NOTES FROM UGANDA - Week 5 Friday -

Feb. 5: What a trial to get last week's Notes sent. I was really upset because it cost me an extra 3000 UGX for an hour of which I had 53 minutes left. I kept losing what I had written and when I tried to save it, I would get kicked out. O well - such is life or as Tom Eggum (H4K Director) says TIA - this is Africa. We figured money out tonight and I went over budget again. the $25 in gas each week to go out to the villages is tough, plus what I spend on school supplies and the reading glasses I purchased for the ladies who needed them. Transport is the big item. we are doing well regarding food. It would be less if I took a piki- piki but I am concerned about safety. The roads are bad, and the driving is crazy. The ladies in my LS class today are mostly women with small businesses. Pastor Ruth wanted me to help them make improvements with record-keeping, etc. So today we talked about Rukia's business of selling charcoal. We talked about overhead, the selling price the market would bear and a weekly budget of her personal needs. A personal budget was new for all of them so I asked them to figure out their own personal budgets as art of their homework. It will be interesting to see the results. After class Rukia showed me the account book she keeps for her customers. She is very meticulous with each customer's name, dates of transactions, cash, credit and balance due. If any of the other ladies wishes to do something similar, she said she would be glad to help, which is good because it is all way beyond my expertise. I was also thinking of doing some role-play scenarios for meeting and selling to the teams (muzungus - whites) that come. We are also working on spelling and will work a bit on sentence structure. We had another major rainstorm today. It was difficult driving home with much standing water in the roadway. It made it difficult to see the pot holes and to meet oncoming traffic.

Sat - Feb. 6: Kathy and Leach went to Sipi Falls today up to MBale where the mountains are. It is beautiful up there. On other visits here I have been to two different villages in that area, on being Bhupotu. I am envious BUT I go to Busowa today to teach. My English class went well with a full complement of students. My Reading class was not so good. I don't seem to be getting through to the students regarding the sounds of letters, NOT names. I had one student most of the class period - it just wasn't working - the other came at the end of the class. I spent just a bit of time with her as I had others waiting for the next class. I am moving 3 of the LS students to the Reading class after reading their essays, so I will be left with 3 in the LS class which is fine. I think it will work. The only "iffy" thing is that one student is a man who is very verbal and 2 are very soft-spoken women. I had given Peter the T-shirts and socks I had from donors at McFarland Lutheran. He distributed these in Busowa to people who were very happy to receive thee clothes. On the way home, Peter and I had an interesting discussion about the Amish and the Mormons. He wants me to find a book about these groups when I get home to send back to him. I told him I would try. I am developing quite a long "Peter" list of things for Kent to bring when he and his wife, Laura, come with the H4K team in April.

Sun - Feb. 7: Peter picked us up about 9:30 for church in the Juba area. It was Pastor David's church but Peter preached. Peter gives a good sermon and is very comfortable dramatizing/miming the Bible stories he uses to illustrate the points of his sermon. It was so nice to be in a more intimate setting without a sound system. Both Leah and Kathy stayed to teach my classes about pure drinking water, personal hygiene, compound hygiene and nutrition. People were very interested, had comments and asked questions all through an interpreter. I was able to make announcements regarding my classes for next week. Some people were disturbed who had done their homework and I didn't look at it, but I think they were okay to bring it next week. We went to Town Lodge Tororo (TLT) for dinner. I got my protein fix which I needed badly as I was quite woozy the last couple of days which is now all gone. At the hotel we met Pastor Ruth's pastor who insisted upon introducing us to his bishop and party. I was embarrassed as I failed to recognize him, but when he had called Kathy and I forward last Sunday, I had not really looked at him. Also, we met a Canadian man who was with World Wide Church of God, first time in Africa, traveling alone, after his mission team had returned home. I admire his "chutzpah" for traveling on his own to remote locations. He was planning on visiting refugee camps in Uganda and Kenya. The wonderful thing is, once one begins a journey like this, one meets so many committed people venturing out, trying to do the work they feel God has called them to do.

Mon - Feb 8: Cautiously, I will say the rains have begun. We had rain again last night. We have sunrise about 7:00 and sunset about 7"00. As we are close to the equator, these times are quite the same all year round. Electricity is a problem. In drought, the electricity is rationed BUT there are power outages every time it rains. No one has explained why to me, but it is a sonstand occurrence when it rains. I went with Peter to Wikus. The youth at my church, McFarland Lutheran, had made small yarn and cloth dolls for me to bring along to Africa. This morning we got an early enough start that I took them out to Wikus to distribute. The kids were so cute. One little girl had her hands full with a paper pad, a pencil, her photo of the young person who had made the doll AND the doll. The doll had a shawl/scarf on, that was coming off and the poor little girl was very seriously struggling to fix the doll and hand on to everything else. She was just a wee mite of a thing. I helped her dress the doll and she went happily on her way. If you will recall, the drummer from Peter's school in Juba is sitting in jail awaiting trial for a murder he did not commit. His baby from the birth that killed his wife, died this morning. Of his remaining children, the oldest is only 10. Please remember this man and his children in your prayers.

