Why I Dislike Lizards

               I haven’t always been afraid of lizards – I distinctly remember catching them in my front yard as a little kid.  It wasn’t until I saw an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon that I became terrified of lizards.  I cannot even remember what happened in this episode, but the fear of these creatures, big or small, remains.  Unfortunately, I live in an area that is inhabited by both small geckos and terrifyingly large lizards.  I was, however, getting used to the small geckos that live on the walls in my house (they eat the mosquitoes after all)…until the other night.  The power was out (of course!) and I was watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother on my computer.  It was dark except for the light from my computer, and I felt something heavy drop on my chest.  Needless to say, I shrieked and jumped of f of the couch, and a small gecko fell to the floor.  Shivering with disgust, I grabbed a flashlight and made sure there were no more geckos before I returned to the couch.  It didn’t take long for my neighbor to come knocking on my door to see if I was all right.  I contemplated making up a story to explain my screaming, but decided I better just stick with the truth.  Stephen kept saying “oh sorry, sorry,” but I am sure he was thinking “this mzungu is nuts.” 

            My neighbors are probably the greatest people on earth, and they are a big part of why I am enjoying my time here.  Two weeks ago I got really bad food poisoning, and I was truly miserable.  I was violently vomiting, and Stephen came over to check up on me and see what was wrong.  I was curled up in the fetal position on the concrete floor with a bucket at my side – I don’t think I looked too hot.  He ran and got my neighbor Sauya, Sister Francis, and the school nurse.  They all came to take care of me by giving me water, mixing up Gatorade, and calling the Peace Corps medical office.  The nurse gave me a malaria test, which was thankfully negative!  Sauya spent the night on my extra bed and she woke up each time to hold my hair back as well as clean out my sick bucket.  The next day Sister Francis, Sister Goretti, and Sauya drove me to the hospital and then arranged a private hire to take me to the Peace Corps Medical Office in Kampala.  I am so thankful that they were here to take care of me because it was comforting to know I was in good hands.  After two IVs and medicine to stop making me throw up – I felt significantly better.  I was then pampered for two days in Kampala (hot showers!), which was glorious.  When I returned back to my site, everyone came to my house to tell me they were praying for me and that they had all been worried.  For the next week no one would let me work because they thought I had been on my deathbed.  It’s a great feeling to know that my community has my back – makes me feel much more at home. 

            This past Saturday we had a potluck at Bethany’s house for Ryan and Elizabeth’s birthdays.  I think I still have a food baby from the amount of food I ate.  It was great to eat an obscene amount of American food and get a little taste of home.  I made hummus and fried chapati to make tortilla chips (delicious!).  There was guacamole, pasta salad, mac and cheese, fruit salad, cake, and brownies.  Max, however, takes the cake for the best contribution…deep-fried Oreos with powdered sugar.  Unfortunately, it started a bad trend, because then we kept coming up with ideas of things we could fry.  So we fried: banana, banana with peanut butter, chocolate, and cheese.  Then we just started eating the fried batter.  I think I’m ok with rice and beans for the next week because I’m sure my arteries are all clogged. 

            I would have liked to upload photos, but unfortunately, my computer broke this week :( (Yes, I was pissed!)  So it will be a while until I upload again.      

Free Babies

             I have had my fair share of requests to be taken to America.  It's either a marriage proposal or someone asking to be my friend so that I can take them to the US.  Yesterday, however, I was completely caught off guard with a request that I received.  I was walking on the road into town, and I greeted (in Lugwere) a group of women who were walking in the opposite direction.  One of them was so excited that I could speak Lugwere and she came up to me and started speaking really fast.  My Lugwere is not that good at all, so I had no idea what she was saying and just kept nodding my head and smiling.  She hands me her baby, says something about America, and then walks away.  I stood there like a deer caught in the headlights with a baby in my hands.  I was thinking, "Wait, did she just ask me to bring her baby to America?  She isn't really walking away is she? Ok, ya, she is." I had to run after her in order to give her daughter back.  I was shaking my head saying, "no, no, no."  I was trying so hard not to laugh, but I couldn't help it - this woman had just given me her child!  Thankfully, she willingly took her back, laughed, and then walked away. 
           Caroline and I were in Mbale over the weekend to do our grocery shopping, and we witnessed our first instance of mob justice.  We were in the taxi waiting to head home when we start to hear a lot of shouting.  We look at each other wondering what is going on and look outside the window.  There is a mob of people and we see one man in the center getting punched and kicked.  He managed to get away and he starts running past our taxi, and a mob of twenty people start chasing him…all laughing.  The man fell and tripped right beside the taxi and the mob took the opportunity to give him a few more punches and kicks.  Caroline and I of course start screaming, and everyone else in the taxi is just laughing.  The man finally got away and started running again, with the mob running after him.  They were all hysterically laughing because I’m sure it’s some sort of adrenaline rush.  Caroline and I just sat there anxious to get home.
            I have had one too many run-ins with pests these past two days.  I found another rat in my latrine this morning – it was in the same curled, “rock-like” position as last time.  Thankfully, I knew better than to pick it up.  I hit it with a broom and it scampered out.  Ew.  Last night, the power went out and I couldn’t see a thing in my house.  As I was searching in the dark for my flashlight, I stepped on a live cockroach in my bare feet.  Needless to say, I screamed like a little girl.  I washed my feet and then went straight to bed in the safety of my mosquito net. 
           That's all I have for now.  I finally got around to uploading photos:

Rafting...I look like I'm holding on for dear life

The waterfall.  Now I look like I'm having a good time

I love this picture because Wade looks like he is having a terrible time

The boat (from L to R): Rob, Sam, Wade, the greatest person ever (me), Paul, Chris, Layla, and Eugene

When our boat flipped

We were almost about to tip

There we go again - and I'm falling on top of Wade

The Nile

This kayak went from the source of the Nile all the way to the end.  So obviously, the guides said I had to get in it.

