A challenge for our readers

So something occurred to me the other day. One, we haven't been interacting much with our readers. So far the blog has been a one way street. We know (or hope) people are reading our blog and we also know that we don't talk to everyone we should one on one. Two, there is a section for comments at the end of the blog post and we would love to hear what you think or have you tell us how big of losers we are for not talking with you all.

So here is an attempted solution. I want everyone to send in questions for Stacey and I to answer in another post. We are going to be in Kampala (the capital) the week of the 25th and it would be really easy for us to get good internet to answer all of your questions in a post.

That is where you come in. Add comments, send us emails, hit us up on facebook, anything really that will get us some questions to answer. We can generate some commonly asked questions as well for some filler, but we would really like to hear from those who are active followers.

You have two weeks. Get on it!

Today I built a football pitch

Well, not really, but it makes for a much nicer title than ‘after a few weeks of planning, convincing and a couple days of manual labor we marked the lines for a football field.’ And this post is really about this past Thursday.

This all started from last term really. I was having a really difficult time connecting with the students. Granted I was also focusing on the teachers and building relationships with them, but I had no real avenue with the students. I tried a few clubs and they weren’t as organized as I hoped and I started them too close to the end of the term so they had short life spans.
This term I changed my tactics. I knew two things, one was the boarders were way more active than the day scholars and I decided to make them my target group. Two, I wanted to be more active and show my personality more. Most people know I am a football junkie and have followed Manchester United for years. When I told people here I love football they all laughed thinking I didn’t know much before coming to Africa until I would put them to shame with my Premier League knowledge.

The boarders, which are only girls at my school, had stated that they wanted to play sports and up to that point I had only seen a half hearted attempt at fielding a volleyball team and a school athletics day which was less than stellar organized by my school.

Every month my school gives me 100,000 shillings (about $50) for reasons that would merit its own blog post. Two things to note, they give every teacher a monthly bonus, second mine is the largest and I think it is only because I am white. Both Peace Corps and my morals don’t let me keep this money, but I can’t really refuse it both because people will find out and it will create mixed emotions. I found that the best solution should be accept the money and use it to fund all of my projects.

Back from that little deviation, first I wanted to start sports so I invited Stacey to my school and we played Ultimate. It was a big hit, but they started hounding me about football. I bought a ball from Mbale and brought it in to school and turned them loose. We played a couple times before they asked me to train them seriously. I bought two more balls shortly afterwards once I saw how serious they were. At that point I started evaluating what was else we needed.
I took this up as my goal, I was going to play sports and coach them three days a week. Mondays are ultimate, Tuesdays and Thursdays are football. There is a problem though. St. Theresa’s has never had a field. They have shared a field with the primary school next door, but there are some inherent problems. First the school has had a huge problem with the boarders and their leaving the compound. Just a few weeks ago three girls were expelled; two for sneaking out at night and doing stuff with a guy at his house and another snuck off during the day. In total we have had 5 boarders sent home for ‘inappropriate relations.’ The biggest issue is the girls have to leave the compound for some basic functions like fetching water. The school has really been pushing to keep them within the compound. They just drilled a new bore hole and are talking about a better fence. My role new challenge was to get them a field but keep them within.

Luckily I have Mr. Oriokot. He has been my chief council on things and is the one of the Deputies at my school. First he advised me where the new buildings were going to go so the girls and I got used to playing in the right area. I started telling him how I wanted to start the pitch and he simply said to me, ‘Yes, Markon. It can be done.’ He is the only one here who calls me by my last name.

Myself and Oriokot Charles at our new pitch

So Tuesday we got two spools of sisal rope (thanks to Stacey running to town) and we started to measure out a pitch. We were lucky because we managed to have just enough space to make a 50 x 80 meter pitch. (54 x 87 yards) We lined the outside with the rope and then the girls came through with the hoes, standing on opposite sides of the string so they notched a V in the ground along the line. We left it at that for the evening and Wednesday it rained so we left it to sit.
Today the serious business started. I calculated how we could easily mark the boxes and the rest of the pitch to kind of scale some parts. I decided on marking a rope at 6, 12 and 18 yards. We measured in from the outside 12 yards and made that where the 18 yard box started. We set the rest of the 18 and then set the goal mouth by finding the center and marking 4 yards on either side of it. Next we marked 6 yards from either side of the goal and 6 yards forward to make the 6 yard box. After that we set the penalty mark at 12 yards. We measured the rope and tied a loop at 10 yards to help us mark the arch on the top of the box. Everything was lined with rope and this time we had some S4 and S5 boys helping. They dug the trenches and we repeated for the other side. After that we marked mid field with the center line and circle and called it a day. I grabbed the balls from the office and Stacey brought over sodas for the workers and we opened our field. I normally don’t let the boys play with us, but today I made an exception. The field was filled with small games and some silly play, but it was a ton of fun.

For me it was just a job to cross off on the check list, but Stacey showed me the enthusiasm. It really didn’t sink in of what we accomplished today until I was a home and started to write this blog. Marking the lines in the ground isn’t a big job. Neither is slashing the grass or finding an open space in the school compound. But what is different was I actually had some initiative and someone else was excited enough about it do work with me. The change happened and it happened a lot quicker than I expected. It also showed the girls that I wasn’t just talk on another level. Sure I had been working with them for a month and giving them time and providing the balls, but this is another facet they have never had. They don’t get the use the pitch like the boys, until now. My teachers openly questioned my working with girls because “Do girls actually know football?” was asked by more than a handful of teachers and some even dismissed it all together. Others have been with me and this was also my first foray into saying, hey this should be done, let’s do it! And the tangible result is turning some heads. There are still some things to finish, but it’s a start.

Sorry if I sound stuck-up in that last post

This you will like - Quarterly Report Excerpt 3

Lesson Learned

Well, there is one thing I have learned about being a Peace Corps Volunteer; not many people can do it.

This quarter my school had two groups of foreigners visit our school; Dutch people for two weeks and Italians for one day. I was able to talk with all of them and explain what Peace Corps is, why I was here, and (most stunning) that it was a two year commitment.

Many of them gave me genuinely shocked looks. Two years. Here. Without running water. Electricity… sometimes. Without seeing your family. What? I can’t believe it! You are really brave.

For me, being a Peace Corps Volunteer is so natural. I have wanted to be a Volunteer for years. It was a part of my plan. But when you are actually serving as a Volunteer you forget how unique you are. You have good days and bad days. Your fellow Volunteers are just like you. They wanted to be here. You forget how remarkable it is to Volunteer until others visit. You get a great morale boost. You think to yourself; Yea I am here. This is my life. I guess it is pretty cool.

It leaves you smiling for the rest of the week.


(P.S. I have learned other lessons as well but this one seemed most appropriate at this moment.)

Quarterly Report Excerpt 2

Challenges

Well one challenge that I have had is the Ministry of Education itself. It is frustrating and difficult to understand how a ministry can expect to end a term one week early, shorten holidays by one week, and then have everything they require to be done on time.

Additionally, I find it ridiculous how school practice is operated. At my school we have our tutors divided into teams. Every day during the 4 weeks of school practice one team stays behind to teach the year one students. Now in an ideal world this would work. But at my school, and many schools, it doesn't. So we are double-booking teachers and the students suffer!

I digress.

Resource utilization at my school is a challenge. For example, I was going to investigate book aid for my school but then I discovered a room Full of Books! Full! This room was the old library that they hadn’t cleaned out in three years. When I went to the librarian to see if we could get all the books into the new library she said she only wants those that are not old and damaged! (An old book is still a good book!) Also in that same library we have Teaching/Learning aids that are still in their boxes! Clearly, resource utilization is now on my agenda.

Budgeting is also on my agenda, or at least trying to get my school resources on budgeting. We budget, then they don’t follow it, and then quite literally there is no more money. I won’t be handling money of course but at least attempting to get my school some assistance.

Another challenge is with my colleagues in the computer lab. First mistake, I haven’t sat down to talk with them about the potential I see in the computer lab. Second mistake, I haven’t talked with my school about where they want to go with their computer lab. Results, the two computer technicians have no idea what I am talking about and probably feel somewhat threatened that I am invading their space and could take their jobs. (Another Peace Corps Volunteer took over ICT at a school and they lost their jobs recently.)

But I am working on all of these. The key I think is communication. I complain that I my school doesn’t communicate with me but I am not much better!

Additionally, I think that some people do not take me seriously because I am a woman. I will be working on this too.

Success Story

So when we had IST training in August I was very surprised with my counterpart. I originally thought that we would develop a project about fruit drying. This project was what “I” wanted to do. But as we were walking into the workshop I mentioned, briefly, developing the computer lab.

Once we sat down she turned to me and said “[she] really [liked] the idea of the computer lab because so many of the school tutors [were] computer illiterate.” We began filling in the project handouts given to us in the workshop about a mission, vision, goals, timetable, etc for the project. Correction. I became the secretary as Jane was giving me all sorts of ideas. I knew right away that this project was Jane’s project and she was serious about it.

