"You were lost."

Whenever I am away from my village for a week or more, upon return I am greeted repeatedly with the phrase, "You were lost."  It's actually quite annoying to hear this over and over again and I usually emphatically respond in my own defense saying, "No, no I was not lost. I was at a conference," or "No, no I was traveling with family." But sometimes I surrender to this Ugandan sentiment and simply say, "Yes, yes I was lost. You are right. But now I am back." 

It's kind of how I feel about this blog right now.  I haven't posted for five months and to the people who actually read it, I apologize.  Five months!  Oh, I posted about the presidential election in February, (Museveni won, no surprise there) but as far as my Peace Corps work and life go, uh-uh, nope, zero, zip, nada, goose eggs.  My PC life becomes routine and my new normal and writing about what seems normal to me, well?  Except when it isn't. And lately it hasn’t been normal at all, but I’ll get to that in another post.

So yes, I was lost.  But now I am back and it's time to play catch-up with the highlights of my Peace Corps service. 

October

 

Maureen is second from the left in the back row.

I stepped away from the front of the classroom during October and sat in the back to observe and mentor twelve student teachers at my primary school.  Student teachers live and work at a primary school for one month. All pre-service teachers come from Primary Teacher Colleges (PTC’s) located all over Uganda. I happen to live on the campus of the Bishop Stuart PTC where these twelve young ladies came from.  Even though they could walk the half-mile back to the college, they had to live at the primary school for the entire month.  Twelve girls brought twelve foam mattresses, twelve trunks with their belongings, several bags of maize flour for the cook to make posho, buckets for bathing and all the teaching supplies they would need for the month. My primary school has very little available space for housing so the girls were given a tiny room with a dirt floor to spread out their mattresses. It was wall-to-wall beds. There is no electricity, water must be fetched and boiled and if ya gotta go...it’s the pit latrine.  

When I was a student teacher, a million years ago, I was slowly released into the responsibilities of the classroom and didn’t take over for weeks. Hmm, not so here.  On day one you’re 100% responsible. As I was observing I tried not to have favorites, but I did and her name is Maureen.  I observed her several times in the P1 class and she’s got the gift.  She’s a natural. In the Ugandan schools a child can be treated harshly, shamed and even beaten, even though it’s illegal.  While watching Maureen, I saw hope for the future.  She crafted meaningful lessons and engaged her class. She was compassionate and full of praise. It was apparent she loved what she was doing and her students loved her and were learning in a safe and caring environment.  She smiled! I wrote her a glowing report for her portfolio hoping it might help, in some small way, to get her a teaching job next year. I dream that somewhere in Uganda, in a small village school, Teacher Maureen is sharing her gift with some very lucky learners.

November

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN UGANDA to me.  And WELCOME to the new volunteers, Education Cohort 4. 

I paid it forward this month and helped shop for, prepare and serve a traditional Thanksgiving meal to the newest education volunteers in country and the Peace Corps staff.  One year ago, as a new volunteer myself, I feasted on stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, chicken (turkey is too hard to get here), green bean casserole, corn bread and apple pie. It’s a meal that lives on in my memory to this day.  The first few weeks of Peace Corps training are exhausting in so many ways and the foods served to us during training are traditional Ugandan fare to prepare us for life in the village.  But the food cravings never, ever go away.

Together with two other volunteers I shopped at the Kampala fresh markets and grocery stores buying enough food, drink and paper products to serve over one hundred people. Peace Corps drivers shuttled us around, thank goodness, or this could never happen.  For three days we washed and chopped, steamed and baked, seasoned and tasted. The multiple pans of potatoes were boiled outside using a sigiri (traditional charcoal stove). If I never see another sweet potato or cut apart frozen chicken legs from thighs again, I’ll be okay with that. I love to cook, but I’ve never catered an event this large before and it was a challenge.

Well, on the big day, the green bean casserole sloshed all over the van as we drove to the venue at Peace Corps headquarters but other than that, the food arrived safely and relatively warm. The meal was served and the crowd went wild with gratitude and song. 



