One of our group-mates told us over dinner how on Sunday nights as a child she was always anxious about starting a new week of school. Her mother told her, “You have so much to look forward to; you have no reason to be anxious.” And every Sunday night, she and her mother would make a list of ten things to look forward to in the week to come.
On Sunday night of our first week here, when our group of five was getting ready to set off for Anaka and the rest of the teacher crew was preparing for the first week of school, we sat around the dinner table and made our own list of things to look forward to: meeting the kids, working with the teachers, rhinos, etc.
We’ve since made lots of lists: things we’re planning to eat when we get back (who is coming to Chipotle with me?), activities we want to try in our classrooms, things to do around Anaka (including Eric attempting to catch the little gray chicken)… you get the idea.
Last week was difficult for a number of reasons. But to assure you all that I am not depressed or suicidal in a third world country, and that I’m still excited about being here, I’ve compiled a list of my own for you. This will also fill you in on some of the goings on around here without giving you a day by day recount which, I assure you, would get very boring. (Waiting, tea, class, posho, class, Frisbee, reading… lather, rinse, repeat.)
Here are the top ten things I love about Africa as of July 13, 2009 – two weeks into the trip. These are in no particular order other than what pops first into my head. And since we just came in from a walk down the road to Gulu, we’ll start there.
#1 - Walking the Red Clay
The roads here are amazing. The red clay stains our feet and legs, and the dust ends up everywhere – in our hair and clothing, under our fingernails, up our noses (ick). They’re not wide enough for two cars to pass safely (though it certainly happens unsafely), and they look like something you’d see a Jeep or heavy-duty truck charging over in a commercial. Everyone takes the roads – cars, trucks, army vehicles, people riding bicycles, people pushing bicycles with various objects balancing precariously on them (most interesting – a lawn mower), boda-bodas (which will have their own number later in this list). The most wonderful thing to see on any Ugandan road are the people – women in bright colors with babies papoosed to their backs balancing fruits or water or wood on their heads, children in worn uniforms laughing their way to school, men ambling with their grazing herds of cattle or goats, people of all ages carrying yellow jerry cans to the pumps to bring water home for their families.
In Anaka, the cows and people and bikes and children on the roads are nothing out of the ordinary. What is unusual, however, are the muzungus or munus – us, the whiteys, walking to nowhere. The people here in Northern Uganda are generally shy and quiet, but if you make the first move at saying hello, almost everyone you meet will at the very least smile and say hello back. Hello in Lwo, the Acoli language is afoyo. It also means thank you, which is so fitting for the gracious and welcoming personalities of the people here. (Interestingly, with a slightly different intonation of syllables, afoyo also means rabbit. Possible Ugandan conversation: Grace: “Hi, Sarah. Here’s your lunch.” Me: “Rabbit, Grace, rabbit very much.” But I digress.) When you say hello, you are also essentially thanking someone just for being around, and when they say hello back, they are thanking you for acknowledging their presence. It’s really a nice idea, if you take the time to think about it (and time, here in Anaka, is something we are never short of.) “Sorry” is also used more loosely here than at home. I clumsily tripped in the classroom on a broken piece of flooring this morning and my students in the first three rows all gasped and said “sorry, sorry” – you can use it to apologize to someone, or you can simply use it to explain your regret for a situation in which someone has found him or herself.
The looseness of the Lwo language is reflective of so many of the ideas of family and community for the Acolis; as one word can loosely take on many meanings, the ideas of family and community are also less defined and more flexible. Nieces and nephews are called sons and daughters; cousins are referred to as siblings, aunts and uncles are mother and father. (I didn’t know this for two weeks, and I thought everyone was just related to everyone and that families were the size of football teams. Thank you, Father Martin, for the clarification.) Adults (or, frankly, anyone over the age of 7 or 8 of a “clan” or “tribe” take responsibility for the children of the group. It’s nothing for a mother to walk off for the day and leave her child behind for the rest of the village to watch – and gives quite a new meaning to “takes a village to raise a child.” I wonder how much of this attitude is inherent in the culture and how much came as a result of the either the 25+ years of war that has stripped families of fathers and sons and the AIDS epidemic that has plucked too many parents from their children. If the communities weren’t also families, there would be a lot more children sitting in Ugandan orphanages, and it’s quite noble of the Acolis not to let that happen, though they do not see what they do as any kind of a big deal.
Many people along the road will stop for a few minutes for a chat, and the first thing they want to know is where you are going. It never ceases to amaze that we just walk to walk, and we take for granted that for many cultures including this one, the act of walking is part of a day’s work. Just a few years ago, boys would have walked for hours along these roads to sleep in hospital basements and bus stations where government guards would protect them from the LRA. When we walk the roads – for exercise and relaxation and scenery, not for safety or water or medical care or food - we put on our thick cotton socks and arch-supporting, rubber soled sneakers to traipse over the rocks and through the potholes; most people here, regardless of age, walk the roads barefoot. Literally and figuratively, we cannot imagine what it means to walk these roads as natives, what recent history lies in the red clay and how it continues to affect the people trying to rebuild their lives here in Anaka. But we can listen, and try to remember, and try to understand, and we can keep saying afoyo. Hopefully it’s not coming across as rabbit.
Backwards Design Part 3
Or, Ugandan Education (un)-Explained
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - The Day of Double Standards
There isn’t really a nice way to lead into this, so here goes. Today I watched 6 Ugandan high school students get caned, and for the first time I felt a bit of hopelessness for the entire situation regarding the African educational and political system.
After observing the first class of the week (that was supposed to start at 8 and started at 8:45) I went into the staff room to wait for tea while Sophie, who ‘had a headache,’ went home to take a nap. Her student teacher covered her next two classes, which I asked to observe since I really had nothing better to do. He said tomorrow would be better.
Eric was next to me at a small table, coping notes from his teachers planning book into his notebook for his lesson on Monday. I had my journal out and was jotting down some notes on the morning’s class.