Since IST, Jane has been working with me to develop a computer curriculum for the college tutors and students. In her free time she is in the computer lab learning how to type! On several occasions she has even come to me saying “let’s go to the computer lab. I want to work on something.” It is great! She is so motivated and supportive of the project. And she is encouraging all the tutors at the college to learn computers and they are coming in!

Excerpts from my Quarterly Report - 1

Hello All,

It has been way too long. I know. Blame me. I owe your picture too!

Here is a little excerpt though to keep you going a bit:

Community Integration

Language learning is still as it was three months ago. I am learning words and phrases here and there but I am not advancing as I would like to be. One reason for this is my preferred language tutor is a fellow staff member and she is busier than I am! So now I am contemplating a different tutor, one of the school cooks, so I hope to progress.

Cooking has also progressed with my neighbors. We are teaching each other food preps and have continued making cakes. (Matoke peeling is harder than it looks!)

The World Cup soccer games were a nice way to integrate this quarter too. My husband and I would go to his school and to my counterpart’s house to watch the games. We would talk soccer at our schools and pick our favorites and so forth. It was great seeing their excitement and then being with them during the games.

I have also attended two weddings; one a traditional marriage ceremony and the other was a church wedding. The traditional ceremony was great because it was cross-cultural for all of us. We asked questions and really enjoyed ourselves. Then I was invited to taste the local brew with my colleagues. I do not know if you would call it integration necessarily but I find that sitting with people and talking, whether over food or drinks, is a casual (and fantastic) way to talk openly about what is happening around us.

This quarter I also help spread Ugandan culture. I attended the Busoga Opening Circumcision Ceremony in Mbale. I took many pictures and brought them back to my school. One of my tutors, Madam Zauma, is from that area and she was very excited that I went to the ceremony! She then proceeded to explain what was happening in the pictures to my neighbors and I. She was the only one from that region and no one else had ever been to the ceremony either. It was a great time.

I was also invited to an Ede celebration by my college’s Muslim students this September. They gave presentations about Ede and the Muslim faith. They were completely blown away that I did not grow up in a community with Muslims and that really they were the first Muslims I had talked to about their faith. I think we will have great conversations in the future about faith.

Ok, this may or may not be integration but I feel I have had a breakthrough with my neighborhood children. My husband’s aunt sent us coloring books and crayons. So far each day the kids get a coloring book page and one crayon. They switch colors back and forth and once they are done I tape their pictures to the window so they can see it. Usually after coloring we play games and run around. This helped solved a problem I had with one kid trying to kick me!

Additionally, my husband and I have attending minor celebrations here and there. We have been around our schools more often just to talk and give our neighbors/students/colleagues face time. We both have really enjoyed it.

The gift of Sports

Last term was trying. It took a lot out of me, and even when I had the successes I still knew I wasn't doing all that I wanted and I wasn't being truly myself. I set to resolve that this term both with my teaching and how I was interacting with the students.

To be more of myself, that was the approach I gave myself and I started it with my classes. I already knew that I was goofy looking and the kids all thought I was goofy sounding, so I decided the best way to keep there attention was through a little goofy teaching. I was simply more relaxed with them. I started doing things to keep them engaged just by being a little silly. I started exaggerating examples or mime different actions. The students also are used to chorus answers and shouting things out. I make it a point to tell them I can't hear an answer unless a hand is in the air and I usually make a funny sound to mimic the chatter they create. I started taking role and have been butchering names, but they like it all the same.

The biggest thing is I wasn't as active as I wanted to be and I wasn't as present outside of class as I intended. Last term taught me that the day scholars were a difficult crowd just because they wanted to cut so early, so I turned my attentions to the boarders. We only have girl boarders at my school which I think is an even better set up. First I encouraged Stacey to come to school one day and we just started throwing the frisbee around. It quickly picked up interest and we started an impromptu game of ultimate. The girls had also been clamoring for football for a while so I had snuck to Mbale and bought a used football using money from the Teacher Welfare I get from my school every month. I brought it to school one day and they started pushing for more. I started setting up Thursdays with the ladies, and after other plans didn't materialize, I added Tuesdays as well. The girls have been eating it up. Tuesdays they just scrimmage and have some fun with it and on Thursdays we actually do a little bit of training. They are all enthusiastic about it and they have never had the opportunity to do something like this before.

I hadn't been very active at site and now I have three days a week to run around a little and to show the girls a little different side. Also when I get Stacey to come and play they are even more excited. We are getting to learn each other a little more each week and I have big plans for them. We are setting aside a space in the compound for a pitch just for the girls. Mr. Oriokot and I have started some minor surveying and pacing of the field. We have also had some girls work on leveling some of the ant and termite mounds. I want to also encourage interclass competitions so more girls will come out to practice.

Another good side effect is since I have turned away the boys, they have been pushing more and more for a program of their own. I have challenged them to organize themselves better before I am willing to work with them on this. Even if they get their stuff together I don't know if I will shift focus away from the girls. They have been getting better each and every week and it is fun to watch them enjoying themselves in a place they rarely have freedom. With the school system the way it is and the length and demand of their day, I am happy to add a little distraction for them to cut loose into that chaos. Who knows, everything might change next year if the Head Teacher lets me tackle the time table.

A whole new term

Two weeks. That was the time frame between when our first term teaching at our schools ended and our second term began. Durring that time we had two weeks of training from Peace Corps. We had new ideas pop into our head and we had no time to assess the ideas from last term. We had no time to implement any new improvements or strategies for making our next lessons more successful, making our presence more broad and our impact begin to show. No time to work out all the challenges we experienced in our first 12 weeks of teaching in Uganda.

And somehow everything is different.

Confronted with no time to change, Stacey and I are already feeling so much better about our second term teaching. Some simple changes are already having tangible results. The biggest things so far is Stacey and I are excited and enthusiastic about what is happening at our schools and finally defining our roles for ourselves.

The first thing I have done has been to start playing and letting my personality come through. The students already know who I am now. The initial shock from both sides has worn off and now they are going to get to know me. I have introduced ultimate to the girl boarders and have started doing a somewhat training regiment with football. In class I have found myself being a little more goofy. I let the students laugh at me a little more in class and I let them laugh at each other a little more as well. I tried to make myself available between classes last term, but I am sticking around after school to talk with teachers or be visible for the students. I have also started having Stacey come to the school once a week to interact with the studetns a little as well.

I have really started to focus my efforts on the boarders at the school. The day scholars are just too flakey to involve them because they want be out the door after a half an hour of activity. My first attempt to get to know the students was a discussion group and all the day scholars left after twenty five minutes. At lot of students come back and do work during the evening at evening preps, so I may try to use that time sometime soon to work with them, but I have nothing in the works at the moment.

I also came back to a school where my teachers were a little more excited as well. The science teachers went to another round of workshops and they were really pumped up on the inclusion of computers in teaching sciences. The workshop gave them the challenge to have a computer for ever department and passed out a ton of resources for the computer. I came back to a school where there was a drive to install and use more computers as well as materials to show them. The biggest challenge is teaching them how they can use all the resources and not abuse the information they were giving. One component was a bunch of old exams for every subject and every level so now the teachers don't want to put any effort into writing their own. They just want to print off what is there and give it to the students without really checking whether it is information they have reached or not yet. We will work on that this term though.

Another thing has been my disregard for the syllabus. Last term I was approached a couple of times by students to cover lessons they had already been 'taught'. I started this term with a completely blatant balk of the curriculum and just started with review of chemical formulae, equations, reactions and ionic equations. The students are enjooying having pproblems to work on and getting material they know they will need. So often they arent given the practice just the notes so they are getting so much more out of these lessons compared to their other ones on the same topics.

There have been some draw backs as well. I have already missed a week of time due to All Volunteer Conference and even though it was during beginning of term exams I haven't been able to start a routine. I also started a time table assessment and realized my school is completely inept at formulating a time table, keeping a time table and changing schedules as problems arise. I could literally devote an entire blog post to how messed up my time table is and the lack of effort or action to change any of it. On top of everything I am now starting to run out of time for all the activities I want to work into a week. I am trying to teach computers to the science teachers twice a week, have football twice a week, play ultimate once a week, start my discussion group up again, introduce a pen pal program for the students and address the other interests the students bring up to me. Something will have to give.

All in all things have been really solid so far this term and even though I know there will be other factors to stress us our, momentum is in our favor now. Get ready for a crazy few weeks to come. On our docket is school practice for the year twos for Stacey and the UNEB exam for the Senior 4 at my school. Only four more weeks for them to cram before the most important exam of their lives.

Transportation

Oh transportation in Uganda...How difficult you can be...Hah

(I would like to preface this by saying I love Uganda. Even though this is a rant I love this country and am very happy I am here. After my last frustrating post I remembered all the awesome kids I am here for! Anyway I digress.)

So in Uganda there are several different types of transportation; Bike, Motorcycle (illegal to us), Private Hire, Matatu Taxis, and Huge Buses. And well feet, I guess, but that is not the point today.

