Recent happenings in pictures

This is my village, kind of.  If I ever need something (food, flip flops, soap) it's all here.  Even airtime! :)

One of the many bread-flipflop-spices-lightbulbs-toiletpaper-oil-flour shops

The usual crowd around the porch. 

Cleaning the library!

Good news all around; our PTC has a lot of books, and the students are allowed to read them! :)

A clean and organized shelf! :)

This is how I do my laundry....

We were both doing laundry this day...Sara stopped to make some food

This is my dryer...

And this is the position I assume for anywhere from 1-4 hours.  It does wonders for the backs of the thighs...

Aaaaand...teach!

   Although I was prepared to jump in and teach on Monday, I didn't start until today because the staff meeting was held on Wednesday, no one was teaching before then.  I had quite the warm welcome to stream 2C (the students cheered and applauded when I entered).  I started with a name game (which eventually fizzled out after about 25 of the 60 students, but was fun anyway) and then taught a mini-lesson on living vs. non-living things.  The topic was as easy as it sounds, but it was more of an introduction to me and my teaching style.  I also had the students create rules for our science class.  Most of them were the usual (be respectful, respect materials, stay seated) but a student also requested that every class begin with a song.  Hmm...I thought they must have been just joking to see what kind of rules I would allow.  I had the class vote on it, and it was unanimous decision; they must begin every science class with a song.  Alrighty... We didn't start with a song today, but they wanted to sing to me in Kiswahili--which they did, in three part harmony!  I love for the love of music here.   As far as consequences for breaking class rules, I have something in the works that is brilliant, but I'm hesitant to announce it yet...I want to see how it goes first.  Just know that it's brilliant.  :) 

  Before teaching this morning, I was working on the Peace Corps phase II handbook (little assignments to do before in-service training).  Part of this is to get to know the college history and interview the teachers.  While the process of gathering the history, the Director of Studies mentioned, "You know, the founding principal just drove in.  He came to pick up some beds from the dormitory.  He'd be great to talk to!" AH!  What luck!

   I made my way down to the dormitory, where some second year girls were loading beds, which were on their last legs (literally) into a waiting truck nearby.  I introduced myself and explained what I'm doing at the Jinja PTC, and requested some information from him.  He's a very approachable and cheery man.  He said, "Before you ask me anything, let me just say that when I started this college, they gave me nothing.  They just said, 'Here's land, teach!'"  AH!  The college began with literally nothing; classes were held under the shade of mango trees.  They eventually had one office, which served as his office and the staff room.  Also, after some time, they procured a classroom.  The room served its purpose for teaching during the day and as a boys' dormitory at night.  We planned to continue the interview later, as he was busy with the furniture and I had to go teach, but before he left, he referred me to one of the science tutors who had attended the school from its humble beginnings (1990-- the college began in 1987).  I did as he said, and chatted with Henry. 

   While interviewing Henry, he mentioned, "Oh yes, that Principal was a great musician.  He composed the Jinja PTC school song...you know it?"  He sang a few bars.  I did not know it.  "Yes, and he also composed the Busoga anthem."  WHAT?  THAT song I know.  I just about fell over--I had met the man responsible for the Busoga anthem that opens workshops, meetings, introduction ceremonies, and any other ceremonial event in the Busoga region?  AND the founder of the Jinja PTC?  All in one day?! 

    If I didn't think my day was productive enough, I was antsy to do more.  It really bugged me how dusty/cobwebby the library was, and considering there were maybe four tutors around campus, I decided to spearhead a library-lovin' project.  I asked the Deputy Principal if I could gather some supplies to clean the library.  "Ah, well, you'll have to make a request for soap and basins, which will be approved by the bursar..." Really?  Just to clean a room? 

    "What if I supply the soap and basins?" 

   "Ah, then you can.  I'll get you a student..." The student he chose, Rachel, is the student in charge of the library?  I was unsure of her title or duties, but she is somehow in charge of the library.  She thought it was a great idea, and even collected a larger labor force for us.  

   All I can say is gee-whiz that library needed a cleaning!  Some of the things uncovered while sweeping away a (year?) of debris include: lizard eggs, spider eggs, dead bats, dead mice and a picture of students building the library shelves.  Whoooie!  We'll hopefully finish it tomorrow...I wonder what we'll find...    

Pictures

Bujagali falls

Horseback riding by the Nile!

My neighbor girlies, Lulu and Shakira

The workshop I co-facilitated.  Stations!  This was a chicken puzzle.

Hands-on with place value

How many juggles can you do in a row?

Visual impairment simulation.

