A visit to Awere...the Orginial site

Today, Joanna, Abbie (the other teachers with me at my school) and I traveled to Awere's original site with our partner teachers. Like I said before, the school that I teach at right now, Awere S. S. in Gulu, is the displaced site for students that used to go to the secondary school in Awere before the war, and in February they are finally planning on moving back to the original site which has been refurbished, thanks to Invisible Children. This is really exciting for Invisible Children and for Gulu because Awere is the town that Joseph Kony is from, and moving back is kind of a big middle finger saying to him that the people have rebuilt and moved on.

The trip to Awere was kind of a long ride (emphasizing to me just how far these students and their families are away from home...and they have been for years) and I seriously had to pee (btw...I've conquered the latrine! and the outdoors!!!). As usual, our mutatu broke down...well, actually it got stuck in the mud about 800 yards away from the school, but it was all worth it. The new site is wonderful. There are new classrooms, new labs with prep rooms (the pics are a comparison of the labs from the current school to the new school),
great big chalkboards, proper walls and water pumps! It was so great to see the work that IC has accomplished through the Schools 4 Schools program. While I have been teaching at the displaced site, I have been so impressed with the quality of students and the quality of teachers...the major challenge for students inside the classroom (many many more outside the classroom) is the poor learning environment. They have to deal with SO much noise...that was the hardest thing for me to deal with because classrooms really are only separated by a tarp, so it gets really difficult to hear the lesson in your own classroom.
But at the new site, I really don't see that being a problem because the rooms are separated by concrete! I think they are going to be very successful at the new school!

After our tour, the school provided us with sodas and biscuits (a very nice gesture) and we got a chance just to chit chat with all of the teachers. Two really interesting things came out of that time. First, I've said before that there is a lot of litter in Gulu because people really do just drop on the ground whatever they have that they are finished with. For example, biscuit wrappers...as we were sitting there, at this beautiful new school, the Ugandan teachers were just tossing their biscuit wrappers on the ground...littering the place up. Which I don't mean in a negative way because it really is just their culture, it's just hard for the American teachers to see...and we certainly can't bring ourselves to do it to. I know it probably sounds like I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill...I guess it's kind of hard to explain. But anyway, not being able to toss my trash on the ground, I started collecting my trash and my friends' trash...and all of a sudden the Ugandan teachers started picking their trash up too...it was kind of like this mini little victory! The second cool thing was that while we were talking, one of the administrators started telling us his story of being abducted as a young boy and fighting for the LRA. When he was 15, the LRA stormed through his town and took him away from his family at gunpoint (the LRA targets this age group because they are still naive and impressionable). He was with the LRA for a year, and he actually sat with Kony just as close as he was sitting to me outside the school at Awere...it was such a surreal moment. Anyway, he told us that during his year with the LRA, he basically worked his way up the ranks to a position called "controller" where he was responsible for bringing to the battleground Kony's "magical water" that he taps from some mound (which we also saw) and mixes it with other "spiritual" things (i.e. crushed stone, vegetation, drugs, etc). It was so interesting to hear some of the strange goings on of the LRA. For example, soldiers in the LRA are not allowed to take cover, like hide behind trees, because that means that they do not trust God's will for them. Once a shot was fired, these untrained soldiers, young boys really, were expected to run toward the Ugandan army without taking cover. Another just crazy thing is that these young boys were given a list of rules and consequences. For example, if they told someone where the LRA was hiding, they would and did have their lips/mouth cut off. If they pointed to their location, their arms were cut off and it was up to the commanding official if the child soldier would be getting "short sleeves" (cut up to the shoulders) or "long sleeves" (hands cut off). If they tried to run, their legs were cut off...same concept as with the arms..."shorts" or "trousers." Anyway, working his way up to "controller" (a.k.a. sorcerer), this teacher earned a sense of trust and had very little supervision. So, one day, 1 year into his time with the LRA, he laid all of his LRA-owned guns, etc. and just walked away with a friend...he is one of very few that escaped and actually lived (probably due to him leaving the LRA possesions behind...if he had taken them with him...pretty much a guaranteed massacre). Today, he is a successful teacher/administrator and he is married and has a wife and two kids...see...resilience!

Hakuna Matata and the Apocalypse…all in one day

So right now I’m sitting in the teachers’ lounge…again….listening to the cheesy 80s music playing…again :) “I’m all out of love. I’m so lost without you...” and this woman named Ester, who claims to be my Ugandan mother is asking me when I will move to Uganda to get married. How do you say “never” in a nice way? :) Anyway, that’s besides the intent of this post.

So, this past weekend, I had the best and the worst experiences of my time here. We’ll start with the best part. Saturday, our teacher group went on Safari in a park called Murchison Falls…so cool. Sitting on the roof of a mutatu, I got to experience an early morning, 5 hour game drive where we saw FAMILIES (so cute!) of elephants, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, hartbeasts,




and…dah dah DDDAAAAHHHHH….lions, which is very rare to see on safari, but I guess we were lucky because we saw SIX lionesses. My favorite thing we saw though were the families of warthogs…mommy, daddy and 3 babies with these little butts you just want to pinch and these cute little tails that stick straight up when the walk. They are the ugliest animals…so ugly they’re cute (kind of like those Chinese Chiuauas). Anyway, throughout the entire safari I had “Hakuna Matata” stuck in my head…I felt like I was living Lion King…the scenery was incredible. Pictures wouldn’t even do it justice…good thing because of course my camera died…again…so I’ll have to get pics from other people after the game drive, we had a river tour up the Victoria Nile to the Merchison Falls (so beautiful!)…if you have ever been to Disney World, the river tour is almost exactly like the Jungle Tour ride…it was so neat. Anyway, when we left the park, we were faced with a 3 hour mutatu ride…which became a 5 hour mutatu ride Around 8pm, we were driving down this “short cut” road, and…BOOM! Our tire blew out! So we stopped, the driver replaced the tire with the spare (which had a nail stuck in it), and we continued on our way. About 30 minutes later…BOOM! The SPARE blew! So there we were, in the pitch black, in the middle of the bush, having to pee, monsoon pouring down…frogs croaking…random bugs biting at people in the mutatu…no tire and no what? No RECEPTION!!! Those who did have reception had no minutes…so we decided to drive for an hour on 3 wheels and a rim….I’ve said before that mutates are a bumpy ride…no comparison to a mutatu with 3 wheels and a rim…did I mention I also had a migraine…and a fever…and what I can only assume is Ebola (maybe a slight exaggeration). You just had to laugh at the situation. The experience was, however, such a metaphor of the African people for me…in the face of adversity, you just keep on going with whatever it is you have!