Bike transport is awesome and convenient. Tony and I both have bikes to ride around site and when we are away in other towns we could utilize Bike Bodas or Bike Taxis. These are nice and you can actually talk with the Boda men about there day and what is this or that.

Motorcycles are illegal for PC Volunteers to use and ride on.

Private Hire cars are nice sometimes, but can be expensive. We don't use them much but they can have competitive prices and fits lots of people. For example, another PCV learned that ten people can fit into a manual Toyota Corola car. Impressive.

Matatus are what we take most often. Imagine a van in the US but with more seats. Usually you have three people in the front, driver included, and 4 rows of 3 seats in the back. Legally they can carry 14 passengers, the driver, and conductor (the money man). The seats farthest on the left fold down and swing to the side to make an instant row. The matatus are often in varying degrees of disrepair. In our area it is not uncommon for the doors to only open from the outside, the main door to fall off its hinges, windows to be stuck open closed, metal poking out of the far left seats (watch your clothes!), I think you get the idea.

Plus depending on where you live matatus have “bonuses”. On average there are 5 chickens and several rice sacks of posho flour. Monthly we ride with goats. And because we are lucky in Teso, instead of carrying 14 passengers we typically have 20 passengers. Oh yes, bonding time is had by all.

The Buses are roller-coasters. Depending on the company you travel with you could have a bus that is falling a part without any suspension (or a driver without concern for pot holes) or a nice bus. Some even have movies! Poorly dumbed over movies but still movies! These bad boys often have sweet horns as well. High pitched musical squeelings happen a lot. They are just something you need to hear.

Safety on these things is pretty self-explanatory; don't be stupid. Don't take a Bike Boda on a really busy street. Never get into an empty matatu. Never travel at night. Never sit in the back of the bus (you will bounce so high your back will hate you for days).

So today, Tony and I were traveling from Kampala back to our site. Overall the trip went well. It took a long time but that is not uncommon and the bus driver was pretty safe.

This bus was supposed to travel to Soroti; a town past our site and we were going to get off early. Well we got to Mbale (thirty minutes from site) around 7, it was getting dark, and the bus emptied. It was about to over heat. So in light of this new situation our bus conductor made arrangements for a matatu taxi to take the rest of us out to Bukedea, Kumi, and finally Soroti. This didn't sound so bad because there were enough people going that direction to completely fill the taxi. We could have taken off right away. We all wanted to take off right away because it was getting dark. Literally the whole taxi was full and just waiting for the conductor and driver to get there butts in the taxi and leave.

We waited.

The conductor brought 8 pineapples into the taxi because he wanted to take them home. Imagine the annoyance!

We waited.

After our bus conductor made arrangements with the taxi driver and conductor they came over. We thought we were going to get going. Nope. They decided to have all the people going to Soroti get out of our full taxi and get into a different one going to Soroti. They wanted to fill some other one!

Tony, me, and one other person were the only people not going to Soroti! They pulled everyone out and tried to tell us that now our taxi was only going to go to Kumi and would leave right away. Mind you there would be a total of 5 of us in a taxi that usually has 22 people in it on a regular day. BS! I was so mad they didn't just leave with our original group.

Then Tony and I got out of the taxi because we didn't feel safe at all. I mean two white people all alone in an empty taxi at night driving with who knows what people. Bad news. Either they would rob us or once we got to Bukedea make us pay for the empty seats. My gut said they would rob us.

The conductor and driver were not happy. They tried convincing us that they would leave then and the driver said he would “eat the cost” of an empty taxi. We still refused. The conductor then tried to pull over another taxi to take us to Bukedea. We still refused. Now this meant that the conductor had to give us our change back. Which he did and was still trying to convince us to go in the taxi but we kindly thanked him for his efforts and then headed to a hotel.

Frustrating, yes.

Overall good transport, yes.

Glad I listened to my gut, yes.

Had a drink, yes.

Love,

Me

PS – More blogs to come!

Absentee Bloggers

So after setting an unprecedented record of thirty days without a blog post I felt the simplest update was in order. This and the fact that Chris Warren has to send me a facebook message with a reminder that is has been a month since updating. I do not feel too bad though because life has been busy for both Stacey and myself. We have been able to talk to some on skype or facebook chat as well as text and over the phone. And since we share this blog I feel entitled to pass at least half the buck to Stacey as well.

But on to more important things- like what have we been doing this past month. So August started with a bang. Just before the end of the school term the government felt the need to remind us it was there and in control of everything we do. Attention all schools, you must close your term one week early and open back up after only a two week holiday. YEAY US!!!

The reason is because there is the largest amount of students taking the O level leaving exam this year which means many schools do not have the space to give it. Therefore some schools are going to shut down while exams go on and reopen for the rest of the students to finish their term.

My school pulled off a heroic effort and my teachers buckled down and were able to send kids off to holiday with their report cards in hand completely filled out. Many schools didn't even try so I feel like my guys deserve some props. Stacey and I then had to immediately take off for Pallisa to do our language IST. There are stories abound from that, but we will save for another blog post.

After Pallisa we met up with the other people from our training group and all of our counterparts to have a grand ol' time at Ridar Hotel in Seeta. A couple things to note from our training. Twenty nine boarded the plane in New York and flew to Uganda, 29 made it through home stay, 29 made it through future site visit, 29 made it through swearing in, and now 29 have made it through our in service training. That is right we are still batting a thousand.

Time there was great and both Stacey and I accomplished some good things with our counterparts. The best thing I got out of IST was a positive attitude. I realized many of my friends had the same struggles I had, many of them have the same SOB students, many of them accomplished as little or less than I did. I also set some pretty lofty goals with my counterpart, but they are still obtainable and I came back to a lot of enthusiasm from my science department about computers and ICT resources for science classes.

After a week there and an extra night to hang out in Kampala Stacey and I welcomed the trip home. Two weeks away from home is always long and when you are constantly active and engaged with Peace Corps staff or your counterpart one on one it wears you out. And on top of that we woke up the next morning and went right into school.

One week of classes, one weekend a home and then back for training round 3 for our school "holiday." Next on our plate is All Vol or All Volunteer Conference. This is all us putting on workshops for eachother. This is our time to network and meet everyone else in country for the first time. It happens once a year and I am excited, but also nervous about burn out. I promise, we will keep you posted.

Some assignments

So I am by myself tonight because Stacey traveled to Nyondo to visit our friend Alyssa a day early. I have been doing some thinking, as dangerous and abnormal as that is for me, and wanted to lay out some roles for all of you back home.

We have been getting a lot of love from everyone back home and at times it has been overwhelming. We have been asked for package ideas so much our list is almost always exhausted. Here are a few items we will always take though:

Mac and Cheese

Drink Mixes: propel, gatorade, crystal light, etc.

Beef Jerky

Tuna

Pictures

Books

I do have some more specific tasks for a few people out there and this will be updated once Stacey has her say.

Family- Keep up with the love and connection from back home

Michael- Once you get back from Mexico, keep me up to date on the music world

Chris- Find a way for me to not return home weighing 120 pounds

B-Gay- Keep cheering for Arsenal so I always have someone to make fun of as their season folds half way through

Kevin- Give me the inside scoop on the Packers

Mike Lee- Inspirational Texts and RPCV wisdom

Lon- Research a CRC-9 antennae for a Hiawei modem for us

Everyone- BOOKS!

Bri- Keep us updated on your PC developments

Hicks- Support Stacey's crazy bottle cap endevour, the excel sheet is awesome already

Everyone- Travel Plans!

Everyone- Comments on our blogs!

Well thank you for everything and let me know if you want to change up your assignments.

Like I said things will shift a bit once Stace has her input too. Thanks for all you have done already. You really help to keep us sane. I spent over an hour last night chatting with three people at once and it made my entire night. So we will keep buying internet if you keep talking to us online.

Peace

Just an Ol' Fashion Update

So I am sitting here at the kitchen table after a nights work of marking and recording quiz scores and figured I would add my two cents to the blog. As I sit here I am enjoying the smell of dinner which Stacey is so lovingly preparing since I am having a productive night of school work. Coupled with the smell of garlic and onions sauteeing is the sting of fresh varnish, slowly drying on the two new dining room chairs delivered yesterday (only 10 weeks after we put in the order) which was the result of Stacey pestering our local carpenter every half an hour to send them here from town now that they were finally finished.

Due to issues with that carpentry project I took on one of my own, installing boards in our closet to give us some shelves. We have two beautiful and large closets, one in each bedroom, that have been great for odds and ends because while they have the runners for shelves, there was not a single board in place to set a book, bag or box upon. Since there is some minor construction at my school I worked out having a 12 ft board dropped off at my doorstep. My Deputy 2, who is also our Agriculture teacher (Mr. Oriokut), is awesome and also scrounged up a saw for me to use. On both Saturday and Monday I spent an hour or so measuring and cutting two foot sections off of my plank adding three shelves in my tool closet.

