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!!!!!