I know this is bizarre that I go for weeks without writing and inexplicably I write two posts in a day. Perhaps life is just more exciting than usual.
I returned from town today to find Hadijah looking pretty bored. It looked like she stopped to think right next to my verandah and she didn’t start up again. She had been asking me for a week now to read with her (or just books rather, I think she enjoys the pictures more than the stories). When I caught her staring into the nothingness, I suggested she come and read with me, which she did promptly. We set up my two blue garden chairs in my backyard (I place I never sit, but being the afternoon that’s where the shade was). I believe I was in the middle of asking her what sound a hen makes when she pointed at the sky and said, “Mary, look up.”
A swirl of papers, plastic bags, leaves and other light objects were swirling in the sky, like a flock of birds. It was just passing over, and the air around us was calm. “What is that? Garbage?” It was very eerie and reminded me of a scene (which is either an invented memory or this actually happened in the movie) from Birds where a young girl sees the crows in the distance, and a sense of imminent doom is established.
“A demon!” she said, in probably one of the creepiest ways a little girl could--laughing.
I looked around, no one was scared or moved hurriedly. A few of my neighbor kids whom I never talk to also had gathered by my feet, and also weren’t in any terrible hurry. Until the wind picked up a bit more--it was odd, I didn’t make the connection between swirling garbage and oh-my-goodness-where-did-this-wind-come-from?-there was no sense of urgency. Before I knew it, dust was whipping around every which way, stinging my eyes. I jumped out of the chair and tried to open the solid metal door to my room behind me. With the gusts of wind, I lost hold and it flung open, knocking over one of the kids (no worries, no injuries). I could hear the witch’s theme song from the Wizard of Oz play in my mind while this all progressed.
“Get inside!” I yelled. Hadijah and one of the neighbor kids did, the other three ran off back home. I shut the door behind us, and Hadijah was still laughing. “A demon!” This must be what they call these psuedo-tornadoes. It lasted perhaps 40 seconds all together (from the swirling garbage in the distance to the abrupt stop). I went out my front down quickly, to watch the thing swirl away, and I saw a wandering vendor across from my door, brushing the dirt off him with a bit of a bewildered look on his face. Not for long, however; he quickly returned to selling his socks, hankies and trousers.
Wikipedia makes these things look pretty puny. I would say perhaps this was a dust hurricane. It wasn't terrifying at all, it was pretty cool. Afterwards, we set up the chairs again and I returned to reading, thinking, “My god, I have to blog about that later.”
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
In the Zone
In the Zone
Somedays I get so absorbed into projects that I’d rather keep working than eat. Or bathe. Yesterday was one of those days.
My original plan was to finish my schemes of work for the term, but because my laptop was low on battery and power was out, it wasn’t worth it. I had to find something else. It started with paper mache volcano that I had been wanting to make for a month now. It somehow relates to my science lesson, but it’s more an example for the students teachers of how to make science exciting. It only took 20 minutes, and I was left with a pot of paper mache flour glue. Hmm...what else to make. I spotted one of my small kidomolos (containers) that once held cooking oil or something. I grabbed that and went with it. I also save toilet paper tubes (yeah, I have a problem--you should see my water bottle collection) and I fashioned those into legs. What to make, what to make? An elephant! This has nothing to do with anything I’m teaching this year, but I’ll find a way to make it fit. Another 30 minutes, my elephant was done. With those drying, I decided that I wanted to make something out of the medium-sized kidomolos, of which I had none. My goal was to make one of these, but of course, home-made. I had seen it from Mango Tree, a company that helps schools create learning aids which use local materials, are sturdy and functional. During my quick trip to town, I found the kidomolos, but I couldn’t find anyone, not surprisingly, selling used sandals. I asked someone if perhaps there’s a junk dealer or something, and he explained that people take old sandals to a factory that processes them? Nuts.
On my way back, I realized how hungry and thirsty I was, but I ignored my body’s complaints and hopped on a taxi back to Wanyange. Somehow defeated, I explained my problem to a neighbor girl, who immediately offered to find some for me. She and her sister found a total of four spoilt sandals in under 15 minutes! (I awarded them with some very small money). I scrubbed all of the miles off those shoes, and went to work cutting shapes in both the kidomolo and old soles. It was the first one I’ve ever made, so it didn’t turn out perfectly.
By this time it was five o’clock, and I was scheduled to eat cow leg in town with some fellow tutors. Reminder--I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I was starved. Cow leg. Part of it is really sticky, and I’m guessing that’s the vein. It wasn’t too bad, but it was too much for me. I got about halfway through and gave the rest to Immy. The soup was fantastic, and it’s served with cassava and greens. If you’re in Jinja and interested, the place is called Paul’s Bar and it’s right next to Flavours. At about 4 PM, a boy sets up an oven-baked chicken stand outside, which is the best street chicken in Jinja town.