My handy work is exceeding not only my own expectations or thoughts of what is possible, but also the thoughts of those at home. While calling back to the land of cheese to give the best friend pep talk to Michael the morning of the wedding I got the quip "Tony, I never knew you were so handy." Necessity is the mother of all skills. And if he wants help with projects around the house when I get back he should be careful with his criticisms. Just Kidding, Michael.

Speaking of the home front, I do want to say congratulations to both Michael and Amelia. This is the event I am most disappointed in missing while being abroad, but I know the Markons were well represented and I have gotten full updates and pictures from the family. It was good to know Brandon kept up tradition as well. Enjoy the honeymoon, ours only beats yours by 719 days.

Also I will have to say I have felt great I have been able to catch more than just my Mom and Dad on the Sunday night (or afternoon for you) calls. It hasn't always been easy to keep in contact either from technology issues, busy schedules or absent mindedness on our part, but the amount of people I have been able to hear voices of and share my experiences with has really made my day. Also remember skype works really well for chatting (typing) and ok for calls.

But now on to life in our sleepy complex. My school term is wrapping up with exams this week and next. Very shortly after that we have some language and technical training for Peace Corps and thanks to the Ministry of Education and Sports we have added a new wrinkle. Late last week we found out that instead of ending the term on the 13th of August we will now be ending on the 6th as well as starting our new term on the 23rd of August. We get a whole two week break, YAY!

In all reality this really sucks.

We get to cram all of our grading into one week, get to go to training for one week and have one more week to prepare for beginning of term exams. Also that leaves only a few days to prepare for new lessons and new classes.

Teaching this term has been a real roller coaster. The S2s are great some days and an absolute handful the next. Classes have been interesting as well because I am still working on a balance with how I structure the lesson. So far it has been dominated with lecture because I only see them once a week for each subject. It is hard to cover both content and practical work with only a 80 minutes a week. Next term I will probably have them more and will change up some of my lessons. The bigger development will simply be switching days in which I have the S2B class. Each class is broken into two streams and right now the only day I see the S2B is on Monday. Monday is also market day and the most common day to skip class. Rarely has attendance been over 50% for my afternoon lesson on Mondays.

The S1 class has been absolute hell. I will save those stories for latter in the year if I ever want to recall them at all. Any semblance of the generic African child striving for education to better their life, is only happy to have a school to go to and just needs someone to give them a chance, has forever been dashed from my mind with the actions of the students in that class. Some days I feel like I could be working with inner city youth.

Things will change a lot, especially with my familiarity of the school, staff and students, for next term. The problem is the time for me to adjust has just been thrown out the window. I do have some big goals for next term. I started a small discussion group just to give students more of an avenue to talk with me and I want to push that more next semester. I also want to lead some athletic program, either football or disc, and try to get some interest drummed up for a club of any kind. I will be working on computer literacy with my staff as we have installed a computer in the staff room and I have been slowly plotting ideas for each level of computer experience. I will also be helping guide the slow, but well intentioned development of a student computer lab. Top this all off with more presence in the S4 preparation for the UNEB exam and my calendar is looking pretty stacked.

I am really jacked for IST because it will be the first time our group is all together since the day after swearing in. And while there is work on the horizion, I am starting to get a feel of what I am capable of, what my school might be able to handle, and where I might be able to squeeze my square peg into the circle that is St. Theresa's Okunguro.

Ahh it's just one of those days

I am going to vent in this blog post so I apologize in advance if I hover on certain topics and go on and on. It’s just the nature of the beast people.

So this weekend Tony and I had a great time white water rafting for the first time. We were with 6 other Peace Corps Volunteers and we got to be tourists! We dressed in whatever clothing we wanted to wear, we swore, and we drank beer without wondering who’s watching from our village. It was great!

Then Sunday morning Tony got a punch in the gut from bacterial dysentery. You know the bacteria that find their way into your GI tract. You can’t eat or drink anything without it coming back up and simultaneously things are rapidly coming out of your body. Tony had a milder version of this a few months ago so it wasn’t too new to us but this time it advanced rapidly. (As a side note, Tony and I have both had giardia twice - the joys of a Peace Corps Volunteer and their health!)

So Sunday night Peace Corps drove to the hotel (we reserved for Tony’s comfort) in Jinja to bring us to the hospital in Kampala. It was about a 1 1/2 hour drive. Once we got there we learned that Tony was very dehydrated, exhausted, and had a slight temperature. Two and a half liters of IV fluids and a good night sleep later Tony was released from the hospital to recover under Peace Corps care.

Now there is a retired nurse in Kampala named Betsy. She has to be the sweetest woman I have met in country and seems to be Peace Corps adopted grandmother. After the afternoon at the Peace Corps office where Tony had a check-up we went to stay with Betsy until Wednesday.

Here is where I am going to dwell on food. She served us such great food! We ate omelets, chicken noodle soup, homemade macaroni and cheese, chicken Without Bones, fresh peas, fruit plates, toast, REAL BUTTER, steamed tilapia fish Without Bones, and salads with Real Lettuce! She was very conscious of how to get Tony back on track. Now I stress without bones because here in Uganda bones are pretty much required when you serve meat. So when you order meat at a local restaurant you often been bones that have been ruthlessly butchered so you have fragments you need to watch out for. Not fun but doable.

Also Betsy had a wonderful home! Screens on the windows, fans, and hot water showers! Can you imagine? We were able to take continuous hot water showers, not ration it out with our camp bag shower! It was glorious! Plus, Betsy has hosted many Peace Corps Volunteers over the years and even has a family t-shirt that Tony got to wear as PJs. It says Fairy Tales and has a magic wand on it. Precious.

So here is how today (as well as yesterday) has become one of those days…

Wednesday we traveled back to Bukedea. We left our wonderful Peace Corps SUV vehicle with air conditioning and working shocks for a large public bus. This bus was supposed to be Express stopping only once for food, once for a bathroom break, and in two major towns…Instead we stopped two times for food, didn’t stop for a bathroom break, and stopped at about 10 different towns…Oh Uganda.

The previous night I got a call from Dennis my solar lamp guy. Over the past 6 weeks I have been working with him, pretty much holding his hand, and my school teachers to line-up solar lamps for the teachers. We had orders all set and my teachers had money but Dennis was delayed by another guy in Kampala who had to pick-up the lamps. He was delayed two weeks and needless to say my teachers found other uses for the money and choose to wait until next month to buy them. However! When Dennis called me he insisted on meeting me at school Wednesday.

So when Tony and I arrived in Bukedea it was 4pm. Dennis had already called me 4 times that day to ask me where I was. By the time I got to school at 4:30 I was tired, sweaty, gross, and completely aware that no teacher would be at school because the day ended at 4:30. Oh, and that day my school had a blood drive so normal classes were canceled anyway. Dennis seemed upset even though I warned him. He said he had been waiting for me all day…Well my teachers have been waiting two weeks for him…

After seeing Dennis off, I headed home. Thankfully before Tony and I left for rafting we did all our laundry and stocked up on water. Sadly that didn’t make up for the realization that “oh gosh we have to make our own dinner tonight and clean up afterwards.” About 10 minutes into making our dinner we also realized we didn’t have a fan that night either…Sweaty, gross, too lazy to shower, and no fan. Back to our reality.

This morning I had a dual conversation with myself involving “why am I here/I miss home” and “I don’t want to leave.”

Our life here is tough. If anything it is just plain annoying. We have to:
- Ration our water
- Wash our clothes and dishes by hand
- Deal with tons of factors outside our control (i.e. constant delays)
- Keep our tempers
- Be polite to everyone Constantly (even huge jerks / “you know what’s”)
- Try to indirectly communicate
- Try to accomplish one thing in a day
- Purposely not accomplish a project that can be done in 5 minutes because Ugandans really should be doing it themselves
- Try to develop projects in two years (which seems too little time as each day passes)
- Have people not care you are here for two years and only ask you for money
- Not have real showers
- Deal with ants, bugs, and creepy crawlies
- See sick kids everyday without anyone taking care of them
- Take medicine to not get malaria
- Get sick anyway for hundreds of other sources
Ahhh…the list goes on

All this while we miss our family and friends. Thank God our families and friends are awesome and support us being in Peace Corps. Can you imagine having a really horrible day, wanting to talk with someone back home, and having that person say “I told you so” or “you should never have gone there”? It happens. There are volunteers who have no support back home. Thank God for our families and friends! Thank God! You keep us happy, motivated, and we know you love us.

As far as the “I don’t want to leave” aspect of this dual conversation I am not going to tell you something cheesy like “I’m doing it for the kids.” That is not very accurate because most of our bad days stem from really rude, little shi*’s that live around us.

So why don’t we want to leave? Why are we here?

I’ll let you know when we figure that out.

YEAH POSTAL SERVICE

So exciting news for everyone, we have a PO box of our own and it absolutely ROCKS! We appreciate people being patient with us (no one more so than our own parents) but now we want to pass along information about how you can get in touch with us directly.

Our Address:
Tony Markon and/or Stacey Frankenstein-Markon
PO Box 144
Mbale, Uganda

In just ten simple days your love magically travels to a town only 40 kilometers away!