One of the teachers whom I didn’t know came in holding the arm of a student, a boy probably 14 or 15 years old. The boy was wearing flip-flops and was supposed to be wearing black shoes as part of his school uniform. The teacher made the boy kneel in front of him in the middle of the staff room, which at this point had 12-15 teachers sitting at tables, waiting for tea. The teacher told the boy to remove his shoes, then held them in front of the boy’s face, asking, “Do you think your teachers are people to be deceived? You all know your requirements, and you will not be permitted to be here if you can not dress appropriately.” The teacher then turned and walked out, leaving the student kneeling, head bowed towards the floor, silent. A number of other teachers in the room started jeering and taunting the boy, telling him he was worthless, irresponsible, naughty. All the while the student stared at the floor, shoulders slumped over.
I don’t know if the same teacher or a different one walked back into the room, but at this point, I made no eye contact and just stared at my journal. The teacher told the boy to lie on the floor, and proceeded to administer five sharp blows with a reed to the back of the students calves. The boy did not cry out, but only made a quick yelp with each hit. When the teacher finished, he told the student to go home and not return until he was wearing the proper uniform. Chances are the boy doesn’t even own black shoes, but came to school regardless because he wanted to be there – why else would you risk physical punishment to come to school??
This continued with 5 other students in a similar fashion; two of the students were females whose skirts do not reach their calves, so the cane struck directly onto skin. The boys were quiet; one of the girls began openly sobbing before the abuse began, while the other did not cry out until after she was hit. Most punishments were for uniform violations, though one was for a student taking his school fee and sharing it with his brother. He was accused of being a liar and a cheat, and received a handful of severe blows. Another student was the nephew of one of the Ugandan teachers in the program; the teacher brought the boy in with the boy’s arm twisted behind his back, stumbling forward. He told the other teacher, “This is my brother’s son. We need to teach him a lesson. He can not behave like this.” It was not said what he was guilty of. The teacher turned to his nephew and – holding up two switches – made the boy select his own switch.
In addition to the caning, two students were brought in with hair that was “too long.” (Both boys and girls have to have shaved or closely-cropped hair to prevent the spread of lice.) The boys brought in had hair that was maybe an inch in length. Two female teachers took a pair of scissors and cut a stripe of hair from his forehead to the back of his neck, and another from the tip of one ear to the tip of another so he had a + on the top of his head – for no other reason than complete humiliation. They told him to go home and not return until his hair was the appropriate length. Seems to me if you were really concerned about the student and his education, you’d send him back to class and tell him to get a haircut, say, by Friday. Or, while you have your scissors out, cut all the hair on his head and then send him back to class. What on earth does their reaction do for teacher, student, or school?
Writing this now, I am ashamed to say that while it all was going on, I sat in my seat and did nothing except try not to vomit; Eric and I were completely shocked and did not even know what to do. Our understanding was that caning was illegal, and while it happens occasionally, head teachers and administrators were on the look out for teachers violating this law. How mistaken we were. The biggest shock was the public and humiliating nature of the action; teachers in the staff room were actively involved, laughing, taunting, berating the students. Several teacher partners in the IC program, including Sophie, were in the room and involved. The deputy head of the school, who should be the one stopping this action, sat in the room and watched it happen.
When Eric and I left the room, we immediately went back to the parish, and told the others what had happened – no one knew what to say or how to respond. We called Invisible Children and learned that this was the most serious case ever reported at an Invisible Children partner school. Catherine, our coordinator, notified necessary authorities within the program. We did not return to school for lunch, as we couldn’t face our partner teachers without having some more time to think about what this meant for our experience, our exchange, and our organization as a whole. Many of us felt that we could not ‘support’ a school or a faculty that engages in child abuse, but if we pull out of the program, that leaves the students in a situation with even less hope.
We talked it out among the group for several hours and went through a range of emotional responses: anger, disappointment, fear, frustration. We have chalked a lot so far up to “cultural differences” and have tried to be culturally sensitive, understanding and patience. But on this issue, we came to the conclusion that we can not stay in Uganda and do what we came to do unless we take a stand. Our conference last weekend – with our Ugandan partner teachers – centered around empowering the student and the teacher – physical punishment empowers no one. How do you build a positive relationship between teacher and student when there is fear and violence? How do you build a culture of peace when you are teaching the youth of the country to respond to conflict with violence?
I questioned whether even to make this public, but I think it is important to share as both a reminder of how lucky we are for our own educations in the U.S. and of the fact that there are children being mistreated other places in the world.
I was quiet at school as it happened, but I can’t stay quiet any more.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - The Day of Double Standards
There isn’t really a nice way to lead into this, so here goes. Today I watched 6 Ugandan high school students get caned, and for the first time I felt a bit of hopelessness for the entire situation regarding the African educational and political system.
After observing the first class of the week (that was supposed to start at 8 and started at 8:45) I went into the staff room to wait for tea while Sophie, who ‘had a headache,’ went home to take a nap. Her student teacher covered her next two classes, which I asked to observe since I really had nothing better to do. He said tomorrow would be better.
Eric was next to me at a small table, coping notes from his teachers planning book into his notebook for his lesson on Monday. I had my journal out and was jotting down some notes on the morning’s class.
One of the teachers whom I didn’t know came in holding the arm of a student, a boy probably 14 or 15 years old. The boy was wearing flip-flops and was supposed to be wearing black shoes as part of his school uniform. The teacher made the boy kneel in front of him in the middle of the staff room, which at this point had 12-15 teachers sitting at tables, waiting for tea. The teacher told the boy to remove his shoes, then held them in front of the boy’s face, asking, “Do you think your teachers are people to be deceived? You all know your requirements, and you will not be permitted to be here if you can not dress appropriately.” The teacher then turned and walked out, leaving the student kneeling, head bowed towards the floor, silent. A number of other teachers in the room started jeering and taunting the boy, telling him he was worthless, irresponsible, naughty. All the while the student stared at the floor, shoulders slumped over.
I don’t know if the same teacher or a different one walked back into the room, but at this point, I made no eye contact and just stared at my journal. The teacher told the boy to lie on the floor, and proceeded to administer five sharp blows with a reed to the back of the students calves. The boy did not cry out, but only made a quick yelp with each hit. When the teacher finished, he told the student to go home and not return until he was wearing the proper uniform. Chances are the boy doesn’t even own black shoes, but came to school regardless because he wanted to be there – why else would you risk physical punishment to come to school??
