Getting lost in the culture

am so so sorry. I can't believe it has been so long since I have written. Thank you to all the dediccated people who have read my blog. Thank you so much to my parents who are so understanding and who called me while I was at a rhino sanctuary. :) It is amazing, but I am so so busy this year. It has been great! The classroom continues to be doing well, there are always challenges like getting children to participate, but Irene and I are doing our best to engage 80 students at a time. I am especially enjoying two of my student's company named Gloria and Catherine. They have taken me and my fellow teacher Ann under their wing and we visit them almost every day after school. We eat corn, they teach us how to dig and garden and we pump water together. Catherine also braided my hair the other day and I looked like a rapper and a little girl all at the same time. We have been dancing after school and planning like crazy for lessons every day. I have to mark papers all the time, while doing minni projects like trying to finish recording 12th Night for the blind students.
This past weekend our teachers came over and we had a picnic, which ended in a slip and slide lead by Jamie! It was amazing. The little children who came with their parents took off their very nice clothes and slid in their undies. It was great! This weekend we went to a rhino sanctuary with Jamie and our teacher group and stood twenty feet away from the rhinos!!! It was incredible. They got so close in fact that our guide had to tell us to back up because they might charge! AHAHAH! To sum up the amazing weekend my fellow teacher wrote a poem about it and I would like to share it with you all. It was such a peaceful day filled with life changing moments. Here it is:

Fenced into this safe place
we walked into grasses tall
and trees
luxurient with sounds almost friendly.

We came at last upon them:
animals gray, sensual, ancient.

Of course they won the confrontation; we moved back
before they also turned away.
For long moments then we watched them
massive creatures in a vast expanse of open land and silent sky.

Weakly we tried to hold onto this extra ordinariness
but the sweat of our backs
and thoughts of details mundane
pulled us back to mortality.

We left satisfied for our encounter with glory,
and at night
lying among fallings stars,
our questions were our praise.

we asked, we wondered,
we
wondered,
These were our gratitude for such infinite healing silence.

}Ann Heyse

I just love what she wrote and it pretty much sums up our entire weekend. Now I have returned to Gulu and am in my last week of teaching. This morning I had a class and I told them a story about how the turtle got its shell. They now have to write their own fable and then read it in front of the class in English and Lwo their native language. We are trying to incorperate western methods and Acholi culture into the classroom. We shall see how it goes.

Emily my dear friend is coming to visit me on Wednesday! So pray for her safe journey. I am busting at the seams! I can't wait to see her!
Miss you all very very much! I will return July 10th!

Team teaching and Dancing! What more could you ask for?

I feel so at peace when I dance the Acholi dance after school. If anyone remembers the documentary about the Ugandan dance that was up for an academy award, this is the type of dance that my kids do after school! I love it and embrace it! It was great to see my dancing friends and get back into the groove. The combination of singing and dancing is so uplifting. Of course the children all laugh that a bunch of Mazungoos (white people) are dancing their Acholi dance and shaking their hips, but after a while they started saying to me "Madam, you are getting it! Much better than last year." :) I just smile and say, "That is because I have amazing teachers." It is so important to empower these children when they are faced with so much oppression and adversity. I asked one of the students who told me she had been abducted by the LRA when she was 14 for about four months and then escaped if she thought they would come back. She is scared they will and she thinks they might. To live in that kind of fear on a day to day basis just boggles my mind. She asked me if there was any war in my country. It told her we were at war outside of our country, but I have never experienced one that was taking place inside of my country or right outside my door. I am just getting a small taste of what it is like to live in an area that has gone through war.
But then I look around and people are laughing, loving life, learning, dancing and going on with their lives. They inspire me and make me realize what is really important in life. My student asked me if I would go and plant flours with her in front of the dorm. I said I gladly would!!! How important it is to share days together and have human connections with one another. That is something that I am going to bring back to my New York City life style when I get home. Today is a day that we are honoring our teachers and we are going to have a picnic together! I can't wait!!! I am wearing my overalls and cap and making pasta! It is going to be a great exchange!
Team teaching this second go round has been awesome! Irene and I are on a roll and encouraging the kids to concentrate on their creative writing. We are also getting more class participation, in our 80 person classroom which rocks!!!

