Here I am...in Uganda

Please accept my humblest apologies for “being lost” (in Ugandan English, this means “being absent, unseen, etc.”) for the past 2 months, but we have been without power basically for the past 2 months (these past 36 hours have been the longest I’ve had power, much less power that is stable enough to charge a computer—knock on wood). The secret plan (don’t tell the Kitgum Local Government) is to charge into town backed by 900 YY Okot students with torches and burn down the power company’s office—I think somebody may have informed the company of this plan and so poof, we have power.
The term is almost at an end with about a week and a half of classes left before exams, one week of duty for me (this is the time that I and two other teachers take our turn running the school), exams, and a variety of activities that I’ll talk about in just a bit. Most of the Ordinary Level candidates (Senior 4) have finished their exams and are now leaving the school and eagerly (or fearfully) awaiting the results of the tests that will determine if they can continue in school. At the same time that our non-candidate students take their internal exams in a little less than 2 weeks, our Advanced Level candidates (S6) will take their exams that will determine if they can continue in school (university or a national teacher’s college). In other words, especially with the lack of power, this has been a bit of a stressful term for everyone.
All in all, however, life is good. My house is a bit roomier now that I have removed the guest bed (those of you bold enough to visit me, don’t worry, there’s still a mattress and a nice cold cement floor…) so that in the near future some female teachers and I can start doing yoga and ab workout sessions in my hut…truly, it probably will be just as ridiculous as it sounds. Also in the near future (before the end of the term), my debate club will host a debate tournament in the school, my life skills club will host a Music, Dance and Drama competition (complete with our Senior 5’s leading the audience in Christmas carols in between the performances) and will start their bee keeping project, and some absolutely wonderful Peace Corps volunteers of Kitgum and Gulu are going to help me, the kitchen staff, and the newly reactivated Green Club build an industrial mud stove for our kitchen so that we can save money and not use as much firewood.
These things, however, are yet to come and so let us turn to the past and present so you have a better sense what’s shaking in Kitgum. PC hosted a life skills training outside Kampala for my Training Group about a week ago, which was great, but nothing compared to the hospitality I experienced in Lira as I visited Bernadette (pictured with her awesome counterpart—probably one of the strongest women I’ve met—in a typical primary school classroom, minus the 100+ students) and Hellen (pictured with her Women’s group making and teaching me how to make bar soap). Both are phenomenal volunteers, and really an inspiration to visit. As you read this, there are some 500 or so novels trying desperately somewhere in Southern Uganda (or for 50 of them (if we are unlucky) somewhere in or over the Atlantic Ocean) to reach a cute little room in YY Okot’s library. In other words, the book project or mission “Bring Fun Books to YY Okot” is alive and well and about to reach a home near me. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this mission, the English department here is always complaining about how the girls write very poorly in English. Most girls don’t own any books (if they do, it’s probably the Bible which (as any of you who have tried or succeeded to read the Bible before can attest) is not an easy read) and rarely, if ever, check out a book from the library. Should they want to check a book out of the library, they can choose a text book or an abridged or unabridged classic novel (Charles Dickens and the like). If you are good at reading English, this is fine, but if you are not, you probably avoid the library like the plague. I fully believe, however, that everyone has an avid reader within them and that they just need the spark of a certain good “fun” book to bring it out (example: Harry Potter phenomenon). I do fear with all my heart the variety of books that I will get from these book donation places, but in the words of PCV Zach Bagley (also in Kitgum), I “don’t let them (the students, teachers, and administration) see fear in [my] eyes.”
Also, yesterday, my life skills club, counterpart, and I made our first 40L of liquid soap (it was the first chemistry experiment I have done under a mango tree, stirring with bamboo sticks, next to a hut, but definitely not the last). We have hypothesized that it will be a huge success, but we have to let the soap sit for a week before we know for certain and can start reining in the business. All in all, I greatly miss all of my lab books with exact instructions since yesterday we were getting 3 different sets of instructions and deciding to do a nice little mixture of the three (I’m sure Madam Marie Curie worked in the same way once upon a time…but of course, I hope we are more successful in the long run than she).
Other projects on the horizon: Bar Soap making with a local women’s group (I’m going to have no excuse for not being squeaky clean 24/7 with 2 sources of soap at my fingertips), World Map Mural (for next term), having the girls of my Life skills club teach how to make reusable menstrual pads to the teachers (at the end of the term) and to primary school students/local women’s groups (next term), and lastly, but not least, GLOW camp. GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camp is happening for the first time in Uganda at the end of this term (it’s a program that focuses on girl empowerment and occurs in a lot of PC countries already—the new head of the PC wants it to spread to more countries). My counterpart and I will transport 12 girls from Kitgum/Gulu to Kampala, be counselors for the camp for about a week, and then I, after saying a few Hail Mary’s, will transport 15 back to Kitgum/Gulu.
Funniest things that I now am used to:
1) Seeing “brown” people (this is not Indian, this is basically the
color of most African Americans in America) and for a split second, thinking they are white—no joke, I do it all the time
2) About a third of the teachers at my school have a ring tone of
Obama giving a speech: “America, we cannot turn back….”—I die every time
I wish you all a bit belated Happy Halloween and an early Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you everyone who has written me (I have a stack of letters that I’ll send out as soon as this week (I’m on duty right now) is over and I’m once again allowed to leave the campus). Please know that I get a ridiculously big smile on my face every time I read a letter or email about you all (think the Grinch’s smile in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”).