December

SCHOOL’S OUT!! In Uganda, the school year runs from February to December.  In my brain I’m now on summer vacation, only it’s ALWAYS summer here so my brain gets confused. Fast forward for a second to the beginning of the next school year.  The start of school is being delayed to the end of February due to the presidential election, which means I have almost three months to fill. What to do, what to do?  Let’s start with a 16-day South American cruise to the southern most wonders of the world with my boyfriend and sister.  Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo! 

Kayaking the Straits of Magellan.  Dolphins were swimming right in front of us.

Rock Hopper penguin colony on the Falkland Islands.

 

The San Valentin Glacier is the world's nearest one to the equator.

The Chilean Patagonia forest is full of surprises.

 

January

Peace Corps decided to fill some of our time with back-to-back week long conferences starting with my mid-service training  (MST) followed by the all-volunteer conference ( All-Vol).

My hut for the week during MST. POSH CORPS! 

I’m at the halfway point of my service!! My education cohort, which is down from 38 to 33 now, gathered together at the African Village hotel for a week of sharing, reflecting and planning for the year ahead.  We had good food, private rooms, hot showers and a POOL!  Living the posh corps life. 

Self-promotion alert!!  During my presentation to my cohort about my successes during the first year, my country director was watching and a few days later I was asked to write up one of the projects I did so it could be shared with the Office of the First Lady, Michelle Obama. It supports her Let Girl’s Learn Initiative and she was looking for Peace Corps work in the field to share at an event in New York City in a few days. I have no idea if the First Lady mentioned my project but I was grateful for the opportunity and I am proud of my work. I wrote about this project in a previous blog and it was done in collaboration with a colleague of mine who teaches 4^th grade in the US.  It was his video of our two classrooms that captured the attention of my country director.  Thanks again friend! 

February

Between MST and ALL-Vol conferences I treated myself to a 3-day weekend in Entebbe and stayed at a quiet B&B. I found my happy place!

Next, it was time for the All-Vol conference which brings 153 Peace Corps volunteers from all over Uganda together for one week.  The highlight of the week was learning I’m serving in Uganda with a former 5^th grade student of mine.  It’s a small world!  She was crowned Peace Corps Uganda Prom queen too. 

March

The highlight of March was celebrating the third National D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) Day Uganda on March 17, 2016.  My passion and one of my goals is to promote the love of reading in my school and DEAR Day gives me a great chance to do just that.  The Ministry of Education and other stakeholders in Uganda support this mission by bringing a national attention to the event. 

This year we took it up a notch and went big! We started the day with a parade of the entire student body and all the teachers. We walked the dirt roads of the village carrying banners and holding books, chanting DEAR Day and celebrating reading. Although I later heard some villagers thought we were picketing, I still think we made an impact in the community and at the very least, got people talking about reading. 

The cutest moment during the parade had nothing to do with reading at all.  At the turn around point our youngest students (ages 3-5) needed a short call (pee break).  So fifteen or so little ones walked into the wide-open matoke plantation, pulled down their panties or unzipped their trousers and watered the banana trees.  Priceless!

 
 












 DEAR Day is about reading so that’s what we did next. After the parade we gathered in the grassy field at school, sat among friends and enjoyed reading the books we carried in the parade. I was so proud of my teachers for facilitating the whole-school independent reading time. I loved this entire event and if dreams come true then next year, when I’m no longer here, my school will still celebrate DEAR Day without me.  And if I could have one more dream come true, it’s reading books will happen every day in every classroom.

During March I also celebrated my birthday with good friends and a flaming box, uh, I mean cake.

April

BOOKSHELVES!  Peace Corps provides money to volunteers through small grants and I was able to access enough funds to have two new bookshelves built by a local village carpenter for our library.  YAY!! I’ve been waiting 15 months to empty the last few boxes of Books For Africa, donated to our school before I even arrived.

The other highlight during April was finally, finally, finally being asked to team-teach in the P1 and P2 classrooms.  The Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES) introduced new curriculum and selected teachers were trained in phonics instruction during our long “summer” break.  Until now, learning to read in the primary school has been repeating words and memorizing sight words.  Phonemic awareness has never been part of reading instruction so decoding a new unfamiliar word is nearly impossible.  This partially explains the poor literacy skills in the country. When teachers Resty and Dinah asked me to help them teach the sounds of the alphabet to their students I did a happy dance. To build a positive relationship with the teachers and for them to trust me enough to ask for my help is HUGE.     Best. Day. Ever.