But seriously, we now have a post office box and we really appreciate that you have been filtering your letters and notes through our parents. Luckily for Stacey and I Mbale is a large city and they get their mail from Kampala routed daily. Other places can have it be three of four weeks or more because they don't do anything until they have a full bag.

While mail in Kampala is held up because of the notoriously slow post office, larger cities handle it themselves and Mbale is one of the best. The one request is that if you send us a letter or package, shoot us an email, text or call as well because they may only hold it for two weeks, and we may have to work things around our schedule. I don't think the rule is seriously enforced, and a lot of other Ex-pats have PO Boxes there as well.

Either way, we have already been feeling the love with everyone who reads this blog, chats on skype, sends us texts, writes us emails/letters, calls us or sends carrier pigeons. Now there is simply another avenue and will also mean we will be around a post office to send items out of our own.

PEACE!

A less belated (but long) blog post

So while most of our blog posts have been about fun and games (relatively) I figured I would write a post about the actual work we are doing. Because surprisingly we are actually doing work! Who would have thunk it to be true!

Life was very busy settling into to our house, but that was because we actively filled our day with little projects here or there. Now with both Stacey and myself teaching we are finding things much more hectic. I will start with what I know best and tell you about life in St. Theresa's.

The history of the school is like this, it was founded in the 1930's or 40's just like everything else in this colonial complex. The school served the needs of the small rural population just outside of the small trading center. Initially things were developed near the train depot (Got to love the British, trying to put trains in Africa. Africa really showed them.) which is a kilometer from the college/our house. Now most things are built up along the highway connecting Mbale and Soroti with the stops of Bukedea and Kumi in between. The school was small, but able to handle the community it served. After colonialism ended and Uganda struggled through multiple political coups, two things happened. The population of Uganda started to grow rapidly and AIDS started to take serious effect. While Uganda has been the poster child of how to address AIDS in Africa, its ideas and perceptions about family raising also suffered. Uganda still has many AIDS victims and orphans as well as understandable fears of a relapse into more difficult times, but overall has handled things very well. With the amount of death occurring in families many produced large amounts of kids. The decrease in AIDS and other child mortality factors led to a baby boom in Uganda which puts it in its current state. The population has essentially doubled in a very short time with 50% of the population being under the age of 15. The increase in children led the government to keep pushing proactive things and Universal Primary Education was hatched. While this government has done many questionable things (and really which one hasn't?) I am going to focus a little more on the positives. Uganda saw the importance of educating children and set up government schools where the tuition would be covered which is approximately 40,000 shillings a term.

This resulted in schools being flooded with students. The idea had wonderful intentions and the batch of children it applied to from P1 is just making its way through secondary school, the jury is still out on how much it has helped the country with the strain it has put on the education system. Universal Primary Education was promptly followed by Universal Secondary Education making tuition free for all pre-college education. So, sorry for the history lesson, but that all leads us back to St. Theresa's. In 2007 the school had a student body of 140. They had a dorm and a small block of classrooms as well as a nice administration block. There wasn't much there and it wasn't preforming that well. USE hit and the population swell hit the rural schools hard because families are still popping out 10+ kids each. Today the student body is at 740 with 160 of those being boarders. Their dorm is too small so girls sleep in one of the rooms in the administration block. The teachers were moved into the library and the Head Teacher, Deputy Head Teacher and Bursar all share an office. There are three lab rooms, but each is a permanent classroom because everything is full. The S5 class actually has a store room in which to hold their classes. The school started a new block of classrooms, but the government told them they would take over building them and they remain half finished. The S1 students are all in one room, while the other classes are broken into two streams each.

St. Theresa's has started to do some things to address the student surge. Just before I arrived they started work on a new dorm for the boarding girls. The idea is most girls will move there and open up one or two rooms in the process. That will open up the old staff room for me to set up a computer lab. There isn't much use for a library, the lack of books, suspicion of students stealing everything that isn't nailed down (which is partially true) and the lack of interest most students have of studying alleviates the necessity. The school was donated 10 computers a few years ago and initially had them set up, but as the space got to small they returned to boxes and have been sitting for at least two years. They have also been putting more pressure on the ministry and have been rounding up local support for school improvements.

So where do I come in? I am currently watching, keeping my eyes and ears open, opening my mouth occasionally (sometimes for the better, other times not so much), learning as much as I can about my school and students, and teaching S1 and S2 students chemistry and biology. I have 5 double class periods (80 minutes each) a week. It is a small load, but with the unfamiliarity of the curriculum and the other events at school it is nice. I am a part of the science department so I have been sitting in on staff meeting (an adventure in itself), looking at the labs, and voicing input here and there. I am also charged with helping establish the computers in the school. Already there is a computer in the staff room and I have assisted in lessons for teachers which typically centers around formating things in Microsoft Word. I spend a lot of the day hanging around the school, talking with teachers and getting a feel for things.

In every school there is a delicate balance. The biggest problem is that Ugandan teachers are spoiled. If anyone thinks that being a teacher in the US is the easiest job ever, and you are a complete idiot if you do, you will be sorely mistaken once I drop a little knowledge. Ugandan teachers come in two forms, certified teachers and uncertified teachers. Certified Teachers are teachers which have been approved by the Ministry of Education and are assigned to posts by the ministry. They are also paid by the central government. That means they have one of the most consistent paychecks in the country as well as little or no loyalty to the school at which they work. They literally could be moved across the country at the ministry's whim so many people keep their family in one place and travel far to work so if they get transferred they don't uproot each time. That part of their life is difficult, but it is completely offset by how the system works in their favor. In the school they are assigned they teach 16 doubles a week to be considered full time. Most teachers condense these over two or three days which allows them to pick up days at other schools as uncertified teachers. Uncertified teachers are teachers who either haven't been picked up by the ministry (even though there are huge teacher shortages) or teachers who have ministry appointments, but want to fill holes in other schools staffs. These teachers are paid by the school and while their pay is less, the incentive is higher. Many do it at schools near where their family is so they may stay at home more than half the week. Another thing is how the schools act. Salaries are paid at the end of each month, so schools organize a stipend for each of their teachers in the middle of the month to help get them through till payday. So most teachers get a government salary, a second school income, and a bonus in the middle of each month from two different schools.

While this doesn't seem ridiculous, the attitudes most teachers have is what takes the cake. There is ALWAYS a reason not to give your lesson. Absenteeism is rampant in this country and since the central government is in control at the government schools there is usually little the school can do about it. Also, many times the administration is just as bad as the teachers and since everyone gets their paycheck at the end of the month, why rock the boat? My school is also a small and poor one. They charge extra fees besides tuition, but they don't have a lot of capital. My teachers constantly are complaining about not having enough resources. The truth is they have plenty of resources, just most of them are the wrong ones. They rant about teaching aids, but they only have ideas for ones that can be used once a school year and left on a shelf the entire rest of the time. They are huge on token pieces here, oh look at the nice shinny piece of instrumentation, no it has never been used, but it shows how good our school is. Or, yes we have a library, all the books are under lock and key so they are safe and no one is allowed to enter there ever so the 500 books are never read. Besides getting more supplies for the S4 practical lessons which prepare them for the UNEB exam, I have never heard a good idea of a teaching aid, but I have heard almost every teacher exclaim they cannot do their job properly without them. The structure of life at the school is also a reason lessons are missed. Teachers cannot teach a lesson until they have gotten their fill from break tea or lunch which always runs late. They will also leave problem sets on the board or diagrams for the students and call that a lesson and sometimes they will just hand their notes or book to a student had have them read it for the rest of the class to transcribe while they remain in the staff room.

Obviously not all teachers are like that, but it is much more prevalent than it should be. Other acceptable excuses for not teaching are but not limited to; death in the family, sick child, it rained (more legit than one would initially think), teacher is sick, transport is bad, just arrived late, didn't have the right materials, tea was late, lunch was late, the weather looked like it could turn, their dog died, they didn't feel like teaching, they had to discipline students instead, the lab assistant wasn't there, there is a school program which interfered with one lesson so to keep the at the same place they will skip the other as well, they needed to short call, they haven't been paid (which is probably false), they don't want to work at the school they were assigned to, or they don't agree with how the timetable is arranged.

So my goal at this school will be addressing teacher attitudes, more specifically in the science department. I have already started by introducing demonstrations into my lessons occasionally, which hadn't been done for a while because “resources weren't enough” or “our lab assistant hasn't been at work.” Ultimately they didn't want to improvise and clean their own glassware. My students hadn't even seen litmus or other indicators and how they worked, ever. It will be a long process (most likely longer than this post), but it is where I think there can be the longest and largest impact. I care about the students (or at least try on the days they are good), but I can only inspire a small group over a short time, the teachers I work will will teach for many years and spread a little influence of mine over a much larger crowd.

Think about it as a Reganomics, a trickle down effect of inspiration rather than wealth.

