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.