Why Village Life is So Unwieldy

Today I had one thing on my agenda, a Business & Life Skills Club meeting schedule for 4:00p.m. I spent the day at my school preparing for this meeting and working on other small projects unrelated to teaching with my colleagues.

At approximately 3:35p.m., 25 minutes before the official end of the school day, the students started exiting their classrooms and scattering off in the directions of their homes. Two girls came into my office and asked if we were having the meeting. I said yes, just like we discussed last week and all this week, it will be at 4:00p.m. I started to hear the noise of students walking and talking and realized they were leaving. I walked out of my office and most of the student body had vanished. I gathered the few students remaining and told them we would have the meeting next week.

Stuff like this happens all the time here in Kamuge. The lack of organization and structure, even proper infrastructure, all contribute to non-productivity everyday.

Reasons for work not getting done…

· The rains, they make hearing anything in the classroom virtually impossible, and sometimes the wind blows horizontally into the classrooms causing all kinds of disturbances

· The random midday student body assemblies, these usually last one to two hours with little to no notice of when they are going to happen

· Public holidays – they are many, enough said

· Athletics day – on days football matches are played, no lessons are taught

· Athletics practice – students are excused from lessons each practice, typically in the morning lasting from 3-4 hours

· Staff meetings – last all day long and no lessons are given

· Heat – sometimes it is too unbearable to teach anything after midday

· Exams – no lessons are given during exams, which can last three weeks

· First week mentality – no lessons are given during the first week, the teachers blame the students, the students blame the teachers

· Random health inspections – typically of the girls, takes them out of class for half a day

· Random visitors to school – I’m definitely guilty of this one, assemblies pull students out of lessons to focus on the visitor and what he or she has to say

· No power or not enough power

· No water or not enough water

· Absenteeism – prolific

· No communication when cell phone batteries die, which happens often

· No communication when cell phones are charging, everyday

· Random early days where students leave before 4:00p.m.

· Transport – it’s very difficult to arrive at my school before 9:00a.m. Since it is so remote, school is supposed to start here at 8:00 and in most other parts of Uganda, even earlier

· Timetable management and discipline – minimal level of effort put forth by everyone (including myself) to follow this precisely, can’t have more than one teacher in a classroom, doesn’t work too well

Ok, that’s all I can think of. I’m not trying to sound negative. I’m just trying to communicate the unwieldy environment in which we’re trying to educate a populace in. Some days it feels impossible, others, everything goes right.

In other news, my school is making wicked progress on constructing their additions. I’m amazed at how fast work is being done. This is going to be one great school, someday. Ha! Check out the pictures below.