Tuesday, January 11, 2011

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.