One more because I'm now 24!

Breakdancing competition

Cucumber and okra from my garden

Drama Club Performing

This last school term ended abruptly and so I’ve been in a bit of a whirlpool of chaos for the last month: the Ministry of Education and Sports decided literally overnight, less than a week before final exams were supposed to start, to end the term a week early, forcing us to move our exam schedule up and cancel the last days of classes. Our final assembly was spent watching the drama club, which had gone to perform in front of the African Union in Kampala, perform again for us, which is just too cool (see picture). The Ministry also decided to begin the next term two weeks early. My two weeks of vacation, therefore, were entirely consumed by 2 Peace Corps in-service trainings (one week each) after which, I had to return to Kitgum and literally, hit the ground running. The first conference was in Gulu (just south of Kitgum) and involved language lessons, cooking a large Indian meal for some volunteers, and spending a full day with my language instructor and her family at their home, all culminating in an absolutely lovely birthday. Right before I left for the conference, I received a wonderful birthday package from my family and some family friends including pictures, gardening gloves, really good coffee (Uganda has a nasty habit of exporting all of its quality coffee), and of course, 2 lbs of Virginia Peanuts (you may laugh, but sharing those peanuts with me made the days of 2 volunteers in town and every person left at the school). On my actual birthday, I spent the morning at the pool (funny things like nice pools pop up in areas where a lot of foreigners come to do development work), the afternoon at a breakdancing competition and in my language instructor’s village and then evening in a local Ethiopian restaurant with some wonderful people and food and a surprise birthday cake (I felt very lucky to be living in Northern Uganda with some seriously quality people). THANK YOU to everyone who sent me messages, emails, videos, and cards. If my birthday says anything about the coming year, I think 24 is going to be a good one. The second conference was right outside of Kampala and involved technical training and the first gym I’ve been in since leaving America (quite small, but still…). After the conferences, the majority of my training group (about 20 of us) hitched up our bags and headed to the Nile River for some white water rafting. Let’s just say that the Grade 4-5.5 rapids of the river are not for the weak hearted and while I was confident in the experience of our guides, I was surprised that the only serious injury occurred: one girl chipped her tooth (this was quickly remedied by Peace Corps Medical, but definitely got the song “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” stuck in my head) seeing as each boat flipped over at least twice. In the morning Rafting Company’s bus was a bit delayed, causing me to miss the early bus and leaving me potentially stranded in Gulu. Thankfully, I was able to stay with a PCV couple in Gulu that night, just in time to partake in a sushi feast they happened to be making and to meet one of my fellow volunteer’s students with whom I played Sudoku the whole way. Unfortunately, I was doomed to sit by a broken window that happened to kill a little bird on the way…I guess you win some and you lose some. I arrived back in Kitgum with a long to-do list including setting and grading beginning of term exams and making 8 kilograms of peanut paste to bring along with another 8 kilograms of black beans to some volunteers who do not have access to such items the next week when I would return to Kampala for the All-Volunteer-Conference (above, you see a picture of the first 2 cucumbers from my garden...unfortunately, it didn't rain at all during the 2 weeks I was away and so those are also 2 of the last cucumbers from my garden). As I left for Kampala once again on the 8am bus, now loaded up with 16 kilograms of assorted food I realized a few things: one, for some reason everyone and their mom was leaving Kitgum that Wednesday morning causing the bus to leave a half hour early rather than the more typical hour late and leaving me to squeeze into the back row of the bus (which has enough room for 5, but of course, we fit 6 people and gives the ride out of Kitgum the flair of a rollercoaster since you spend about a third of the time airborne as the potholes and bumps throw you out of your seat---aka, middle school bus rider’s dream come true). The security woman at the hotel outside of Kampala loved the fact that I, like a good mother visiting her child at boarding school, came loaded with food, including carrying my peanut paste in a jerry can (this is a very village aka non-Kampala thing to do…but the good thing was that no one in Kampala looked at me that day and expected me to have any money to give them—they may have been searching their pockets to give me money instead). The All-Volunteer’s conference was wonderful and I came away with a lot of new ideas and resources which bring me to the many eggs that are in my basket right now. I am awaiting 20 lbs of novels from a US group called Bookaid to help the English Department improve the students’ composition grades (as of now they are failing and English is crucial for a student to continue to the Advanced Level). This shipment may be followed by 800 more novels…but that is still up in the air… Also, another female teacher and I are starting a Life Skills Club, addressing issues like hygiene, HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy, and girl empowerment. The first official meeting is on Sunday, during which we will be making reusable menstrual pads…we’ll see how this goes…a little shy of 200 girls from Senior 1 and Senior 2 have signed up…oi. At the end of the term, the club will host a Music, Dance, and Drama event and 5 girls will accompany me and my counterpart to the first annual Camp GLOW in Uganda, which is a camp for girl empowerment that PC volunteers have implemented all over the world. Tomorrow is the first of the schools regular debates (we’re going to try for every other week). The topic is “Should school in Uganda be compulsory?” There are a few more things that are in the works, but I’ll leave those to a later time. Until then, I hope all is well. It's raining almost everyday here, including torrential storms that pounded so hard and so loud on the tin roof of my classrooms during 2 classes on Monday that teaching was impossible (my Senior 1 math class doesn't have glass on the windows so the entire class and I were bundled together on one side of the room to stay dry, yelling at each other to communicate...I gotta tell you, sometimes life is a trip). Maybe one of these days I’ll learn to update my blog more regularly so that it’s not a novel every time.