Writing a friendly letter

It never surprises anyone but me when a rogue chicken wanders into a classroom....

 

This video was from an introduction I attended.  This is a traditional (Busoga?) dancer

Amaadi kugwa

    Although the rain here dampens my efforts at doing laundry, it gives me a good excuse to stay inside, lounge and read a bit.  I’m doing some small work as well--Peace Corps assignments and scheming.  Right before the downpour, I heard some neighbor kids squealing right outside my door.  Taking advantage, I took my Lusoga textbook and asked them, pointing at the sky,...
    “Kino, kino ni olukuba?” This, this is thunder?
    They stared.  I tried something else.  “Agya amaadi?” It comes water?
    They stared again.  One of the kids offered Shakira, the neighbor girl, to go to me.  Considering that sometimes people will threaten their children to be taken to the mzungu to be eaten if they don’t do such and such, Shakira started to cry. 
    Two older boys who always say hello to me were walking by.  “Hello!” I motioned, in Ugandan gestures (open and closing of hand, palm forward) for them to come to my porch.  “How do you say ‘rain?’” At this point, I think the younger children start to play the game let’s-get-really-close-to-the-mzungu-then-run-away-terrified.   
    “Ntambula gawa amaadhi.”  (I think?  I have such a poor short-term memory).  Shakira’s mother, Sarah, returned from wherever.  I asked her as well.
    “Agya kutambula amaadhi itono.”  It’s going to rain? More like, it’s going to travel water...itono.
    “Ah--kitufu?” It’s true? I asked
    “Kituf-” she said, cutting off the last vowel, as most Lusoga speakers do.

    No matter how you say it, rain is very welcome to me.  As long as I don’t have to go anywhere and manage the slip n’ slide that is Wanyange hill.  So, not only does the actual downpour give me an excuse to stay inside, the after effects hold me captive as well.  Thank goodness I’ve stocked up on mangoes and spaghetti, with a good book to read! 

P5 Rollout!

This week I'm working as a co-facilitator to the new P5 curriculum roll out to the P5 teachers.  The workshop roll out I'm assigned to is in Jinja town.  I'm expected to be there early, which means I wake up before the sun does...bathing outside is difficult, and for me, out of the question (I like to know what's crawling around me while I'm soapy and naked).  I've found that this has disorganized my morning a bit, but nonetheless, I'm at the primary school on time, even if the participants aren't.  

The first session I facilitated was about teaching learners with special needs.  I had the weekend to prepare: I drew charts, I did cross-reference online, I thought about special needs in the context of Uganda and I wrote a very detailed, time-bound lesson plan.  Throughout my lesson, I heard the birds outside, the chickens pecking away and the wind blow.  The P5 teachers, however, didn't say much.  I couldn't tell if they were more confused, overwhelmed, or focused on copying down everything I had written out that I told them not to bother to copy.  Either way, not much of a response. 

Today--I had prepared an interactive lesson, modeling "stations" with several different "learner-centered" P5 activities to teach about what "learner-centered" can look like in a classroom.  It was really fun to see the teachers getting into the activities!  I heard less of the wildlife outside and more of the teacher interactions inside.  For a math station, I had them try to juggle a ball on their knees, and count how many consecutive juggles they could achieve.  At a health station, they were discovering how it feels to move through a room while being completely visually impaired.  I had a lot of fun watching them, and I hope they took some ideas from it.  Some criticisms I received from a co-facilitator was that they may take this one strategy, stations, to mean learner-centered activities as a whole, and assume that only stations are learner-centered.  Additionally, because I showcased cross-subject stations, I modeled more of what a thematic classroom could look like, but not within one subject.  I'm hoping that between tomorrow and Thursday, their application of learner centered activities in their sample lessons will show that they think beyond just stations as learner-centered.  

In other news, I'm determined to learn new Lusoga words everyday (and names).  

Names: Steven and Nicholas are building my kitchen table, Shalwa is the very helpful P5 neighbor girl, Nasairye is another helpful neighbor child, Musa is Nasairye's ADORABLE younger brother, Hamina is a friend of Shalwa and Ashley is a man who works at a cell phone duuka that is located near where the cheaper Wanyange/Wairaka taxi parks in Jinja.

Words:  Mudala is stairs.  When I'm going back home from Jinja, I say, "Conductor, ngya ku Jinja PTC mu Wanyanga ku mudala," which ensures I get dropped off at the stairs, not the boda stage.  

More words tomorrow!      

SaturDAY, what a DAY! Hanging all week with you!