This continued with 5 other students in a similar fashion; two of the students were females whose skirts do not reach their calves, so the cane struck directly onto skin. The boys were quiet; one of the girls began openly sobbing before the abuse began, while the other did not cry out until after she was hit. Most punishments were for uniform violations, though one was for a student taking his school fee and sharing it with his brother. He was accused of being a liar and a cheat, and received a handful of severe blows. Another student was the nephew of one of the Ugandan teachers in the program; the teacher brought the boy in with the boy’s arm twisted behind his back, stumbling forward. He told the other teacher, “This is my brother’s son. We need to teach him a lesson. He can not behave like this.” It was not said what he was guilty of. The teacher turned to his nephew and – holding up two switches – made the boy select his own switch.
In addition to the caning, two students were brought in with hair that was “too long.” (Both boys and girls have to have shaved or closely-cropped hair to prevent the spread of lice.) The boys brought in had hair that was maybe an inch in length. Two female teachers took a pair of scissors and cut a stripe of hair from his forehead to the back of his neck, and another from the tip of one ear to the tip of another so he had a + on the top of his head – for no other reason than complete humiliation. They told him to go home and not return until his hair was the appropriate length. Seems to me if you were really concerned about the student and his education, you’d send him back to class and tell him to get a haircut, say, by Friday. Or, while you have your scissors out, cut all the hair on his head and then send him back to class. What on earth does their reaction do for teacher, student, or school?
Writing this now, I am ashamed to say that while it all was going on, I sat in my seat and did nothing except try not to vomit; Eric and I were completely shocked and did not even know what to do. Our understanding was that caning was illegal, and while it happens occasionally, head teachers and administrators were on the look out for teachers violating this law. How mistaken we were. The biggest shock was the public and humiliating nature of the action; teachers in the staff room were actively involved, laughing, taunting, berating the students. Several teacher partners in the IC program, including Sophie, were in the room and involved. The deputy head of the school, who should be the one stopping this action, sat in the room and watched it happen.
When Eric and I left the room, we immediately went back to the parish, and told the others what had happened – no one knew what to say or how to respond. We called Invisible Children and learned that this was the most serious case ever reported at an Invisible Children partner school. Catherine, our coordinator, notified necessary authorities within the program. We did not return to school for lunch, as we couldn’t face our partner teachers without having some more time to think about what this meant for our experience, our exchange, and our organization as a whole. Many of us felt that we could not ‘support’ a school or a faculty that engages in child abuse, but if we pull out of the program, that leaves the students in a situation with even less hope.
We talked it out among the group for several hours and went through a range of emotional responses: anger, disappointment, fear, frustration. We have chalked a lot so far up to “cultural differences” and have tried to be culturally sensitive, understanding and patience. But on this issue, we came to the conclusion that we can not stay in Uganda and do what we came to do unless we take a stand. Our conference last weekend – with our Ugandan partner teachers – centered around empowering the student and the teacher – physical punishment empowers no one. How do you build a positive relationship between teacher and student when there is fear and violence? How do you build a culture of peace when you are teaching the youth of the country to respond to conflict with violence?
I questioned whether even to make this public, but I think it is important to share as both a reminder of how lucky we are for our own educations in the U.S. and of the fact that there are children being mistreated other places in the world.
I was quiet at school as it happened, but I can’t stay quiet any more.
Backwards Design Part 2
Or, Ugandan Education (un)-Explained
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
On Monday night after Frisbee, we ran into James (one of Eric’s Ugandan partner teachers) at a local store (use the term loosely, it’s a tiny room behind metal bars with a few boxes of sodas and a thatched-roof porch with a few plastic tables). Eric bought us all cokes and we sat down and talked for a while. Turns out James wasn’t at school on Monday because he hasn’t received a paycheck from the government in 8 months. Frankly, I wouldn’t go to school if I wasn’t being paid, either. He told us he spent hours in line at a government building in Gulu, and that he filled out a bunch of paperwork, but that nothing was immediately resolved. Unbelievable.
On Tuesday morning, we woke up to no electricity and dressed by headlamp. Breakfast was crackers, peanut butter, and mazuka, a less sweet donut thing that - dipped in tea - is amazing. We headed to school at 7:25, placing bets on what time the assembly scheduled for 7:30 would actually begin. At 7:50, the head girl called the students standing in front of the staff room to attention; in their green and white school uniforms, finishing what looks like porridge from their plastic cups, they quieted down and waited for her to speak. After they sang the school song and national anthem, and said the morning prayer, we were introduced to the group. We introduced ourselves one at a time and when we said what classes we would be working with, a cheer came up from that group of students – the older students whom we will not teach were genuinely bummed out to not have an American teacher in their classrooms. Morgan was asked to speak for the group, and she expressed our excitement to be here, and told all students, even those who may not see us inside the classroom, to speak to us outside the classroom. This was met with enthusiasm by the older levels of students!
When assembly finished, the students went off to class and I went to the staff room to wait for Sophie. She was supposed to have a class from 8-12:30 and I was meant to spend this week observing her. She didn’t show up until lunchtime, apparently having just arrived from Gulu where her 3 year-old daughter Mary had fallen ill with malaria.
Sophie lives during the week in Anaka, but goes to Gulu on the weekends to be with her family. Her husband is a teacher as well, and keeps Mary during the weeks because there is more family support in Gulu than there is in Anaka. Teachers are government workers, and when you graduate from Teacher Training College, you are randomly assigned a teaching position in a Ugandan school with a vacancy. There are no preference lists for location, regardless of your family situation or hometown. If you want to apply for a transfer to a different school, you can do so after two years of service but without any guarantee. Sophie’s husband actually taught at a school closer to Anaka, but was displaced into Gulu along with our school when the LRA activity in the north was in full force. Sophie’s husband’s school will relocate to its original location from Gulu in January of 2010, but until then, they will live apart and she will travel on weekends to visit her daughter.
This raises some serious questions within the educational system.
Frankly, if I had to choose between my ill child and my job, I’d without a doubt be at home watching Sesame Street and making vegetable soup. But what about the hundreds of students sitting in your classroom depending on you for their educations? (Uganda does not have substitute teachers.) What about your responsibility to your job and your colleagues? What kind of example are you setting for your students? What changes need to happen for teachers to be better-equipped and able to do their jobs? And where does my being here fall into the equation?