Y Y oh why has it taken me so long to update?

Update on my hut roommate: the Ugandan Raven (rat from the toilet) is dead and buried (and just for good measure, I poured some Clorox over the grave), but unfortunately, his bushy-tailed rat cousin has replaced him in the rafters and has a bit more of a vicious attitude (I have now established 2 allies in this battle against rodents: a woman in the market who sells me the little fish and another at the pharmacy who sells me the poison and I even know a choice Acholi phrase: Amito matek ka neko oyo (I want very much to kill a rat)). Since I last wrote, I experience a week of terrible sickness from a bacterial infection in the intestine (if you’re medically inclined and want more details, feel free to email me, but for now, children might be reading this blog and I don’t want to give them nightmares). This lovely experience was followed a week of being on duty. Each week, three teachers are on duty which means that they are solely in charge of the school: discipline, general cleaning, uniforms, greeting visitors some of whom don’t speak any English… So for a week, I spent my days calling delinquent girls out of classes to clean and do landscaping as I stood there supervising…did I mention that we don’t have any grounds or cleaning staff here? so every girl has to do her part and believe me, they don’t enjoy it. In between these two unexciting weeks my school hosted a track and field championship meet for all the schools in the surrounding area. I dragged myself out of sickbed to go and see our awesome girls totally kick butt and win first place (see picture of team, the coaches, my head teacher and her deputy)! However, the track meet itself was a tribute to the crazy variety of clothes you can find in the markets here and what unusual fashion trends evolve from this variety. The girls mainly ran in short skirts, but on top they’d be wearing something like a tank top or halter top. The boys though took the cake: in women’s bathing suits, speedos, underwear, basketball shorts, spandex unis…and of course most everyone was running barefoot…I feel like no track and field event is complete without such a fashion show. Meanwhile, my exercise consists of digging, weeding, biking to town on my fancy new bike (see picture and note that the brand is Phoenix—totally unintentional purchase, because I planned to get a bike called “Kal amara” or “My husband loves me (and so he bought me this bike),” but they didn’t have it…much like how I don’t have a husband—those of you who know my from College know that I gained a strong appreciation for Phoenixes through my involvement in a tutoring/mentoring group called Project Phoenix, and so truly, I believe that buying this bike was fate), play sword fighting with the local children (I’m so close to asking them to call me Zorro…but with no “z” in the alphabet, I wonder how it will work out), and chasing after trespassing goats, roosters, and chicken with a machete (I had my revenge on the chicken race yesterday…I’ll go into more detail in a bit). During the World Cup, I spent almost every evening until about 1130pm watching the games with the some of the staff in the staffroom with the exception of the Ghana-American game when I felt that for my own safety, I’d best find other Americans in town to watch on a big screen in town (safety in numbers…)—unfortunately, we were still greatly outnumbered by Ugandans and when Ghana won…we sat there a bit saddened surrounded by jumping and screaming Ugandans. Unfortunately, I have never seen so many hearts break at once as when Ghana later lost, but the excitement of the finals helped each of us get over it and choose a new team to root for (in the blog is a picture of the staffroom at half-time for the final match). I truly recommend being in a country that is a bit obsessed with soccer during the World Cup: every play, call, and goal has an emotional and loud response that I like can only be matched by the best and brightest sports bars of America. I reunited with the Americans (3 Peace Corps volunteers and some IRC interns--see picture, the guys are PC, the girls are IRC) in town for a 4th of July dinner party, complete with pizza, mac and cheese (there’s a severe lack of