Somedays I get so absorbed into projects that I’d rather keep working than eat. Or bathe. Yesterday was one of those days.
My original plan was to finish my schemes of work for the term, but because my laptop was low on battery and power was out, it wasn’t worth it. I had to find something else. It started with paper mache volcano that I had been wanting to make for a month now. It somehow relates to my science lesson, but it’s more an example for the students teachers of how to make science exciting. It only took 20 minutes, and I was left with a pot of paper mache flour glue. Hmm...what else to make. I spotted one of my small kidomolos (containers) that once held cooking oil or something. I grabbed that and went with it. I also save toilet paper tubes (yeah, I have a problem--you should see my water bottle collection) and I fashioned those into legs. What to make, what to make? An elephant! This has nothing to do with anything I’m teaching this year, but I’ll find a way to make it fit. Another 30 minutes, my elephant was done. With those drying, I decided that I wanted to make something out of the medium-sized kidomolos, of which I had none. My goal was to make one of these, but of course, home-made. I had seen it from Mango Tree, a company that helps schools create learning aids which use local materials, are sturdy and functional. During my quick trip to town, I found the kidomolos, but I couldn’t find anyone, not surprisingly, selling used sandals. I asked someone if perhaps there’s a junk dealer or something, and he explained that people take old sandals to a factory that processes them? Nuts.
On my way back, I realized how hungry and thirsty I was, but I ignored my body’s complaints and hopped on a taxi back to Wanyange. Somehow defeated, I explained my problem to a neighbor girl, who immediately offered to find some for me. She and her sister found a total of four spoilt sandals in under 15 minutes! (I awarded them with some very small money). I scrubbed all of the miles off those shoes, and went to work cutting shapes in both the kidomolo and old soles. It was the first one I’ve ever made, so it didn’t turn out perfectly.
By this time it was five o’clock, and I was scheduled to eat cow leg in town with some fellow tutors. Reminder--I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I was starved. Cow leg. Part of it is really sticky, and I’m guessing that’s the vein. It wasn’t too bad, but it was too much for me. I got about halfway through and gave the rest to Immy. The soup was fantastic, and it’s served with cassava and greens. If you’re in Jinja and interested, the place is called Paul’s Bar and it’s right next to Flavours. At about 4 PM, a boy sets up an oven-baked chicken stand outside, which is the best street chicken in Jinja town.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Déjà vu
Hello dear readers, from all across the globe (pretty much just America and Uganda, but that's pretty impressive to me). If you remember this post from last year, then the explanation of my P7 roll out will make some sense. I will refer to this post to compare and contrast my experience. For starters, it was somewhat the opposite of success in comparison to last year. During the P5 roll out, my Special Needs session was lost in translation, and I had a lot of confused looks. This year, I made it much more interactive, and I think that it went much better. Confident and prepared, I went into my next session the following day (English in all subject areas) in a good mood. I came out defeated. They just stared at me, and I'm pretty sure they were afraid of me. My last session, assessment records, had finalized the large divide that I placed between myself and P7 teachers and Head Teachers from the area. With every important point I explained, I received blank looks. My co-facilitator, the CC Tutor, stepped in and re-stated everything I said. After that session, the participants avoided me altogether. The last two days were for them to practice planning with the new curriculum, which took nearly all morning. When I went around to monitor, I saw them get nervous and actually start to sweat. They gave me short and hurried answers, or didn't acknowledge me at all. I don't know what happened that made me the mean teacher (I promise I didn't yell, or even make a grumpy face!)... But, I should thank my co-facilitators, they were really fantastic. I felt that even though perhaps my sections weren't crystal clear, they were understood eventually, and with the well-prepared sessions led by the co-facilitators, overall our roll out was very successful. With all of the time I spent having people not talk to me, I managed to start and finish The Help, which was so good I think I might read it again-- which is something I never do.
In other news, I went mountain biking--sounds fun, right? I had overestimated my physical fitness, because it took a whole of three minutes before I was reduced to a wheezing, whiny, bright-pink, sweaty mess. It surprised me even. I mean, I've biked before. I took a 50 mile bike trip once, I swear! We would go maybe 100 feet, then I would give up and say we should go back. Sami would patiently encourage me to go "just over the next hill," which happened three times before I stubbornly said no more hills. It didn't help that village kids were laughing at me for most of the way, especially when I stopped to protest. Responding to the almost constant "Hellohowareyou?" I once answered "Ngya kufa--" I'm going to die. They laughed. One kid came up and slapped me in the butt, but then I realized he was trying to get the dirt off from when I fell. We somehow got lost and instead of sitting on top of a hill, looking out at the beautiful view of Bujagali (lake?), we sat in the middle of a cornfield and just chilled out. Thankfully, the rest was all downhill from there (literally). We were cruising just fine until I hit a particularly loose and slippery patch of path and totally ate it. I scraped up my hand and the front part of my left left. I'm fine now, everything is near healed. I won't let this trip defeat me! I will try biking again, and darn it I'm going to enjoy it!