We had dinner with Father Leoncio at the parish on Tuesday night. During the meal, he was talking about the role that his parish plays in the community: “We’re not trying to convert anyone here. It doesn’t matter our religion – Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim – we are all humans and we all want peace.”
I think our role as international teachers in Uganda, and in Anaka, is similar. We are not trying to convert Ugandan teachers and schools to the American system. However, as Father Leon’s church strives for peace, I think that both Ugandan and American teachers are striving for a similar goal – a quality education for the students. And that’s something I’m pretty willing to keep working towards – the struggle is going to be figuring out a compromise that will get us to that desired result.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
On Monday night after Frisbee, we ran into James (one of Eric’s Ugandan partner teachers) at a local store (use the term loosely, it’s a tiny room behind metal bars with a few boxes of sodas and a thatched-roof porch with a few plastic tables). Eric bought us all cokes and we sat down and talked for a while. Turns out James wasn’t at school on Monday because he hasn’t received a paycheck from the government in 8 months. Frankly, I wouldn’t go to school if I wasn’t being paid, either. He told us he spent hours in line at a government building in Gulu, and that he filled out a bunch of paperwork, but that nothing was immediately resolved. Unbelievable.
On Tuesday morning, we woke up to no electricity and dressed by headlamp. Breakfast was crackers, peanut butter, and mazuka, a less sweet donut thing that - dipped in tea - is amazing. We headed to school at 7:25, placing bets on what time the assembly scheduled for 7:30 would actually begin. At 7:50, the head girl called the students standing in front of the staff room to attention; in their green and white school uniforms, finishing what looks like porridge from their plastic cups, they quieted down and waited for her to speak. After they sang the school song and national anthem, and said the morning prayer, we were introduced to the group. We introduced ourselves one at a time and when we said what classes we would be working with, a cheer came up from that group of students – the older students whom we will not teach were genuinely bummed out to not have an American teacher in their classrooms. Morgan was asked to speak for the group, and she expressed our excitement to be here, and told all students, even those who may not see us inside the classroom, to speak to us outside the classroom. This was met with enthusiasm by the older levels of students!
When assembly finished, the students went off to class and I went to the staff room to wait for Sophie. She was supposed to have a class from 8-12:30 and I was meant to spend this week observing her. She didn’t show up until lunchtime, apparently having just arrived from Gulu where her 3 year-old daughter Mary had fallen ill with malaria.
Sophie lives during the week in Anaka, but goes to Gulu on the weekends to be with her family. Her husband is a teacher as well, and keeps Mary during the weeks because there is more family support in Gulu than there is in Anaka. Teachers are government workers, and when you graduate from Teacher Training College, you are randomly assigned a teaching position in a Ugandan school with a vacancy. There are no preference lists for location, regardless of your family situation or hometown. If you want to apply for a transfer to a different school, you can do so after two years of service but without any guarantee. Sophie’s husband actually taught at a school closer to Anaka, but was displaced into Gulu along with our school when the LRA activity in the north was in full force. Sophie’s husband’s school will relocate to its original location from Gulu in January of 2010, but until then, they will live apart and she will travel on weekends to visit her daughter.
This raises some serious questions within the educational system.
Frankly, if I had to choose between my ill child and my job, I’d without a doubt be at home watching Sesame Street and making vegetable soup. But what about the hundreds of students sitting in your classroom depending on you for their educations? (Uganda does not have substitute teachers.) What about your responsibility to your job and your colleagues? What kind of example are you setting for your students? What changes need to happen for teachers to be better-equipped and able to do their jobs? And where does my being here fall into the equation?
We had dinner with Father Leoncio at the parish on Tuesday night. During the meal, he was talking about the role that his parish plays in the community: “We’re not trying to convert anyone here. It doesn’t matter our religion – Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim – we are all humans and we all want peace.”
I think our role as international teachers in Uganda, and in Anaka, is similar. We are not trying to convert Ugandan teachers and schools to the American system. However, as Father Leon’s church strives for peace, I think that both Ugandan and American teachers are striving for a similar goal – a quality education for the students. And that’s something I’m pretty willing to keep working towards – the struggle is going to be figuring out a compromise that will get us to that desired result.
Backwards Design Part 1
Or, Ugandan Education (un)-Explained
We have now spent a four days at Pope Paul IV Secondary School Anaka, an hour and twenty minute drive from Gulu on roads that are less developed than most mountain bike trails. (Think Rock Garden, Seven Springs riders.)
We are staying at the St. Francis Parish (Invisible Children is not a religious organization, but the rooms for rent at the parish are the nicest (and safest) in Anaka. Fathers Martin and Leoncio – two younger Acoli priests – live here as well, and two fantastic women, Grace and Maureen, cook our dinner and breakfast and do our laundry. We are spoiled here. The showers are cold, but the water is reliable and we have yet to run out. The entire parish is run on solar power, so we are usually good with electricity until we go to bed, though sometimes in the morning we have to get dressed by headlamp because we’re out of juice. The four of us girls (Sarah, Morgan, Kellie and I) share a room and Eric, the token dude, has a room to himself. If we weren’t living in God’s house, one or two of us would certainly have invaded his man-cave to give everyone a little more space. We also have our own sitting room with lots of space to sit and relax on doily-ed couches and chairs. Seriously. I haven’t seen so many doilies since Great Great Aunt Mildred’s house. And they come in MATCHING SETS and CHANGE on a regular basis. The early part of the week was mint green; today we’re white with embroidered red flowers. It’s snazzy. The sitting room has become our haven in the evenings – we’ve played Uno, hung out with Father Martin, watched a movie and several episodes of The Office, and generally just escaped into American Land for an hour or two every night. I’ve traveled quite a bit in my life, but this is the first trip where I’ve had this serious of a longing for my own culture.
Understandable, looking back at the events of the first week.