Anyway, we finally were able to call for help and eventually got home…to about 30 extra people living in our home (students who won a trip to Uganda for earning money for the Schools 4 Schools program through IC). So I will admit, yes…I was a bit on edge…tired, headache, fever, had to pee and no quiet space to talk on the phone…but I calmed down and went to bed. You might thing this was the part that was my worse experience here…but no…our Apocalyptic adventure was about to get worse. The next morning, still having a fever and the Ebola, I went to school, but I had to dash home so as not to reveal all of my insides to the entire Awere SS student population. After a very nice 2 hour nap, I woke up feeling refreshed…and then the news broke…a few of the girls in the house had lice. Yes LICE! Bugs…in the hair…sucking blood and laying babies. My head immediately started itching (it’s even itching now just thinking about it. Even though I was pretty confident the itching was just my imagination, I completely broke down…wept…literally wept. Any one of the things that had occurred in the last weekend I probably could have handled individually…even the lice, but everything together, and not having the resources or the comforts of home to deal with them, I just couldn’t take anymore. All of my “strength” had been depleted.

This experience has totally switched my impression of Africa. You look at Africa and you see it’s poverty, and with poverty you think weakness, but I have come to find that the people here are among the strongest people to be able to live, survive and rebuild under these conditions, especially after experiencing an incredibly brutal war. Side note, just the other day I was walking home from school and I saw a woman who had a very large chin and 2 scars that ran from the corners of each side of her mouth down past her chin. It was explained to me later that her chin was actually reconstructed after her entire jaw was cut off by LRA rebels. We also have 2 students at Awere who are missing a leg that was cut off by the rebels. And yet all of these people are fully functional, and here I am breaking down over a few bugs in the hair…which I don’t even have…yet. I guess that put things in perspective for me. But I will say…this trip has definitely challenged me mentally, emotionally and physically and has taken me to my limit…yet at the same time I have never felt more blessed, nor have I ever been more inspired or impressed by a group of people in my life. Today, I’m doing much better after allowing myself to have the little meltdown. My focus now is on the good parts of being here instead of the challenges…because the incredible things I am learning and living here in Uganda really do far outweigh the challenges!
I miss you all and I look forward to seeing you in 2 weeks!!!!! Hope you had a fabulous 30th Mel Bel!!!!!

Hip Hop Club

One of the things that I enjoy most about my time at Awere SS is the Hip Hop Club we started (to be fair…Abbie and Joanna really started it, I just help mostly because I know nothing about hip hop…I am the antithesis of hip hop). I already told you about the first day and how only us munus were dancing…like fools…until my dance off with a student named Ochaya Kenneth. To refresh your memory, he won…by far. Anyway, that day we were a little nervous that the students were just going to goof off or weren’t really going to participate in the club as we had hoped. Our original intent was to start this club as a venue for student expression because they really don’t get that otherwise. But…to our surprise, Hip Hop Club has TAKEN OFF! At the students’ request, Hip Hop Club meets almost every day at 4:15pm, and they have come up with some really amazing things. Our first exercise was to take an American hip hop song…which was difficult to find one that was suitable for a school setting, but ultimately we came up with “Where is the love.” We wrote the chorus on the board:

“People killing. People dying. Children hurting, even crying. Do you practice what you preach? Would you turn the other cheek? Father, Father, Father help us. Send your guidance from above. People got me got me questioning where is the love?”

The exercise was for them to break up into groups and write lyrics to the verses based on their own lives. It was a rocky start, but once they figured out what was going on, they wrote some of the most incredible things. Here are some of the examples:

* "I have never seen peace in Northern Uganda
The children are being captured by LRA rebels
Some are tortured and killed in the bush
Some are dying of hunger"

* "Searching for help
Children were hurt
If I lose my mum
Then we suffer
No one to help us at home
Even at school
You feel very sad
When you are alone
People were ever thinking about your loneliness"

* "Am trying to make people understand
That staying without love is nothing in this world
I move to church to make my life be good
So that God can forgive me for all what I’ve done
In this world, life without love is unpredictable
So I just keep my head up looking for life
And even sometimes I rolling on the street
Looking for what to eat
But God cannot just leave me alone"

Then we gathered together and sang our new song together...each group was to read their verse and as a group we sang the chorus. so, group by group we went through the verses...some read them...some broke out into a rapping version...and then when we all sang the chorus, they broke out into HARMONY...it was totally unexpected and it was awesome! the reason I like this club so much is because it really gives me a chance to interact with the students that i really don't get by just standing up in front of a classroom and hip hop club gives me that opportunity.
The next thing we were worried about was that we started the club with only 3 weeks left here, and we were hoping it would continue after we have left. This weekend, it became clear that we had nothing to worry about at all. This weekend, we three teachers (or orient hare...haha)...anyway...we were out of town on safari (a separate post), but the students wanted to meet again over the weekend. We told them that they could meet but we wouldn't be there to facilitate it, so that would be their responsibility. As it turns out...not only did they meet, like 45 of them met...on a Saturday, and they set up a government system for the club and they already started on their own new hip hop song. the set up the chorus and today they finished the verses...it's a rap about their school. Another thing they did...on their own...was to set up rules for their club, which they call Hip Hoppas. the rules include no use of the "N" word, the "F" word or mother "f---er" (we had to explain what these words were....they just thought they were common slang that we use in America and not that they were bad words...that was kind of a funny conversation). I am so hopeful that they will continue with this club which is so important because they really need a chance to express the challenges and struggles in their lives.
After hip hop club is Acholi dancing practice. I think they are practicing for some event...the boys play this amazing music with local instruments (gourds, drums sticks, etc.) while the girls dance traditional dances...OH MY GOSH the dances are so hard. The move their bodies in completely different ways...I try but really all I end up doing is shaking my bootie and they all laugh at me :) Guess the important this is that I try! :)

I'll put the safari blog up soon!