Ossibye oty'eo?  Good afternoon!  How are you?  
"I'm fine."  
 Lovely!  I am as well.  I sadly do not have much news to post, but I have the time, so I figured I might as well take advantage.  This past week I spent at Maggie's site, near Iganga.   Bishop Willis was hosting a workshop for introducing the new P5 curriculum so that the head teachers, tutors and Coordinating Center tutors can this week pass on the information to the actual P5 teachers.  I was looking around at other PCVs blogs, and have been hearing some feedback from others, and the general experience from others (whom I've heard) had a somewhat unfortunate/non-beneficial experience at the workshop.  I was too lucky to be with a group of teachers who were adamant about keeping time, got to the point and were creative and energetic throughout.  I took away several small learnings, one being that there are debates and different views one teaching local languages in schools. Also, I learned that the concept of ongoing assessment is a brand spanking new idea to Ugandan teachers.  I feel like it needs its own workshop, because it was evident there were a lot of participants who left confused.  A large piece of what I took away is what the P5 curriculum is; what it looks like and sounds like in the Ugandan context.  Just as literacy across the curriculum was the new initiative in Milwaukee  Public Schools before I left, Uganda is emphasizing language competencies across the curriculum, which was something that we all focused on in our lesson presentations.  One of my favorite presentations was the English group who taught about parts of the car.  For their lesson, someone drove up his actual car, and the presenter labeled his car with flashcards.  A comical debate followed about the cost of learning aids...haha...  I was somewhat nervous on the last day, before presenting my lesson.  Our group (science) ended up being scheduled last (although we were originally slotted to go first).  After each groups' presentation, the facilitator invited questions and comments from the audience.  This workshop was hosting great group of experienced teachers, and after politely thanking the group for their effort, they would go on to critique certain aspects of the lessons, especially ones that pertained to the realities of teaching Ugandan children.  I noticed a lack of just positive comments from the audience, so I would only comment positively on groups' presentations. My science group had elected me to present, which I originally thought would be a piece of cake, until I heard the critiques from the fellow teachers.  I tried to focus on deep breaths when I took the stage.  I taught about different types of soils, demonstrating with a student-led constructivist observation activity.  I made sure to incorporate the language competency for that lesson--reading and spelling clay, sand, loam and soil.  The time keeper rang his bell, and I abided by it, finishing my lesson by explaining how I would wrap it up.   I had one question, which was asking about when the students would have learned about the cooperative groups--I had the chance to defend myself and say that it would have been previously established and procedures would have been practiced prior to the lesson.  After that, there were only positive comments.  I couldn't tell if they were going easy on me because I was the only mzunugu there or if the lesson that I presented was an actual fantastic example of P5 science.  Either way, I THINK I made a good impression.  I did mention, as people complimented me afterward, that it was a group effort (our whole science group planned as a team, I was just the example teacher).  

I was spoiled at Maggie's place this past week--movies every night!  And great company! :)  Today my sole task was laundry, and wholly laundry--I used exactly 40 liters of water...  If my fellow PCVs read this they're probably shocked and horrified.  It's a lot.  But I did, like, an AMERICAN SIZED load of laundry!!  I can wear a different outfit each day of the week next week!  And they're all smart clothes!  :D  At one point, I ran out of room on the clothesline to hang things, and I had to dry my sheet (I EVEN WASHED MY BEDSHEETS!)  My backyard is mostly mounds of dirt, and then a garbage pit, so there wasn't even grass upon which it could lay.  I noticed that the roof of my latrine is slanted towards the sun (in the mornings) so I climbed up on a chair and hoisted it up, spreading it out.  It worked pretty darn well, and dried in under 20 minutes.  

In other news--get this fellow PCVs--I wore PANTS and I received TWO "You're smart!" comments today.  Woo!  And they weren't even that smart of pants...

Ok, I'll hopefully have some more interesting adventures to post soon...  And when I say interesting a pray that it's not one involving roaches...        

Addendum to the Last Post...

P.S. Dearest People Back Home,

I've also heard that some people would like to know what I could use here in Uganda.  I'll try to rank my wish list in order of want-ness,

1) Pictures from you all!  
2) Books (good reads, teaching references, mysteries, autobiographies...)
3) Magazines (People, Cosmo, National Geographic)
4) Markers, colored pencils
5) Nail polish
6) Good smelling things (Bath and Body hand sanitizers, lotions, sprays)
7) Beef jerky
8) Chocolate!  Mmmm....
9) Itunes gift cards (small ones!) Or the free Itunes cards from Starbucks
10) Cheese...mmmm....
11) Crystal Lite packets
12) Starbucks Via coffee packets


This is my wish list for now.  Again, I appreciate ANY mail!  :) 

SNAILMAIL!

