There are two pressing problems that Steve and I feel we can combat at this moment in Ddegeya, lack of education and malnutrition. We have created a two pronged morning program to combat both of these problems. We have thirty local children between the ages of 2 and 7 who do not go to school come to the clinic.
The first aspect combats lack of education. During the hours that the children are at the clinic we practice letters, numbers, and writing. In order to practice these things we have purchased each of these kids a little blue book in which we write exercises every night. Their abilities vary. Some of the older kids can write their names while some of the younger kids have trouble holding a pencil. We alternate our time between writing, chanting/singing letters and numbers, and playing with the few soccer balls and other toys we have.
The second aspect of the morning program combats malnutrition. When I first came here I asked Steve if he would be interested in growing some of our own food. We didn’t really have a lot to do and I thought it would help fill our time. Now my idea of a small garden has grown into a soccer field sized garden, full of 150 cabbages, over 200 maize plans, 200 bean plants, 200 peanut plants, carrots, greens, green peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Now we plan to do several things with this food. The first, which applies most directly to the morning program is make peanut butter out of the peanuts we grow and feed it to the children who attend the morning program. This should hopefully combat kwashiorkor. We also plan to give them chewable children’s multivitamins. Now there are several things we plan to do with the rest of the food. First, we plan to give a bunch to the kids who attend the morning program to increase verity in their families and their diets. We also hope to give some to malnourished patients. This was a really good idea Steve had. We will give foods rich in vitamins that patients need to help cure their illnesses. For example, a patient coming in with eye problems will be given carrots to increase their vitamin A intake. The last thing, but also the hardest thing, we hope to do with the food is barter with poorer local families for our staple foods. For example, we would give families who have plenty of cassava, carrots in exchange for their excess cassava. This would allow the family to add variety and nutritious food to their diets with little extra cost.
The first day was a complete disaster. John had to help us the entire time and the kids were terrible. Many would pick up brooms and beat the other kids with them, others would run into our neighbors gardens and dig up sweet potatoes to eat, and others would horde all the balls and hide them in the chicken coop. It was terrible. In addition, none of them would listen to us instead they would just come up to us and hit us. John had to send several of the kids home.
The next day the kids were better. While still bad they started to listen to us. Now the third day is when a change started to happen. One of our really troublesome kids, Kassim, was sent home. He lives right across from the clinic. When he arrived home early his dad knew that it was because of his behavior. His dad then beat him really hard in front of his house, which also happened to be in full view of all the kids we were teaching. Now all I have to say to a kid is “Oyagala ogenda waka?” – “You want to go home?” and they shut up stop what they are doing wrong and act properly. Now there are some kids that are just to small to understand. For example, one of my favorites, Joan age 2.5 just doesn’t understand. In addition, she loves attention which she gets whenever she is bad so she keeps being bad. We have had to resort to putting her on top of one of the picnic tables whenever we have free time. She is too little to get down by herself, so whenever she gets bored you hear her little voice yelling “Oyagala viao!” –“I want away!” It is so cute! In addition, when she is good she acts just like a thirty year old. She crosses her legs when she sits down and has long involved conversations with me. It is soooo cute.
One of my other favorites, Maze age 2.5, is an example of a success story. Maze is Peter and Nabuuma’s younger sister. Until we started the morning program she was unbelievable shy. For example, while she would tell her mother that she was friends with John, she would be too scared to come within fifty feet of him and whenever he came near her she would pretend to do something else instead of look at him. In addition, while she would shout my name and wave at me from far away, when I came close she would run away and hide. However, after a couple days at the morning program she has started leaving Peter’s side (something she never used to do) and make friends her own age. The other day she even got up in front of everyone and counted to ten. She is learning really rapidly and now holds my hand and has conversations with me. It is so amazing to see what a great effect we have had on her.
One of the things that shocked me most about the whole program was at the end of the day all of the kids walk home by themselves, even those that are two years old and live over half a mile away. Even Joan, who is a niece of Susan our cook, can walk home all by herself. Sometimes she doesn’t want to leave and Susan has to walk outside and point her finger at Joan. Then Joan gets the hint and waddles home. She is one of the kids with the worst kwashiorkor and I really hope our peanut butter helps her get better. She has the littlest limbs and the biggest belly. It is really sad to see.
Overall I have really enjoyed the morning program. It has been both the most challenging and the most rewarding. Sometimes I want to hit some of the kids they are so bad, but at the end of the day when I am writing new exercises in their books I think about how much good I am doing and I really believe that if more Minerva Fellows came and continued this program it would have an effect on the population.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
School Starts Up Again
When I returned from Kampala Steve and I were supposed to start a regular and intensive teaching schedule at the primary school. However, the schedule the head mistress created had us teaching PAPE (Performing Arts and Physical Education) to Primary 1 through 4 for two hours every day and one hour of English or Math a week. This schedule was far from the eight hours of English or Math we were hoping to teach a week. In addition we felt as if we were being used. It seemed as if the head mistress wanted us to teach these subjects because she thought we could buy the supplies for them. In the end we came to a compromise. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we teach two periods of Phys. Ed. and then one period of English or Math to P.5 and P.6. Between 4:30 to 5:00 we do Primary Leave Exam (PLE) review with the P.7 Students.