1/2 over or 1/2 left?

So, this past Monday was the ½ way point of this trip, and I am having mixed emotions about that. On one hand, I’m sad that my time here is winding down…I have learned so much here from the culture, from the people and just from living the day-to-day life in another country. I will definitely miss the people I have met here—African and American (the ladies…and Phil/"wiki wiki"…that I am living and teaching with are incredible). And I am going to miss the things that are uniquely African that I have already started to take for granted. On the other hand, I am looking forward to coming home because I miss all of you, and I miss my routine, and I miss the conveniences of home (had a slight meltdown on Tuesday from being homesick). I just need to keep my mind focused on Africa while I’m still here because I don’t want these next few weeks to go by without me really being present. I’ll tell you what though, my mind has been turned upside down, like a million times, and it has been a mental and emotional roller coaster for sure. I have learned to expect the unexpected and that you have to just roll with things…kind of hard for a control freak, but a good lesson.

Examples of things you just have to roll with:
• Electricity going out…for 2 full days, taking with it the running water if outlong enough and a long ass email you were just about to send.
• Litter everywhere
• Cleaning contacts with bottled water
• Only using shower water when rinsing…water is off while washing your hair, lathering up, shaving, etc.
• There is always noise in one form or another
• B.O.
• Going to the bathroom in a toilet that about 5 other people already went in (both forms) and hadn’t flushed because the toilet water hadn’t refilled yet…ew.
• Living with 10 women
• Thinking my main mission in coming here was to teach, then realizing they don’t need me at all…the important thing is forging relationships and establishing dialogue.
• SUPER slow internet
• Dirty feet…constantly
• Posho
• African time…i.e. when is lunch? It’s scheduled for 1pm…ish but frequently isn’t till 3pm
• Items listed on the menus at restaurants are only hypothetical.

Amazing things you won’t experience anywhere else:
• Standing 20 feet away from a rhino
• Teaching with James David
• Seeing a chicken running around the teachers' lounge in the morning…then having chicken for lunch…hmm
• The lessons learned and conversations had from living this experience
• Boda boda rides
• The honor, respect and welcome-ness of the Acholi
• The stars….almost every night I see the milky way and the southern cross, amongst a gazillion other stars
• Agness and Doreen
• Shaking hands with passers-by even if you don’t strike up conversation with them.
• The scenery…it’s amazing
• So many live chickens and goats just wondering around town
• Genuine happiness
• The sites: grass-thatched homes, the bore hole, cutting the grass with a "slasher," and my favorite is still the site of women carrying things on their head, something in both hands, and a child on their backs
• The excitement of kids screaming “munu, hi” or “how are you? I am fine” and then running up to you because they just have to hold your hand. I’ll be honest…somedays this is annoying…especially when you are on your way to eat and you just washed your hands…I actually ran away from a little girl the other day…full sprint…I felt so bad, but oh well.
• “the what, the (insert random word here).”
• “sorry”
• Matthew at Ma’s computers
• Resilience!!!!!

1st mass in Gulu

Since leaving St. Louis, I hadn’t had a chance to attend mass and I was really missing it. Luckily, John McGee knew of a good place to go to mass, so I met up with him and a few other group 2 teachers at 7:45 am to head to mass at Gulu high. Side note…as we were walking the road to Gulu high, the funniest thing happened! From out of nowhere, John goes “we can finally get the answer to the question!” Thoroughly confused, I asked him what he was talking about, and he just pointed up the road to a bunch of chickens crossing the road. I died laughing….it was so funny. Then, when we came closer to the chickens, he asked the chickens why they were crossing the road. Of course they didn’t answer so he said “what are you, chicken?” Oh my gosh...so funny. Anyway, so we get to the church, which is actually the school library, and mass was already half way through. Apparently mass started at 7:30am and not at 8:30am like we were told. So here we are, 5 munus who definitely stand out in a crowd...late...and I guess it’s considered an honor for white people to come to mass because right in the middle of the mass, 5 people walk out of the service, get chairs for us and set them RIGHT UP FRONT, next to the alter. Such a walk of shame to our seats. Once I got past that though, the mass was INCREDIBLE. First of all, one of the things I love about the Catholic mass is that it is the same everywhere you go….even a gazillion miles away from home, on a completely different continent, I could celebrate the mass just as if I was at home…and for some reason, that was such a comfort. Secondly, this mass was a youth mass and so the energy was incredible…I wish you could have heard the singing led by the teens during the mass. It was almost overwhelming. A friend of mine and I were talking about what incredible faith the people here have. With the amount of suffering these people have seen I would not have been surprised if the Acholi people would have turned their backs on a God who could have been perceived to have turned His back on them. But instead, they cling to Him...it just puts things in perspective for me and my own faith when I throw temper tantrums on God for reasons microscopically smaller than the experiences of the people here. I don’t know…it’s really inspiring. Anyway, when the mass was over, they asked us to stand up and introduce ourselves to everyone…kind of embarrassing…but they were so welcoming and happy to have us there…it was so humbling. Then, during announcements, the priest, who had to rush to even be able to celebrate the mass there (sometimes they can’t get priests to make it out there) informed everyone that 6 men were going to be ordained deacons within the next month, and he was asking the congregations of all the masses he celebrated in the next few weeks if anyone knew of any reason that these men should not be ordained because we shouldn’t have any secrets in the Catholic Church. My jaw dropped, but I actually thought that was a neat practice because it only enhances the respect and credibility of those men who do become ordained which I think helps the church in a global sense. Definitely looking forward to my next mass here!