Cooking with Kids

Cooking with Kids – Episode 1 – Bread

I love cooking with my neighbor, Julius. He is 4 and like the average 4 year old he is full of questions, talks all the time, and loves to get in your way and know what you are up to.

It all started a few weeks ago. When Tony and I were walking back from school we had a number of “angels” heckling us and simply being jerks. Arriving home I decided I wanted to cool off and de-stress by making bread.

As usual Julius was outside bugging my neighbors.

Back story: Tony and I live in staff housing. We share a wall with my principal’s house and have two other families each less than 20 meters away from our back door. Close proximity plus 200 chickens squawking. It’s pretty nice though because there are always people around and we feel safe. Plus as neighbors we take turns occupying Julius.

So I decided I would distract Julius and have him help me out. I grabbed all the ingredients and tools and traipsed outside to our back veranda. Julius ran to my side and we started measuring and mixing.

What I didn’t expect though was bread making with Julius quickly became a neighborhood show. Within 15 minutes, 8 of my neighbors surrounded Julius and I wanting to see and learn about bread. I passed around the Peace Corps Uganda Cookbook and they paged through that.

It was great because I was having Julius do all the measuring with the flour so if it wasn’t full the neighbors were chiming in to tell him how to do it. Flour went everywhere but it was a ton of fun!

It was an awesome way to get to know my neighbors too because now they want to make other stuff out of the cookbook and we talk food all the time. My passion for cooking is connecting me with my neighbors. Hurray! Also, when they try our foods they let us sample their foods. Delicious!

Cooking with Kids – Episode 2 – Chicken

So I haven’t written about it yet but I have slaughtered a chicken, actually two. This story is about the second chicken’s delicious demise and 3 children under the age of 6.

We have 4 year old Julius, 5 year old Peter, and 1.5 year old Baby.

I was bringing a chicken home from the convent, a gift from the nuns for no particular reason. I was hoping to slaughter, clean, and butcher it quickly so that we could boil the meat and then cook it with herbs. (This sounds strange but if you don’t boil the chicken it will be very, very tough.)

However, the moment I rounded the corner of our house the three kids ran over to me.

“Auntie, what is that?”

“Auntie, you are going to eat?”

“Auntie!”

“Auntie!”

“Aughtslhe” (Baby – she was also climbing around)

All this while I was trying to unlock the door with a chicken in my arms. The chickens’ legs were tied together so I was able to set it down on the back veranda.

“Auntie, you are going to slaughter”

“Yes, but I have to go inside and get the saucepans and water”

“Auntie you go!”

“Auntie you get water!”

“Ok I will. Thank you very much.”

“You close the door!”

So I went back inside, grabbed all the supplies, and started to head to a clearing just behind the chicken coop. But before I went the kids asked about the chicken. I told them to keep it there and I will come back for it in just a second.

But I could see the look in Peter’s eyes. The chicken started to hobble. But I said wait! I walked about 10 yards before I heard the squawking of a chicken, wings flapping, and the kids running. I turned around to see the Baby, Peter, and Julius running after me; Peter trying to control the chicken who was flapping away. It was the most hilarious thing. Imagine a 1 1/2 year old, a 5 year old with a chicken a quarter of his size going nuts in his arms, and 4 year old running towards me with huge grins on their faces. I will never forget it.

So I now had 3 assistants for this event. All while I was slaughtering they were talking, laughing, and giving advice. As I poured water over the chicken they instantly started plucking the feathers. I could hear their parents’ words as they gave me advice:

“Auntie, the water will hurt you”

“Auntie, give me that”

“Auntie, do this”

Quickly the work was done and while I was cleaning the inside of the bird similar comments came out but with more “eeewwww” sounds and laughter.

They stayed with me until everything was set and again my neighbors came around to see how the “musugut” (white-person) was doing with the chicken. So many were surprised that I was even doing this. But the most surprised neighbor couldn’t believe that I threw out the gizzard!

A delicious chicken and great memories.

Cooking with Kids – Episode 3 – Banana Cake

What I love about cooking with kids is the excitement and pride they get from helping you. I remember growing up cooking with my mom and grandma around the holidays and waffles with my dad. It was my job to tell dad when the waffle light went off. That meant the waffle was done. It was a very important job.

Since I have started cooking with my neighbor Julius I see the anticipation in his eyes. Whenever I grab the sigiri (local charcoal grill) he is asking me what we are going to make. Chapatti? Cake? Food? I feel bad when I don’t have time to cook with him!

So on Thursdays I don’t have class and have decided to make that my cooking day with Julius. I asked him on Tuesday if he would like to cook with me and talked it up for the next few days.

By the time I grabbed the ingredients and went outside Julius was excited to start but he was about to bath and I told him to listen to his mother.

“Auntie, I bath and we make cake”

“Yes, Julius”

The kid probably took the quickest bath of his life because in no time he was coming outside with one shoe on and pulling the shirt over his head.

I gave him the special jobs of mashing bananas and stirring the batter. Baby and Peter soon joined us but Baby had ulterior motives once she spotted the bananas. One of my neighbors was there to learn how to make cake so she helped me keep watch over the bananas and make sure Julius didn’t stir too hard and spill the batter.

Upon dividing the batter into two cake pans Julius made a huge mess and had a hard time following my instructions but no worries. Thank goodness it’s outside. The kids then became the taste testers by sampling the batter.

About 1 hour later I checked on the cake and Julius and Peter ran over. I told them the cake was ready and before I even looked up, Julius was running away saying “I’ll get my plate!” It was precious.

I handed Julius his portion of the cake and thanked him for all his help. He had a nice smug smile on his face. I asked him if he would cook cake again and he coolly said yes while the older kids and his mom tasted the cake.

Nature Identical and Artificial Vanilla Flavor – 2 Ugandan recipes to try at home

Chapatti – Ugandan Tortillas

Ingredients:
2 1/2 to 3 Cups of Flour
1/2 Green Pepper, Diced
1/2 Red Onion, Diced
6 Cloves of Garlic, Minced
2 Teaspoons of Salt
2 Eggs
Hot Water to Blend, About 1/2 Cup
Oil for the skillet

Instructions:
Dice veggies and garlic and put into a medium size mixing bowl. Add the eggs and salt and whisk. Add the flour and blend with your fingers. Add hot water slowly and blend to make a soft but not sticky dough. Add remaining flour if needed.

Knead dough for about 5 minutes and let it sit, covered, for 30 minutes in the mixing bowl. Pinch off sections of the dough that are about the size of golf balls. Let these rest for 10 minutes. Roll the dough out to small circles on a lightly floured surface (a beer bottle is my rolling pin).

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a skillet over medium heat, cast iron is best. Add the chapatti to the skillet right on top of the oil. Flip the chapatti right away to coat the dough in oil, add a little more if needed. Cook and flip until lightly brown on both sides.

Makes about 8 Chapatti. Great with guacamole, taco filling, as mini pizza crusts, or just by themselves. Tony and I often eat them while we make them because they are so good! You can also make them without the veggies and make a cinnamon sugar sort of elephant ear with them too.

******

Banana Cake with Sugar Syrup

Ingredients for the Cake:
1/2 Cup of Butter (or the Ugandan equivalent, Blueband)
2 Cups of Flour
1 Cup of Milk
1 Tablespoon of Vinegar
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract (Optional)
1 1/2 Cups of Sugar
1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon of Baking Soda (Known as Bicarbonate of Soda here)
2 Ripe Bananas, Mashed
2 Eggs

Ingredients for the Syrup:
1/2 Cup of Water
1/2 Cup of Sugar

Instructions:

In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside. In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla. Mix in mashed bananas.

In a mug or glass mix the milk and vinegar together to make sour milk. This is important! The sour milk brings out the flavor of the bananas.

Alternate between adding the flour mixture and sour milk to the batter and mix until smooth. Pour into a greased and floured 9x13 baking dish (or aluminum saucepan). Bake for about 40 minutes. The temperature to bake at is unknown, maybe try 325.

Or if you want you can try to make it on a charcoal grill. I have one big aluminum saucepan with sand in the bottom. I pour the batter into a small saucepan and put on a lid. It’s a type of homemade oven. I cook it until a toothpick comes out clean.

To make the syrup pour the water and sugar into a small saucepan and cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Pour this over the finished cake. Enjoy!

Oh my gosh - We are alive

Hey Everybody,

Yes, it has been too long since we have written for our blog. Unfortunately the rain season causes power to drop a lot and so we have gone days without power. Also we pay for our internet by the month and had to wait till our last payday to renew it.

So basically we are slackers. But we have also been doing lots of things with our village. In the next few weeks I hope to write out these stories and post them. For right now here are some highlights since swearing in on April 21st:

End of April Highlights
 Swimming in Mbale town (look it up!) – Swimming never felt so good! We can’t go swimming in any Uganda lakes or rivers because of Schisto (parasites).

