One Year!

            I have officially been in Uganda for a year – I do not think I have ever gone this long without In and Out or Starbucks.  At the beginning, a two-year commitment seemed like a long time, but it is amazing how fast time has flown by.  I cannot imagine having to come home right now. 

            School has officially started and it is nice to get back to work.  Of course, it took about a week or so for school to get organized.  Kids slowly trickled in and the timetable took a while to set up.  While it is nice to be busy, I do miss my days of lounging around and reading.  Last week, my counterpart and I facilitated a three-day workshop on “Safe School Environment”.  The workshop was held at my Coordinating Center and it was for all the government schools in my district (20 schools).  Three teachers from each school attended, so there were a lot of participants.  The workshop focused on child abuse, corporal punishment, and how to create a safe learning environment for students.  Here were a few of my favorite moments from the workshop:

            In every Ugandan meeting or workshop, there needs to be a chairperson, spiritual leader, timekeeper, and a secretary.  (The timekeeper position always makes me laugh because I have yet to attend a Ugandan workshop that keeps time.)  The chairperson is in charge of keeping the participants in check and the spiritual leader is in charge of the prayers before and after the workshop and before meals.  The secretary is in charge of taking down the minutes and they literally have to write everything down.  My counterpart asked for a volunteer to be a secretary, and one of the male teachers said, “Ok, come on all female teachers.”  I snapped and said, “I don’t think so! You now have the position of being secretary.”  Thankfully, my counterpart laughed and backed me up in my decision. 

            Later in the day, we were discussing some of the causes of child abuse - such as, lack of education and cultural beliefs.  One of the teachers raised his hand and said, “Beauty.”  I was a little confused and I asked him to elaborate more (even though I was pretty sure I knew where this was going).  He replied, “Sometimes these girls are just so beautiful, and us teachers cannot help ourselves.”  I was horrified and I think my eyes nearly popped out of my head.  Even worse, there were some words of agreement amongst the teachers.  I responded, “As a teacher, you are required to abide by a code of conduct.  If you cannot practice self-control, then you have no business being a teacher.  A child can never be blamed for their abuse, even if she is beautiful or dresses indecently.  The blame always falls on the abuser.  It is because of comments like those that I am teaching girls life skills.”  A lot of the teachers clapped afterwards (especially the women).  Once again, my counterpart backed me up and said, “Yes, so maybe we could say a cause of child abuse is ‘lack of professionalism’.”  I guess I really am my mother’s daughter… 

            On the second day, a woman from the Ministry of Education came to observe the workshop (the ministry sponsored this workshop across the nation).  She gave a little speech about the importance of the workshop and then asked for questions.  For the next hour and a half, teachers raised their hands and said something along the lines of the following:

“Thank you, Madame.  We are just appreciating you coming.  We are all working hard, you see.  But you see, us teachers have this problem.  There has been little reimbursement for this workshop and we must travel long distances to get here.  Ah, and there is no support for when we take this back to our schools.  There must be support from the ministry so we can talk to the community and parents.  And you see, us teachers are not paid enough.” 

            While the teachers did have some valid complaints, they kept repeating each other and all their complaints would be accompanied by an anecdote.  My patience was wearing thin because it was past lunchtime and I was so hungry.  I could see and smell the overcooked, fatty meat and rice littered with tiny stones.  I jut wanted everyone to be quiet so we could go and eat.  (Uganda is no different than America: everyone loves to hear themselves talk before lunchtime).  Thankfully, my counterpart finally cut them off and said we should not take any more of the ministry’s time and we should go eat.  At lunch, my counterpart said he was so hungry and he almost didn’t survive the last session.  I said, “Ya, everyone was complaining.  I didn’t like it and I was so hungry!”  This leads me to my favorite part of the workshop: 

            On the last day of the workshop, we had time for questions/comments before lunch.  We started at 12:30, and people were still raising their hands at 2:00.  It was an hour past lunchtime and I was hungry and annoyed.  At 2:15, my counterpart finally says, “Alright ladies and gentleman, Aubrey doesn’t like to listen to us Africans complain.  Let us go take lunch.”  I could not stop laughing, but I have never been so happy with my counterpart.  I was so hungry; I was about to chew my arm off!

            This past weekend, a bunch of people from my group went to Jinja to celebrate our “one year anniversary.”  Of course, the weekend was pretty much devoted to eating too much food and a dance party complete with glow sticks.  The place where we stayed also had a rope swing that went into the Nile.  It was really fun, but on my last turn, I slipped, and now I have some lovely rope burn on my hands.  

            That’s pretty much all that has been going on with me!  This term I plan on teaching Life Skills at my Coordinating Center and at Namengo Girls.  I am also hoping to do a reading comprehension class once a week.  I am going to continue to help out teaching P6 and P7 math.  I have a lot of things to look forward to after this term too: Egypt in 3 months, my awesome cousin Jane comes in 4 months, and I get to see my bestest, prettiest friend in the whole wide world in 6 months in Rwanda!