requirement to check out past exams.

I on the other hand was able to procure all the UNEB UCE practice exams from the last 4 or 5 years two weeks earlier, and without an identity card! Damn I’m good. So naturally she wanted to borrow a copy of mine.

Now, here I am faced with an ethical dilemma. Do I issue the knowledge thirsty senior a practice exam so she has a better shot at passing in November? Thereby undermining our lab master’s authoritay! And potentially getting into a political battle over some bureaucratic issuance procedure (yes they exist here too). Or… do I refuse her and effectively say, “No, you can’t learn because you failed to get an ID card, thanks for trying though! Good luck on the test!”

I issued the test.

In marking workbooks this week, I noticed a distinct difference in the performance of students with large workbooks (8” ½ x 11”) vs. those with small workbooks (6” x 8”). The students with large workbooks perform considerably better on the homework assignments and many times perform better work with better handwriting.

And I thought to myself, what an economist’s dream! I would love to see his report on the effect that the more expensive notebooks (and presumably better off families able to afford them) had on these kids ability to extract knowledge and perform better than the small notebook kids in their exercises. Am I going crazy? I found it fascinating.