A trip to Fort Patiko

This past Saturday, we had a day trip with our partner teachers to Fort Patiko, a historical site of slave trade, and a memorial to Sir Samuel Baker who helped free some 300 slaves. It was such a strange place to visit because it was this surreal historical site for both Americans and Africans, but I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the beauty of the place (I swear I stood on pride rock...see picture). The scenery and the rock formations were SO incredible that you could get lost in it, but then you turn the corner and see these caves/holes where prisoners were stored and the axe marks left behind in the stone where the weak, sick or not-sellable men and women were beheaded. It was so odd, and yet such an incredibly beautiful place. After the tour, we had a picnic....food was awesome, conversation was awesome, bugs sucked. :)

The BEST day!!!

The Best Day

When I woke up on Friday, I was really tired. We don’t really sleep much around here due to the ROOSTERS cocka-doodle-freaking-doing, or sheep baa-ing, or a church choir singing…or a symphony of D: all of the above. So I really wasn’t ready to face the day—especially since I had to run around getting ready in the morning and basically shove food down my mouth on the way out the door. I also knew that today was going to be kind of long being as though I had 2 80 min and 1 40 min classes essentially back to back….and I still wasn’t terribly comfortable/confident with teaching here…little did I know that it was going to be my favorite day here so far….nothing spectacular happened, just some ordinary, everyday things that all together added up to an awesome day!

Good thing #1: During our first class today, James David (JD) was responsible for lecturing while I observed…80 minutes later, I thought that our class was over, but it turned out that the teacher who was supposed to teach next—math class I think—had a death in the family and wasn’t going to make it to class. So, JD figured that this would be a good time to catch up on some dictation. Just to remind you what dictation is, it’s basically reading or writing the notes from the text book (cause the kids don’t have them)…word for word…including punctuation. When you read the notes, it’s kinda weird cause you say things like: “The anther comma which holds the pollen grains comma is held up by the filament full stop” It takes a little getting used to…anyway…JD had to go check on his sick kids, so I said that I would do the dictation during that free 80 minute class period. So, JD leaves, and I’m writing on the board…kids are copying the notes about the anatomy and reproduction of the flowering plant, bored out of their minds because they’ve been sitting for the past 2 hours. Sooooooooooo, I took some initiative….I decided to spice this dictation business up….Lauren style! So, I explained to them that the purpose of petals in the reproduction of the flowering plant is to attract honey bees….kinda like dating…which I illustrated to them by prancing around the room trying to woo any honeybee that might be interested in a little poll-i-na-tiON! Then came time for definitions. For this, I wrote the definition of a part of a flower leaving space for the word…I then walked to the back of the room, pulled my chair to the front of the room, stood on the chair…..and shouted the word while shaking my fist! You have never seen wider eyes in your life. These students are used to a very particular, didactic style of learning…which does NOT include having a teacher standing on a chair shouting “STAMEN!” at the top of their lungs. And it certainly doesn’t include them doing the same (these students are so quiet and shy) but that day, they did! So definition after definition, student after student stood up on his/her bench (this has never been done there before), shouted anatomical parts of the flowering plant (certainly never done there before). It was awesome! Then, just to keep it interesting, after every couple of definitions, we took a break…they stood up and we had a little “shake your bootAY” time…they totally loved that…so much so that other teachers had to come and ask us to keep it down! :) But, they had fun learning and that’s all that matters in my book. When I did have to do some actual dictation, I did it Victor Borge style (looke up phonetic punctuation on you tube)…which also got some giggles. CanNOT wait to get back in the classroom!

Good thing #2: After class, I had myself a little trip to town followed by a nice little nap. Around 4 pm, Joanna, Abbie and I headed back to Awere for our first ever hip hop club (which we are going to incorporate poetry, drama, etc…anything to give these students a mode for self expression). So, in walk 3 VERY white girls from America thinking we are going to show a bunch of Ugandans some hip hop (oh yes…there was some fresh prince and whatever else was on our iPods). So we start white-girl dancing….they just stood there….and laughed at us. They are SO shy and no one wanted to get out and dance except the 3 of us…and John McGee, another (VERY tall) teacher from St. Louis. Finally, one of the students got in the middle of the circle and showed us his moves. He was an AMAZING dancer…I felt this was the perfect time for a dance off….so….I challenged him. Basically the way this went down was super-good-dancing-guy would do a series of moves which I would attempt to copy, but basically just ended up flailing my limbs, looking like a complete idiot in front of about 100 secondary students! But, they loved it. The dance off would have continued, but super-good-dancer-guy did this head stand combination that I couldn’t repeat in my skirt. I had to concede!

Good thing #3: So, after the hip hop club, Joanna, Abbie and I headed off to Solina’s house. Solina is Abbie’s teaching partner. As we walked up, this little boy, Solina’s son, started running up to us saying “munu, munu” once he saw Abbie, who he had fallen in love with during her visit the day before. After a while, more kids rushed over and all of a sudden we were teaching them “red light/green light,” “follow the leader,” and “heads, shoulders, knees and toes”….except they don’t speak English, so Solina had to translate everything for us. :) Then they showed us their childhood game “frog frog,” they introduced us to their new 5-day old baby goat, and Solina showed us how to grind millet.

It was a wonderfully ordinary, spectacular day!

Just an FYI...I've posted new pics for some of my previous postings. If you are interested in taking a look, just scroll down!