Last week the MOES sent observers to our school and watched Resty and Dinah deliver lessons in their classes.  They nailed it!  They did such a good job the MOES is going to send them out into neighboring primary schools in our district to support teachers with this new curriculum and instructional method.

Feeling proud!

And now I am back...






   

I vote for peace!

It's election eve!

Tomorrow, February 18, 2016, the people go to the polls to cast their vote for the next president of Uganda.  Of the eight candidates on the ballot, the ones most likely to win are either Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) or Dr. Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Museveni is the incumbent, who at 71 years old is hoping to extend his 30 years in office for another five.  Or will Uganda change the course of history and elect Besigye, 55 years old and a candidate who has campaigned opposite Museveni in the last four elections.  It is a tight and competitive race, recently tarnished by an increase of violent rhetoric and intimidation of the opposition.

So who will win?  Will the election be fair?  Will the results be legitimate? And will it be peaceful?  These are questions on many minds tonight.  In the history of Uganda there has never been a peaceful transfer of power.  Tomorrow could be an historic first for this country.

The U.S. Embassy in Uganda says it is "cautiously optimistic" for a peaceful Election Day and post-election climate.  Many credentialed observers will be watching polling stations tomorrow and the winner of the election won't be released for two days.  Media is cautioned not to predict a winner. Due to the current tension in the country and based on past elections, all 153 Peace Corps volunteers are required to stay safely tucked in at their village sites, far away from the capital and other urban centers until the end of February.

That is fine with me.  There is no place I would rather be.  I love it here!  One would never suspect any of this looming election-day tension based on the rhythm of life in my village.  Oh sure, the occasional truck with its blaring loud music and political message goes rambling down the dusty dirt road.  Posters of candidate's faces decorate the doors and walls of the shops at my trading center and a college tutor likes to joke with me asking if I am voting tomorrow.  But otherwise, the days and nights are peaceful with a sameness I've grown so accustomed to and the friendships I've made after living here for fifteen months.

The sameness, like the children who come down from the hills to fetch water at the pump twice a day, laughing and playing and calling through the fence, "Teacher Sandra, Teacher Sandra," hoping I'm home and come out for a visit.

Or Father Joseph who walks by my door each evening, always greeting me with a smile while carrying his big battery operated radio tuned to the news in one hand and his blue bucket in the other ready to  harvest maize from his garden for dinner.

Even the campus cows (yes we have two new cows) lazily graze in the fields all day until it's milking time and then Joaquin, who tends the cows, shows up at my door with fresh milk for me.

And the friendship I share with my village egg lady, Annette, who lives down the road.  She proudly leads me by the hand and insists I see her two-week old baby chicks before she will agree to fill my tray with eggs.  What a sweetie!

Yes, I'll stay in the village with my friends and wait for the results of the presidential election.  I hope, as we all do, for a peaceful, fair election with a definitive conclusion after a highly competitive race.  I hope for a leader who cares deeply about the citizens and will move Uganda forward.  Annette, Father Joseph, Joaquin, the children and everyone else here deserve nothing less.

I vote for a peaceful democracy.

How do you measure a year?

 

In daylights, in sunsets

In midnights, in cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure a year in the life?  

                                                                                                                                                                               RENT 

                                                                                                                                                                       Seasons of Love 

 

 

Good question!  I have been serving as a volunteer in Peace Corps Uganda for one year and as I'm feeling a bit reflective right now,  I decided to look back at all the photos I've taken since I arrived on November 12, 2014.  Oh my, there's a lot!  But if I had to choose one single photo to represent my year, this would be the one.  

 

Here's the story.

It was a stifling hot day in July. A soccer match between the teams from my school, Kibingo, and another village school called Mamita, was taking place on the pitch across from the college where I live.  To be honest, I'm not much of a sports enthusiast, it was hot, I was tired and I didn't really want to go. But I'm glad I did.