Monday, July 6, 2009
We arrived at the school on Monday morning after dropping our bags at the parish. At the school, we met with Sampson, the deputy head teacher. Nancy, Kellie’s Ugandan partner teacher, was the only teacher at school when we arrived, and would prove to be the only teacher to show up on our first day at all, despite their excitement at the weekend conference regarding our upcoming arrival. Sampson gave us a tour of the school and talked to us for a while in his office (a partitioned room with a desk and three small wooden chairs) about the structure of the educational system and the hierarchy of the school administration. Heirarchies and going through proper channels here seems to be very culturally important, though it seems that anything that needs to be accomplished gets clogged in one of these channels and never gets done. We said goodbye to Catherine – it was like saying goodbye to mom on the first day of kindergarden – and were directed into the staff room to have lunch and “wait for our teachers.” On the schedule for 12:30, we didn’t have food in front of us until 2:15. Lunch, to be blunt, is going to get old. Every day we have posho, a heavy, bland rice-like substance with play-doh consistency, and cabbage. Once a week we have beans in addition, and another day we have some type of meat, but posho and cabbage are a staple. (I just asked Eric to describe posho. His response: “That stuff is white death… every time I see it, I think for a minute that it’s mashed potatoes and I get excited, then son of a bitch, it’s posho… Ugh… freaking posho.”)
The staff room is crammed with unpacked boxes of books from February’s move back to Anaka from its displaced site in Gulu, and gets stuffy and hot, so we took our things outside after lunch and sat under a tree. We ended up talking to a handful of students throughout the afternoon who were brave enough to sit down with us. The rest just locked on their stares, or whispered “munp, muno” (white, white) with wide eyes – this village is clearly not a hot vacation spot for westerners. Generally, though, if you smile back or throw out a “afoyo” (hello/thank you used interchangeably) you can at least get a shy smile before they scamper off. That evening before dinner, after giving up on our teaching partners, we thought we would give our Frisbee it’s first introduction to Anaka. We walked to the football field (large dusty patch of grass) by the primary school and started tossing it around. Pretty soon we had a crowd of about 50-60 kids, some brave enough to try tossing the disc around, and some content to stay back and observe. A crowd of primary girls who speak very little English surrounded me and we practiced asking each other for names. I taught them to “high-five” and they giggled uncontrollably. If this teaching thing doesn’t work out, I’ll try the comedy circuit in remote African villages. We were pretty disappointed about the absence of our teachers, and felt that they were not demonstrating their investment in the program, though we are thinking now that this is more of a cultural issue than a personal one. The interaction with the children lifted our spirits some. Today raised the question (that I’m getting the feeling we will struggle with for the whole of this trip) of why we are here and what we are hoping to accomplish. This night, if nothing else, we let a group of kids from a country in need of outside help, know that there are people who know they are here, and who care.
We have now spent a four days at Pope Paul IV Secondary School Anaka, an hour and twenty minute drive from Gulu on roads that are less developed than most mountain bike trails. (Think Rock Garden, Seven Springs riders.)
We are staying at the St. Francis Parish (Invisible Children is not a religious organization, but the rooms for rent at the parish are the nicest (and safest) in Anaka. Fathers Martin and Leoncio – two younger Acoli priests – live here as well, and two fantastic women, Grace and Maureen, cook our dinner and breakfast and do our laundry. We are spoiled here. The showers are cold, but the water is reliable and we have yet to run out. The entire parish is run on solar power, so we are usually good with electricity until we go to bed, though sometimes in the morning we have to get dressed by headlamp because we’re out of juice. The four of us girls (Sarah, Morgan, Kellie and I) share a room and Eric, the token dude, has a room to himself. If we weren’t living in God’s house, one or two of us would certainly have invaded his man-cave to give everyone a little more space. We also have our own sitting room with lots of space to sit and relax on doily-ed couches and chairs. Seriously. I haven’t seen so many doilies since Great Great Aunt Mildred’s house. And they come in MATCHING SETS and CHANGE on a regular basis. The early part of the week was mint green; today we’re white with embroidered red flowers. It’s snazzy. The sitting room has become our haven in the evenings – we’ve played Uno, hung out with Father Martin, watched a movie and several episodes of The Office, and generally just escaped into American Land for an hour or two every night. I’ve traveled quite a bit in my life, but this is the first trip where I’ve had this serious of a longing for my own culture.
Understandable, looking back at the events of the first week.
Monday, July 6, 2009
We arrived at the school on Monday morning after dropping our bags at the parish. At the school, we met with Sampson, the deputy head teacher. Nancy, Kellie’s Ugandan partner teacher, was the only teacher at school when we arrived, and would prove to be the only teacher to show up on our first day at all, despite their excitement at the weekend conference regarding our upcoming arrival. Sampson gave us a tour of the school and talked to us for a while in his office (a partitioned room with a desk and three small wooden chairs) about the structure of the educational system and the hierarchy of the school administration. Heirarchies and going through proper channels here seems to be very culturally important, though it seems that anything that needs to be accomplished gets clogged in one of these channels and never gets done. We said goodbye to Catherine – it was like saying goodbye to mom on the first day of kindergarden – and were directed into the staff room to have lunch and “wait for our teachers.” On the schedule for 12:30, we didn’t have food in front of us until 2:15. Lunch, to be blunt, is going to get old. Every day we have posho, a heavy, bland rice-like substance with play-doh consistency, and cabbage. Once a week we have beans in addition, and another day we have some type of meat, but posho and cabbage are a staple. (I just asked Eric to describe posho. His response: “That stuff is white death… every time I see it, I think for a minute that it’s mashed potatoes and I get excited, then son of a bitch, it’s posho… Ugh… freaking posho.”)
The staff room is crammed with unpacked boxes of books from February’s move back to Anaka from its displaced site in Gulu, and gets stuffy and hot, so we took our things outside after lunch and sat under a tree. We ended up talking to a handful of students throughout the afternoon who were brave enough to sit down with us. The rest just locked on their stares, or whispered “munp, muno” (white, white) with wide eyes – this village is clearly not a hot vacation spot for westerners. Generally, though, if you smile back or throw out a “afoyo” (hello/thank you used interchangeably) you can at least get a shy smile before they scamper off. That evening before dinner, after giving up on our teaching partners, we thought we would give our Frisbee it’s first introduction to Anaka. We walked to the football field (large dusty patch of grass) by the primary school and started tossing it around. Pretty soon we had a crowd of about 50-60 kids, some brave enough to try tossing the disc around, and some content to stay back and observe. A crowd of primary girls who speak very little English surrounded me and we practiced asking each other for names. I taught them to “high-five” and they giggled uncontrollably. If this teaching thing doesn’t work out, I’ll try the comedy circuit in remote African villages. We were pretty disappointed about the absence of our teachers, and felt that they were not demonstrating their investment in the program, though we are thinking now that this is more of a cultural issue than a personal one. The interaction with the children lifted our spirits some. Today raised the question (that I’m getting the feeling we will struggle with for the whole of this trip) of why we are here and what we are hoping to accomplish. This night, if nothing else, we let a group of kids from a country in need of outside help, know that there are people who know they are here, and who care.