Teaching at Awere SS

Hi all! Ok...so the past couple of weeks have been kind of crazy on the teaching front. Teaching here is a completely different experience than teaching in the states, as expected I guess. the same principles are there, but the are several differences...not really better or worse, just different. For one, the physical conditions are not optimal for learning. Awere SS is a temporary (or displaced) location in Gulu about 2 hours away from the original site in Awere (acutally, where Joseph Kony is from) and the buildings are made of tree trunks, chicken wire and tin. The
good thing about this type of structure is that it allows for a nice breeze, which is welcome during the hot African afternoons. The bad thing is that if it rains, it floods the classrooms and the walls are so thin that you can hear the lessons from the classes on either side of you...so it's really hard to hear. Despite all this, the students seem to have adapted and do very well. Second, the style of teaching is very different. At the end of "O level" classes (basically 7th through 10th grades), there is an exam to see if they can continue on with secondary school. So the lectures are very much based around teaching for this test. That's a little weird, because I don't have that mentality. Also, the style of teaching is very didactic....teacher talks, students listen. So, imagine me coming in last Friday to give my first lecture on the reproduction of flowering plants (never taught this before,can't even remember the last time I learned this material) with my typical loud American, smart alec, way-to-excited-about-science personality trying to get them to answer questions and come up to the front of the class for a visual! :) They just stared at me! It was kind of funny...awkward, but funny...definitely something that I am still going to try to implement in my lectures, but I might titrate it in a bit slower! :) Also, the students don't move around between classes...they stay in the same room all day (minus breaks and lunch) while the teachers change in and out of their classroom. The other really strange thing is that because the students and the schools are so poor, they can't afford textbooks. I think I have one of the only couple text books for our class in the entire school...so the last 20-30 minutes of class is me literally copying the words from the text on the chalk board so that the students can write the information in their notebooks. That was a really different experience for me. All in all though, I'm really impressed with the school, my partner teacher and the students who seem to be so excited to have a munu as a teacher...they have been really welcoming. I can't wait to be teaching more though...the past couple of weeks have been really slow (oh my gosh there is so much waiting in the teachers' lounge) because there have been sports days, holidays, districts, student government elections...things like that which have delayed classes. So, I'm kind of itching to get into a regular routine in the classroom...maybe next week. To make up for the lack of time in the classroom, I've been trying to establish some relationships with the people here, which is apparently just as important to them. One of my favorites is my relationship with my partner teacher, Mr. Okello James. Despite all of the obstacles with teaching here, he is an INCREDIBLE teacher. He has such a good report with the
students, and he has a genuine interest in science and in the students' learning. I really look forward to the next couple of weeks...I'm curious to find out what exactly it is that I can bring to the table here, because it seems as though I'm learning more than anything!

Picture 1 = outside of classroom
Picture 2 = inside of classroom, Mr. Okello James
Picture 3 = teachers' lounge

The little mutatu that could

This past weekend, our teacher group took a weekend trip to a Rhino sanctuary, and let me tell you, it was a crazy excursion. We started the day out by piling ourselves into a mutatu, which is basically a van that looks like the Scooby mobile, with 5 rows of seats that have blue leopard print cushions, a picture of Manchester United on the back window, and nothing covering the floor…in parts, there wasn’t even floor, it had been rusted out (I could actually feel water spraying up from the road, through the floor and onto my leg). If there is anything crazier than a boda boda, it’s a mutatu. Imagine what it is like driving on a cobble stone road…at 60 miles per hour…with people in your way…and goats…for 3 hours. It was so ridiculous you had to laugh. Except about 2 hours into our drive, just after we passed over the Nile River and baboon territory (yep…wild baboons just chilling on the side of the road…red asses and all), we were stopped by the UPDF. I’m still not sure why we were stopped, but I had visions of having to give over all of my money at gunpoint. This wasn’t the case…we just sat there for about 10 minutes while our driver worked out some sort of "negotiation" with them. Anyway, we finally got to the Rhino sanctuary and it was such a cute, quaint little place…even had showers, flushing toilet…and PILLOWS! That’s luxury….ahh I miss having a pillow. The place is run by a family from South Africa, and it’s is an attempt to breed rhinos which have become extinct in most parts of Africa as a result of paching. When we got there, they had spaghettis ready for us (I’ve learned that "spaghetti" doesn’t actually mean spaghetti…it means some African version of spaghetti…same thing with pumpkin pie and cake), and the son took us for quite possibly the most amazing nature walk I have ever been on. After the hike, we had a BBQ, musical entertainment perovided by one of the teachers here who has a CD on iTunes and then lights out. The next morning, we went on the Rhino Trek which was SO cool. After about a mile hike through grass that was taller than me, we finally came across 3 pregnant rhinos…I am not kidding, these things were about 20 feet in front of me…no fence or anything…just me and 3 rhinos, separated only by grass and tree (and my other teacher friends which I was pretty sure I could out-run in the event of a rhino charge…:)…I’m just saying). It was so majestic…but only the beginning of the adventure. When we got back in the mutatu, it was dead…would not start. There we were standing in the middle of the brush of the sanctuary where just the night before we were told also housed a crocodile and 2 PYTHONS…somewhere. The men were in charge of pushing the mutatu back and forth until it started…which it did eventually. But then on the way home, the mutatu broke down again. After about 5 minutes of the LOUDEST pounding and grinding I have ever heard in my life, the drivers got the mutatu running again…for about 20 feet….then we had to repeat the process all over again….and then again one more time. Let me tell you how nice it is sitting in a mutatu on crazy-pants-driving road…with no air conditioning…in the middle of AFRICA. The only thing that made it worthwhile was our stop at a roadside store where I got shortbread cookies and water (I was STARVING!) only to find out once I had already gotten back in the mutatu and was on the road that my box of beloved cookies was SWARMING inside with RED FREAKING ANTS! BLAST!!!! Had to through the cookies out the window L. Just to give you a perspective on how little money the common class of people in Gulu have, the box of cookies cost 2000 shillings (~ $1), and if you don’t have exactly that amount of money, the woman at the stand didn’t have enough money to break a 5000 shilling bill—she didn’t even have the equivalent of less than $2 at her disposal. Anyway, we finally got home…had a shower…and then we were off to Tom and Rose’s house for dinner. Tom and Rose are this amazing couple with an incredible story (I’ll tell you about that later)…basically they fled Uganda right at the beginning of the war and have had just moved back from the UK. They are very wealthy (the dinner was for us to see a different side of Gulu) and they prepared such an amazing feast for us. We had such a nice night…good food, good company. As we were walking out the door, saying our good byes and thank yous, all of a sudden, and all at once, about 3 or 4 of the other teachers started jumping around and screaming…they actually had ants in their pants…HUGE ants! The ants were EVERYWHERE…and they were like 1.5 inches deep….ants on top of ants. As soon as I heard this, I started jumping around making very determined stomps with every step I took---I looked like a soldier on crack…it was ridiculous, but if worked because no ants up my pants!!!! What a strange ending to such an interesting day!!!!
OK…just a btw…
I promise that I will try to make the remaining entries shorter…I know these are ridiculously long!
I also know that you are probably wondering how the teaching experience has been going…to be honest, it has been really slow, and should be picking up here soon, so I’ve been waiting (and processing my experience so far) before I try to communicate what it’s like teaching here…it’s so awesome, and I want to make sure I get it across as best I can!!!

