"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.