This schedule has actually worked really well. At first I thought I would be a terrible gym teacher, but I have actually really enjoyed my time teaching gym. Gym classes are fun because I work with the female half of the class while Steve works with the male half of the class. This is good for two reasons, one while boys here play soccer girls here play net ball (sort of like basketball) this means that all those throwing exercises I learned while trying to play rugby are paying off. Two, it means I don’t have to try and control a bunch of teenage boys showing off with a soccer ball. Steve doesn’t seem to enjoy the gym classes half as much as I do. Now I must give a shout out to my friend Lindsey Koonz who has just graduated with her degree in Physical Education!!
I also enjoy teaching English and Math on a more regular schedule. For the past couple of weeks I have been working on writing letters to American students with my P.5 class. I will go into this more in depth later. It was a really good experience and I think the kids really enjoyed it. I have yet to teach a math class, however, I did get to help correct math quizzes with Mr. Mugerwa. This was really cool, red pen makes you feel really powerful!! Kathleen, I am envious!!! It made me feel very adult to be correcting someone else’s work. In addition, I finally felt like I was doing something productive at the school. It was productive because the teachers do not teach if they have stuff to grade. Unlike in the US where teachers have to bring home their papers, here they just don’t teach the class if they haven’t finished grading the work from that class. For example, until those math quizzes are graded Mr. Mugerwa will not teach another math class to P.5.
This schedule has actually worked really well. At first I thought I would be a terrible gym teacher, but I have actually really enjoyed my time teaching gym. Gym classes are fun because I work with the female half of the class while Steve works with the male half of the class. This is good for two reasons, one while boys here play soccer girls here play net ball (sort of like basketball) this means that all those throwing exercises I learned while trying to play rugby are paying off. Two, it means I don’t have to try and control a bunch of teenage boys showing off with a soccer ball. Steve doesn’t seem to enjoy the gym classes half as much as I do. Now I must give a shout out to my friend Lindsey Koonz who has just graduated with her degree in Physical Education!!
I also enjoy teaching English and Math on a more regular schedule. For the past couple of weeks I have been working on writing letters to American students with my P.5 class. I will go into this more in depth later. It was a really good experience and I think the kids really enjoyed it. I have yet to teach a math class, however, I did get to help correct math quizzes with Mr. Mugerwa. This was really cool, red pen makes you feel really powerful!! Kathleen, I am envious!!! It made me feel very adult to be correcting someone else’s work. In addition, I finally felt like I was doing something productive at the school. It was productive because the teachers do not teach if they have stuff to grade. Unlike in the US where teachers have to bring home their papers, here they just don’t teach the class if they haven’t finished grading the work from that class. For example, until those math quizzes are graded Mr. Mugerwa will not teach another math class to P.5.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A Night Out In Kampala
Because my friend can not speak any Luganda I decided to escort him back to Kampala where he would catch his bus to Nairobi. We went a day early so that I could see what local Kampala night life was all about. We stayed in a Hostel filled with only locals directly next to the taxi park. Lets just say this is not the “nice” area of town. On the top floor of the hostel was a bar filled with all locals. We spent the night talking to people in the bar and sitting on the balcony watching the traffic going in and out of the taxi park.
First, I should comment on the taxi park. The taxi park consists of three different levels. The ground level or the area where the taxis drive has two groups of people the taxi drivers and their conductors avidly searching and grabbing people to take in their taxis and vendors walking around selling things to people in the taxis. The first group is quite aggressive and can be very pushy. There was a huge fight over whose taxi my friend and I were going to go in when we left Kampala the first time. I got really scared because I didn’t know what was going on, but apparently what happened was one guy was trying to lead us to his taxi and another taxi driver poached us. The second group, the vendors sell everything from a complete dinner that they have on plates stacked on top of each other on their heads to watches to ice cream to soda to newspapers to skewers of freshly grilled goat meat. Needless to say it’s quite interesting just to sit in a taxi and watch all these vendors go by.
Directly surrounding the area where the taxi park is a market selling everything you can think of. Littering this ridiculously busy market are male pedicurists who you have to be careful not to bump into. In addition, make shift restaurants litter this area selling everything from a cheap bowl of Kotogo (matooke in some sort of broth of beans, chicken, tomatoes, or ground nuts) to chapattis (a tortilla like bread). This was by far the coolest and most interesting place to grab a meal in the middle of my night at the local bar.
