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