The neighbor kids brought me a dead bird.  So thoughtful.

The rat in my latrine.  Looks more like a mouse, but they call them rats here.

I decided to show the kids PhotoBooth on my computer - we had some fun

Say Cheez

            I went white water rafting on the Nile this past weekend, and it was much more successful than the last time I went – I didn’t get sick!  I went with the other intern, Wade, who my friend Kiera works with in Kampala.  White water rafting on the Nile is pretty crazy because it is a lot of class 5 rapids, but it is a wide river with few rocks, so you don’t have to worry too much when you are thrown out.  The first rapid we went down was a 15-foot waterfall.  There is a rapid called the “bad place” because you can be under water for 10 seconds before you pop back up.  The water was too low though, so we didn’t go to the “bad place.”  Instead, we went through “50/50”, which gets its name because 50% stay in the boat, while the other half get thrown out.  We all managed to stay in, but the boat ended up on its side and we were pretty close to tipping over.  The last rapid, called the Nile Special, has a 95% flip rate – so our guide gave us some guidelines.  He told us to hold on, but we would most likely get thrown out and not be able to hold onto the boat.  He also said that once you’re thrown out, you’d be under water for a while, but take a deep breath when you get back up because you’re about to get hit by another wave.  Well…advice I probably should have been paying more attention to.  We of course hit the wave and all get thrown out of the boat and the boat tips over…on top of me.  There was that moment of panic where I thought “uh, now what?”  I managed to get out, but of course I get out and the next wave hits me and I swallow a ton of water.  Yummy.  Of course I finally come out of the rapid simultaneously coughing up water and laughing.  Overall, it was a great trip.  I was so sunburned on my thighs and I am still in pain (I put on SPF 70 too!!). 

            I have been working on the resource room for the school that I work at in an effort to get teachers motivated to add to the room.  I made a math bingo for 60 students, which took forever!  I have also made posters to be used as examples for learning aids that teachers can hang in their classrooms.  Classrooms in most of the schools are completely bare.  I am also putting together binders of fun activities teachers can do in class in order to make lesson plans less boring.  My counterpart wants me to set up a workshop in one of the upcoming weeks to teach the teachers how to use the resources that I have started to put together. 

            On Tuesday I visited two schools with my counterpart in order to observe classes and to see how the school was doing with PIASCY (Presidential Initiative on Aids Strategy for Communication to Youth) and SFI (School Family Initiative).   SFI is a relatively new program initiated by the government as a complement to the US-AID funded Unity.  SFI aims to create families within the school in order to provide guidance to students that do not have a strong support network at home.  The students are divided up among the teachers, who serve as their parents.  They have a family name and they meet once a week to discuss issues they might be having at home or school.  So how did the two schools fare in our observations?  Not so good.  Both schools had no records of doing any PIASCY related activities this past term and neither school had started the SFI. 

            I was only able to observe classes at the first school we visited, and the lessons were...interesting.  I asked to see the teachers’ schemes of work and lesson plans (which are required to be made by the teachers) – neither had them.  The first lesson was P6 Science, and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out what the actual topic the teacher was covering.  He was covering Milk Products, which include: ice cream, powdered milk, evaporated milk, skimmed milk, butter, and cheez.  Yes, that’s right, cheez.  I asked to see a student’s notebook in order to look through what they have covered in the past and to see if the teacher is grading their work.  Well, the teacher is grading their work, but I discovered the students had done this same exact lesson a week before.  Everything that was written on the board had already been written verbatim the week before – and the students were still copying it again!  I was shocked.  In America, students would have immediately called a teacher out.  Not here.  I am sure the teacher had done this lesson in order to make me think his students were really smart and increase class participation.  (When I asked him about it after class he got really embarrassed and started to mumble an excuse.  I just let it go and said that next time I wanted to see a new lesson).  Lessons are only supposed to be 40 minutes long, but the teacher went for 60 minutes before the next teacher finally cut him off to begin his own lesson.  Therefore, the P6 Math class I observed was cut short.  He did a relatively good job for the shortened time frame, until he split up the class for group work.  He divided the class into 3 groups of 27 students to solve one problem each.  The problems were along the lines of “What is 14 squared?”  As you can see, it is not that effective to get 27 students to work together in order to solve this problem.  After observing the lessons, I had to talk with the teachers about their performance and give them feedback.  I have a form to fill out which gives a score to the teachers, and I felt pretty awful handing them a score of 20/50.  I worked with both teachers to come up with different teaching methods for their next classes and I stressed the importance of lesson plans and making a scheme of work.  I am returning next week to the school in order to observe their classes again and I have to fill out another progress report.  My counterpart will be checking on the progress of PIASCY and SFI within the schools, and hopefully they have made more progress.  

            At the second school we visited I was looking over the enrollment records and I noticed that a significant amount of students were dropping out.  P1 had an enrollment of 110 boys and 120 girls, while P7 had 21 boys and 7 girls.  I asked the head teacher why so many students, especially girls, drop out as the move up in Primary School.  He told me that a lot of girls get pregnant and have to leave school, and it has become a big problem.  My counterpart then volunteered me to do sex education with the girls, which the head teacher was immediately thankful for.  While I know this would be a great thing to work on, I hate to say that I am not sure I can do it without laughing.  If I do end up doing the sex education, then it won’t be until next term – so I’ll have some time to work on my maturity.  
             I hope you all had a great 4th of July - I wish I could have been back home for a BBQ at the Knaptons.  I miss you Steve, Penny and Sara!!  (Happy Steven?  That's two shout outs now.)