The "Typical Schedule" Becomes Atypical

A few of my P4 students

In all honesty, I don't know that there ever was a really typical schedule, so much as an ideal schedule.  Once again, the week was full of surprises (both good and not so good) and adventures!  To begin with, I arrived at school this week to find that my class had been cut nearly in half (a not-so-good surprise).  Instead of the usual 39 students, I was down to 25.  School fees were sent for last week, and a number of students who could not pay were unable to come to school.  Thankfully, as the week progressed nearly all of the students were able to return to school, and I was back up to 36 students by Friday.  I couldn’t quite believe it, though, as I looked around my class on Monday and realized just how hard the families of these students have to work to keep their children in school, and how important it is to them.

Some of my boys having an impromptu dance
party during lunch break!

Students playing "Brain Trustees" during debate time on Friday.
Each student puts their own question into a box, then draws a
a question which they must answer during their turn.  It was
completely student-led and a lot of fun to watch!

Myself with some P4 girls-Rodgers managed to sneak in
on the side!  You may have noticed him doing a similar pose
in the pictures above...

 On Friday, the teachers brought up the possibility of staying in the classrooms we are currently teaching in rather than changing classes again for the next two weeks.  Although I am a little disappointed to miss out on getting to know the P3 students, I am so happy to remain in P4, where I finally know the names of all the students and have an idea of their interests and ability levels, as well as the curriculum.  This makes planning lessons for them much easier and will hopefully allow me the time to try some strategies with individual students and use some more creative activities to engage the P4 students.

Monday saw the arrival of the first group of Canadians.  We were requested to leave at game time in order to meet the new arrivals.  However, Edson was unable to find the key to our car, so we ended up taking bodas (motorcycles) to the main road, and then an overstuffed taxi back home, where we arrived two hours later than they had been expecting us!  The keys turned up in a student’s pockets, and Edson actually made it home before we did!  It was a good lesson in public transport, however, and once again taught us to maintain flexibility in our schedules and expectations. 

Stopping for tea with Enoch and Edson on our way to Congo!

Tuesday saw another late arrival home after a day spend traveling to DR Congo with Enoch.  He spoke with the authorities to allow us to cross the border for the afternoon to go to the market without having to pay a re-entry fee for our visas.  We were hoping to purchase some of the beautiful fabrics women use to make dresses and head wraps here.  The Congolese market has higher quality and cheaper fabrics, and also the allure of being in a different country.  On the way, we spent the day visiting the sites of Bwera, a border town, before venturing into Congo in the afternoon.  In keeping with the Ugandan hospitality, we were treated as well as any travelling dignitary as we visited a school and a hospital, both of which Enoch oversees.  Unfortunately, when we crossed the border, the Congolese customs office wanted us to pay $50 each to go any further into Congo, so we turned around and went back, visiting the (slightly more expensive and less fascinating but still quite exciting) Ugandan market instead.  We stopped to visit Enoch’s home before returning to the school to pick up the newest arrivals, three Canadian volunteers who have come to help do some building at the school.   

Heading down to the pitch to play!

On Thursday we were invited to take part in a football (soccer) game with the staff against the older students.  It was fun but challenging as the field is full of potholes and not a few piles of cow droppings, and most of the players (staff as well as students) played barefoot.  Nonetheless, their passion and skills were evident and I was happy to get a few compliments at the end, in spite of feeling somewhat useless for much of the game! 

My biggest challenge this week has been English.  Before reading on, I must ask you to disregard any prior notions you may have of reading and writing in English class, and picture more of a foreign language class, focusing on sentence structures and grammar.  I have mentioned this before, but I found it particularly difficult this week to make the pages of sentence rewriting exercises feel at least a little less boring and rote.  I was not terribly excited to teach English this week, but one memorable lesson included groups of students acting out pictured scenes in the book while the rest of the class determined what was happening in the scene, and wrote sentences to describe the actions.  I do not think I have laughed that hard in any teaching experience to date, and the students seemed not only to enjoy it, but to get the purpose of the exercise, including identifying key vocabulary introduced in the unit.  If I were to do it again, I would require that they turn in their notebooks with complete sentences about each group’s actions in order to reinforce writing with proper sentence structure and correct spelling.  As it was, the students recorded what was acted out by each group and analyzed it as positive or negative behavior-the overall theme of the unit (you can see why it has been a little bit of a challenge to spice up!) 

Four of my students prepare to raise the flags

Rogers and Elias sort out the American Flag

This weekend I felt as though I was on a tropical holiday.  On Friday we attended “Eagle Production,” a live music show featuring one of the most popular bands in Uganda (or so we were told by one devoted fan).  Saturday was spent mostly by the pool in Kasese, enjoying the sunshine and the company of our new Canadian friends.  At the pool, we also met a South African man named Rob, who has spent the last 14 years here in Uganda running a cobalt mining company.  He invited us to a cookout at his villa for the afternoon on Sunday, which rivaled any 4^th of July celebration I could have had at home (minus the family part)!  Entering his compound (shared with a few other families or couples who work with the company) was like being back in the States or in England-he even has a washing machine!  We spent a spectacular day by the poolside, hearing fascinating stories about his time as a soldier or about his company, surfing, South Africa, and just life here in Uganda.   We may have the opportunity to go camping with him in the bush in a few weeks!!  Next up, planning for another week in P4, feeling thoroughly relaxed and rejuvenated after this weekend!  

Relaxing at the Kasese pool, where we met Rob!  I think we could
probably be on a magazine cover for tourism in Uganda J