Another week has passed in the blazing pearl. This week has been strange, characterized by a series of small victories and small failures. We had a “pop” assembly during the middle of the day on Monday, which lasted two hours and deprived the students of that lesson time for the day. Most of the teachers got up and mentioned one thing or another about the “undisciplined students” being “not serious”. My mind tends to drift into limbo during these useless diatribes.
I have been working with the students all week to get their letters written to students in America. They are excited. But they are so unorganized. I tell them to meet me at a certain time on a certain day, and they don’t. They come the next day and claim they didn’t understand. We definitely have our communication issues.
I cracked the whip on my S4s this week. I kicked a bunch out of class for not being prepared and bringing their workbooks as I had told them to do multiple times. They don’t like that. They are smart students, but they act like freaking kindergarteners all the time. Class was so quiet that day. It was great.
I had been living with only about $3 of cash on hand this week. Multiple events contributed to this unfortunate circumstance. I had to pay back a friend who had lent me some money and this threw off my regular budget. Earlier in the week I tried to go to the bank in Pallisa but the power was off and the ATM wasn’t even working. I rolled into town today with my last 2,000 shilling note praying that the bank would be up and operating, luckily it was and I’m flush again.
I tried to meet up with our Head Teacher to discuss a bore hole implementation project I’m toying with, but was unsuccessful. He had gone to town, I went and tried to find him but he was unfindable and his phone was shut off. I feel like I need some sort of in country companion to pilot these projects with, otherwise they are destined to fail. Finding motivated individuals is definitely a challenge in my community. Especially when I struggle with motivation enough as it is.
I slaughtered a chicken this week! I used the “step on the feet with one foot and the wings with the other and pull on its neck and slice its head off” technique. About halfway through cutting through its neck, I had to stop and hold it down to allow it to die so I didn’t get blood all over myself. It was pretty cool…and later…delicious.
I started my garden… again. I planted tomatoes, onions, carrots, and green peppers. I’m going to plant more (watermelon, cantaloupe, greens, eggplant) later on. Uganda is so fertile; it’s so easy to grow stuff here. And it’s a fun little project for me. Everything is done by hand here and digging with a hoe for any period of time longer than five minutes turns out to be a beast of a workout, especially with dry soil.
So Peace Corps has this document describing the emotions that volunteers experience throughout their two years of service. Here is what it said for those volunteers 11-15 months in (aka yours truly):
ISSUES: doubt about program, role, self, govt., various failures over time, reflection: disillusionment, confusion, resolving frustrations with victories
BEHAVIOR/REACTION: impatience with self, program, systems, blame on program, constant complaining, lethargy
Do I sound like any of these? Personally, I found this to be extremely accurate and a bit of a relief. I think every single volunteer can relate to at least some of these, and to different degrees. I feel like the feelings I’ve experienced have been pretty mild when compared to the overall population of volunteers. However, it’s still pretty amazing to know that we all go through the same thing, that we are all human. That our thought processes and emotions can be depicted accurately and reliably as time goes by. It’s a refreshing revelation.
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