Never a Dull Moment

The students gather under the trees to kick off the games.

I think I said this phrase at least once a day this week...The week began in typical African fashion: on Sunday we found out that a game day between several schools and Rwentutu had been scheduled for Tuesday, the intended Canadian fun day (as this was their last day before heading to Kampala).  Actually, the entire district of Kasese apparently had a game day scheduled for Tuesday, so why we did not hear about it in advance was rather unclear, though typically African. J  This meant that a modified fun day had to be scheduled for Monday, and thus started a scramble for plans and supplies on Sunday night.  Come Monday morning, however, both vehicles which had been transporting us and the Canadians to the school were out of commission.  When we finally got the vehicles working and got on the road (about 12:30pm, 3 hours after our planned departure), the fun day had been reduced from a six-hour extravaganza to a two-hour rotation between four stations (down from twelve in the original plan).  To top it off, the road which we normally take out of town was blocked, and five minutes into our drive to school we had to turn around and find another route.

One of my students (Zebia) poses with her team sign.

Playing "Drip, Drip, Drench"

Now, I share this with you because after it all, we really just had to take a step back and laugh.  The games we ended up playing were a lot of fun and the kids were fantastic about the whole thing!  I helped run “Drip, Drip, Drench,” a version of “Duck, Duck, Goose” involving buckets and towels (I will let your imagination fill in the rest).   The kids just loved it, as did I on one of our hottest days here so far!  We left after a snack of mandas (a fried sweet bread a bit like a dense doughnut) and bananas, feeling that at least part of the day had been a success. 

Tuesday (the original fun day) consisted of an all-day netball and football tournament involving Rwentutu and seven or eight different schools.  Rwentutu was the star school, taking first place in both netball and soccer.

Spectators were 3 or 4 rows thick at the game day football
matches.

One would have thought Wednesday would have marked a return to normal; but unfortunately, the two main teachers for Primary 3 and Primary 4 came down with malaria.  For the rest of the week, an endless round of teachers were in and out of both my classroom and Bri’s classroom, as teachers from P5 and P6 came in to help out with Social Studies and Religious Education. 

Working on math-Joseph took some photos so I was
stoked to actually get some of me teaching!

Also, as the week was already half over, the time flew by.  In Primary 4, we continued working with decimals, getting into adding and word problems.  After helping to mark their math midterms a few weeks ago, word problems stand out to me as a challenging area, so any chance to practice interpreting word problems is essential to take advantage of, to review strategies for determining the type of problem and how to use the numbers.  In English we continued our study of “Polite Language,” and finishing the class each day with a short story.  Twice I have had to wait to finish reading because of limited time, but this has been a great opportunity to practice strategies like predicting and retelling, as well as to get the students excited about the books (I keep having students coming to me asking when we are going to finish a book)!

This week should be review for exams beginning August 1^st.  My challenge this week is to determine what my students most need to be prepared for their exams.  Unfortunately, due to the myriad disruptions (including my own sickness), we have not gotten through all of the material the students need to finish for exams.  My go-to teacher, Charles, was sick, then gone, for the past three days, so I have been unable to communicate with him about what he would like me to focus on with the students this week.  At present, I will plan to push ahead and get through as much of the new material as I can until I can talk with my teacher again. 

This kind of communication has been a challenge for all of us, as there are two hours of “remedial” classes (used for anything from review to extensions of lessons to make-up classes) during which we are not at school.  What happens during remedial classes is something I wish I had been asking about for the past month and a half, as I realize now those times could have been used to make up for missed lessons.  Charles and I finally discussed this last week and did some lesson sharing, but not before I got to school for my observation last week and realized a portion of my lesson plan had been taught that morning, and had to scramble to adjust my lesson accordingly.  Again, these things can be cause for frustration, particularly as exams get closer, but they have taught me the importance of being very intentional about communication between myself and the other teachers.

At KCCL in front of the bacteria tanks

This weekend served as a bit of a recovery for the past two weekends of travels.  On Saturday, we toured Kasese Cobalt Company Ltd., the mining company Rob manages here in Kasese.  The entire operation is clean, utilizing water-generated power to run the refining process.  The refining process itself is done through the use of bacteria which eat away at impurities, effectively leaving a pure cobalt product.  It was absolutely amazing, and what really fascinates me is that this fantastic, clean company is providing jobs to a number of local Ugandans.  It is possible to industrialize in a way that forgoes excessive pollution and provides jobs for local people in a country where jobs are scarce and pollution is rampant.  The byproducts of this mining process are water and mud.  Pretty incredible!

A student sings (with passion) during chapel.
This isn't directly related to anything in my blog
but I thought it was too great a picture not to
share.  

We also enjoyed a visit from my friend Joseph this weekend.  I met Joseph on my last trip to Uganda, out in the east where his family is from.  Joseph is currently volunteering two hours away from Kasese in a city called Mbarara (say m then ba-rah-rah), so we were determined to meet up at some point.  It was lovely having him around to catch up and enjoy some down time in Kasese.

This week is our last teaching at Rwentutu before exams begin next week.  It is absolutely incredible to me how quickly the time is gone.  In fact, I will be flying out from Entebbe in exactly two weeks from today…and back in Madison two weeks from tomorrow!  It does not feel real quite yet, so if you are wondering how I am feeling, I really could not tell you…I will let you know in a week!