“It’s more of a suggestion, than an action at this point.”

A quote from a man I conversed with on my way to Pallisa Town today. We were talking about the terrible state of the main road between Mbale and Pallisa. I had mentioned that I had heard the government was planning to pave it. He was responding to me, saying they did not know when and that it was more of a suggestion than a reality. I found it pretty funny and filed it away into my “This is Africa (TIA)” file.

I’m mid-way through my third week of teaching with much to report. Three weeks into the second term, my school is still in shambles. Less than half the teachers have even arrived to begin teaching. The students sit idle in their empty classrooms over 50% of the time. Students approach me and ask them to step in and teach them math/physics/geography etc. It is disappointing. I have to decline most of the time simply because I’m already overwhelmed with five streams of math and physics. There is no lunch prepared for the students and the administrative staff is unaccounted for throughout the day. Lots of opportunities!

In other news, I now have an office. A spacious office. I discovered an unused room at the back of the physics laboratory full of wood, dust, and lizards. So I asked the headmaster if I could take ownership of it as my workspace. I recruited a few students to help me remove the wood, sweep, and mop the floors and counters and paid them off with candies and 500 shilling coins (25 cents).

This will definitely be a nice perk to have. It is much cooler than my house during the day since it has a ceiling and ventilation slots in the walls. I can also prop my door open for more ventilation. Also, solar power! Holla! I can work on my laptop and charge my phone while working on them! I’m living the life of luxury. Also if the time may come where I will require the assistance of a fan, it will be a possibility.

Teaching is going well. Every day is a personal learning experience for me. I learn how my students are reacting to the knowledge I’m putting forth. I learn how I should react to their reactions. I learn how to change my methods to the Ugandan style and way of learning.

Sometimes I realize I really don’t understand what I’m teaching all that well, but I just manage to stay at least one step ahead of my students, and that seems to work well enough. At other times I can’t help but feel incredibly grateful for the quality of instruction I received from the public school system of the US. Some of the subject material in math and physics has been engrained into my mind so well that I can’t even remember when I learned it, it’s as if I had always known, but I know that is not the case.

Side note – Did you know it is only one space after a period now? Man, that is one thing I wish wasn’t engrained in my psyche. Getting rid of that extra space really rocked my world. Anyways…

I wonder how my students came to believe and think the way they do. My students copy exactly what I write on the board, word for word. They copy the format in which I write my solutions and final answers to problems. It is incredible how dependent they have become on verbatim memorization learning. I try to challenge them to solve the problem without my doing it first on the blackboard (P.S. chalk is incredibly messy, thank [insert Jesus/Allah/Buddha/Stephen Colbert/etc… here] for the invention of the dry erase board! – please ship some immediately J) Anyways, challenging them usually yields minuscule results. They simply wait for me to solve it before making an attempt. This style of learning has been engrained in them for the past decade of their lives.

Continuing on this theme of mental culture in the youth here. I had a discussion with a couple of kids a few weeks back. “I want to be like you, Mr. Joe.” They said. I ask why. “Your skin is white and soft. It is not rough and black like ours.” And I thought, where in this kid’s life did he learn that he wanted to be a white person. He seemed to think it was better. I wondered what moment in his life that reasoning was instilled in him.

“When a problem comes, it usually brings its children.”

And in Uganda, children are many. This quote came up during lunch today at my school. Ugandan politics are the topic of discussion EVERY single day during lunchtime. The teachers are all very concerned and interested in seeing what happens to their country’s leadership come February 2011. There seems to be a mixture of emotions and tones between excitement, frustration, complacency, passion, and comedy.

I try to stay out of it for the most part. However, every once and a while they will field a question my way and ask for a comparison with the way the United States Government operates. One day I told them that unemployment is 10% in the United States right now. They all replied by saying that is very good! I told them that was a high number for unemployment and they all just laughed hysterically.

One day they asked me how the United States views Uganda. I told them most Americans don’t know all that much about Uganda itself. However, the US holds Uganda in very high regard relative to many of its neighbors, specifically for many of the reasons I have mentioned in previous blog entries. They seemed comforted by this.

I feel privileged to be living in this country during such a landmark election. Even though I’m on the sidelines for most of it, it is great to be a part of.

The World Cup starts today! Go USA!!! I’m hoping to find a nice TV with digital cable at a local hotel here in Pallisa. Cross your fingers for me.