On the street directly across from the taxi park are shops selling goods from china. These shops are owned by someone rich who rents out the room to a vendor. The landlord sets the rent so high that ten or so vendors have to squeeze into a shop and share the rent. That means each small shop is divided into three or four different shops selling completely unrelated items. These people then rent out the side walk space outside of the store to street vendors who practically cover the pavement with their goods. These vendors then promise to save their space for a friend for a small fee. Basically it is one person renting from another over and over again.
So the Bar itself was called the Park Side and had balconies over looking this chaotic mess of a market/taxi park. Inside the bar was a wide variety of people. Most seemed to somewhat well off by Ugandan standards. For most people here a beer is a huge luxury. The first interesting thing happened when I asked for a cup of coffee. The bar tender looked at me confused and then held up little plastic bags of coffee flavored liquor. Eww!! After a little investigation I realized that all the hard liquor they sold came in little bags about the size of a Kens Salad Dressing. You can get everything from a Beckham Gin or a B-52 Vodka. After having my fair share of cheap alcohol on my term abroad in Vietnam I stuck to the beers. In addition to ingesting alcohol I meet several people around the bar. They were all very nice and wanted to buy us beers, alcohol, and whatever else we wanted. I never know how to react to such hospitality. In America and some western European countries when someone offers you something it is not always the polite thing to accept. For example, in America it is considered a little rude to take the last piece of cake without offering it to every one else first, and if someone offers to buy you a beer in a bar you better buy the next round. However, here people keep buying things for me and won’t let me buy the next round so to speak. So I can’t tell if it would be rude to buy the next round or I should be. Either way I meet some really cool people.
I met one man who was a civil engineer. He got his degree in India. He is currently working on a building for USAID. His brother has a BA in electrical engineering and has moved to America. His brother has moved to America because the American dollar goes so much further in Uganda that he plans to work really hard and save about 40,000 dollars and then move back to Uganda and retire. The problem, however, is that he does not have a green card. He wouldn’t be able get an electrical engineering job with a BA from Uganda anyways. So instead he works as a bouncer and a window washer. He makes 700 to 800 dollars a week and of that is able to save about 100 to 200 dollars. Now I’m not sure how much of this story is true. It was hard to tell b/c while the man I met had a good idea of how much things cost in America he was drunk and it all seemed sort of unbelievable. In addition, he was with a woman who was supposedly his wife. But, she was very quite and removed from the conversation. Now this could be Ugandan culture and this is very probable considering how patriarchal Ugandan society is, but the guide books said that this area of town had a lot of prostitutes in the bars and I am still wondering if she was a prostitute and he made the whole story up.
First, I should comment on the taxi park. The taxi park consists of three different levels. The ground level or the area where the taxis drive has two groups of people the taxi drivers and their conductors avidly searching and grabbing people to take in their taxis and vendors walking around selling things to people in the taxis. The first group is quite aggressive and can be very pushy. There was a huge fight over whose taxi my friend and I were going to go in when we left Kampala the first time. I got really scared because I didn’t know what was going on, but apparently what happened was one guy was trying to lead us to his taxi and another taxi driver poached us. The second group, the vendors sell everything from a complete dinner that they have on plates stacked on top of each other on their heads to watches to ice cream to soda to newspapers to skewers of freshly grilled goat meat. Needless to say it’s quite interesting just to sit in a taxi and watch all these vendors go by.
Directly surrounding the area where the taxi park is a market selling everything you can think of. Littering this ridiculously busy market are male pedicurists who you have to be careful not to bump into. In addition, make shift restaurants litter this area selling everything from a cheap bowl of Kotogo (matooke in some sort of broth of beans, chicken, tomatoes, or ground nuts) to chapattis (a tortilla like bread). This was by far the coolest and most interesting place to grab a meal in the middle of my night at the local bar.
On the street directly across from the taxi park are shops selling goods from china. These shops are owned by someone rich who rents out the room to a vendor. The landlord sets the rent so high that ten or so vendors have to squeeze into a shop and share the rent. That means each small shop is divided into three or four different shops selling completely unrelated items. These people then rent out the side walk space outside of the store to street vendors who practically cover the pavement with their goods. These vendors then promise to save their space for a friend for a small fee. Basically it is one person renting from another over and over again.