 

When I got there all the students in my school were excitedly cheering, chanting, singing and even drumming for our team. While the other teachers found a shady spot to sit and watch, I wanted to be down on the field, in the mix of it all with the kids behind our goal.  I walked into the crowd and that's when it happened. A  group of giggling girls, grinning ear to ear, came running over to show me their simple elastic finger rings as if they were wearing dazzling diamonds. I oohed and ahhed, admiring their beautiful rings. I said, "Let's call them friendship rings." Next thing you know, I was given a dazzling friendship ring. I proudly slipped it on, we arranged our hands in a circle and...

 

So how do I measure a year in my Peace Corps life?

 

 In smiles, in sharing

 In friendships, in acts of kindness

In acceptance and in peace

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

Measure, measure in moments held dear.

 

 

 

 We won the game too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Girl Power!

International Day of the Girl Child
October 11, 2015

"Today is the Day when we focus our attention on the Girl Child, but it is not a day in isolation.  It is part of a massive and relentless drive towards a world of equality: a Planet 50-50 by 2030." 

                                 UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka


Girls are our future! Since 2012 the United Nations marks October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child to raise awareness about all issues concerning gender inequality around the world.  It's a day when activist groups come together under the same goal to highlight, discuss and take action to advance rights and opportunities for girls everywhere.  October 11 is not just a day; it's a movement and a global effort to ensure a world free of discrimination for young women and girls.  UN Women

As a Peace Corps volunteer, working in a rural village primary school in Uganda,  I see the discrimination and the challenges these girls face.  In my school the number of girls in the upper grades slowly declines so by P7, only six girls are in attendance.  I've wanted to start this significant conversation with all my girls and boys so this day gave me the perfect opportunity to begin.  But I also wanted to bring awareness to the global aspect of this movement so I reached out to my friend and colleague, who teaches 4th grade in the US, to partner with me in a simple yet powerful project.

One word affirmations of hope, strength and empowerment for girls were shared by the students on both continents. The conversations have begun!

 Mr. J created a moving video of our efforts and I am beyond grateful for his enthusiastic participation, his support and his friendship. "You're the best!"


Please click on the link below to see the video.

International Day of the Girl Child

"Empowerment of and investment in girls are key in breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence and in promoting and protecting the full and effective enjoyment of their human rights." 

-United Nations Resolution 66/170

The last two months in 5 words...and how to make a cow cry

August was amazing.  
September sucked.

Here's why in a few more words.

August was a month of fulfilling Peace Corps work, satisfying accomplishments, followed by a whole lot of fun with PC friends and topped off with a romantic vacation getaway.  It doesn't get much better folks!

 I held a successful two-day My Pads workshop on youth development and health education.  We trained four teachers at my primary school under the guidance of another amazing PCV who created this program.  My teachers did a fantastic job lesson planning and leading model lessons on puberty and HIV/AIDS.  I taught the Life Skill lesson, we learned how to make RUMPS, reusable menstrual pads, and now my teachers are ready to bring this entire program to our whole school.

Before

After

Two classrooms have a brighter learning environment thanks to a new coat of plaster on the walls.

My beloved P4 students and I celebrated their weeks of hard work in reading intervention groups by watching the Reading Rainbow video of Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain. I used this book for all my lessons.  Then it was time for Reader's Theater.  Bravo!

The end of the term brought a day of sports for the girls and the boys and even the teachers with games of netball, volleyball and football (soccer in the US).  The local news station filmed the football game and I was interviewed at the end, most likely because I kinda stand out from the rest of the crowd.  Anyway, the boys and I made the 8 o'clock news that night.   Ha, yep, I'm famous...in a little village in the southwest region of a little country on the huge continent of Africa.
"Teachah Sandra"

That journey deserved a beer.

FIVE BOXES OF BOOKS ARRIVED FOR MY LIBRARY!  My daughter celebrated my twin granddaughter's 1st birthday in June and instead of gifts for the girls she asked the guests to bring books for my school. My heart is overflowing with gratitude and love. Book by book we are bringing a reading culture to Uganda.  I wish everyone could see what I see when a child opens up a book, some for the very first time, and smiles or giggles or gets lost in the pictures.  These books are a gift from the heart.










Other care packages arrived and if you zoom in you'll see a pocket shower. This is LIFE CHANGING.  Inside the case is a black bag that opens up, holds 10L of water that is warmed by solar energy (if you've got a sunny day, and when isn't it sunny in Uganda).  I've been taking cold showers for almost a year.  Yeah, this is huge. And the Velveeta cheese is equally amazing!






