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