Elephant Graceland and Skippy the Stray Dog
Our arrival in Gulu was surreal – after a 6 hour bus trip with only one stop to “use the local restroom” behind a bush in the bush, we arrived at our hotel, Elephant Graceland. We were originally to stay at a hotel closer to the IC Volunteer House, but they had apparently overbooked, and the Elephant’s manager Alphonso took us in at the last minute. After our night at the Euro-fab hostel Backpackers, our two-person room with en-suite temperamental bathrooms and hole-free mosquito netting had us literally jumping around. Seriously. There was jumping.
It was not until we were tucked neatly into our netting the first night of our stay that we met two of our newest neighbors at the Elephant Graceland: Skippy the Stray Dog and the Enrique Iglasias Discotheque. (We’ll find the real Acholi name when we sneak over to short circuit their generator.)
Maybe there needs to be some introduction here. Gulu is significantly larger than I had expected. In my head, I pictured the Internally Displaced Persons Camps about which I had read – thatched roofed huts with free-roaming children and chickens. Gulu is much more urban and is in the process of rapid growth and development. There is a market area that takes up a whole block, a number of hotels and restaurants, and – though the service is slow and the computers circa 1990 – several internet cafés. There are some displaced schools still in town as well, as well as a prison where guards take prisoners for walks on the streets at night, and a number of NGO’s. The streets are nothing fancy – red clay slightly less wide than the back roads by the cottage, and cratered with potholes – but they are traveled 24/7 by schoolchildren in their uniforms, people carrying jerry cans to the wells for water, women with babies strapped to their backs balancing goods to sell on their heads, bicycles, boda bodas (small motorcycles used here as taxis) and the occasional car or 4WD vehicle. But more on Gulu later…
The key architectural wonder in Gulu town that I would like to focus on is the bar across the street from our hotel. It blasts a wide selection of musical joy to all of Northern Uganda and possibly parts of Sudan until 4:30 am. Literally. Last night I showered to “Where is the Love” and was told as I fell asleep that I could run, I could hide, but I could not escape the love of that Latin dreamsicle of 1998. We have come to the realization that in addition to decades old kiddie-pop, the rest of the world enjoys techno music significantly more than Americans. It’s cool. At least they can dance to it with more style and rhythm than we muzungus.
The Enrique isn’t so bad; it’s kind of like falling asleep to a mix tape made by an old boyfriend. But the disco employs an additional piece of nighttime entertainment – Skippy the Stray Dog. Starting almost religiously at 12:30 and continuing until well after last call, Skippy accompanies the music with howls, barks, and a moan that makes us think he is being water-boarded in the yard next door. (Personally, I think he knows where Kony is hiding in the Congo and someone is trying to make him talk.) If he is in fact dying, it’s a slow, repetitive nightly process that follows a strict time schedule. At first, we thought he was a wolf, and Brit’s malaria-induced dream the first night at E.G. (during the three hour period between Skippy’s bedtime and our 7:30 alarm) involved a drooling, fanged creature chasing her down a red clay road.
Rewind to last night’s shower: I attempted this seemingly simple hygienic procedure at Elephant Graceland and ended up not getting very clean but impressing myself with the level of acrobatic-ness my body was able to muster up in situations of need. We have a “real shower” with a showerhead and a very unpredictable running water situation. I got in wearing only my shower shoes (ahhh, undergrad…) and did the water-conserving shower dance: put basin under faucet, douse self in freezing cold water, turn freezing cold water off, lather hair with shampoo, turn water on, try to rinse hair while touching as little of freezing cold water as possible, turn water off, repeat procedure using conditioner and soap. Made it halfway through the process: shampooing was completed, hair was soaking in some 99 cent VO5 conditioner, and my body was lathered with a Dove bar of soap that is now red from the clay of the roads. When I went to turn on the water for the final rinse, a few drops pittered into the basin at the shower and then nothing. I twisted the knobs again thinking perhaps in the past 2.5 minutes they had adopted a new usage procedure. No. We were simply out of water. So, with the half-full gallon sized basin that had collected the sort-of dirty water from the first part of the shower, I was able to pseudo-rinse the soap off my body and face, but I still had a hair full of conditioner and a body sort of slimed with soap and clay residue. Long story short, I ended up bracing myself on the walls, turning my head upside down, and dunking my hair into the basin of leftover shower water to try to get some of the conditioner out. After a few dunks (is this what it would have been as a nerdy high school freshman to get dunked in the toilet by a football playing bully?) I figured it was as good as it was going to be, pulled it up into a bun, and set off. I realized halfway through the day when I let my hair down to keep the bugs off my neck that I missed a conditioner-slathered chunk of hair near my left ear that had turned into a greasy, sticky, dusty mess.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited for a shower tonight. But alas, no water again. So Brit and I wiped down with my selection of baby wipes and Stridex face wipes, and – at 1:33 AM, are enjoying Skippy the Stray Dog’s rendition of “Sorry Miss Jackson” and coming to terms with the fact that the quest for sleep is futile while Gulu parties it up with Skippy across the street. I am for reeeeeeeaaaaaal…
It was not until we were tucked neatly into our netting the first night of our stay that we met two of our newest neighbors at the Elephant Graceland: Skippy the Stray Dog and the Enrique Iglasias Discotheque. (We’ll find the real Acholi name when we sneak over to short circuit their generator.)