So the Bar itself was called the Park Side and had balconies over looking this chaotic mess of a market/taxi park. Inside the bar was a wide variety of people. Most seemed to somewhat well off by Ugandan standards. For most people here a beer is a huge luxury. The first interesting thing happened when I asked for a cup of coffee. The bar tender looked at me confused and then held up little plastic bags of coffee flavored liquor. Eww!! After a little investigation I realized that all the hard liquor they sold came in little bags about the size of a Kens Salad Dressing. You can get everything from a Beckham Gin or a B-52 Vodka. After having my fair share of cheap alcohol on my term abroad in Vietnam I stuck to the beers. In addition to ingesting alcohol I meet several people around the bar. They were all very nice and wanted to buy us beers, alcohol, and whatever else we wanted. I never know how to react to such hospitality. In America and some western European countries when someone offers you something it is not always the polite thing to accept. For example, in America it is considered a little rude to take the last piece of cake without offering it to every one else first, and if someone offers to buy you a beer in a bar you better buy the next round. However, here people keep buying things for me and won’t let me buy the next round so to speak. So I can’t tell if it would be rude to buy the next round or I should be. Either way I meet some really cool people.
I met one man who was a civil engineer. He got his degree in India. He is currently working on a building for USAID. His brother has a BA in electrical engineering and has moved to America. His brother has moved to America because the American dollar goes so much further in Uganda that he plans to work really hard and save about 40,000 dollars and then move back to Uganda and retire. The problem, however, is that he does not have a green card. He wouldn’t be able get an electrical engineering job with a BA from Uganda anyways. So instead he works as a bouncer and a window washer. He makes 700 to 800 dollars a week and of that is able to save about 100 to 200 dollars. Now I’m not sure how much of this story is true. It was hard to tell b/c while the man I met had a good idea of how much things cost in America he was drunk and it all seemed sort of unbelievable. In addition, he was with a woman who was supposedly his wife. But, she was very quite and removed from the conversation. Now this could be Ugandan culture and this is very probable considering how patriarchal Ugandan society is, but the guide books said that this area of town had a lot of prostitutes in the bars and I am still wondering if she was a prostitute and he made the whole story up.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
163 Pairs of Shoes
My first month here ended on August 29th. One week later, on September 5th, a friend of mine flew in to visit. In general I was a little scared about this, not because I did not want to see my friend, but because it took a while to acclimate to living with a group of life long friends (Hudson, Richard, John, Susan), who speak a different language then me. Basically, no matter how hard I tried I would never be in their circle, included in their personal conversations or share any inside jokes because not only do I have to break into their friendship circle (which is impossible to do with life long friends), but there is a huge language and cultural barrier. This meant getting used to lots of time by myself. I was worried that seeing a close friend would undue all the acclimating I had done. I was right, seeing such a close friend early on, did undo some of the adjustment I had work so hard to achieve, and I would recommend that next time people wait a little longer if someone is going to visit.
That said, with my friend’s arrival came my first weekend away from the village. We spent the weekend in Kampala and went back to Ddegeya for the week. I went to Kampala on the fifth expecting him to meet me at the hostel that night. Unfortunately, his bus from Nairobi got into an accident, about half way through Kenya one of those huge trucks transporting petrol side swiped the bus and took off the back. While the accident did cause severe damage to the bus, it valiantly continued on and while the passengers had a cold ride, they made it to Kampala at one in the morning on the 6th. This should be a warning to everyone who wants to travel in East Africa, your bus could be next.
While waiting for my friend I was able to spend some time walking around the busy streets of Kampala. I would like to say this was a nice experience and change from the empty pathways that naturally formed between neighbors land in Ddegeya, but the streets and side walks were so busy and packed that it felt like the mall the day after Thanksgiving. Kampala is more fun than the mall, however, because there are street vendors randomly sitting in the middle of the sidewalk that you can’t see because of the crowds. Therefore, every couple of blocks you get to trip over some poor old woman and her basket of peanuts, feel guilty, and buy a bunch of them. In addition, the number of pick pockets was insane. Every five minutes or so I would feel a tug on my bag and turn to find someone with their hand in the front pocket. Luckily I knew better than to keep anything in there. It got so bad that the following day I didn’t even bother zippering it when I went out. Through the sea of pickpockets, street vendors, and other crap I did see an oasis. I found an American bakery called Hot Loaf. YAY!!!
While I went to Kampala to pick up my friend I also had several important errands to do. One was to buy the teachers guides for Primary Five/Six English and Math. My friend and I met up with John (who was also in Kampala for the weekend) on Saturday. John showed us how to go shopping Uganda style. First you go to the area of the city where your item is sold. Everything is split into sections. For example all the book/stationary/office supply stores are in one section. All the street vendors aggregate in the areas where the actual stores sell the same things they do. Next you find the priciest store that carries the item you are looking for and record the price. This is followed by about two hours of going to every store/street vendor until you find the one with the lowest prices. Then you buy. After circling the same four city blocks for about two hours we found all the books we needed. Wheph! I was off to have a beer (or two or three …) while John was off doing his next errand.
The following week we returned to Ddegeya. It was actually quite busy. First, we had to fertilize the land we are going to use to grow our crops. We did this the “all natural” way, with cow dung. We walked the half mile to Mr. Kalule’s house with two shovels and three wheelbarrows. He keeps some cows and both he and the cows were nice enough to let us use their poop. Twelve wheelbarrows later we had enough to cover our little plot of land. The rest of our afternoons were spent spreading the poop neatly all over our little patch of land.