cheese in Uganda compared to America so we decided to go big or go home), boxed wine, anthem singing, red, white, and blue sugar cookies and a watermelon from the market. I spent much of the night explaining to the Ugandans present why some of those present were getting so emotional about certain Bruce Springsteen songs etc., trying my best to be a good cultural ambassador. I brought the celebration home the next day in the staff room and we all bonded over Uganda and America’s common fight against English rule (although for the Ugandans, gaining independence was a peaceful and highly ceremonial event). Other notable events include being told “Aber, there’s a (white) man who is asking for you” to which I responded “My goodness, let me call my mother,” the first of hopefully many debate events at the school, and the acquiring of a gas regulator so that my hut doesn’t burst into flames…which brings me to my first Uganda Hut Dinner Party. Celebrating my inner Indian identity, I invited some Americans and Ugandans over for a big Indian meal including curry, lentils, chickpeas, naan, devil’s food cake (from scratch) and chicken…Two chickens were kindly delivered to me by a motorcycling friend yesterday morning and as I said earlier, proved to be my revenge on the flock of chickens here who believe they own my hut and garden (let’s just say they are keeping their distance now)—if you’re a veggie, small child, or a bit skwimish, please skip the next 3 sentences. To those of you who have not killed, plucked, and deboned live chickens before, I will not give you details, I’ll just say that I took them out back (gangster movie style) and then opened the bible to ask forgiveness for breaking the commandment “Thou shall not kill.” Let’s just say I felt a sudden strong connection to Lady Macbeth and her “Out damn spot” speech. I’ve never been closer to becoming a vegetarian and now have an immense amount of respect for poultry farmers and love for packages of boneless and skinless chicken breasts at your local grocery store. The dinner was an immense success and made having to wake up this morning at 5am to grade math homework by light of a kerosene lamp for the 70 girls I was to teach at 8am totally worth it. I thought I would tell you a little bit about the class that I have pictured (I’ll upload pictures of my other classes in later blogs). This is my Senior 2 Biology class and they are what I’d like to call a hoot (very energetic and improving so much on their exams as we go on!). I meet with these 70 or so lovely ladies twice a week and each day I have a little theme to help them do better and to start thinking outside the box a bit. On Mondays, we have a short quiz that is not for a grade, but instead for a prize to be awarded this coming Wednesday to the top 5 cumulative scorers and on Wednesdays, we go over a “why?” question: for instance: why can insects walk on water like Jesus? Why is the sky blue? Why do we have hiccups? (hopefully, this will eventually get them a bit excited over time about how science can explain the world around us, but for right now, it’s just a lot of fun to escape from lecturing and to have them brainstorm). On a sad note, we have lost 2 girls here at YY Okot and both were Senior 1 students (so around 13 years old)—one died from a lack of platelets in her blood stream and the other has now been dismissed because she is pregnant. Its hard to remember when surrounded by 900 laughing and happy girls, but there is a harsh reality to the limits of the Ugandan health system and health education (soon I’ll be traveling to talk to some young women about such issues because the pressure on girls to not get pregnant in order to stay in school has led to illegal and very dangerous abortion procedures). As for the recent bombings in Uganda: while I live far from Kampala and so these acts of terrorism don’t affect me directly, it is quite sad and frightening to see how it is potentially escalating, but I am quite confident that Peace Corps is at least doing its best to ensure the safety of all volunteers (thank you for your concern though). I hope all is well at home. I think of you all often and would love to hear any updates (especially now that you’ve read the novel I just wrote).