Now, because of the injury on my hand, I decided that doing my laundry would be counter-productive as I'm sure I'd get blood stains all over my clothes. I decided to find a place to get it done. I talked to a friend who told me that Backpackers offers laundry service, no problem! Bring it on down! Any day! Okie dokie. I packed up 46 pieces of clothing into my bedsheet and went on my way. I looked like a hobo, carrying all my clothes in my sheet. I got to Backpackers in town, walked up to the front desk with an older, white gentleman, and said, "Hello there. I hear that you have a laundry service?" He looked at me like I just asked if this place was a brothel, then said, "Uh yeah, for people STAYING here..." I clearly wasn't, because I had just come through the front entrance. I thanked him nicely and left. I haven't had many embarrassing moments in Uganda so far (that I remember), so this one stung. I felt like a moron. A moron with a sack-o-laundry.
Maybe a month ago, as I was wondering through town, I remember passing a dry cleaners that also offered laundry service. Luckily, I found this place in town again, and went on in. Minus the electric clothes rack that spins around, it was pretty much like any other dry cleaners. I was so excited, I thought of how easy life will be from now on.
"Hello, how are you?"
"I'm fine, how are you?"
"Oh, good. I need my laundry done. How much does it cost?"
"It's 3,000."
Three thousand shillings is like, a bit more than one dollar. I had 46 pieces of clothing. So, it was either 3,000 shillings for all of it, but more likely--
"A PIECE?!"
"Yes."
Quickly, do the math. That's 138,000 shillings. Or about $50. That could buy a day rafting trip at Backpackers. Or an iphone imitation. Or like four months of full-maid service, INCLUDING laundry.
I just looked at my sack-o-laundry, deflated. "Well I can't afford that. No way." She didn't want to see me leave, so we negotiated down. I should have just left. I won't tell you what I did pay, but it was far too much.
In OTHER other news, for those of you who have sent me something, the last package took exactly one month to reach here (to the DAY!) so think about the day you sent it, I'll get it a month from then. :D and THANK YOU to all the packages on the way and to the fantastic Christmas gifts I got from Jean, Brad and Siobhan. THANK YOU!
In other news, I went mountain biking--sounds fun, right? I had overestimated my physical fitness, because it took a whole of three minutes before I was reduced to a wheezing, whiny, bright-pink, sweaty mess. It surprised me even. I mean, I've biked before. I took a 50 mile bike trip once, I swear! We would go maybe 100 feet, then I would give up and say we should go back. Sami would patiently encourage me to go "just over the next hill," which happened three times before I stubbornly said no more hills. It didn't help that village kids were laughing at me for most of the way, especially when I stopped to protest. Responding to the almost constant "Hellohowareyou?" I once answered "Ngya kufa--" I'm going to die. They laughed. One kid came up and slapped me in the butt, but then I realized he was trying to get the dirt off from when I fell. We somehow got lost and instead of sitting on top of a hill, looking out at the beautiful view of Bujagali (lake?), we sat in the middle of a cornfield and just chilled out. Thankfully, the rest was all downhill from there (literally). We were cruising just fine until I hit a particularly loose and slippery patch of path and totally ate it. I scraped up my hand and the front part of my left left. I'm fine now, everything is near healed. I won't let this trip defeat me! I will try biking again, and darn it I'm going to enjoy it!
Now, because of the injury on my hand, I decided that doing my laundry would be counter-productive as I'm sure I'd get blood stains all over my clothes. I decided to find a place to get it done. I talked to a friend who told me that Backpackers offers laundry service, no problem! Bring it on down! Any day! Okie dokie. I packed up 46 pieces of clothing into my bedsheet and went on my way. I looked like a hobo, carrying all my clothes in my sheet. I got to Backpackers in town, walked up to the front desk with an older, white gentleman, and said, "Hello there. I hear that you have a laundry service?" He looked at me like I just asked if this place was a brothel, then said, "Uh yeah, for people STAYING here..." I clearly wasn't, because I had just come through the front entrance. I thanked him nicely and left. I haven't had many embarrassing moments in Uganda so far (that I remember), so this one stung. I felt like a moron. A moron with a sack-o-laundry.