School's out!  Three weeks of vacation!  First stop, Kampala for the All-Volunteer Conference. Once a year the PCV's from all over Uganda and from every sector, including education, agriculture and health, come together for four days of networking, learning, sharing and oh, some crazy fun. The US Ambassador to Uganda, Scott DeLisi, gave his final address to us before he retired.

I'm way in the back, as usual.

I'm a member of the Peace Corps Peer Support Network (PSN) and we had an informative meeting.

I got my retail therapy fix and did some
kitenge gift shopping. All for a great cause too.

 Morning yoga class.  Namaste!

                     

                        Even did a little bleach tie-dye!
                  This shirt used to be blue.  Huh?

The highlight of All-Vol was the much anticipated Uganda Peace Corps Prom 2015.
Being voted Prom Princess was a big surprise and having Elvis as my Prom Prince...well equally surprising. (I think it was just "Be Kind to the Older Volunteers Day)    







After All-Vol this prom princess retired her crown and boarded a plane headed for Seychelles, the archipelago African island nation in the Indian Ocean, to spend nine glorious days with her man.

 

St. Anne Island = paradise!

 

I could get used to this.

 

We did lots of hiking.  This one required a rope and a prayer the frayed rope didn't break.

 

 The view from the top of St. Anne .

  

All this with a man I love who takes me on long, sweaty, sometimes perilous, 

"I could have been swept out to sea!" 

geocaching adventures, who always puts a smile on my face...

and buys me cold beers.

Holding on to every moment.

August was amazing!  


But then September came. 


Vacations must end. Tearful airport goodbyes must happen. And after 30 hours of travel back to Uganda feeling incredibly sad and wishing I had a gallon of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and a box of wine I arrived back at my site.





With swollen ankles as big as grapefruit.

And I was sick, really sick with the worst     African cold virus of my life. One infection led to another but I'll spare you the details.





Things just snowballed from there.

I found bugs in my flour and bugs in my popcorn. And I'd been EATING the bugs!

My powermatic died so I couldn't charge
my phone or computer.  CRISIS!

The campus dairy cow died.  I'm sad for the poor cow who swallowed the compass that punctured its intestines (and I don't want to know how the college knows this) and selfishly sad for me because I won't get fresh milk anymore.

I saw a poor live rabbit being carried by its ears
and I knew it would soon be somebody's dinner. Yes, I know the goats and the cows and the chickens I see everyday are going to be eaten. But not the cute furry bunnies, come on!

















    I missed a beautiful wedding attended by everyone I love.

                                               

                                          And I'm really gonna miss this guy.  A true friend.

    

                                

On top of all that, on the first day of the new school term I was greeted by a male teacher who remarked, "Ah, teacher Sandra, your stomach has popped."  I'll just add the fat joke to the other one when he said, "Oh, I didn't know people like you could get gray hair."




                       

I was so down even the cows I met on my walk home from school seemed to be crying.














Yes, September sucked.  It was a month when I started saying, "Ya know God, I just can't handle one more thing."  And then I'd get one more thing.






                        So I spent a lot of time,
                        too much time,
                        in my head.

  



           Most days I wanted to crawl up
           into a tree and just be
           left a lion.













Some of my trials and tribulations seem trivial and I share them with a sense of humor and even a bit of sarcasm, but not all of them because  this  $&%+  ain't easy!  I guess when I think about all these frustrations and how they are combined with my crazy inconvenient life in a developing country where I'm trying so hard to do some good and where I feel every emotion just about every day... yeah, bugs in my popcorn could be the "one more thing" that sends me over the top. So I've never been more eager to turn the page on the calendar to October. October, one of my favorite months of the year. It's GOT to be better. It WILL be better. It IS better.

They say there is some truth to the so-called Peace Corps mid-service slump; with data to back it up.  If it is true, then I slumped a little early, as mid-service for me isn't until November. God, I sure hope that was my slump because I don't want to make the cows cry anymore. Okay?

"Life doesn't get easier or more forgiving; 

we get stronger and more resilient." 

Steve Maraboli