Short, Sweet, and to the Point...somehow

Another term is coming to an end and now I’m looking forward to the long holiday break (2 months) of girl empowerment, gorillas, stove building, soap making, and of course, dreaming of a white Christmas. At site, I’ve continued to work on the stoves, books, soap, distributing AFRIpads (reusable menstrual pads that are very “smart”), classes, and maps (we have moved on from the World Map--shown here (the countries are numbered on the map and along the borders, we cut out stencils using razors and computer paper of the countries, capitals, and the corresponding number--I've recently gotten some slack for numbering the US as number 3, not number 1-Canada and Mexico come before it alphabetically...but that seems to be besides the point for most people) to the East Africa Map). This past week, I organized and gathered about 43 volunteers (about a third of the total Uganda PC population) together in Gulu to celebrate Thanksgiving (this may be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve attempted to organize in Uganda but it shockingly worked out beautifully—one Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings and more, no stress, no drama, and no one left hungry). All in all, I’m loving life here and have found myself really coming into my own here.
A few months ago, my family met a man named Sebastian in Washington DC who used to build fuel efficient stoves in Northern Uganda (it’s a small world after all). He gave them the name and contact of the organization that he used to work with called International Lifeline Fund which they then passed on to me. Long story short, I started talking with ILF and next year, starting in June, I’m going to be a Peace Corps volunteer working for them for an additional year, building large Institutional Stoves in and around Lira (which happens to be my second favorite town in Uganda, next to Kitgum, my current home). This will give me an opportunity to really commit myself to stove building, rather than struggling to fit my stove expeditions around my classes and other commitments in Kitgum, and will hopefully prepare me for going to graduate school for Environmental Engineering when I come home in Summer 2013.
For those of you who are shaking your heads right now (or crying uncontrollably), wondering when I will finally snap out of it, leave Uganda, and see them again, fear not! I will be coming home for the month of May (round trip paid for by the Peace Corps) before starting my third year. If you are living outside of Virginia, DC, or Colombia, it is my humble request that you see if you can make the trip to one of those three places and visit during that month. Otherwise, those in VA, DC, and my lovely roommate in Colombia, please expect me on you doorstop for however so briefly in about 5 months. I’ll write again shortly after Christmas hopefully with pictures of Gorillas, up close and personal. Happy Holidays! Make sure you let me know if one of your New Years Resolutions is to travel to East Africa!

I'm into lists right now....sorry

Hello all. For those of you in VA, I hope you and your belongings survived the earthquake! All those in VA and NYC, I hear that you are living without power for the time being which means that we can have some shared experiences now. The term ended about 2 weeks ago and will start again in a week. During the term, we took one more giant step towards finishing the World Map (there are now names on the countries (including the new Republic of Southern Sudan) and we’ve added all those pesky little islands that my students have been a bit too eager to paint right over with blue…despite the fact that they now know that Uganda is indeed quite a small ountry, anything smaller than Uganda doesn’t seem to really be worth the effort in their minds…), our students are getting ready for their national exams next term, and our power transmission was stolen so we spent the second half the term without power. At the end of the term, I joined hands with the other female teachers at my school to welcome and host Archbishop Orumbi (Archbishop of the Protestant Church here) and 2000 other people coming to see him. I also acquired two more women’s groups with whom I have started to make liquid soap (I now have a grand total of 4 groups plus my students…watch as my empire grows). I traveled to the SW to build an oven, carrying a full bag of tools (trowels, level, L ruler etc) and 3 welded pieces: a chimney that was light, but about 6ft long, a chimney base that weighed maybe 30lbs and was about 1m2 and last but not least, an oven box that was 40cmX60cmX60cm and took 2 strong men (4 weaker men) to carry (did I mention that the trip takes about 20 hours and involves changing to progressively smaller and more packed vehicles 3 times?) I put here a picture of the last vehicle which took me and 7 other people (and 2 children) about an hour down a dirt road that has seen better days. This trip made me realize that I seem to pack a ridiculous amount on public transport vehicles here (there’s a good chance I was a pack horse in a past life because most normal Peace Corps Volunteers tend to pack less and less as time goes on….). So here’s the top 5 list of things I’ve transported:
1) Oven etc (this must top the list because really, needing 3-5 people to help you carry your “luggage” really should put me up there on the level with royalty—eat your heart out Marie Antoinette)
2) 27 2*2*1 ft boxes of books and a desktop computer