What you see when you walk around Gulu--part 2

Anyway…continuing on with our walk around town. The roads we walk around Gulu are the same red dusty roads that I described in Kampala. This time of year is supposed to be the rainy season; however, we have only had a couple of rainstorms. I actually welcome the rain because it cools the temperature and compacts the dust so it’s not coating my feet or blowing up in my eyes. :) The local people have more practical reasons for wanting it to rain, though since almost all homes have crops where they grow the food for their families…thus, my reason is stupid. Anyway…here are some of the weird sights you might come across as you walk around:


1. Everyone holds hands…swinging back and forth whether it’s 2 women or 2 men…doesn’t matter.

2. Today, I saw this woman walking near me, and my eye was caught by her scarf? Purse? Wasn’t sure what it was…then I realized it was two LIVE chickens, tied together by the feet, hanging upside down across her shoulder. Probably dinner. Odd.

3. Goats, swaddled in…something…as someone bikes them from one place to another…just baa-ing as they are going down the street. :)

4. Lots of litter

5. Wild turkeys

6. Coca Cola products…lots of them, and most are different from those in the states…and they only cost 1000 shillings! Beer only costs 2500 shillings! Awesome!!!

7. NGOs everywhere

8. Lots of kids and babies…sometimes just chilling out by themselves…without parental supervision

9. HONK! Boda boda…were you paying attention? You could have been hit!

You have to be careful walking around on these roads because the traffic here is INSANE!!!! There are NO lanes in the roads. There are no traffic lights. No street signs. I still close my eyes when riding around on a boda boda because I am pretty confident that I am going to run into someone. But then my driver honks his horn and people just seem to know to get out of the way….at the very last second! The drivers think it’s funny when I freak out on the back of their bikes…I don’t think it’s funny at all. :) One thing I don’t think I’ll get used to at all is seeing little kids on the back, fronts, whatever of the bodas…I’m talking maybe 2 years old and I’ve seen up to 3 of them on a bike at a time. No seat belt. No helmets. But somehow they stay on.
Ok…I’m exhausted…and probably hungry….so I’m gonna head home to see what Doreen’s been cooking up for us…talk to you later!

What you see when you walk around Gulu--part 1

So, I have already kind of told you about my home at the Invisible Children compound, so I thought that I would tell you a bit about the town of Gulu. As soon as I walk outside the doors of the IC property, I’m in a completely different world! By American standards, Gulu is a very poor town. Most homes around the area are built with clay and have grass thatched roves. At present, you only really see a handful of these homes in small patches around the town; however, in the recent past you would have seen hundreds of homes like these packed tightly together in the form of IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps. IDPs were essentially the government’s "solution" for families that lived in very rural areas, close to the bush, where it became too dangerous to live because of Kony’s rebel activity in those areas. While they may have provided a sense of safety, the close quarters brought with them poor hygiene, serious illness, and encouraged promiscuity, thus increasing the number of pregnancies and cases of HIV. Some IDP camps still exist, but they are much smaller, as most people have begun moving back home. Anyway, that was a really long way of describing grass-thatched homes. :) Other homes are a bit more sturdy, made of cement and brick, and usually intermingled with the grass-thatched huts. Most homes do not have electricity or running water. To get water for drinking, cleaning, bathing….whatever, women and children walk (sometimes miles) to the nearest bore hole with empty Jerry Cans which use to contain vegetable oil or motor oil, wait in line, then pump water into the Jerry Cans (probably 10 gallons) which the carry back on their HEADS, often also carrying babies on their backs at the same time.
Even with all of this perceived poverty, the people are so incredibly amazing. They have so much spirit and such a sense of community. As you walk down the street, you are greeted by almost everyone you come across, usually with this particular 3-part handshake and a good morning or hello. Sometimes they speak to me in English, testing their own English skills. Sometimes they speak to me in Luo, testing my knowledge of their language. In the two weeks that I have been here, I haven’t seen any beggars. I’ve had one person stop me, but even then he only asked for food. It’s so fascinating, the people here, though "poor," don’t look for any handouts and they don’t look for pity…I don’t think they even consider the fact that they could. Instead, everyone is selling something. Even if it’s just something small, they’re still earning their money in some way. In fact, we were specifically told when we got here NOT to give handouts and to be sure to barter for fair prices even if we can afford it, because ultimately all that does is hike up the prices for the locals who can’t afford those prices—it isn’t sustainable to just give away money. It is really weird though, arguing with a boda boda driver to drive you somewhere for 500 shillings ( ~ 25 cents) and not 1000 shillings (~ 50 cents) knowing that you are arguing over the equivalent of a quarter. Also, everyone here is SO incredibly resourceful. You need scaffolding to build a guard’s quarters (outside my house)? Make it out of bamboo. You need to staple 2 pieces of paper together (at my school)? Grab a piece of thread from some material and weave the two pieces of paper together. Once I needed a screwdriver to do a little surgery on my computer, and this worker at our house, Michael, just grabbed a piece of metal and filed it into a screwdriver….it did the trick…I would have gone to Sears. As another example, the students in class don’t have pencil sharpeners, so some of them actually use a razor blade and whittle the ends down until the pencil is pointy. Today, I was at the Gulu district track and field championship….think they went out and bought special Nike apparel and shoes? Nope. I’d say about 90% of them weren’t even wearing shoes as they ran the 100 meter race. Some of the girls were even wearing swim suits they found…not underarmor. It was fascinating.