Now I should note, that most farmers here can not afford to buy fertilizer, or know someone who is well enough off to have enough cows to produce enough fertilizer to effect their harvest. This is one problem that the farmers here have, especially because most of them are subsistence farmers and can not afford to let their land lie fallow for a year. The largest problem that farmers here have, however, is lack of irrigation techniques. Because there is no running water any watering that is done is one done by hand and two gotten from the well which is often very far from the farm. Since, then we have planted the nursery beds and every morning and night we have to fetch water to water them and then water the beds. I can tell you right now that this is hard work and we have a very small patch of land that requires very little water and Engeye is relatively close to the well.
This week was also busy because school started up again!! YAY! I was able to teach a couple English classes the first week. The teacher’s guides we bought in Kampala were a huge help. I am a little embarrassed to admit that when I went over the math for this term I got very confused. I understood all the units except for the first one which is on clock math. Luckily Steve understands it and he can help me out. While we still have not set up a definite schedule the weekend after I bring my friend back to Kampala we should be given something more permanent.
The most exciting thing that happened during my friend’s visit was the handing out of 163 pairs of shoes to local children. A church in Latham, NY had teamed up with Engeye to bring quality shoes the children of Ddegeya. This is the third shipment of shoes John has received and distributed. The first only had 12 pairs and many children went away crying thinking it was their only chance to have shoes and they lost out.
Before I discus how the shoes were given out, I will provide a little information about shoes in East Africa. Many people here do not have shoes, especially children. Parents don’t want to spend the money on shoes because they are not necessary. If children are lucky enough to have shoes they only wear them when they go someplace nice or on special religious holidays. Parents do this to make the shoes last longer. I would like to say that this helps the shoes last, but it doesn’t. Many people have so many children that the shoes still get very worn down. I helped a three year old put back on his sneakers the other day and the insoles were so worn out that he was standing on the plastic skeleton of the shoe with no padding. The majority of kids and poor farmers who do wear shoes on a somewhat daily basis wear really cheap foam shoes shipped in from china. It is really important to wear shoes here. There are several skin eating parasites that live in the dust that disfigure many peoples feet. The most common parasite is called Jiggers. Jiggers are small skin eating parasites that attach to the skin between the toes, around the toe nails, and where the toe connects to the foot. The Jigger then eats the skin in these areas. Often jiggers are left unattended for so long that the child looses his/her toe nails. If the parents do get around to removing the Jigger it probably managed to get really deep and the parent had to cut really deep into the child’s foot to get the Jigger out. Then the child has to walk around with a large cut on the bottom of his foot without shoes. Needless to say shoes are a huge deal and considered major luxury.
John has kept a running list of every child who comes to the clinic asking for shoes. When he gets in a shipment of shoes he walks around the village and tells everyone when he is going to hand out shoes. This particular time he was supposed to start handing them out at 10:00am. However, by 8:00 the clinic’s veranda was covered in children. All these children waited with large expectant eyes as Steve and John arranged the shoes by size and style. By 9:00 John had to start. One by one he would call the kids names off the list and they would come up and pick their shoes. All of them had been scoping out the shoes for the past hour and knew exactly which shoes they wanted. Thus sometimes you would hear a groan from the crowd as a girl got a certain pair of patent leather Mary Janes. Often a young child would have his or her eyes on a nice pair of sneakers that were just way to big. It was a long day of helping children find the right shoes for their feet. Everyone wanted a quality pair of sneakers that they could wear to church or on special occasions, but there were not enough pairs of sneakers to go around. By the end of the day, however, we had handed out 163 pairs of shoes.
The next day I took my first trip to a Ugandan church. I went to the local Protestant Church. This is one of the poorest churches in the area and has a small congregation; however, Lawrence goes there and offered to take us. Everyone was very kind and the Pastor even tried to speak some of the sermon in English so we would understand. The most interesting thing happened was at the end of the service. At the end of the service everyone walked up the front of the church to give alms. Instead of bringing money each person brought a basket or package of banana leaves to the front of the church. Then there they auctioned off the goods to the congregation. Because the good were brought to the church for free and no one was looking for a profit all the good went for really cheap, but at the same time the church still made money. I thought this was a great idea, because this way some families who could not ordinarily afford to have variety in their diet could have tomatoes, greens and other vegetables for relatively cheap.
That said, with my friend’s arrival came my first weekend away from the village. We spent the weekend in Kampala and went back to Ddegeya for the week. I went to Kampala on the fifth expecting him to meet me at the hostel that night. Unfortunately, his bus from Nairobi got into an accident, about half way through Kenya one of those huge trucks transporting petrol side swiped the bus and took off the back. While the accident did cause severe damage to the bus, it valiantly continued on and while the passengers had a cold ride, they made it to Kampala at one in the morning on the 6th. This should be a warning to everyone who wants to travel in East Africa, your bus could be next.