The Ugandan Raven

The school term started about 2 weeks ago with beginning-of-term exams and I started teaching this past Monday. Let’s just say that it’s be a bit busy around here and my responsibilities seemed to have grown exponentially during the time I’ve spent grading about 150 exams, attending staff meetings, and making syllabi and lesson plans. In the time since I wrote my last blog entry, I have acquired three night biology classes, at least two computer classes (this might increase) and have become a dorm mistress for about 120 girls (thankfully, this does not actually mean I have to live in the dorm—which consists of 60 girls crammed into a room with 3 rows of bunk beds about 2 feet apart from each other—it just means that I have to make sure they clean their room and the surrounding compound (my parents joked with me that this is all those times I was reluctant to clean my room catching up to me and kicking me in the butt)). The schedule itself is not too bad, except for Wednesday when I teach from 8am to 830pm (4 double periods/80 minute classes and 1 triple period). It’s an absolute trip to go from 70 girls in my first double to a triple period with just two girls (an advanced level class) and then back to another 70. Teaching computers is especially interesting because it’s a crammed classroom of 3 girls to a computer with all of the girls really getting experience on the computer for the first time, once a week, for 80 minutes: last year, this class only got through booting up and shutting down the computer. The staff is a fun bunch and most seem to work really hard (we are definitely understaffed). There are about three times more men than women on the staff and the ages are quite mixed, but they seem to still all get along well and are very welcoming to me (helping me with my Acholi and filling my head with such questions as “I hear that no blacks in America can get any job but manual labor, is it true? How can I transfer to be a teacher in America? I hear that it has been scientifically proven that the world will end in 2012. What do you know about the Mayans? What do you think about Obama, Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Dolly Parton?....). There are a few others who don’t speak Acholi (I actually know more than them…which is quite a shocker) since they are either from Central Uganda or Northwest Uganda so some of the conversations/jokes are actually in English which makes life a bit easier. I have really lucked out with my head teacher/principal (who is my closest neighbor at about 10 feet away and spends a good amount of time with family in Kampala, but is an extremely strong and admirable woman). She has been quite supportive during my settling-in period and is a leader in the community who will be a great asset to me if/when I start working with groups outside of the school for my secondary projects (she even bought me seeds for my garden and lent me the book “Girl with a Dragon Tattoo). For those of you musically or religiously inclined, you would really enjoy spending a day on my campus. These girls are singing their praises to the Lord with drums every morning and all day on the weekends…mixed with those Xena-type yells of theirs, it really hits it home that I live in Africa.
I was told by a returned Peace Corps Volunteer that the biggest compliment that she ever received during her service was someone referring to her as a man, not a woman. Here, where women are credited with a lot of the work, I find it quite nice when people look at me and say “Here is a real Ugandan/African woman,” usually partnered with a comment like: “It’s hard to be an African woman.”
To end this entry on a funny note, I refer you all to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html.... well in my case, I heard this scratching from my bathroom the other morning at around 6am. Now, I am blessed with a flush toilet, but it is a bit tempermental (to put it lightly) so after hearing this scratching for a few minutes, I thought I'd better go check to see if there were about to be an explosion of some sort. Now, I'm a good girl and I always put down the lid of the toilet and this morning, there it was, closed with no possible way for anything to get in unless from below...but lo, I open the lid to see a large rat trying desperately to claw its way out. I had pity on his soul and used a scrubber to help him out, but then the schmuck pulled a fast one on me somewhere between the toilet and my front door and has been causing mayhem in my rafters (I fear that he has been trying to eat his way through my thatched roof which would just me no fun for me). Last night was the night that he finally wore out his welcome and I set a trap for him using horrible tasting little dried fish and a pill called Indocin, but the mystery remains: how did that rat get into my closed toilet? I even looked for an outside way in without success and have a strange fear that if (as said in Finding Nemo) "all drains lead to the Ocean" what leads to my toilet? I think this is the only time in my life that I would prefer a pit latrine.
Many of the girls have requested American Pen Pals (if you have a class that you want to connect to some Ugandan students or if you yourself have an interest, just send me an email). This is not sponsorship or anything like that, just letters.
Should you not want to communicate with Uganda Secondary students, but rather with me, please feel free to send me an update on your life via email, mail, or now by skype! (my username is heather_pasley and the reception is not amazing, but it’s possible)
Thinking about you all often.
PS. As you see in this blog entry, there are pictures of my house on the inside! Here you can see my machete, hoe, and brooms next to my desk with my exams piled on top, the bookshelf I had built with a bit of William and Mary memorabilia on the side, the nested tables I had built to complete my compact cooking space of hanging food and a temporary non-exploding stove, and finally a picture of my bed and the guest bed you would be staying on should you visit here. Please note that lining the inside of the hut are pictures of all of you which really make this place feel like home.