May Hightlights
 Erik and Anjali visited our house in Bukedea
 We attempted to make Gnocchi pasta and accidently tripled the recipe
 We got mountain bikes in Soroti town (look it up!) and can now get around much faster and easier! Thank goodness our area is flat or mid-afternoon would stink!
 I slaughtered my first chicken and made Chicken in Butter Sauce – hmmmmm
 I got a Singer Sewing Machine – the one you pump with your feet! Crazy yes but at $85 for a sewing machine who could resist
 We visited Sipi Falls (look it up!) with Arwen and Brennan and had a blast. (My facebook profile picture is from Sipi Falls)
 We went to our first Ugandan wedding – It was a Tuesday – The ceremony was over 3 hours long with a rain storm threatening to blow the tents away, literally.
 We ordered a table and chairs and after 4 weeks of not getting anything Tony’s Supervisor, Sister Salome, gave the carpenter a smack down – Hilarious!
 Classes really started one week after school started
 I began a question box at school and have had great questions that I am happy to tackle (i.e. Is it true that in America when people reach a certain age you kill them?)
 I had a 7 hour staff meeting where we only talked about new information for 1.5 hours…
 We were locked in a hotel one morning for 3 hours…
 I made Banana Cake for the Sisters at the Convent
 Meeting up with almost everyone in our training group in Kampala was a blast.
 We received our care packages! Only 2.5 months after being sent (will change now that we have a PO Box in Mbale)
 My Laundry Speed is approximately 15-18 items per hour (shirts, pants, and skirts – no comp outs with socks and underwear!) – Sheets and towels still are hard to do!

June Highlights
 I made bread with our 4 year old neighbor Julius. We sort of take turns occupying Julius because he can be annoying and get in your way quickly. I mean he is 4, it is only natural.
 We found a cheeseburger place in Mbale that also sells cheese! Can you say Homemade Pizzas?
 Tony learned he is not an electrician
 I slaughtered my second chicken with 4 year old Julius, 5 year old Peter, and 1.5 year old Baby.
 We accidentally made brownies for the Sisters and gave them a big surprise.
 I play games and sports with girls at my school and they are always surprised
 After 6 weeks we finally got our kitchen table. Can you imagine not having a kitchen table for 6 weeks, its crazy.
 Sister Betty wanted to learn how to make Banana Cake so we made it together
 We watched the first England/US World Cup soccer game in Mbale with lots of other volunteers
 Uganda has great fabrics – Soon I will have a piranha fish dress. I feel like Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus.
 I held a penpal meeting with the girls at my school and it seems that all of them want US husbands…hmm more to come on this issue.
 I have successfully fought Giardia for the second time (look it up!)
 I have mastered Chapatti (a Ugandan style of Tortilla).

Tony Projects / Adventure with Ants
 Various hooks and nails have made our life easier
 Hour camping shower is set up and hot water showers are amazing!
 Old chairs have been re-worked into bookshelves (since the school carpenter doesn’t have wood – now does that make sense? “T.I.A. – This is Africa”)
 We have retractable mosquito nets
 An attic mouse can no longer eat our food thanks to Duct Tape and Wood
 We have curtains that completely cover our windows and move from the top down (this is a Stacey project)
 And we have a 120L water drum with a tap that is now elevated and useable!
 Ant lines are being destroyed
 Ants are no longer in our food because we have tuperware and a water system.

So overall we are healthy and happy in this country of ours. We do have bad/horribly frustrating days but the good outweigh the bad by far.

School is going well. We are figuring out teaching and how to be effective. Currently I have about 60 students per class and Tony has around 110 students per class. But the people we work with are great people that are wonderfully helpful.

Thank you for your love and support! More to come soon!
Stacey

PS – We do have more pictures to post but we are going to find a web-site to post them to for our family members without Facebook.

Settling In

Hello America. How are ya?

It has been a long time since I have written and I’m sorry. Sadly you won’t hear all that has happened to us in this post, simply because today was awesome/challenging/interesting and felt that I should share it.

I would like to call this post “Settling In”.

This morning I woke-up while it was still dark outside (before 7am). I woke-up to the sounds of my neighbors starting their day and about 50 roosters making their crows. I mean we do have over two hundred chickens between 20 and 50 feet from our back door. You know, the usual.

I then proceeded to get up and join Tony in the other bedroom because at the moment we do not have a mattress big enough for two and we need to sleep under mosquito nets. Hopefully sometime this week we can travel 20km by public taxi to Mbale to get said mattress. This would be approximately 45 minutes by taxi with Tony and I sitting on top of our closest friends. The taxis have 15 seats but on our last ride there were 20 adults and under the seats were as many chickens as could fit; they were being sold at the market. I digress.

Breakfast was pancakes and honey. No homemade passion fruit juice this morning but I’ll make more later. Then after getting ready (aka business casual and me in a skirt) we headed over to Tony’s school St. Theresa’s to catch up with everyone. Last week their one month break started and this week they are reviewing material with the seniors before their tests. No real break for these students or teachers.

I went over to my school St. Mary’s and met with Jane, my counterpart. She was creating a workshop schedule (the morning the workshop started) because the facilitators hadn’t arrived yet. She also had tests from last term on her desk that she didn’t know if she would get to grade. No worries though because there is no real set deadline. Now this sounds worse than it actually is because truth be told a schedule couldn’t be worked out unless everything was finalized/confirmed, and well, who finalizes/confirms anything these days?

After tea, I met up with Tony and his counterpart, Deo, to head into town and see the market. Our schools are not in the town of Bukedea but are about a 30 minute walk outside of town. It is a nice walk because it is very flat compared to our training site, Wakiso, but on a hot day there is no shade.

Every Monday is market day and this market is Huge! It is the largest in the district and so tons of venders come in from the major towns and sell produce, meat, dry goods, soap, toys, hardware, animals, bikes, beer, you name it they have got it. And the people are really nice too. They saw us “musugots” (white people/foreigners) and once we started speaking Ateso they smiled and laughed. They were very patient and helpful as we tried forming sentences and explaining what we wanted. This also helped us get the real prices of items. Here is a reason to be jealous of us, we bought a sigiri grill today for 4,000 Ush. That is, we bought a local mini charcoal grill for $2! Yea you’re jealous.

Then Tony and I decided to head into town to buy a 120 Liter water jug. On the walk in we followed to old railroad tracks. The Chinese built up the railroads in Uganda but soon after they handed it over to the Ugandans it slowed/stopped. Not sustainable sadly. On the walk in we had one child walk with us. Sadly our Ateso isn’t great yet to carry on conversations beyond 10 minutes.

Town was full with so many people coming and going from the market. It was cool to see one woman on a bicycle taxi carrying a stock of sugar cane that just had to be 8 feet tall. Walking down the street we decided to get lunch at a local restaurant. Their goat was amazing! It has to be my favorite meat here. We don’t have it in the states (at least where I live) and it is really tender and delicious. Plus the restaurant didn’t chop it up into small chunks so the meat had texture and only a few bone fragments.

Purchasing the tank was easy enough, only 18,000 Ush, and we spent time with the motorcycle and bicycle taxi drivers. The Boda-Boda’s. Now sadly boda-boda drivers have good and bad raps. They are often reckless young men trying to earn a living. However, there are a number of boda-boda drivers that are educated unemployed men with families to feed. It is hard to go beyond the stereotype but talking with them helps. We were practicing Ateso and today began talking about forming community projects with them. I see great potential here.

Once we were back at home Tony went over to his school to make lesson plan outlines. I stayed back and read. I am almost done with my second book since we have arrived in Bukedea nine days ago. It’s awesome!

Then in an effort to actually settle into our house I went at cleaning the bedroom. However, after noticing a hole in my screen I decided to create a messy project. You see, in Uganda windows often do not have screens. This can be for many reasons but our problem is that our windows open and close funny. They open like shutters and close with a metal bar latch inside the window. If you think about it, that means we have one of two options; either have a screen or have the ability to open our windows.

So you may be asking yourself what screen did I actually fix. Well, have you ever seen fancy cinder blocks or bricks that people use to decorate their landscape with? They often have holes in them. Well in Uganda homes have these “holie bricks” as a type of ventilation system and they put screens over these.

I went outside and with the help of Julius, my three year old nephew (he calls my auntie), I cleaned and screened the holie bricks. They were gross with lots of dust and a few old wasps nests. My neighbors must have thought I was crazy because after dusting I cut up a mosquito net and stuck it to the bricks using flour and water. A perfect homemade glue actually.

Then a sad thing happened, I went to the bore-hole (water well) at around 5:30pm. That is prime time for water collection and lots of people were there. I talked with one guy for a while and practiced language. I have so much to learn! But while I was practicing language I put my jerry can jugs in the “line” to wait my turn to fill up. However, the concept of a line is really arbitrary because my jerry cans didn’t move for over an hour. I didn’t mind waiting my turn but then obviously I was being skipped over by kids (and adults) filling their own jerry cans. I didn’t have the heart to cut in front of people or be rude so I decided to come back later. I felt sad though. It reminded me of elementary school and how upset I got when people would cut in front of me…

Back at home, Tony was working on tapping our 120 Liter jug. He took the tap and placed it over the gas range flame to heat the metal and melt a hole into the jug. It worked very well but then I had to crawl inside it to put plumbers tap around the end (sorry dad I forgot what it’s called) to create a better seal with the nut. Awesome timing after the bore hole but you know it is great that we have more water storage. 320 Liters at once! How many gallons is that? To be honest I have never been more aware of my water use than I am now because I have to carry the stuff!