Tues - Feb 9: This is my morning off of the week. I cleaned up the kitchen and did some pleasure reading. As this coming Sunday is Valentine's Day, I decided to teach only 1/2 classes this week and use the other 1/2 of each class period for making Valentines. At first reading, this may seem a bit absurd BUT from my first class's reaction today, it was a good idea. The ladies were very excited about making a special card to give to someone they love, telling them so in the card. It was GOOD. They left with smiling faces.

Wed - Feb. 10: I went and observed for the first time today at True Vine School. I observed in P3, P4, P5 and P6. My thinking about the teaching going on here was confirmed. There are no visual aids of any sort, no practical examples. Everything is written on the blackboard (very sophisticated information) and copied by the students into their individual notebooks. While the teacher is lecturing there are key words and/or phrases he/she wants the children to learn which he will keep repeating and and they parrot back. The P3 teacher was teaching her class how to alphabetize a word list. I thought she actually did the best job. She had over 55 students. The smallest class I was in, was 45. Not alot of individual attention is possible. Also, the teacher walks around with a switch and corporal punishment is applied at the teacher's whim for misbehaviors. I observed a P4 social studies class which was about the various roles of members of the family. The children struggled to read what they had written in their notebooks to ask and answer the questions the teacher had written on the board. In P5, they were studying longitude and latitude with very confusing information and sophisticated words I doubt they understood. There was alot of talk about the Greenwich Meridian and hemispheres. I am going back tomorrow to teach. I will report tomorrow. The Pt class was ending a geography lesson with a hand-drawn map of Africa on the blackboard with chalk with all of the countries AND a hand-drawn map of East Africa showing topographical features with a key. The work the teacher put into this lesson was prodigious BUT I'm not sure how much really reached the kids. This was followed by a science lesson on sound, again very sophisticated terms and concepts with confusing illustrations being offered. My classes went well though I missed one of my students in Literacy Skills. However, I was told there was a funeral. Kathy assisted with eye surgeries today at Smile Africa. She was very excited about her experience.

Thurs. - Feb. 11: I tramped all over True Vine compound today, going to both schools, the office, the clinic, the computer lab and back again and it was SOOOO HOT. The rains have not really begun. The teacher of the P3 class wanted me to teach music, particularly solfeggio (singing using the Italian names for the notes of the scale). So I used a basic major scale and spoke a little about pitch, dynamics and chords, illustrating all with the help of the class. I planned on using the "Do, Re, Mi" song from the Sound of Music. I explained what I wanted them to do and what I would do. As we started t sing, to my surprise, they knew the whole song. Obviously, their teacher had used the same idea. We sang a major tonic chord and did a little with piano and forte and sang patterns of using the syllables of a major scale. WE had a good time. One of the boys I sponsor was in the class. Next I went to P4 and read a story, asking questions afterward to gauge their comprehension. (This had been what the teacher had requested.) The class was good with the facts of the story but when I asked "why" (think for yourself) questions, they had difficulty. I don't think they are very often asked to reason for themselves. Please understand, what is written for them every day on the board, which they copy into their notebooks is very sophisticated BUT their understanding of the material is questionable. Also, there are children of varying ages in each grade level. They are not promoted automatically by age and there appears to be no stigma attached to this lack of promotion. Next, I did a demonstration of hemispheres with a borrowed soccer ball, signs I made and children holding the signs. After the meaning of "hemisphere" was established, we talked about the sun being static and the earth moving. I had a boy be the sun and 2 girls back-to-back being the eastern and eastern hemispheres of earth traveling around the sun, so they could visualize that when Uganda (EH) has daylight, the USA (WH) has darkness. Anyway, it was a short demo that seemed to aid some understanding. I tried very hard not to step on the teacher's toes and to constantly refer to what he had taught them during the demo. What I hope is, teaching using methods other than writing on the board, will ignite the imaginations of the teachers to try some new methods themselves. Then I taught 3 adult classes. We used part of the time in each class to make Valentines. It was a nice break and gave the students an opportunity to to make a small token of love to give to someone they care about.

More next week. God bless you all and HAPPY ST. VALENTINE'S DAY.