Life in Kitgum is pretty quiet right now so I’ve taken advantage of this lull in activity to fix up my house and get started on my garden. The house is now painted with pictures (of you all) and food hanging and newly constructed tables and bookshelf. The garden is dug and my new babies (not quite Angelina Jolie style) are planted in nursery beds: green peppers, onions, eggplant, cabbage, collards, tomatoes, groundnuts, and cucumbers. The subconscious is a funny thing by the way: I didn’t realize it until after I had finished painting, but I painted my house red, white, and blue and I now know that I cannot dig my garden as others do, I have to dig in squares in a grid system just as I did in Jamestown…talk about being a creature of habit. I am getting used to life here and while matching some names with faces is still a struggle, I think there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. My town (market, shops, other volunteers etc) is about 3km away and I have succeeded in winning the hearts of a number of people in the market aka they don’t cheat me, they know my name (Aber, not Heather…no one even tries to say Heather anymore), and they put in a little extra for free (for instance, an extra tomato or scoop of rice…truly, it’s the little things). Many other volunteers complain that there are children/adults running in and out of their homes without a care in the world (like an open house…all the time). Personally, my intruders are of a different variety: roosters, hens, chicks, and the occasional goat (the turkeys and turduckens—mixture of a turkey, duck, and chicken…not really, but that’s what they remind me of—(pictured to the right) are building up their courage as we speak). My garden makes me feel like Farmer McGregor in Peter Rabbit or Farmer Maggot in Lord of the Rings because I am constantly chasing the chickens, roosters, and especially goats away by running with them with my hoe or with a few token phrases in a variety of languages (Russian is the most successful thus far). Beginning of term exams begin on Wednesday and classes next Monday. As of now, I’m not entirely sure of my course load/schedule etc…but I do know that I am teaching one section of Secondary 1 (equivalent of like 7th grade) Math (which is 100 or so students), one section of Secondary 2 (8th grade) Biology (another 100), assisting in Secondary 5 (this is when classes are 2 or 3 students instead of 100 because everyone else either dropped out or didn’t pass the national exam they take after Secondary 4) Math, and potentially computers…hopefully this will all be sorted out in the coming week. Another thing on my “to do” list for this week is to solve the leaking gas stove problem (over the last two weeks I have been trying out my stove with some fellow teachers and an electrician, having recently acquired the tap needed to release gas from my tank to my stove—when the tap is open gas has not only been coming out of the burners, but also leaking out of the rest of the stove so when I would light the match, the burner is not the only thing that would ignite…remember that time you nearly blew up the Chemistry lab with an experiment gone wrong? Now imagine that happening about 5 times in a thatched roof hut, then 2 more times outside under a mango tree, and then 3 more times with a different stove in a classroom…I’m pretty sure I lost every hair on my hands, but thankfully nothing else). So now I’m on the prowl for a regulator for my gas tank that will solve all my problems…again, hopefully. Please send me letters, pictures, and emails about life at home! PO Box 68 Kitgum, Uganda or hrpasl@gmail.com I hope all is well!

Home Sweet Home

On Wednesday April 21, 2010, I officially became a Peace Corps Volunteer. The ceremony took place at the American Ambassador’s home in Kampala (which is absolutely beautiful, so if you have any inclination towards being an ambassador, do it: it’s the Oz beyond the yellow brick road). --to the left, see my home...a bit smaller but I have a mango tree as a neighbor!
After 11 hours on the bus, I arrived in Kitgum and am currently settling into my home. My school, Y.Y. Okot has about 1000 girls, all are boarders and most left for holidays the day after I arrived. The next month will be spent readying my home, learning how to get around, meeting people, and getting ready to teach Biology and Math this next term, starting the end of May. My address is PO Box 68, Kitgum, Uganda should you care to send me anything and I’ll get to writing letters to those of you I promised soon. The president of Iran visited Kampala the other day, marking yet another step in the development of an oil field here—this is the government gearing up for the upcoming election (accompanied by the creation of 14 new districts, a nation-wide tour, and road maintenance).
Meanwhile, I am busy making my little hut a home: painting, furnishing, gardening, etc. My first full day here included a nice welcome lunch with all the teachers at my school, followed by everyone sitting around my hut and drinking beers both to welcome me and to celebrate the end of a term. Things are a bit slow here because the students are all gone, but before the last of them left, I got to attend a student church service. The service was student-run and full of music and of this high-pitched yell that women make here as an expression of joy (kind of like Xena the Warrior Princess’s war cry, but faster). The service took place in a building that used to be a place for night-commuters during the war to sleep. The school stayed open throughout the war and resembles a fortress with a 24 hour guard, tall walls, and barb wire. Let’s just say, security will not be an issue. After attending a Canadian-run conference on teaching children affected by war and the first of two nation-wide track and field meets in honor of a famous Ugandan runner from Kitgum (these are meant to be a major recruiting event for the National Team so these athletes are the crème de la crop), both at my school, I have a feeling that I’ve come to a real hotspot of activity. I am continuing to learn the Acholi language (my fellow staff and the community are bent towards helping me) and as of this morning, I have acquired a Swahili teacher….hopefully I won’t get confused, become the tower of Babel, and need to be smote down by God… As always, my thoughts and prayers are with you all and I hope to hear from you all about how life is at home.

