"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time..."
-Narrator, Fight Club
Where did October go!? In Peace Corps, they say the days drag on but weeks and months fly by--that is for sure! It's Eid al-Adha today, which has been declared a public holiday in Uganda. And so, I'm using my public holiday to catch up on some things, like my blog.
The last blog I posted featured the kitten, our Little Libraries stamp, college staff and Maggie and I eating cheese. Let me update on all of these things:
The kitten-- left my hands without a name, and joined Maggie's neighbor's family, in Iganga, where they named her "Joan," I believe. The last time I saw her, she still had the yellow ribbon that I had tied around her neck, and she was looking well-fed. 
Little Libraries-- has been my and Maggie's main concern this month. In the beginning of October, with the help of my supervisor, we changed carpenters to someone who we thought would do higher quality and faster work. While his work is indeed higher quality, his speed is turtle, and with eight days before we have to deliver the Libraries, we only have two completely finished, and only one of his making. In better news, our manual for our workshop is almost finished, I just received 200 some books yesterday (bringing my total to 427), and the schools are ready and excited for the libraries to come! I'm mostly looking forward to seeing what kind of lessons are inspired by the books donated by Little Libraries! :)
The college-- we ended our school practice well, and we were very generous with A's. Overall, the external moderators (representatives from Kyambogo University) were most impressed with our student's learning aids, and commented that the science lessons were more practical than last year (which the DOS accredited to me, even though I think I had no influence there...)
Some lessons that made me smile
A science lesson where the teacher, teaching about land pollution, took the kids outside to observe polythene bags and other pollutants
A literature lesson where the teacher had a cut-out letter 't', had the students trace in the air with their fingers, had them write the letter t, and then pointed out words from the lesson that started with the letter t.
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| My zone school-- Yeah St. Benedict's! :) Look at those smiles... |
A library lesson, where the student teacher hand-wrote 10 copies of a story about malaria, and had the kids read in small groups.
Every lesson I saw with Joseph, who was cursed with having a class of 96 P1 students. Every time I saw him, his class control was better and he was really trying to implement positive reinforcement techniques.
Every lesson with Muwanika Godfrey, who has the best enthusiasm when he takes the floor in teaching, and can make any topic interesting, including the sewing of aprons. I loved seeing him start a lesson about public transport; trains with an energizer where the whole class made a human train.
ALL PE lessons--despite what moderators said, every PE lesson I saw this teaching practice was awesome, organized, included all learners and actually taught skills.
The unique classroom environment of Sherina and her co-teacher-- they had an idea of cut-out letters and numbers that just made things pop.
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| Joseph and Balidawa playing with puppets they made :) |
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| I can't rotate this! GAH! Cock your head to the left to appreciate this picture... |
I've also found ample time to unwind this month:
What's next? Halloween weekend! :D We have a really clever group costume planned, stay tuned for pictures... :) I'm going to miss the convenience of being able to get anything you want made. Custom furniture? Custom dress? No problem. And for pennies. The next month is serious teaching and review. I have "First Aid," which is fun to teach because it's so practical. I quoted Fight Club because they have a great scene of a chemical burn, which I'm incorporating into my next lesson. "This-is a chemical burn--" "AHHHHHHH!!!!!" hahaha. It cracks me up. Anyway. Before we know it, it'll be Thanksgiving (which never feels like Thanksgiving, but what holiday does away from family?) Our newest group of Education volunteers will be in country by then. I'm taking the GRE towards the end of November, then it's Lira for World Aids Day, then it's our (group's) last Camp GLOW National! ACTIVITIES! If you don't hear from me for a while, this is why.