track and field events

Who would have thought that track and field events would be so important that they would cancel school? They are! But to be honest I have loved it. All of the schools in the Gulu District come together at this place called Peche stadium to compete. Even the students who are not competeing come to the stadium to cheer on their fellow students. My friend Ann and I went both days for about three hours and had a great time chatting with the students and teachers and seeing how it is really done. The boys and girls are soooo fast and strong. They run for miles, very often without shoes. I was very impressed.
We would ride our bikes there every morning and along the way we would have to pass through a cluster of trees that had hundreds of bats in them! We at first thought that they were birds, but no...bats! Children were using sling shots to try to hit them up in the trees. It was not plesent. On the way to the stadium one of the bats got so scared it decided to poop on my shoulder....ewww....bat poo! We took a break to clean it off my shoulder, but man! I have never seen so many bats out and about during the day!
Other than that we went to St. Judes, an orphanage, where one of the other teachers is teaching a class. He is incorperating a class with digital cameras. The children are really doing awesome work. I often love to go and participate and also play with the babies. There are at least 10 of them there that are between the ages of 1 and 3. My heart really goes out to them. Well, I am off to ride my bike home and lesson plan for tomorrow! First day of teaching!

Big Bike, small goat, little skirt, Boppin Party!

I bought a bike!!! My friend Ann and I were determined to buy bikes! Everyone here is so mobile. Either you are riding a bike, on a moto, or you are walking. We decided now was the time to get them. There were a lot of bikes shops, but we visited the first one we came across. The man who owned the shop was john. He advised us to get these huge bikes that were brand new. I said to him, "Now, look at me, I am very short!" He said, "I am as tall as you! Don't worry, we will fix it and make sure it fits you." I thought, ok, what the heck. So, we paid him and off we went super excited to buy bikes!!! We came back two days later to pick up the bikes and they looked exactly the same. They were huge and definitely made for a man to ride. We were a bit hesitant, but willing to try out the bikes so off we went into Gulu traffic reminding ourselves that we had to drive on the left hand side. AHAHAH!!! So scary. We were doging, cars, goats, cattle and we could barely get on the bikes! We were falling all over the place. Finally when Ann and I got back to the house we both said, "We have to go back and get new bikes!" So...The following day, I tred to ride the bike to school in my short skirt and when I say short I mean my shirt that covered my knees. That is really short here. I could barely get on the bike! My friend Agnes showed me how it was done in Uganda. You put one foot on the pedal and throw your other leg over. I got on and road to school, but while I was riding a bug flew in my eye and I almost took out a child. So...I was convinced that I needed a smaller bike. We returned to the shop and the owner gave us new shinny bikes that are just our size. I almost thought I couldn't ride a bike! That evenning as we were coming home with our new bikes I spotted a boy, who couldn't have been more than five years old, riding the old large bike that I had just traded in! Obviously, that large bike was for all sizes, I just didn't know how to ride it. :)

The next day when I came home I saw that we had two goats in our back yard! I asked my friend Agnes, "Agnes! We got goats!" Thinking that we got new pets. She said, "Yes, they are for the party tonight." I tried to not show the expression of horror that was on my face. "Oh," I said, "That's great, we are so lucky..." So I sadly watched the goats happily chewing on grass, but little did they know that they were going to be our dinner that very night. I said a goodbye to the goats as I was leaving on my way to school, cause I knew when I got back they were not going to be the same. I thanked them for their sacrifice. When I got home, guess what was on the grill?

BUT...we did have an amazing party. The organization that I am working for called Invisible Children organized a party for their staff because one of their staff members was leaving. We had a great feats of potatoes, vegetables, and you guessed it...goat. Which I did eat...and it was good.... It really makes you appreciate your food and the true definition of the circle of life. We had such a good time dancing all night long to amazing music in our front yard. All of the Americans went to bed and most of the Ugandans partied until the sun came up!!! It was awesome!