I'm going to be in Kitgum!

Training is almost over: on April 21st we are sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) and disperse to our designated sites. Which reminds me, my future site is an all girls secondary school which was originally formed for child mother (girls who were abducted by the LRA and made into “wives” of the soldiers) in Kitgum District (about 3 km outside of Kitgum town)—one of the northern-most districts in Uganda (link to map of Uganda). There are 2 volunteers doing Community Health and Economic Development in Kitgum town and another science teacher from my training group will be about 20 km away from me. Looking at the map of Uganda with all the volunteers on it, I believe I have become the northern-most volunteer…so if you want to go to Sudan….it’s only about 70 miles away. I have been also reassigned as a General Science (Biology, Physics, Chemistry) teacher rather than just a Math/Chemistry teacher. I’ll go to my site on Thursday for a quick site visit so I can find out if anything’s wrong with the site and what I need for my home (so that if I need to get it in Kampala, I can) and meet my counterpart in the school. Funny story, so my house is actually going to be a hut-house: meaning mud walls and a thatched roof, but word on the street is that it also has windows and running water—it was built by a volunteer (not PC) who was working at or near the school and decided that he/she was tired of sleeping in a classroom so I am excited to see and live in a Northern Ugandan tradition house with a bit of western spice.
Three weeks ago, I went to stay with Hellen, a volunteer in Lira for two weeks (Lira is just south of the Acholi region, was part of the war for the last two years—the 20 year war is said to have gotten more violent towards the end—and they speak Lango which is similar to Acholi, but just different enough to make my head spin). The purpose of the visit in addition to language practice, was to observe Ugandan classrooms, to get some more practice teaching, and to learn from a volunteer (the two of us who stayed with Hellen really lucked out, she has a wonderful school, is a veteran teacher with a wealth of knowledge and has organized some amazing programs—including two events while we were there)—let’s just say, she set the bar high, but staying with her has helped us a lot on the way to being successful volunteers. The first weekend I was up there, I went to Gulu (which is in Acholi region) for a conference on the psychological aftermath of the war in the north. About ¾ of the PC volunteers currently serving in the North and the senior staff of PC Uganda (this is a pretty big deal seeing as Gulu is not exactly close to Kampala) attended the conference which was led by Sister Margaret, a nun native to Gulu and trained in counseling who has worked a lot with child soldiers and Benjamin Porter, who specializes in post-trauma counseling. They reviewed the history of the conflict and discussed the statistics (which were staggeringly high) and symptoms of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, Depression, and Acoholism in addition to relating scenarios they had incountered and tips for how we can process the emotional stress that comes with living in a post-war environment. It’s definitely a very impressive group of volunteers up north right now and so I’m happy that I will have a good support system and be surrounded by wonderful resources.
Uganda has had a lot of activity in the last couple of weeks. Two and a half weeks ago, the Kasumbi Tombs (the burial place of 4 Bugunda/Central Uganda Kings and a global cultural site) were burned down. When President Musevini tried to visit the site, he met a riot of people and his gaurds fired on the crowd, killing 2. Later, 3 more were trampled during prayers around the Tombs. This is quite a blow to the Bugunda people because their monarchy is a very precious part of their culture. It’s also unsettling for a country that is already strongly divided by tribal affiliations and languages and that has heated election in just one year (Musevini will now be running for his 6th term as president, having amended the constitution to do away with the 3 term limit). So just like -----
Another lesson learned: So the name “Heather” does not exist in any way, shape, or form here. I may be having the greatest conversation in the world, but when I tell people my name, their faces go blank and they just say “okay” and move on (sometimes literally walking away). The brave few actually attempt to pronounce this foreign name , but the closest people have gotten to it is a mixture of “either” and “ether” with a strained look on their face. And so, the moral of the story is that every person should go to a priest/rabbi/library before they go to Africa and pick out a Christian name. For me, I opened the Bible and decided that Esther was the closest. So as of now, I have 7 names: Esther (my go-to holy name), Aber (“the good one” or “one who is good” in Acholi), Muzungu (foreigner/traveler in the South), Muno (foreigner/traveler in the North), Heather/Edder/Either/Ether, Randolph (not a chance in the world that this is better than Heather), and Pasley (this might still be a winner b/c there’s a load of paisley in the fabric designs here). If you cannot relate to this story again or don’t see the “funniness” about it, please go to your nearest library and check out “Tiki-Tiki-Tambo-No-Sorambo….” or go to an authentic foreign restaurant and try to pronounce the dish you’d like to eat…in this case, bring a friend to take a picture of your face when you’re trying to pronounce the dish’s name and you’ll see a look I now know better than my own face.
I hope all is well! Thank you for all the emails! I soon will have internet! So the skype option is on the horizon! You are all in my daily thoughts and prayers.