Maybe a month ago, as I was wondering through town, I remember passing a dry cleaners that also offered laundry service. Luckily, I found this place in town again, and went on in. Minus the electric clothes rack that spins around, it was pretty much like any other dry cleaners. I was so excited, I thought of how easy life will be from now on.
"Hello, how are you?"
"I'm fine, how are you?"
"Oh, good. I need my laundry done. How much does it cost?"
"It's 3,000."
Three thousand shillings is like, a bit more than one dollar. I had 46 pieces of clothing. So, it was either 3,000 shillings for all of it, but more likely--
"A PIECE?!"
"Yes."
Quickly, do the math. That's 138,000 shillings. Or about $50. That could buy a day rafting trip at Backpackers. Or an iphone imitation. Or like four months of full-maid service, INCLUDING laundry.
I just looked at my sack-o-laundry, deflated. "Well I can't afford that. No way." She didn't want to see me leave, so we negotiated down. I should have just left. I won't tell you what I did pay, but it was far too much.
In OTHER other news, for those of you who have sent me something, the last package took exactly one month to reach here (to the DAY!) so think about the day you sent it, I'll get it a month from then. :D and THANK YOU to all the packages on the way and to the fantastic Christmas gifts I got from Jean, Brad and Siobhan. THANK YOU!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Isukayo emyaka!
Isakayo emyaka! = Welcome to the new year! :D (Or, welcome back from the old year? Not so sure, but something to that effect).
I'm on a very long holiday, which means I have more personal time during which I may choose what to do. For potentially two months (if the term starts in March) I'm on my own schedule. I imagine this is what it's like to be a full-time writer. So, I've made a goal for myself to work a solid four hours a day (at minimum). Today was day one. Things didn't exactly pan out. I decided I need more structure, so I've written a schedule for myself. Now tomorrow is day one of the scheduled, productive holiday break. It's not that I lack things to work on (I have LOTS of things to work on) it's just I need to kick my own butt to actually sit down to work, which can be tough when I'm thinking, "But school probably won't start for another TWO months..." But no, I'm not giving in to that part of my brain. I'm not listening to you procrastinating brain!
My two New Years resolutions are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound-- (they are SMART indeed). The first one is to be "more fiscally responsible." I'm not so good with keeping track of expenditures and budgeting and whatnot, so that's my goal exactly. Budget, keep track, and do not end up broke at the end of the month :). My second goal is to be more friendly, in general. After a hot afternoon of guys whistling, calling out names, asking for my contact, ripping me off and physically grabbing me (this is just from a 20 minute walk through town), I may come off a bit bitchy. Same goes for when I go to a class and no one has their assignment done but they have 5,000 fantastic excuses for why they don't and suddenly everyone has to make a short call. Perhaps it's being more friendly, maybe it's just not letting the little things add up and turn me into the Hulk. Right. I will not be the Hulk, but rather channel the undying sweetness of fictional characters like Cinderella and Belle from Beauty and the Beast...I will be calm like a kindergarten teacher (props goes to you all who teach those five-year old time bombs who one minute are finger painting and the next minute have painted their friend and pooped their pants).
That's all for now! Happy New Year!
I'm on a very long holiday, which means I have more personal time during which I may choose what to do. For potentially two months (if the term starts in March) I'm on my own schedule. I imagine this is what it's like to be a full-time writer. So, I've made a goal for myself to work a solid four hours a day (at minimum). Today was day one. Things didn't exactly pan out. I decided I need more structure, so I've written a schedule for myself. Now tomorrow is day one of the scheduled, productive holiday break. It's not that I lack things to work on (I have LOTS of things to work on) it's just I need to kick my own butt to actually sit down to work, which can be tough when I'm thinking, "But school probably won't start for another TWO months..." But no, I'm not giving in to that part of my brain. I'm not listening to you procrastinating brain!
My two New Years resolutions are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound-- (they are SMART indeed). The first one is to be "more fiscally responsible." I'm not so good with keeping track of expenditures and budgeting and whatnot, so that's my goal exactly. Budget, keep track, and do not end up broke at the end of the month :). My second goal is to be more friendly, in general. After a hot afternoon of guys whistling, calling out names, asking for my contact, ripping me off and physically grabbing me (this is just from a 20 minute walk through town), I may come off a bit bitchy. Same goes for when I go to a class and no one has their assignment done but they have 5,000 fantastic excuses for why they don't and suddenly everyone has to make a short call. Perhaps it's being more friendly, maybe it's just not letting the little things add up and turn me into the Hulk. Right. I will not be the Hulk, but rather channel the undying sweetness of fictional characters like Cinderella and Belle from Beauty and the Beast...I will be calm like a kindergarten teacher (props goes to you all who teach those five-year old time bombs who one minute are finger painting and the next minute have painted their friend and pooped their pants).
That's all for now! Happy New Year!
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