3) 3 jerry cans of chemicals and other solid chemicals in a box and a large bag of empty water bottles (this has happened multiple times/in different combinations)
4) 10L of peanut sauce and 8kg of black beans
5) 13 secondary school girls and a pair of black shoes in a black plastic bag that I accidentally took, thinking the bag was mine….it belonged another unknown and now shoeless secondary school girl…whoops
Also, since I’ve now completed 1 1/3 years of teaching here, I thought I’d mention things that have happened to me here that would never happen to a teacher in the US:
1) A chicken flying into the classroom only to be caught by a student and forced back out the window, only causing a minute or two of distraction from the normal lesson
2) A rainstorm that forces 70 students to crowd around me in the center of the room because the rain was soaking 75% of the classroom and making it impossible to move or talk in the remaining 25%
3) Giving a 2 hour computer exam, 3 girls at a time, by candlelight (the generator can only power so much)
At the end of the term, I headed to the SW to be a counselor for a regional GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camp during which I rewrote many popular Ugandan songs to be camp songs (truly, my radio listening experience here will never be the same). Afterwards, I visited Sipi Falls in the East with a friend which is has 3 beautiful waterfalls—we could get close enough to get a bit of a mist shower (the best thing about the trip is that not many tourists visit the Falls so it’s almost an untouched part of Uganda). I believe that we thoroughly entertained our guide by constantly singing (we were fresh from being Camp counselors) and by greeting everyone along the way in their local language (this is quite unusual for foreigners to do…period).
Here in Uganda, I have met a lot of people who were named after famous people (George Bush, Obama, Bill Clinton, Sadam Hussein….), but now there is a new installment to the list: a dog named Qadaffi…truly, the Ugandans know how to celebrate history.
Anyways, I hope all is well! Please tell me what’s going on with you all!

Oh why do I live this way...it must be the money!

The first term ended last Thursday and my goodness, my school way not kidding when they told me: “sometimes, the first term is somehow busy…” I found myself with a number of projects and events, often going on at the same time. As a relaxed to my favorite “public transport” song (Nelly’s “It Must Be the Money”) last Friday on a run-down matatu (15 passenger van with 20 people instead of 15 stuffed in) that needed to be pushed a block before it could start) on my way to see a friend 4 hours away (on a road where the pot holes resemble small lakes) for Easter, I remembered that it’s been a while since I wrote in my blog. Unfortunately, such a venue is not an appropriate location for breaking out my laptop so again, I’m a bit delayed.
I have continued to work with my Life Skills club. We are still making liquid soap and doing self-esteem activities, but now we’ve added on bee keeping with 5 bee hives in front of the school, the actual bees coming soon (pictured: 2 of the hives and some of the girls "baiting" the hives with melted bees wax). I also started running with the girls and some of the teachers on Saturday morning during the school’s weekly Morning Road Run (the school just started again this term: imagine 900 girls running down the road, all singing at the top of their lungs….it’s crazy). At the school, the green club and I have also added another large stove (2nd installment of 4 as seen in the picture), copying the larger version I got to help a vocational school and some Peace Corps Volunteers build in Gulu (just south of me) in honor of Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary (see picture of a bricklaying teacher and some of his students are pictured with the nearly completed product). With the help of the fine art teacher and 2 fine art students, the world map is complete (minus the names of the countries) in all of its colorful glory, front row and center, visible from even the main road and is bound to help the students finally understand the shape, size, and location of such strange countries as Canada, India, and of course, Uganda. With all these projects, I have been more busy outside of the classroom than inside the classroom and I am still in shock about how much trust my school has in me (enough to let me draw the world free hand on a prominent wall of the school without any geography or fine art degree to qualify me) and support my school gives me to allow me to do and then to fund these huge projects. Thank goodness I ended up at a school as crazy as I am.
I’ve also started to work with 2 of the 10 women’s groups that my Head Teacher began. These groups started to help women in the same villages help each other recover from the war financially and mentally. After fleeing their homes and then living in Internally Displaced People Camps for as many as 20 years, these women returned to looted homes and lacked basics they needed to get their lives back: pots, pans, etc. Alone, none of them could afford all that they needed, so they saved together and each week they would pool their money for one member to buy what she needed. After a while, they also started to making needle points and paper beads to make extra money through the Anglican Diocese. Now, we make liquid soap with a vengeance to make money and mud stoves in their homes to save money on firewood. Between the local gossip and the impromptu composing of songs that they do as they work, these women are a lot of fun to work with.