Maybe there needs to be some introduction here. Gulu is significantly larger than I had expected. In my head, I pictured the Internally Displaced Persons Camps about which I had read – thatched roofed huts with free-roaming children and chickens. Gulu is much more urban and is in the process of rapid growth and development. There is a market area that takes up a whole block, a number of hotels and restaurants, and – though the service is slow and the computers circa 1990 – several internet cafés. There are some displaced schools still in town as well, as well as a prison where guards take prisoners for walks on the streets at night, and a number of NGO’s. The streets are nothing fancy – red clay slightly less wide than the back roads by the cottage, and cratered with potholes – but they are traveled 24/7 by schoolchildren in their uniforms, people carrying jerry cans to the wells for water, women with babies strapped to their backs balancing goods to sell on their heads, bicycles, boda bodas (small motorcycles used here as taxis) and the occasional car or 4WD vehicle. But more on Gulu later…
The key architectural wonder in Gulu town that I would like to focus on is the bar across the street from our hotel. It blasts a wide selection of musical joy to all of Northern Uganda and possibly parts of Sudan until 4:30 am. Literally. Last night I showered to “Where is the Love” and was told as I fell asleep that I could run, I could hide, but I could not escape the love of that Latin dreamsicle of 1998. We have come to the realization that in addition to decades old kiddie-pop, the rest of the world enjoys techno music significantly more than Americans. It’s cool. At least they can dance to it with more style and rhythm than we muzungus.
The Enrique isn’t so bad; it’s kind of like falling asleep to a mix tape made by an old boyfriend. But the disco employs an additional piece of nighttime entertainment – Skippy the Stray Dog. Starting almost religiously at 12:30 and continuing until well after last call, Skippy accompanies the music with howls, barks, and a moan that makes us think he is being water-boarded in the yard next door. (Personally, I think he knows where Kony is hiding in the Congo and someone is trying to make him talk.) If he is in fact dying, it’s a slow, repetitive nightly process that follows a strict time schedule. At first, we thought he was a wolf, and Brit’s malaria-induced dream the first night at E.G. (during the three hour period between Skippy’s bedtime and our 7:30 alarm) involved a drooling, fanged creature chasing her down a red clay road.
Rewind to last night’s shower: I attempted this seemingly simple hygienic procedure at Elephant Graceland and ended up not getting very clean but impressing myself with the level of acrobatic-ness my body was able to muster up in situations of need. We have a “real shower” with a showerhead and a very unpredictable running water situation. I got in wearing only my shower shoes (ahhh, undergrad…) and did the water-conserving shower dance: put basin under faucet, douse self in freezing cold water, turn freezing cold water off, lather hair with shampoo, turn water on, try to rinse hair while touching as little of freezing cold water as possible, turn water off, repeat procedure using conditioner and soap. Made it halfway through the process: shampooing was completed, hair was soaking in some 99 cent VO5 conditioner, and my body was lathered with a Dove bar of soap that is now red from the clay of the roads. When I went to turn on the water for the final rinse, a few drops pittered into the basin at the shower and then nothing. I twisted the knobs again thinking perhaps in the past 2.5 minutes they had adopted a new usage procedure. No. We were simply out of water. So, with the half-full gallon sized basin that had collected the sort-of dirty water from the first part of the shower, I was able to pseudo-rinse the soap off my body and face, but I still had a hair full of conditioner and a body sort of slimed with soap and clay residue. Long story short, I ended up bracing myself on the walls, turning my head upside down, and dunking my hair into the basin of leftover shower water to try to get some of the conditioner out. After a few dunks (is this what it would have been as a nerdy high school freshman to get dunked in the toilet by a football playing bully?) I figured it was as good as it was going to be, pulled it up into a bun, and set off. I realized halfway through the day when I let my hair down to keep the bugs off my neck that I missed a conditioner-slathered chunk of hair near my left ear that had turned into a greasy, sticky, dusty mess.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited for a shower tonight. But alas, no water again. So Brit and I wiped down with my selection of baby wipes and Stridex face wipes, and – at 1:33 AM, are enjoying Skippy the Stray Dog’s rendition of “Sorry Miss Jackson” and coming to terms with the fact that the quest for sleep is futile while Gulu parties it up with Skippy across the street. I am for reeeeeeeaaaaaal…
The New Future
From Sue’s Market, we drove a short ways in the downpour to Bavubuka, a youth center that uses arts and music to get Kampala youth off of the streets. The pride and ownership that the students have over Bavubuka is evident as soon as you walk through the door. The walls are covered with student artwork – traditional African drawings and paintings, other more free-form drawings, and poetry and lyrics. One wall was completely swarmed with backwards traced hands turned butterflies in a rainbow of colors. The door is collaged with photos of the residents and students – it’s immediately clear to whom this house belongs.
We sat in the front room of the house and heard performances by some of the students and then got the low down on the organization itself. The kids were amazing – first, the “representing” girl of about 16 years old rapped in Ugandan, then a group of 6 boys played drums and rapped as well. The highlight was the littlest performer – no more than 7 – who introduced himself as “a rapper” and then did some freestyle beat-boxing in Ugandan with the program director drumming in the background.
After the performances, the kids began to explain the history and structure of their program. Short version – it is awesome and they are doing amazing work. Slightly longer version: A Ugandan rapper named Silas was the first rapper to “make it big” rapping in the native Ugandan language about the issues of living specifically in the Ugandan ghettos. He started Bavubuka to provide a place – and a purpose – for the youth of the Ugandan streets who weren’t finding support elsewhere. They provide arts and music programs, have a music studio, jewelry and t-shirt making shop, and housing for youth who would otherwise sleep on the streets. The program director explained that the overall goal is for students to “come together and DO something” – and do they do! They make and sell CD’s, art, and jewelry and the funding is split between the artists and the center.
Along with drugs and alcohol, something else is banned at the center: negative music. The director explained that since the war with the LRA, Uganda has lost any sort of “community feeling” and that the center is trying to “bring society together again.” He tells his kids, “you don’t have cars or bling, so why on earth would you sing about them? Write and sing about what you know. Share your stories.” With their music, they attempt to fuse hip-hop and Ugandan influences, writing in Ugandan language about real issues facing their generation on the streets in Uganda – war, drugs, poverty, education, AIDS. He explained that as Western influences in Uganda break down Ugandan culture, he encourages his kids to “talk to the people in their language.” The little rapper sat quietly through this whole explanation of the center, playing with a fraying string on his drum. When we had time for questions, we asked him what his song was about: translated, it’s titled “I’m the new future.” And with centers and work like this happening in Kampala, the new future is exactly what he is.