Today we are going to go see a man who keeps bee hives and gardens. I am excited! I hope everyone is well and having an awesome summer!!! :)

Planning lessons over laundry

It is so amazing ( I know, I always start this way but it is true) to be back at Gulu High School and see all of my old students. I honestly thought I would never be back here again and I think my students did too. When I recognize my old students I get overwhelmed with joy and start to almost cry and we run towards each other and laugh hysterically as they say "Madam you are back!" I can't wait to begin classes.
My co-teacher Irene and I had are first lesson planning day. She lives right near the school where she taught me to cook cabbage over a stove the other day. She told me to meet her at the school at 10:00am, which Africa time means 10:30, but I was there at 10:00. Time passed and it was 10:50. I wondered where she was, so I just decided to walk to her house. I turned the corner, saw her house and saw her washing clothes. She said that she needed to catch up on washing and honestly I didn't mind. She invited me to sit and plan the next lesson while she washed clothes. I am going to be recording Twelth Night with one of my other co teachers for the blind students and we were discussing how I was going to get the recording device.
I think she could tell that I was feeling a little uncomfortable sitting there planning while she washed clothes. She turned to me and said, "Do you want to help with the washing?" I said, "Sure!" Then she asked, "Have you ever done this before?" To be quite honest, the way she was washing the clothes was in three basins, one to wash with the suds, second to wash some more, third to rinse and then put on the line. I really honestly had never washed clothes in this manner before. She was scrubbing away with only soap and her hands. I had scrubbed in the sink, but never bent over washing everything from my shirts to my blankets! It was amazing. So, she gave me a wrap and I was there planning our lesson and washing clothes with her. What amazed me were the looks from the other african women and men watching this white woman bending over washing with her Ugandan friend. A woman came over to me and said, "thank you for your work." I said, "I am just helping out a friend." This is truly what the teacher exchange is all about. She teaches me her lessons in the classroom and outside the classroom. The man I spoke to was very confused that I was washing clothes, but I waved and yelled out, Afoyo! Which means hello. The children gathered around and picked mangos from the tree that was near us. We took a mango break and decided to make lunch with beans, sweet potatoes and avocados. I loved it! Again she taught me how to cook it, and she claimed that I cooked it when in reality there was no way I did it solo. She totally helped me. We then sat in her home and ate and chatted about politics, her weekend, my job, how life had been the past year. It was so relaxing and satisfying. I then washed the dishes while she finished up with the laundry and then we parted ways. As I left her little village a man said to me, "next time you are going to dig!" meaning he wants me to dig in the garden. "you bet!" I said. "I want to learn all that I can." I hope that I can bring these lessons back home with me. It is amazing to me how much they conserve water. They save it in their homes in huge cans and gather it whenever it rains in buckets. I hope I can bring a little bit of their practice back with me in the states.
If you happen to notice the current headlines about peace in Uganda, please think of the people. The talks are still going on, but it is not looking so good. So please think of them and the people living there. I am off to go pick up my bike I just bought! Hooray! I am bike bound and hitting the Gulu streets! Until next time! :)

Cooking African Style

I have less than a min to update but here are the highlights:

Cooking a cabbage dish on the stove with my teacher
Watching my teacher throw sticks in a mango tree to get the best mangos out of the tree. She was strong!
Going to mass and dancing and singing with my students! It was a blast!
Riding a boda again.
Seeing my old students and having them remembering my ping pong song.
And so much more! I will write more soon!

I am in AFRICA!

I don't have much time, but I just wanted to let you all know that I made it to Africa! After an 8.5 hour ride from England to Kampala, I am here at Back packers and honestly it is like I never left. I love it here. :) I love the fact that I can look out my window and see monkeys hanging from the trees. It is great to be back in the African environment and the group is awesome! Well I am off to eat a Spanish Omlet! I will write soon. Much love,

Margot