These projects have certainly made me miss a few conveniences from America including bricks that don’t break in half if you drop them from 1 m in the air and have led to a few small disasters like purple paint spilling all over the boot of my bus, including on 20 pineapples, after being packed poorly (the only good thing that came out of this is that I have never gotten off a bus to a more concerned and helpful crowd of boda bodas (motorcycle drivers)—these people are usually more likely to laugh at or harass you than help, but I guess purple paint everywhere seemed to help my position because I swear they were all sincerely sorry about my situation).
All in all, a very successful Spring, but now I get to take a chill pill for a few weeks before the circus of my busy schedule begins again next term (so much for that free time I thought I’d have in Peace Corps). Hope all is well and keep me up to date with any and all exciting/mundane news.

So it ended up that I transported 26 large boxes of books plus another box with a desktop computer in it via public transport from Kampala to Kitgum…talk about overpacking. Books for Africa delivered quite a variety of books and while I’m still wrestling with the fact that more than half of the ones received definitely do no fit into the category Teen fiction (Heathcare 2010, How to Read French Literature, Unsolved Murders….), I am grateful for the ones that do fit in and have a lot of hope of what Books for Africa can accomplish if it just pays a bit more attention to how it categorizes books.
I’m writing now, not only because I’m trying to write more frequent and shorter blog entries, but also because a little more than one year ago, I joined the Peace Corps. So break open a bottle of ice cold beer as I rip open a ketchup package of room temperature local brew and we’ll celebrate…maybe not.
Things are starting a bit slowly this term but I think I will be very busy soon once again. We are in the 4th week of the term (which is funny since I’ve yet to meet with 4 of my 5 classes for one reason or another) and just like they may be saying “Spring is in the air” back home, “Politics are in the air” here, in much of North Africa and in the Middle East. I’m sure you all have been reading about Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Iran, and Bahrain and if you are clued into any general African news, you might be hearing a bit about a little country called Uganda. 5 other volunteers in my group were actually on vacation in Egypt at the time of the protests, but thankfully they were able to fly out to Athens on a fight chartered for American citizens and are now safe and sound. Elections for all levels (from very local to President) here happened this past Friday. Students over age 18 were released from school last Wednesday to go to their home of record and vote. The Embassy has been gearing up for this election for more than a year now, fearing the worst, but (knock on wood) it seems to be peaceful. Election Day and the preceding week included a few car accidents or small incidents and scattered cries of “Corruption! Corruption!,” but no major riots. Great story in Kitgum: the police get called in because citizens find a coffin full of ballots (obviously not real votes right?). Well, the police, God bless them, decided that they should then take the coffin to the voting center to be counted…so the MP (member of Parliament) announced to have won didn’t really win and people put up a non-violent stink about it in town…who knows when it will be resolved (a teacher at my school looked at me after relaying this news and said "T.I.A., Aber"--This is Africa). The rumors that Musevini is rigging this election are pretty widespread and include charges that he has been using Government funds for campaigning, handed money out to citizens (via his staff) in exchange for their promise to vote for him, and made sure that the electoral board is all his people. The main people he was running against were his former personal doctor who has run against him for the last 2 elections, a woman, and a man from Gulu. Election results were publicized on Sunday and Musevini won the cake and took home the crown of glory with about 68% of the vote. No one's suprised, but I think people are waiting to see if he decides to adjust the constitution again so he can run for another term in 5 years.
Enough of politics. I’ll write again in a month, hopefully with a long laundry list of projects accomplished. Hope all is well.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas....

My new year’s resolution: “update my blog more often,” so here it goes. Right now, I’m in the capital Kampala with a bout of Walking Pneumonia, enjoying the fresh air and plentiful amounts of “muzungu” or foreign food that a bustling city can provide. So as I take another dose of antibiotics, chase it with a latte and gaze around at the lovely population of NGO workers surrounding me, I’ll reflect on the many events that have brought me here (here being the point at which my body angrily demands some r&r).