The group is working on getting a website together with help from an outside organization. When it’s up and running, I’ll link to it here!!
We sat in the front room of the house and heard performances by some of the students and then got the low down on the organization itself. The kids were amazing – first, the “representing” girl of about 16 years old rapped in Ugandan, then a group of 6 boys played drums and rapped as well. The highlight was the littlest performer – no more than 7 – who introduced himself as “a rapper” and then did some freestyle beat-boxing in Ugandan with the program director drumming in the background.
After the performances, the kids began to explain the history and structure of their program. Short version – it is awesome and they are doing amazing work. Slightly longer version: A Ugandan rapper named Silas was the first rapper to “make it big” rapping in the native Ugandan language about the issues of living specifically in the Ugandan ghettos. He started Bavubuka to provide a place – and a purpose – for the youth of the Ugandan streets who weren’t finding support elsewhere. They provide arts and music programs, have a music studio, jewelry and t-shirt making shop, and housing for youth who would otherwise sleep on the streets. The program director explained that the overall goal is for students to “come together and DO something” – and do they do! They make and sell CD’s, art, and jewelry and the funding is split between the artists and the center.
Along with drugs and alcohol, something else is banned at the center: negative music. The director explained that since the war with the LRA, Uganda has lost any sort of “community feeling” and that the center is trying to “bring society together again.” He tells his kids, “you don’t have cars or bling, so why on earth would you sing about them? Write and sing about what you know. Share your stories.” With their music, they attempt to fuse hip-hop and Ugandan influences, writing in Ugandan language about real issues facing their generation on the streets in Uganda – war, drugs, poverty, education, AIDS. He explained that as Western influences in Uganda break down Ugandan culture, he encourages his kids to “talk to the people in their language.” The little rapper sat quietly through this whole explanation of the center, playing with a fraying string on his drum. When we had time for questions, we asked him what his song was about: translated, it’s titled “I’m the new future.” And with centers and work like this happening in Kampala, the new future is exactly what he is.
The group is working on getting a website together with help from an outside organization. When it’s up and running, I’ll link to it here!!
Scarves, Anyone?
We started off Day 2 with a trip to Sue’s Market in Kampala where we were advised to finish a significant amount of souvenir shopping as the selection of crafts would be larger than anything we will see in Gulu. I think the entire group was overwhelmed a bit to think that we had to do all of our shopping a) so early on and b) all in one place. We had a little over an hour and there was major over-stimulation happening in the African Souvenir Department. If I saw something cool, I bought 17 of whatever it was.
Additionally, I have absolutely no idea how much money I spent. One American dollar is worth between 1700-2200 Ugandan shillings, depending on whether you take money from an ATM or whether you exchange cash, and whether said cash is dated before or after 2003. I went to the money exchange with a few hundred-dollar bills and came out with two wads of bills that I stuffed in the provided super-shady envelopes. If you were to look in my purse, you’d think I was involved in something illegal. Heck, maybe I unknowingly am!
It’s typical in Ugandan marketplaces, as in many other countries, to bargain with the sellers. If you pay the sticker price, you come across to the locals as being both moronic and arrogant. However, when the awesome elephant statue you’re admiring costs less than a Coke, you feel like kind of a jerk fighting for that extra 13 cents off. (If you happen to receive an elephant statue from me when I return from this trip, please note it is in fact a different, much more expensive elephant than the one mentioned in this entry.)
Toward the end of our time at the market, you could feel the panic rising among the group, and we all began a purchasing frenzy, making deals left and right for that one last pair of sandals or that 27th scarf. As we ran to meet the bus, the skies opened and it began to pour. We jumped on the bus as the Ugandan sellers threw tarps over their merchandise set up outside and sought shelter in their tiny stalls.
Hours and hours later, at our hotel in Gulu, we took turns having “craft shows” – under the guise of wanting to “see what others bought” but really because none of us actually had a clue what we even ended up with ourselves. My roommate Brit and I trumped all other craft show participants by serving appetizers (a chocolate/caramel candy bar) as part of our exhibition. We’re keeping it classy, Uganda style.
And Dad, Mike, Scott – I hope you like decorative scarves. I seemed to end up with a lot of them… And I think I’m keeping the elephant.
Additionally, I have absolutely no idea how much money I spent. One American dollar is worth between 1700-2200 Ugandan shillings, depending on whether you take money from an ATM or whether you exchange cash, and whether said cash is dated before or after 2003. I went to the money exchange with a few hundred-dollar bills and came out with two wads of bills that I stuffed in the provided super-shady envelopes. If you were to look in my purse, you’d think I was involved in something illegal. Heck, maybe I unknowingly am!
It’s typical in Ugandan marketplaces, as in many other countries, to bargain with the sellers. If you pay the sticker price, you come across to the locals as being both moronic and arrogant. However, when the awesome elephant statue you’re admiring costs less than a Coke, you feel like kind of a jerk fighting for that extra 13 cents off. (If you happen to receive an elephant statue from me when I return from this trip, please note it is in fact a different, much more expensive elephant than the one mentioned in this entry.)
Toward the end of our time at the market, you could feel the panic rising among the group, and we all began a purchasing frenzy, making deals left and right for that one last pair of sandals or that 27th scarf. As we ran to meet the bus, the skies opened and it began to pour. We jumped on the bus as the Ugandan sellers threw tarps over their merchandise set up outside and sought shelter in their tiny stalls.
Hours and hours later, at our hotel in Gulu, we took turns having “craft shows” – under the guise of wanting to “see what others bought” but really because none of us actually had a clue what we even ended up with ourselves. My roommate Brit and I trumped all other craft show participants by serving appetizers (a chocolate/caramel candy bar) as part of our exhibition. We’re keeping it classy, Uganda style.
And Dad, Mike, Scott – I hope you like decorative scarves. I seemed to end up with a lot of them… And I think I’m keeping the elephant.
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