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