Food in Uganda

This week has been a bit slow at school because there was a holiday (Hero's day) and sports days, so I thought that I would take some time to talk about some of the everyday things here. Since I am a big fan of eating, I thought that I would start with the food here in Gulu (sorry if there are typos...my computer broke and the local computer I'm using has a very sticky keyboard). It's funny, I had such an American idea of what life as going to be ike here. Like I said earlier, I had assumed that since the area and the schools were so poor, that the education would be poor and not up-to-date. Now I realize what an innocent and naive ignorance that assumption was. Same kind of idea with the food. I'm embarrased to say that I had assumed that because I was coming to a very poor county, that I would probably be eating infrequently or that when I did get to eat, it wouldnt be much. SO very wrong--I am gaining weight for sure :) Hre is how a typical day of food looks: In the morning, Doreen makes breakfast which is comprised of some form of egg (scrambled, omlett, etc) and fruit salad (usually bananas and mango--I've learned I don't like mang0). For lunch, we are supposedly going to be eating at school where they usually serve posho (some kind of starchy solid form of gritz...no taste, but filling) with beans (very flavourful). But since school has been really light lately, I haven't been at school for lunch so I pretty much am left with 1) a powerbar or 2) lunch in town--also usually beans or eggs with posho, chapati (kind of like naan) or rice...maybe vegetables..don't forget the bottled water, not still water....no. Dinner is also made by Doreen, who used to be the head chef at the best hotel in Gulu. She is awesome! Usually dinner consists of some sort of rice mixture with sauteed vegetables and some sort of side salad with green peppers and cabbage, tomatoes, etc. There is a heavy Indian influence in the food...lots of curries, cilantro, etc. I have to say that while there are a lot of meat dishes (chicken, beef, goat) and fresh fish from the Nile....they kind of seem sketchy to me, so I've pretty much become a vegetarian here. I just have a hard time seeing little chickens running around ne minute and then staring at them on my plate the next minute. I prefer the distance from the reality of a non-vegetarian diet offered by supermarkets :) Overall, there is, like I said a heavy Indian influence and a LOT of starch---which makes sense because it is cheap and filling...but good Lord it can get heavy at times. Good thing I pretty much walk everywhere. But I am having some serious American food withdrawl. I am having a mad hankering for some Burger King of all things...I don't really even like fast food, but Burger King is on my mind...and cake...and icing..mmmm...and Cocoa Pebbles....and Lucky Charms...oh my goodness I need some for REAL sugar!!! :) Oh and Starbucks....I am such a freaking American! I have to say thought, even the simplicity of local and organic-based meals have been a good lesson for me---everyone here has a garden from which they make their meals. I love that personal investment in feeding your family. It's definitely something that I would like to implement in my own life some day....it's just going to have to be supplemented with the occasional Starbucks and Maccaroni Grill! Mmmm....Penne Rustica....oh my gosh, I have to stop thinking about American food now! Just know this Mr. JavaChip Frapuccino....in 5 weeks time, you will be mine.....oh yes....you WILL be mine!!!!!!

Visiting St. Jude's Orphanage

On Sunday, we visited St. Jude's orphanage. Even though so many children in Gulu have lost their parents either to the war or to HIV, aparently orphanages are pretty rare around Uganda. This is because the culture of the people is focused around community, namely family, so if a child does lose his or her parents, it is common that he or she will be taken up by a grandparent or aunt and uncle, that sort of thing. It kind of makes me wonder about the stories of the children at St. Jude's. Part of me doesn't want to know their stories because I'm sure many of them have lost their parents to HIV, the war, or were the product of rape, which is pretty frequent here with young girls. There were so many kids there...from 3mos to teenagers, and they were
basically one giant family. It took me a little bit to get settled in, taking in my surroundings...so many of the children had distended bellies--indicating malnutrition, but eventually I started playing with some of the kids...helping them slide down slides. showing the girls how to curtsey :) and teaching them how to say "whatchu talkin' 'bout girl?" in the most ghetto of tones...it was hillarious. Oh...and I got to hold the tiniest little baby, about 3 months old, and one of a pair of twins whose mother couldn't care for them. It was strange, though, I was really nervous about going to St. Jude's because I thought that it would be really hard for me to see so many children without homes, but I wasn't sad because they weren't sad...they seemed so happy--almost as if they didn't even know they were orphans because as they saw it, they did have a family---a really big one and not traditional, but a family none-the-less. So resilient!