About 19 hours in the sky and 7 hours in various airports later, I arrived in Uganda. “Surreal” does not even come close to explain my first evening in Uganda. A rope line of our trainers and country director and a moonlit bus ride through Entebbe to Laweza (about 15 km outside of Kampala) led us to our first Ugandan meal, a few welcome speeches, and finally to our beds. Training at Laweza (a Protestant Conference Center where we spent our first few days) consisted of cross-cultural lessons, a crash course in Luganda (the language spoken in Central Uganda), security briefs, morning yoga routines, bird and monkey watching, starchy food, the last hot showers we will have for a long time, and an absolutely insane trip to the capitol, Kampala. In short, it was a busy couple of days. The streets and motor vehicles of Kampala make those of NYC look like child’s play—for the taxi and boda boda drivers, where there’s a will, there’s a way and little things like pedestrians, shops, other vehicles, and doors falling off the hinge should get in the way. Kampala introduced us to two other funny things about Uganda: no street signs and the word “muzungu.” “Muzungu” means foreigner/traveler and is the name called out to every volunteer wherever we go. Now that I have moved in with my host family in the village Kisimbiri (which is also near Kampala in the district Wokiso), the soundtrack to my 5K walk to classes is a chorus of children (50% of Uganda’s population is under 15 years old) yelling out “Muzungu!”
My host family is a small family (only 3 children) and has been wonderful to me: in addition to expanding my Lunganda vocabulary, they’ve helped me learn how to survive/cook/clean in Uganda. After settling into our lessons in Wokiso, I have become familiar with showering with a bucket, pit latrines, power outages, “Ugandan time” (I have been told that Ugandans keep time by the crow of the rooster and so, I am on time for a 7am meeting even if I don’t get there until 759am b/c it’s still in the 1st hour of daylight and if I don’t get there until 1pm or so, it’s ok), boiling all my water, washing clothes and dishes by hand with basins, and red mud and dirt.
Those of you who have seen me during or after my field work know that I have a lot in common with the Peanuts Character, Pig Pen…now that my skin color is about 50 shades lighter than that of most everyone else, dirt/mud shows up on my skin a lot better comparatively and so my pseudonym has been taken to the extreme.
Wonderful things about Uganda:
Everyone here greets everyone and hospitality is crucial—business cannot take place without a greeting and the formal greeting asks about how you spent the night/day, thanks you for your general work, and asks about your family.
Peace Corps here has a real family dynamic to it. The country leader is an absolutely inspirational figure and present volunteers are coming every week to speak to our training group.
When it is sunny, the bird calls fill the air and complement the warm air and when it is rainy, it is not cold.
About the next two years:
I now know what I will be teaching:
Chemistry and Math (Potentially Biology as well…just to spice things up)
AND
I know where I will be teaching:
Acholi Region or in layman’s terms the North/Northwest.
In our first security briefing, we learned that the Lord’s Resistance Army has been pushed well into the DRC and that it is stable up there (the NW is where Invisible Children was filmed). A year ago, they started sending volunteers up there and I will be 1 of 5 going to join the 13 already up there. The language is beautiful and my language teacher is wonderful so while the assignment was a surprise, I could not be happier. I will be going to one of 4 regions: Gulu, Adjumani, Kitgum, and Pader.
I miss you all and think of each of you often. I hope all is well. An ki mar (“I with love” in Acholi)

Leaving for Uganda

I leave for Uganda tomorrow at 1030 am (weather permitting...knock on wood).
As some of you know, this past week has been consumed by a run-in with the State Department and a blizzard so my impending departure is nothing short of a minor miracle. From these experiences, I have learned two important lessons that I'd like to share with you:
Lesson 1: No news is good news
Last Tuesday, Peace Corps' travel agency contacted me for the first time since I sent in my forms two months earlier to inform me that my passports (both government-issued and personal) had been sent to Nairobi, Kenya. After confirming that there was no logical reason to send my passports to Kenya, the travel agent assured me that he would check with the State Department and that I should not stress because he was already stressed enough for the both of us. The State Department saved the day (along with the trusty travel agent)! It issued a new government passport for me, arranged for my reunion with my personal passport in Uganda and so remedied what it referred to as a "freak accident."
Lesson 2: The Peace Corps is very similar to the USPS
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Aka as long as it doesn't snow too much tonight, I'll be on that plane tomorrow.
All in all, I am incredibly excited and look forward to sharing this experience with you all.