Third term, as I may have mentioned before is a busy one for everyone and I am no exception. The term was 5 weeks longer than normal, but by week 7 (of the 12 weeks of teaching) the following still needed to happen: midterm week, final week, UNEB exams for both S.4 and S.6, a week of Peace Corps training near Kampala, a weekend of GLOW camp training in Entebbe, the making and packaging of 80 more L of Liquid Soap, the installation of 5 beehives, a student-led lesson on how to make reuseable pads for the female teachers, the arrival and transport of 500 or so books, a Music Dance and Drama competition, and the construction of a large industrial mud “rocket” stove.
My teaching schedule included a number of extra lessons in the early mornings and late nights to make up for the time I spent away from the school and to catch up with the Biology teacher who was to set the final exam and was still about 4 lessons ahead of me (this is after I thought I had finally caught up)—don’t ask me for the details, but after some extra notes and quizzes and a bit of bribery/incentives in the form of sweets, my Biology class will enter their 3rd year of secondary school (when they are mixed up with members of the other classes based on their performance) without missing any of the curriculum in the transition. Huge success story though: I actually was able to organize and supervise laboratory exercises this term for my 70 girls with minimal space and resources (after the horror stories I had heard from other volunteers, the idea of conducting labs in Uganda had been haunting my dreams for a long while).
As for the tasks awaiting the Life Skills club (liquid soap, reuseable pad lesson, bee keeping, and MDD competition), I decided to literally “divide and conquer.” The club was divided into 4 committees, each in charge of a different project. By the end of the term, the liquid soap had been made and sold, 5 S.1 and S.2 girls taught 7 female teachers (pictured)—which is all but the 2 who had recently given birth—(including my head teacher and her deputy) how to make the reuseable pads, and the MDD competition gave the S.1 and S.2 students a chance to perform and compete while spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS and Early Pregnancy. Beekeeping is still on the horizon and hopefully those buzzing little buggers will join our community next term.
I reformed the Green Club and together, we built the first of four fuel efficient mud “rocket” stoves. It took about 3 weeks and a somewhat lonely/stressful Thanksgiving to gather all of the materials needed with the much appreciated help of some teachers and staff at my school, a local carpenter and welder, and my fellow PCVs Zach Bagley and Steve Worrell. About 30 students (5 of whom are what I’d like to call the Rocket Stove Dream Team since they worked basically non-stop for 2 days), some teachers and kitchen staff members, 6 hard-working PCVs (Steve and Mary McQuilkin, who came all the way from Gulu and Zach, Travis Hasler, and Dave Weldon from Kitgum/Padibe and Johnathan Blanchard), and I labored for 2 full days at the end of November. The stove needed 3 large termite mounds of dirt/unlucky termites (picture on the left here), 5 large bags of sawdust, about 400 bricks, 400L of water, 1/3 bag of fire cement, 5 pieces of ceramic tile, and 2 lovely pieces of welded steel and the process broke 1 wheelbarrow, 2 hoes, and 1 saw. We’ll start using it next term and plan to build the second stove at the end of the beginning-of-term exams. The green club has plans to go into the community to teach women how to make the feul-efficient “family sized” mud stoves and to grow vegetables on a small plot of land. Hopefully, we will organize an Earth Day celebration for the school and be able to take a trip to a national park before the end of the Summer.
GLOW (Girls leading our world) camp was December 5-11 with 150 girls (including 5 deaf girls), 30 American and Ugandan counselors, and 7 staff members, and was a big success (website: http://campglowuganda.yolasite.com/). 5 of the 40 girls from my school who wrote the essay application were selected to attend. My counterpart and I transported 13 girls total to and from Entebbe (if you look on a map, Entebbe is literally on the opposite side of Uganda from Kitgum). Counselors taught sessions on Teamwork (importance of communication etc.), Healthy Living (HIV/AIDS, puberty/sexual health, water sanitation, malaria), GLOWing (general self-esteem), Life Skills, and Arts & Crafts. I was given the session “Painting” which I think would make most of my old art teachers laugh, but supposedly I channeled them well, gaining a reputation as a 5th grade art teacher by teaching the girls how to make paint with flour, salt, water, and food color and then letting them release their artistic ability on pieces of white cloth and unfortunately the classroom floor as well… Hopefully the boy’s version of this camp will happen later this year (TOBE "Teaching Our Boys to Excel") and the 2nd annual GLOW camp will happen next December.