Tony went with me and we got water after the masses had cleared out. I then proceeded to bucket bath, in a bath tub no doubt, using about 10 liters of water instead of my usual 5. It made me feel better!

Dinner was stuffed green peppers and chips. (Mini green peppers)

Since this weekend we have tuperware and the ability to store left-over food. Ants may still be a problem though. They somehow found their way into our fried white ants tuperware container. I told Tony I didn’t mind that the ants were in with the fried ants but he decided he didn’t want any.

To roast the peppers I made on oven with three pots. One large pot was the base, a second smaller one held the food inside, and the third formed the cover. It worked out well. Also we found cheese that can be stored at room temperature (I know it is very fake but we like our fantasy world cheese)! So we topped the peppers with that and fried slices of potatoes to make chips.

We ended the night by watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It seems that even though we are away from the states, having little reminders of home is really refreshing.

So now you find me here. In Uganda at 12:49am writing a blog post and uploading pictures onto Facebook. Happily we can stay connected with all of you but I find it fun that I have only been on the internet 6 times in 3 months. =) Good Night

Internet in Bukedea - St. Mary's Primary Teacher's College

Hello Everyone,

How are you today? I am great! Tony and I just learned our Peace Corps location for the next two years and currently we are visiting Bukedea, Uganda!

Bukedea is a small village on the map, probably under 1000 people. However it has a strong complex of 4 different school; a primary school, secondary school, Primary Teacher's College, and another primary school with the college students practice teaching. Also all the schools are Catholic school and there is a small convent of nuns that run a clinic and nursery school for children. (Last night we ate dinner with the nuns and watch Brazilian Soap Operas - Nuns having Fun!)

We have also seen our house! Super Exciting! Mainly because this house is about 2.5x the size of our last apartment (although that isn't saying a lot). But we have a large living room, kitchen (sort of), guest room, master bedroom that is really large, and an indoor bathroom.

Did you catch that! An indoor bathroom! It has a bathtub and European style toilet (not a squatting toilet)! However there is no running water so we have to fill the toilet each time but that is ok. It is so nice not to put on shoes and a headlamp to go outside to a latrine at night!

The house has lots of potential. Oh and it has electricity when the town has electricity (it's rationed). Also there are two water bore holes right near us. So all in all our house, schools, and water sources are within a 3 minute walk from us. We feel very fortunate.

So what is next for us and Peace Corps training? Well we have completed every part of training besides the final Language Proficiency Test. That will happen next week on Friday, Tony's birthday. Then we will say good bye to our host families with a Homestay Thank You Party on the 17th. On the 18th we will move ourselves to the capital, Kampala, and swear in as Peace Corps volunteers on April 21st!

I am happy and sad that Peace Corps training is almost done. The last two weeks of training have been hard because of projects, stress, and just being burned out overall. Although our training group is awesome. We have 29 people in our group and everyone of us have bonded and all that fun stuff. I will miss them but thankfully we are all going to stay connected. For example, we have already claimed Thanksgiving as the holiday Tony and I will host and almost every other holiday has been claimed.

Luckily for us too we will be living close to other volunteers. Bukedea is right in the middle of the towns of Mbale and Kumi. And to be honest, Mbale has a gorgeous national park and Mt. Elgon so it is a tourist attraction. So to have an escape we can quickly go to Mbale or Kumi which will be nice. Yesterday we ate lunch in Mbale and I had a cheeseburger and fries! A cheeseburger! It was so delicious! Although the bun was the size of a dinner roll =) Also we checked out one grocery store in town and found Twix Bars and NesQuick. (I am beginning to think Peace Corps service will be easier than I thought!)

Well more exploring of the area tomorrow and then back to Wakiso for the last week of training. I am happy with our site and that we have Internet in the middle of the village!

Love and Miss you all,
Stacey =)

PS My counterpart and principal seem awesome too!

This is how long blog posts get when you have internet every two weeks

For the past week, Stacey and I have been split between two sites for Immersion Service Training. Since I am a secondary teacher and she is a primary teacher we are staying with different people and at different places, which should lead to some different points of view in our next few posts.

I am in the town of Kidetok, Soroti. I left Wakiso early Sunday morning and was dropped off at the Teso Coach bus stop with fellow trainees Joe and David. At around 6:30 am we pulled out of Kampala and started our travels East. Along the way we picked up many more passengers, our bus started its journey half full, but gained many riders by the time we reached Jinja. Our first major destination was Mbale where we took a 15 min break before we hopped back on the highway cutting back to the West and North. Our ride ended in Soroti where we met up with a PCV named Ted Wells. For these two weeks we are living at Ted’s site and observing and practice teaching at his school. We spent the afternoon in Soroti town before hopping on a matatu for another two hours to his site.

The countryside we passed through to get here was amazing. In the Kampala area and heading east we passed over rolling hills and lush vegetation. The only way we could describe the view was green. Hundreds of different shades of green blended and competed with each other being broken only by fields where the farmers had recently cleared for planting or a string of shops created a trading post. At Jinja we crossed the Nile and saw the great hydro dam. After that town the scenery started to change. The hills became less, but larger and the lush jungle thinned. At Mbale we could tell we were in the foothills of Mt. Elgon. Heading to the northwest from there we started to hit savanna and were graced with the typical, and stereotypical, picture of Africa, mud huts with thatch roof surrounded by waves of grass. I think I might have been able to connect with the scene more if I hadn’t been flying by at 60 mph in a worn down coach bus.

Ted stays at a mission associated with St. Elizabeth’s Girls Secondary School. Ted shares his house with Father Mattias and his nieces who attend the secondary school and do the house work. Ted volunteered his bedroom (he is sleeping in his office) and guest room for the three of us to stay in. St. Elizabeth’s is now a government assisted secondary school that looks a shadow of its former self. It used to be nationally recognized, but now it would need a good coat of paint or more just to distinguish itself from the savanna. The school does have some decent resources and competent teachers, but there is little motivation from either the faculty or the student body to make the changes necessary for recognition once again. The school is also a cluster organization wise. As Ted puts it, there is always something more important than class. Most of the girls there are boarders and have certain chores in the morning. If a girl reports to class and here chore isn’t finished beforehand, she is sent away. Many teachers there do not let students in late to class for any reason so when she comes back she must watch from outside the room. In the day there are also breaks for tea and lunch. Each are routinely late and never finish in the time allowed. The teachers, whose meals are provided by the schools, are also routinely served late, and will not go back to the classrooms until they have taken their half an hour or hour break from the time food is served. As a result it can safely be estimated that students routinely lose a third of their instructional time in a day. I cannot generalize this to all schools in Uganda, but I wouldn’t be surprised to know that loss of instructional time is common.

Since I have been here I have been able to observe a number of classes at the S1 and S2 levels. Next week I am slated to teach S1 math and S2 math and chemistry. The Ugandan system of education structure would take a whole blog post on its own so you will have to stay in the dark on what exactly that means for now. The house Ted lives in and we are staying in is like the Ritz of the Peace Corps world. We have reliable electricity, running water, a (small) refrigerator, indoor flush toilet and a cantina 300 feet away. We are also graced with wonderful hosts who both make great conversation. Ted has some great points of view especially because he is a former volunteer who is back for round two after spending years in Burkina Faso in the 70’s.

The only down part of his site at the sleepy little town of Kidetok is there is horrible cell coverage. This should be something I should have expected in Peace Corps, but Africa is a continent in love with cell phones. This place has literally been the only place I don’t have service. And it has made it hard for Stacey and I to even call each other. We have relied on texting for the past week and it is starting to get old.

There have been limited adventures here but one day Ted tried to scrounge up bikes from the mission so we could all ride to the town of Serere, which is 6 km away. After coming across many half bikes in storage we managed to get two, which could hold air and keep the chains on the gears. Now these aren’t simple mountain bikes, these are the big crappy single speeds that most people just push while moving matoke or jerry cans of water. Ted used his mountain bike while Joe and I each took a single speed. Five minutes into our ride the chain fell off of mine and we spent 20 minutes resetting it. Less than half a km from that Joe’s chain came off and we were fixing his for 20 minutes. A half a km after that Joe’s simply bit the dust and he left just Ted and me to complete the journey. Now both Serere and Kidetok are on little hills so for half the journey (the first part) it is all down hill, and the second half is all up hill. Three km uphill on a single speed bike is brutal! By the time we reached Serere my legs felt like Jell-O. We made our purchases, waited out a brief shower and headed back to home. Thankfully both rider and bike made it back safely which was impressive to all at the site.

There is definitely more to write, but sometimes a single post cannot contain it all. This is already one of the longest we have so far. Thanks for the comments and keep them coming, we love to hear from everyone.

Peace,
~Tony