Hello everyone! I am here and safe. I could not think of a creative way to write this first blog (so I hope its interesting enough to you). I used bullet points to explain things we have done, seen and/or talked about so far that have really stuck out to me. I tried to include pictures for each bullet, but I can’t even begin to explain how slow the Internet is in this region of the country, so this will be a really bland blog (sorry, I had great aspiration but that kind of went down the crapper). The most important information is at the bottom so if you are interested in my role in Uganda make sure to scroll down and read “History & Situation” (it’s short, don’t worry).
* ORDER OF BUSINESS: I bought a cell phone. It would be easier to reach me by phone than by Internet. All you need to do is buy an international calling card and dial 011.256.0771869746 (the country code is the first 6 digits). Honestly I would just love to talk to anyone, so please call when you have the chance. If you call during the week leave a message. I won’t be able to charge the phone in the town I am teaching in so I will turn the phone on in the evenings (Ugandan time—10 hours ahead) and answer messages then.
* TO STUDENTS: Seeing lake Victoria from the plane was absolutely incredible! My stomach hurt wishing so hard that I could have shoved all one hundred and twenty of you in my backpack. I wanted you to see so badly this incredible view. It’s not just a place on a piece of paper that you had to memorize for a geography quiz. It is a REAL lake, and it is GIANT!!! (I didn’t get a picture, but hope to when I fly out.)
* Bug nets are pretty cool to sleep under, and strangely beautiful.
* Working with such adventurous, intelligent and compassionate people/teachers is really encouraging and inspiring. Culture is so deeply and profoundly embedded that working without others from my own culture can feel very isolating, I learned this in Peru and it makes me even more thankful for my colleagues here.
* Our luggage is lost. Yup, that’s right, by the time our luggage gets to us I will have been wearing the same outfit for 7 days (and the airport is not making any promises about 7). At first this was a rather hysterical situation, but after a 6 hour long bus ride to Northern Uganda I am really needing to smell better, if not for me then for my bunk mate. I spent a lot of money on clothes and things before I came; I bought them feeling slightly guilty about dropping so much dough on expensive items in order to work 6 weeks with Ugandan people who will most likely live their while lives without those things. Loosing my luggage is a good lesson for me in how I didn’t actually “need” all of the expensive REI items I thought I did. I’m doing just fine without them.
* In Kampala we went to Youth Empowerment House. The kids live at the school. They are only allowed to live there if they sleep at the complex every night, stay off drugs and alcohol and are working towards some kind of goal. The kids make art in any form and sell it to make money to support their schooling. Here are a few quotes that I liked from some of the kids…
“We don’t want to be rappers like the Americans, we want to speak about positive things.” Most of the students’ art at the Youth House was about war, oppression, hope, education, the history of their country and their place in the world.
“Because of globalization we are loosing our community feel” and, according to these students, it has been very damaging to Ugandans. They want to empower the next generation. (Delany, maybe that will help you figure out an answer to your question: Is modernizing culture more important than preserving it?)
* In Kampala we also went to one of the top secondary schools in the nation and got a chance to talk with some teachers in our subject area about their scope and sequence.
*On our drive to Gulu monkeys stopped us in the road.
* We are taking lots of classes this week in order to prepare us for the classroom (we start working with our team teachers at the beginning of next week). One of the classes was learning the Lwo language, and wow, the Lwo language is difficult. Just a minor intonation can change a word from rabbit to thank you (“apowyo”).
* White people are the definite minority and Gulu people look at us strangely as we walk by. However, we also get a lot of kind smiles.
* HISTORY & SITUATION OF GULU: Gulu is small, rugged/raw and has pockets of emerging development. When walking around at night you have to wear headlamps because there are no street-lights. It creates a very mysterious feel. I can hardly imagine how scary it must have been only a few years ago when kids from other villages were flooding into Gulu at night to hide from the LRA (Lords Resistance Army). The LRA were kidnapping and brainwashing kids in order to force them to be a part of their militia. They kidnapped over 30,000 children and there are still 10,000 not accounted for. 90% of Joseph Kony’s (the leader of the LRA) militia is made up of stolen children. One of the biggest challenges in teaching these children is dealing with the aspect of trauma. Many have watched people get killed or they did the killings themselves, and everyone from this area have certainly been affect by the war. When the war ended there were fights that would break out in the displacement camps because kids blamed other kids for killing their family members. The culture and stability in the North has been damaged drastically because of the war. Joseph Koney and his militia group, the LRA, have moved into the Congo, but the tradition of child soldiers is a trend now spreading to other parts of Africa. It’s amazing how one or a few “bad eggs” can spoil it for a whole community of people who just want to live descent and respectful lives. Acoli people are so wonderful and I am so sorry for the hardships they had to face.
Another challenge is the fact that teachers are one of the lowest paid positions. Like in the states, many teachers teach because they love it not because of the money, BUT many teach because it is the “last resort”. My group was told that the greatest thing we can do is encourage these teachers, and remind them how important their work is. We were asked not to give money, books and/or things because it only creates inequity, however encouragement, motivation and strategy building is what we can offer. Challenges facing Northern Ugandan teachers are: working with a community dealing directly with trauma, lack of resources/infrastructure, a population under the poverty line, large classroom sizes (between 60-120), terrible pay (in some cases teachers are paid by the parents because there is not enough money on the government payroll), stigma towards Aids and HIV, HUGE dropout rates (many students are the heads of their families because of the killings during the war), transportation issues and lack of support. Despite the challenges of the education system, education is an incredible desire for many Acoli people. That is the reason the Invisible Children program exists. Invisible Children asked the community “what do you need?” and these people screamed for education. Only 7% of the population had a secondary level education and less than 1% have go to a university, however this is drastically improving merely by growth in optimism by both the teachers and students. Invisible Children has had outstanding success with the teacher exchange program in the last two years and has high aspirations for the education system of Gulu, surrounding villages, and the IDP camps (internally displaced people).
* At the beginning of next week I start teaching. 5 of the 13 of will be going to a school in Anaka, another town 1 hour away from Gulu (I am one of the 5), the rest of the group will be teaching in Gulu. We will be driven there on Mondays and come back from Anaka at the end of the week. In Anaka we will be staying in a monastery (sounds kind of cool). There is no electricity in the town so I will not be able to email or blog from there. Also we are the first Invisible Children teaching group to teach in this town so it will be an interesting experience not only for me but also the students. However I am will have the cell phone so feel free to call.
* We have been taking endless classes this week on the history of the conflict, the state of education in Northern Uganda, post-war reconstruction, the Invisible Children organization, teaching strategies and Acoli culture & language, so as you can imagine it is completely overwhelming. Sometimes I sit in the meetings with anxiety as to how I am going to write home about this. With my extra time I am going to put together some sort of presentation in order for all of this to make sense to me, my students in Issaquah, family, friends, etc. So please know there is much more to write about and discuss than what I briefly mentioned in this blog.
Thanks.