Meeting my partner teacher

Since the war, the Acholi people of Gulu, Uganda have been rebuilding their city and taking back the lives that were stolen from them so maliciously. If you ask the Acholi people what they want most, they say that they want to rebuild their education system. Before the war, the schools in Gulu were doing very well, but when the rebels came through, schools were destroyed, children were abducted, and the education system shut down. During the rebuilding process, students who have returned to school came back to temporary schools (called displaced school) while their previous schools are being rebuilt in the original site which can be, in the case the original site of my school, ~2 hours away. The past few days, I have had the opportunity to come acquainted with Awere SS, the school I will be teaching at, which is just about a 10 minute walk from my house. I was told previously that my school is probably the poorest in the area, but I wasn’t really prepared for what I saw, and I was a bit overwhelmed. When I go to Awere, I see these students, ranging in age from 13 to about 20 or so, going to a school that is 2 hours away from home, and literally put together with tree trunks cut in half (walls) and chicken wire (windows). There are 3-inch gaps in the walls…I have no idea what will happen when it’s raining outside. Inside there are benches where students in a class of 70-120 sit two to a bench facing a blackboard. This sounds so stupid, but for some reason, before I came here I was expecting the quality of education to be very low and outdated. However, today when I looked in on one classroom, I looked at the blackboard to see what the students were learning. On the blackboard, there was this extremely complex math/physics equation that is on par with first year college classes in America. For some reason that moved me so much…the fact that these students could be living through one of the most gruesome wars ever, going to a school that could blow over in the wind and still somehow have the motivation and foresight to desire and apply themselves to learn such complicated material under the toughest possible conditions….all with an attitude of feeling blessed. Incredible.
The camaraderie spurred between Ugandan and American teachers through the Teachers Exchange Program has been very well accepted here…learning from each other so as to initiate cross-cultural dialogue and continue to improve student learning. For me, I have been paired up with Mr. Okello James David Marian, a biology teacher for S2 students, the equivalent of about 8th grade. I am very excited about this partnership…when we met for the first time the other night at a “welcome banquet,” we were like two peas in a pod. After getting past the hi-how-are-yous, discussion of family status, and introducing him to my “son” named Ralph (the Ugandans think this is hilarious), we instantly started talking Immunology and Virology…we were definitely the science nerds in the group! Today, I had the fortunate opportunity to visit James David’s home and meet is wife and 2 sons (one 4yrs and one 4 months). They were so hospitable, and instantly took me into their home, offering coke and biscuits (cookies)….whether they could afford it or not, just to let me know that I was welcome in their home! I know that I keep saying this, but it is just so amazing to me just how welcoming the Acholi people are. Anytime you meet someone, they shake your hand with a very specific hand shake, they look you in the eye with a sense of reverence and tell you over and over that you are “most welcome” to Uganda…or to their shop…or to their home. These people have everything in the world to be bitter and down-trodden about, but you would never know that if you came to this city without being familiar with their recent history.

My first week in Gulu

I cannot believe that the first week has already gone by. This week has been CRAZY!!! Getting to Gulu was quite an interesting experience….the road to Gulu from Kampala is under construction, and so the way that they make travelers drive slowly is by putting the MOST obnoxious speed bumps in the middle of the road, and they last for MILES. It was hilarious…and bumpy. We did this for SIX hours! In that time, one might expect that people would have to go to the bathroom, right? Well, one would be right…some people ventured the “peeing in the brush” option….I held it! Not yet ready for that adventure. Slow and steady wins the race (as I’ve been told). :)

Eventually, many bumps later, we finally reached the Invisible Children house. While my first impressions of the house weren’t that favorable (it is a lot like Rocky Vine, but a bit more quaint), I now realize that we are living in the lap of luxury! I kind of feel like I am cheating a bit. We have running water…most of the time. Most people here don’t have that…I frequently see children or women with babies wrapped around their backs carrying buckets of water, either on their head or in their hands, back to their homes from various bore holes around the area. We have electricity...also most of the time, but sometimes it goes out if it rains. I share a room with four other girls and we sleep in bunks that are three mosquito-net covered beds stacked on top of each other (mine is in the middle…which I strategically picked!). :) We have a cook named Doreen










Doreen Agness bathtime!!!

who prepares breakfast and dinner for us every day, and a house lady named Angess who takes care of all of the household chores.

Basically, my day starts out by waking up…way too early, :) maneuvering out of my middle bunk, through the mosquito net, tuck the mosquito net back in, try to become somewhat presentable (yes, I am still wearing makeup), have a couple of orientations, lunch, walk around town, dinner at home and try to take a shower if the water is available to get all of the red dust off my feet! You would NOT believe how dusty it is here. Oh, and I have to be sure every night to take my malaria medicine…very important! This first week really has been filled with a bunch of orientations, whether it be on the status of education in Gulu, we have had a lesson in Luo, the local language, we travel around town and get oriented with the city, things like that.

Gulu is a very interesting town. There is so much poverty, but EVERYONE has cell phones. :) To get around, you either walk or ride the boda bodas. If you ride the boda bodas, you MUST negotiate price before hopping on back of the motorcycle, and prepare to have an eyeful of dust! Even with all of the poverty and hardships and trauma the people from Gulu have seen, I have never met more friendly and welcoming group of people. And they love seeing white people around town. Today, I was walking around the town and people just kept staring at me like they had never seen a white person before. I try talking to them in their language to show respect, but I really only know one word, so when they deviate from that one word I am totally lost and I end up saying something completely ridiculous and they start laughing! :) For example, Apwoyo, the only word I know, means Hello/thanks/goodbye….that kind of thing. However, if you change the inflection of your voice (which I still haven’t figured out how to do) then you end up saying rabbit. Can you imagine someone walking around the states saying “rabbit” to you thinking that they are saying hi? Haha…it is so funny. The kids are the best though….some shy away if you say hi to them while others run up to you to shake your hand or give you a hug, and then they go and get their brothers and sisters so they can see this “munu” that has come to walk through their village! They love it! “Hi munu!” “Mzungu!!!!” LOL. It is so much fun.
Through this experience I have become SO impressed with Invisible Children as an organization. It has progressed so much since the video that we saw at church! Not only do they do things like Schools 4 Schools and provide academic scholarships, they even have economic development plans, like the bracelet campaign (which btw is being phased out and replaced with MEND, making handbags) where they employ people in microeconomic development programs and show them how to save. What I love about this program is that there are no handouts! They show people how to help themselves. For example, with the bracelet campaign, IC doesn’t just give people money. They enroll them in this microeconomic bracelet program, where they pay them for the work they do making the bracelets. But in addition to that, IC shows them how to save the money they make, and the contingency for anyone who works for them is that they have to come up with future business plans to use the money they saved during their time with Invisible Children. Also, when Invisible Children helps provide money to rebuild a school or part of the school, they require that that school provides 5% of the funds for the project. This sounds weird, but the purpose is to (1) give the school some ownership of the new buildings and (2) show them how to save 5% of the funds because that is the cost of maintaining the buildings once IC has finished building. IC doesn’t want to build a school that becomes unused because the school doesn’t have the budget for up-keep! It’s awesome. They don’t enable the people, they really work to help them help themselves. And they have already made so many improvements with the schools around the area. One of those schools is the original site of the displaced school that I will be teaching in. This next week, I get to meet my teacher, tour the displaced school and start observing the classroom setting. I can’t wait!