In Kampala with me, are 7 boxes of novels going to my school, 8 boxes of reference books and a desktop computer going to another site in Kitgum, and 2 more boxes of books to go to Padibe. All of these books will hopefully be travelling with me to Kitgum the day after tomorrow on the bus and the computer will join them as soon as the Peace Corps has a reason to make a trip to Kitgum.
Now, enough with work, let me give you a little taste of Ugandan culture and tell you about a lovely cultural exchange that occurred over the last 3 weeks. When the 13 girls were safely delivered back to the North, I turned around and went to see a cultural phenomenon that happens during even years in Eastern Uganda: Male Circumcision. Although, many people have turned to the humane and modern practices of church or hospital to circumcise their sons (circumcision limits men’s vulnerability to contracting HIV/AIDS), some of the Ugandans around Mbale still go about it the traditional way. Boys are told from their birth that at some point between the time they are 8 and 20, they will be circumcised and will become men. Sounds easy right? Well, there are some things I forgot to mention: the boys not allowed to use drugs, alcohol, or any form of anesthetic to dull the pain and should they flinch, shout out, faint, or react to the cutting in any way besides what their body may naturally in response to severe pain (legs shaking etc.) as they stand in front of a huge crowd of shouting and dancing neighbors with a “surgeon” and a sharp knife, they are marked as cowards for the rest of their lives and will have trouble getting a wife and having any status in society. No pressure, right? Well, they do have one option to help them along: they can choose not to sleep for the two nights before the circumcision after spending the entirety of those two days dancing around with a crowd of their family and neighbors, painted in war paint and wearing traditional clothes. This sleep deprivation would give them a natural anesthetic which is better than nothing I guess. All in all it’s an amazing experience to watch and one that I’m sure the colonizing British did not see or at least did not appreciate.
I met my family in Ethiopia on December 21st for a whirlwind tour of East Africa. The trip started with the monasteries, rock-hewn churches (literally carved out of a volcanic rock called red tuff where the top of the church is level with the surface or carved into the walls of caves; each church is maybe about 4-6 meters tall) and castles of Ethiopia. Our 2 day excursion to Kenya took us to Nairobi and on an unsuccessful road-trip to the Masai Mara Park, full of bad directions, bad roads, and a vehicle that unfortunately could neither get us into the park nor to the hotel, but did give us a nice 4 hour tour of Kenya’s country side around the park before we turned back to drive the 5 hours back to Nairobi and enjoy a late dinner at 9:30pm that night and a plane ride to Uganda the next afternoon. In Uganda we went to 2 national parks (where we saw antelope, giraffes, hippos, elephants, warthogs, tons of birds, crocodiles, baboons, a red monkey, a lion, and a leopard), Gulu, and to a lovely 5 star bed and breakfast in Kitgum known as my home. It was so nice to share my life here with my family, which unfortunately for them included the very hot and dusty dry season of Kitgum and a bit of public transport (including 3 buses that left 1-2 hours late, one complete with 5 people (not us) standing in the aisle for the duration of the trip and another that sat my sister next to a large gentleman who confused her shoulder with a pillow). The best part of the trip other than the fact that I got to see and spend time with them was being able to introduce them to some of the wonderful volunteers and Ugandans I get to work with here. Should my blog ever confuse you in the future, please feel free to go to them as my ambassadors to America (they should be able to explain the majority of the craziness that is my life in Uganda).
Sorry to everyone who has struggled with snow over the last several weeks, I hope that it gave you a bit of time to rest at least (even if it were in an airport or in your driveway after you collapsed post-shoveling). The referendum in Sudan seems to have been a mixture of violent riots and peaceful democracy, hopefully the latter will win out. Supposedly last week in Kitgum, a miracle occurred when a man transformed his body minus his head into a snake in the middle of the bus park. The term is supposed to start January 31st and the election is supposed to follow it in early-mid February.
I hope that you all had a wonderful New Years! Please send me any updates in your lives! I'll send another email when I get to my home with pictures of my family's trip once it's loaded on my computer and of me sitting on 7 or so boxes of books successfully transported (knock on wood) to please those of you uncertain about whether I am indeed still alive here.