Dear Family and Friends in America!

I've had some requests for my new address.  Firstly, I would like to say that I'm flattered, and excited, that people WANT to send me things.  I appreciate ANY mail; postcards, hand-written letters, pictures... If you would LIKE to send me a package with treats, there are a few things I'd like to mention.  Please send them in padded envelopes (the ones with bubble wrap on the inside), and not boxes.  Boxes take longer, and I would have to pay to pick it up.  

With any letter you send me, you will receive one from me as well!  (And I'll try to include pictures...)

So, here it is, my current address...

Mary McAlpin, PCV
Jinja PTC
PO Box 2017

Jinja, Uganda

Kale, and webale inho!  :) 

I went public!

Due to the difficulty of accessing my blog, even by those whom I've invited, I've decided to just make it public.  The last entry I posted was while I was still living at homestay in Lweza.  I've now moved and somewhat settled into my new home on Wanyange hill in Jinja district.  Between then and now, I've finished training, sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and temporarily said goodbye to my cohort of PCTs (until I see them again in three months).  However, I'm so close to the Jinja-Iganga road that traveling and visiting my Busoga friends isn't so difficult, especially Maggie, who is posted at the PTC down the road some 20 minutes. 

Here's a little anecdote that, after relaying to a friend back home, I realized I should expand a bit more on.  This was from last Monday.  " The closest borehole to me is dry because a pipe broke by the road, so I had to send a boda driver today to get me two jerrycans of water, and with that I had to do as much laundry as I had time for (which wasn't much). I then mopped my front porch with the leftover water, and saved a basin of the rest, just because I can't stand just tossing it."

Boda driver = Motorcycle taxi driver.  Wikipedia describes the history well: "The boda-boda taxis are part of the African bicycle culture; they started in the 1960s and 1970s and are still spreading from their origin on the Kenyan - Ugandan border to other regions. The name originated from a need to transport people across the "no-mans-land" between the border posts without the paperwork involved with using motor vehicles crossing the international border. This started in southern border crossing town of Busia (Uganda), where there is over half a mile between the gates, and quickly spread to the northern border town of Malaba (Kenya). The bicycle owners would shout out boda-boda (border-to-border) to potential customers - not to be confused with poda-poda, which is a form of shared taxi in Sierra Leone."
     There are two kinds of bodas in Uganda, one is a bicycle boda, and the other is a motorcycle boda.  They are now also called "Pikki-pikki," a name disconnecting the motorcycle taxi from it's somewhat questionable past.  

Jerry cans= Big plastic jugs that, in the beginning of their life hold things like cooking oil, paint or petrol, but are then washed out (really well) and used for fetching water.  The big jerrycans are 20 liters, but there are smaller varieties, which are much easier to carry.  The question I'd like to know is, where does it get it's name?  I've so far been surviving with just two Jerry cans, which is enough because my borehole is one house down. 

Borehole = Again, I like Wiki's description, "A borehole is the generalized term for any narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water or other liquid (such as petroleum) or gases (such as natural gas), as part of a geotechnical investigation, environmental site assessment, mineral exploration, temperature measurement or as a pilot hole for installing piers or underground utilities. Boreholes used as water wells are described in more depth in that article."  So, the borehole I refer to here is the water well type borehole.  It just looks like a pipe with a tap coming out of the ground.  I pay 100 shillings to Mama Tagaba and I get 20 liters of water.

And so, if my little story didn't make sense at first, re-read it with this new information.  :)  

In other news, I find myself to be much busier than I had anticipated.  I thought the school break would be just that--a break--but it's far from it.  I find that being busy is better than being bored.  I offered my help in marking exams from this last term, a task I have yet to complete.  Additionally, I need to plan my scheme of work for next term's classes (thank goodness I'm only beginning with Year Twos, and I have an extra couple of weeks before the Year Ones return). And then, I also signed on to go to the P5 workshop--which I do not anticipate to be very intensive, allowing me time to plan.  Also--that will be fun because I'll get to hang with Maggie a bit at her site.  So, there's that.  And then there's the consistent and slow collecting of supplies to be comfortable in my home.  I like that I have the luxury of buying things gradually, especially because I'm so close to Jinja, but at the same time once I buy something that I had really needed, I don't appreciate it enough before I think of the next thing I desperately need.

This is life for now, and I'll post again soon!  :)  As far as pictures, refer to my facebook account for now...Blogger takes time to upload pictures....