While waiting for my friend I was able to spend some time walking around the busy streets of Kampala. I would like to say this was a nice experience and change from the empty pathways that naturally formed between neighbors land in Ddegeya, but the streets and side walks were so busy and packed that it felt like the mall the day after Thanksgiving. Kampala is more fun than the mall, however, because there are street vendors randomly sitting in the middle of the sidewalk that you can’t see because of the crowds. Therefore, every couple of blocks you get to trip over some poor old woman and her basket of peanuts, feel guilty, and buy a bunch of them. In addition, the number of pick pockets was insane. Every five minutes or so I would feel a tug on my bag and turn to find someone with their hand in the front pocket. Luckily I knew better than to keep anything in there. It got so bad that the following day I didn’t even bother zippering it when I went out. Through the sea of pickpockets, street vendors, and other crap I did see an oasis. I found an American bakery called Hot Loaf. YAY!!!
While I went to Kampala to pick up my friend I also had several important errands to do. One was to buy the teachers guides for Primary Five/Six English and Math. My friend and I met up with John (who was also in Kampala for the weekend) on Saturday. John showed us how to go shopping Uganda style. First you go to the area of the city where your item is sold. Everything is split into sections. For example all the book/stationary/office supply stores are in one section. All the street vendors aggregate in the areas where the actual stores sell the same things they do. Next you find the priciest store that carries the item you are looking for and record the price. This is followed by about two hours of going to every store/street vendor until you find the one with the lowest prices. Then you buy. After circling the same four city blocks for about two hours we found all the books we needed. Wheph! I was off to have a beer (or two or three …) while John was off doing his next errand.
The following week we returned to Ddegeya. It was actually quite busy. First, we had to fertilize the land we are going to use to grow our crops. We did this the “all natural” way, with cow dung. We walked the half mile to Mr. Kalule’s house with two shovels and three wheelbarrows. He keeps some cows and both he and the cows were nice enough to let us use their poop. Twelve wheelbarrows later we had enough to cover our little plot of land. The rest of our afternoons were spent spreading the poop neatly all over our little patch of land.
Now I should note, that most farmers here can not afford to buy fertilizer, or know someone who is well enough off to have enough cows to produce enough fertilizer to effect their harvest. This is one problem that the farmers here have, especially because most of them are subsistence farmers and can not afford to let their land lie fallow for a year. The largest problem that farmers here have, however, is lack of irrigation techniques. Because there is no running water any watering that is done is one done by hand and two gotten from the well which is often very far from the farm. Since, then we have planted the nursery beds and every morning and night we have to fetch water to water them and then water the beds. I can tell you right now that this is hard work and we have a very small patch of land that requires very little water and Engeye is relatively close to the well.
This week was also busy because school started up again!! YAY! I was able to teach a couple English classes the first week. The teacher’s guides we bought in Kampala were a huge help. I am a little embarrassed to admit that when I went over the math for this term I got very confused. I understood all the units except for the first one which is on clock math. Luckily Steve understands it and he can help me out. While we still have not set up a definite schedule the weekend after I bring my friend back to Kampala we should be given something more permanent.
The most exciting thing that happened during my friend’s visit was the handing out of 163 pairs of shoes to local children. A church in Latham, NY had teamed up with Engeye to bring quality shoes the children of Ddegeya. This is the third shipment of shoes John has received and distributed. The first only had 12 pairs and many children went away crying thinking it was their only chance to have shoes and they lost out.
Before I discus how the shoes were given out, I will provide a little information about shoes in East Africa. Many people here do not have shoes, especially children. Parents don’t want to spend the money on shoes because they are not necessary. If children are lucky enough to have shoes they only wear them when they go someplace nice or on special religious holidays. Parents do this to make the shoes last longer. I would like to say that this helps the shoes last, but it doesn’t. Many people have so many children that the shoes still get very worn down. I helped a three year old put back on his sneakers the other day and the insoles were so worn out that he was standing on the plastic skeleton of the shoe with no padding. The majority of kids and poor farmers who do wear shoes on a somewhat daily basis wear really cheap foam shoes shipped in from china. It is really important to wear shoes here. There are several skin eating parasites that live in the dust that disfigure many peoples feet. The most common parasite is called Jiggers. Jiggers are small skin eating parasites that attach to the skin between the toes, around the toe nails, and where the toe connects to the foot. The Jigger then eats the skin in these areas. Often jiggers are left unattended for so long that the child looses his/her toe nails. If the parents do get around to removing the Jigger it probably managed to get really deep and the parent had to cut really deep into the child’s foot to get the Jigger out. Then the child has to walk around with a large cut on the bottom of his foot without shoes. Needless to say shoes are a huge deal and considered major luxury.
John has kept a running list of every child who comes to the clinic asking for shoes. When he gets in a shipment of shoes he walks around the village and tells everyone when he is going to hand out shoes. This particular time he was supposed to start handing them out at 10:00am. However, by 8:00 the clinic’s veranda was covered in children. All these children waited with large expectant eyes as Steve and John arranged the shoes by size and style. By 9:00 John had to start. One by one he would call the kids names off the list and they would come up and pick their shoes. All of them had been scoping out the shoes for the past hour and knew exactly which shoes they wanted. Thus sometimes you would hear a groan from the crowd as a girl got a certain pair of patent leather Mary Janes. Often a young child would have his or her eyes on a nice pair of sneakers that were just way to big. It was a long day of helping children find the right shoes for their feet. Everyone wanted a quality pair of sneakers that they could wear to church or on special occasions, but there were not enough pairs of sneakers to go around. By the end of the day, however, we had handed out 163 pairs of shoes.
The next day I took my first trip to a Ugandan church. I went to the local Protestant Church. This is one of the poorest churches in the area and has a small congregation; however, Lawrence goes there and offered to take us. Everyone was very kind and the Pastor even tried to speak some of the sermon in English so we would understand. The most interesting thing happened was at the end of the service. At the end of the service everyone walked up the front of the church to give alms. Instead of bringing money each person brought a basket or package of banana leaves to the front of the church. Then there they auctioned off the goods to the congregation. Because the good were brought to the church for free and no one was looking for a profit all the good went for really cheap, but at the same time the church still made money. I thought this was a great idea, because this way some families who could not ordinarily afford to have variety in their diet could have tomatoes, greens and other vegetables for relatively cheap.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Mr. Mugerwa George William
Mr. Mugerwa George William is a teacher at the school where I teach, St. Timothy’s Primary School. The school and its students are poor. Most do not have pens, books, paper, or lunch. Mugerwa grew up in a neighboring village and once was one of these poor students. He comes from a family of 16 children. His father was unable to support the family, therefore, his mother provided for the family by brewing local beer from plantains called Tonto. Using this money she was able to feed all of her children and pay for all of her male children to attend school up to Secondary Four (S4). After S4, however, Mugerwa had to provide for himself. Wanting to be a teacher he raised goats and sold them for his tuition money. He was able to get a degree in Primary Education. Today he is qualified to be a Primary School Teacher. He makes 83,000 Ush a month (50 USD).
Mugerwa is extremely nice and welcoming to Steve and me. He often drops by the clinic with a bunch of bananas or avocados for us. He always thanks us for the work we are doing and tells us that he appreciates our service. But really it is Mugerwa that works really hard and does a service to his community. He has worked hard to get out of the village and earn a degree and now he has chosen to come back and teach those children who he knows need it the most.
The other day, Steve and I walked into Ddegeya to get our first cold soda. While in town Mugerwa walked by and asked if we would come spend some time in his home. We went. He rents a small room behind the local barbershop. The room is about three times the size of a twin bed and is split into two sections by a large curtain hanging from the ceiling. On one side of the curtain was just enough room to fit a twin bed. On the other side of the curtain was a small chair, table and love seat. All of the furniture was wooden with small cushions. Along the wall of the sitting room was his food and cooking supplies. On the wall he had hung a calendar, a poster of his favorite soccer team, and a picture of the Virgin Mary. While this room does have electricity it does not have a window.
While we were visiting, Mugerwa told Steve and me his life story. He also showed us photos of his family, and a portfolio he has put together of all of his certificates and important papers. I was really impressed to see how carefully he packaged even his primary school diploma. It struck me how valuable paper and certificates are to people here. I don’t even know where my high school diploma is let alone my elementary school diploma. What shocks me the most about Mugerwa, however, is that he has a white collar job, is making more than the average person, and appears to be barely making ends meet. I can’t imagine how he does it. His monthly salary is equivalent to what I spend on food for one month.
Mugerwa is extremely nice and welcoming to Steve and me. He often drops by the clinic with a bunch of bananas or avocados for us. He always thanks us for the work we are doing and tells us that he appreciates our service. But really it is Mugerwa that works really hard and does a service to his community. He has worked hard to get out of the village and earn a degree and now he has chosen to come back and teach those children who he knows need it the most.
The other day, Steve and I walked into Ddegeya to get our first cold soda. While in town Mugerwa walked by and asked if we would come spend some time in his home. We went. He rents a small room behind the local barbershop. The room is about three times the size of a twin bed and is split into two sections by a large curtain hanging from the ceiling. On one side of the curtain was just enough room to fit a twin bed. On the other side of the curtain was a small chair, table and love seat. All of the furniture was wooden with small cushions. Along the wall of the sitting room was his food and cooking supplies. On the wall he had hung a calendar, a poster of his favorite soccer team, and a picture of the Virgin Mary. While this room does have electricity it does not have a window.
While we were visiting, Mugerwa told Steve and me his life story. He also showed us photos of his family, and a portfolio he has put together of all of his certificates and important papers. I was really impressed to see how carefully he packaged even his primary school diploma. It struck me how valuable paper and certificates are to people here. I don’t even know where my high school diploma is let alone my elementary school diploma. What shocks me the most about Mugerwa, however, is that he has a white collar job, is making more than the average person, and appears to be barely making ends meet. I can’t imagine how he does it. His monthly salary is equivalent to what I spend on food for one month.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Some Things I Have Been Meaning To Write About
Taxis
Although I did discus the public versus private taxi system within
A couple of Saturdays ago Steve and I started teaching English and Counseling at the nursing school Lawrence teaches at. The school was started by a Ugandan midwife. She started the school as an all female nursing school. She wanted to give Ugandan women the ability to make money so that they could gain some independence and provide for their families. Originally the school was private. Today the school needs government funding. One government requirement is that the school accepts both male and female students. While the school is now co-ed the male to female ratio is 1 to 10.
Teaching at the Nursing school is actually very hard. All of the students are my age or older which is very intimidating. In addition, I don’t know anything about medicine, healthcare, or first aid. Most of what I teach comes directly from a book I brought called Where There Is No Doctor. I just pick a topic I think is relevant to what they will see, such as TB or malnutrition, and teach pretty much directly out of the book. I am hoping to find a better way to learn what I need to teach. I watched
After teaching last week, he pulled Steve and I aside and asked us to talk to another one of the teachers, Mr. Jude. Mr. Jude is looking to apply for funding from USAID. He wishes to fund a traveling HIV/AIDS education and testing program. However, as a Ugandan with no American contacts he is having trouble finding an entry point into the application process. He has asked Steve and I to help. Steve and I don’t really know how to get involved with USAID, do any of you have any ideas?
Visiting the Head Mistress
On the last day of the previous term Head Mistress Mutauue Catherine asked Steve and I over for lunch. We were supposed to meet her on Monday August 25th at 10:00am, but when the time came to arrive at her house we were hard at work digging and spreading dirt around the clinic compound. About an hour later Mr. George William came looking for us. So we quickly stopped what we were doing, showered, and got on a taxi to Masaka. We told George William that we could board the taxi ourselves, however, he apparently did not believe us because he hid behind a bunch of bushes and when we hailed the taxi jumped out and gave the taxi driver specific instructions on where to take us. After waiting for about a half an hour Mrs. Catherine arrived and took us to her house. Mrs. Catherine is by far the wealthiest person we know/have visited. Her husband is a business man who works in construction. He is currently building one of the largest hotels in Masaka. She lives in a nice neighborhood close to the center of Masaka. We even saw several Mnuzng’s driving into drive ways in this area. Her house is on a large piece of land which they utilize by growing several different types of fruit trees on it. Her house itself has running water, an indoor toilet, electricity (which powers a color T.V. and DVD player), lots of matching furniture (including a table and chairs). They have also built a complex around the house that houses over 10 pigs, a two room kitchen, three outdoor latrines, a chicken coop that holds about 200 chickens. In addition, she has a full time maid, sends all of her children to private school, plans to be able to send all of her children to secondary school, and has a car. It is really big deal that she can send her children to secondary school because it is very expensive.
We stayed for about four and a half hours. During this time we tried freshly squeezed passion fruit juice, freshly squeezed sweet banana juice (surprisingly really good), and we had beef with lunch. When you visit someone in
We arrived back at the clinic around 8:00 pm. When we walked back into the kitchen to say hello to
About an hour after Steve and I had finished dinner we hear a knock on the door. It was Mr. George William. He was stopping by because the headmistress had called him and was wondering if we were ok. We were supposed to have called her when we got back to Ddegeya. Once again, I felt terrible. Not only because we had once again been rude to Mrs. Catherine, but because Mr. George William had to walk all the way over to the clinic and get us for the second time. All in all we were very rude.
On a brighter note, I loved visiting the head mistress. She was so nice and talkative. I found the visit much more interesting and comfortable then the Mr. Kalule visits. In addition she had five beautiful sons. One of which was one and a half and looked exactly like her (surprisingly he was ridiculously cute).
I apologize for any typos, run-ons, misspellings, and confusing parts in my blog. We have very little power and I often rapidly type out a blog hoping to utilize as much of my computer battery as possible before the computer runs out of battery. I often do not have time to re-read what I type. Also thank you to everyone who sent me mail and posted comments on my blog. I really like hearing about what is going on in the
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