So the previous blog post was written sometime in October and mailed to the US. Sully was kind enough to type it up for me. Thanks Sully.
A lot has happened since then. November was spent grading homework and quizzes every day. I would get to the school around 7:30, teach, then spend the rest of the day in the library grading till about 4:00. Long days, but it paid off. I saw a significant improvement overall, and outstanding improvements for the students who started coming to class everyday. The world over, math and science are usually dominated by males. In Africa, as you can imagine, it is even more of a stereotype that girls can’t do math and science. Well ladies and gentlemen, I have just calculated the averages for all of my classes and in each of them the girls averaged at least 10% higher than the boys. “Why!?!” my students ask. Simply because the girls, on average, come to class more often and come get help outside of class more often than he boys. Putting those results up on the board really made me smile.
However, my grin was short-lived. A few days after the end of the term, I was in the middle of our first rugby meeting. The ball was pumped up, we were tossing it around, there were 12-15 guys there, I was explaining the basics when all of the sudden my neighbor comes over and says there is an urgent phone call for me. He hands me his phone and my Peace Corps supervisor is on the other end. She says “You must leave.” I’m a little confused, so I reply “Now?”
“Yes, right now. Bring your passport and cloths for two weeks. Meet the others in town as quickly as you can.”
I’m mildly panicked and really confused. I know that the Peace Corps is worried about the referendum in Sudan, but that isn’t for another month and I haven’t heard of any trouble on that side of the boarder. The presidential election in Uganda is also a big concern, but that isn’t until February so I still have no idea why I need to leave my site.
In spite of my confusion I hang up, cut the meeting short saying that I have to go and meet someone in Gulu and that I will be back in a couple of weeks, then hurry home to pack my things. Ten minutes of packing later and I am in a sweat as I hurry to the road where I start walking to town. About a mile or so later, a car picks me up and takes me to Kitgum town. From there I meet three of my fellow volunteers and we get in a taxi to take us to Gulu where a Peace Corps vehicle is waiting for us. I’m really worried that we are getting evacuated from the country and that my community isn’t going to have any idea what happened to me. When we finally reach Gulu four hours later, the whole story is finally explained to me.
There have been several cases of a strange illness in the area. Apparently people are dying from something that is causing severe fever, head ache, vomiting blood, diarrhea, bleeding from the eyes and nose, and body aches. This of course catches Peace Corps’ attention and naturally they want to get us out of there as fast as possible. Fair enough, but that still really sucks for me. I had big plans for this holiday break now that the term was over. Besides the rugby meeting I was going to learn some cultural dances, take some of my girl students to the Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) camp, learn how to hunt the elusive-but-tasty bush rat, and fix my solar death ray. But now I got nothing. I’m an exile from my own home. On top of that, PC wanted me to stay in the capitol. I hate that dirty, disgusting, expensive city.
Well, after a few days of being bummed out like never before, I found something to do. The US embassy sponsors a World AIDS Day event in several of the larger towns to help promote AIDS/HIV awareness. So I got in contact with the leading lady for this traveling road show and made myself a roadie. It gave me something to do and it had some awesome perks. The embassy doesn’t operate like the PC. They have their own cars (with AC!), stay in nice hotels (with AC!), and eat good food (with AC!). So for about three weeks I got a free tour around all of Uganda in exchange for handing out T-shirts.
I know that sounds like an easy job, but please, let me explain. Handing out T-shirts in the US would be fairly relaxed. Maybe you have a table, a stack of shirts, and one or two people giving them to people as they pass by. If they had something particularly interesting or clever on them, then a lot of people might want them so a line might form. In Africa, walking into an event with a sack full of T-shirts would be like walking into an orphanage with a box full of puppies, walking into a refugee camp with a tray of doughnuts, or walking into a prison with a keg of beer. They have absolutely no shame and no integrity. Opening the back of the SUV with the shirts is like the poor guy who has to open Wal-Mart on Black Friday. It is simply awful. The people will lie to your face. They will take one shirt, stash it under what they are wearing, and then demand another one. All of this taking place right in front of your eyes! Even though you just stood there and watched them, they will insist that you did not give them a shirt. And when you call them out on it, they get mad at you and say that you are a bad person. It was by far the most depressing and disgusting thing I have ever experienced in Africa. So I think I earned my AC, comfortable hotel, and nice food.
However, after all the World AIDS Day stuff was done, I still wasn’t allowed back home. So I visited a few other PCVs here and there. Then for Christmas a few guys were headed down to the Kabale district in the southwest, near Rwanda, to climb some volcanoes. I tagged a long and I am really happy that I did. It was absolutely gorgeous! When I get the pictures, I will post them. It is exactly the kind of scene you think of when you think jungle. Thick dense forest, bamboo groves, birds, moss, rain everyday, forest buffalo, lizards, snakes and all kinds of stuff. The view part way up he mountain was like the opening scene in Jurassic Park where he helicopter is coming into land. We climbed Muhuvura (which means “The Guide”) on Christmas Eve and then climbed Sabinyo (which means “Old Man’s Teeth”) on Christmas Day. On Muhuvura we were able to stand in Uganda and Rwanda at the same time, and on Sabinyo we were able to stand in Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC at he same time, take that border patrol!
Muhuvura was a rough 23 Km round trip and elevation gain of about 6,000 ft. I was really slow and in an obscene amount of pain all the way up. A month of eating greasy food and sitting around depressed about my situation didn’t do much for my fitness. I still made it to the top though. It may be the tropics, but at the top of a 13,000 ft peak it is pretty dang cold. Still, when I came up finally, huffing and puffing, I was sweating like a grub worm in a chicken coup. So naturally I stripped down to my birthday suit and dove into the crater lake (lake is misleading, it was a large puddle) at the top of the mountain. No warning or questions. I just got naked and jumped in. Our Ugandan guides just laughed and after I got out the other three guys followed suit one by one. I thought it was refreshing, but everyone else said it was the coldest water they ever swam in. To be fair, they were at the top a while before me, so they were already cold when they went for a dip. That was Christmas Eve.
Christmas Day we climb Sabinyo which is a shorter round trip and slightly less elevation gain. On the other hand, we were sore, tired and hungry (the only lodge there is over priced and under portioned). But we climbed never the less. If Muhuvura was the beast, Sabinyo was the beauty. Much more vegetation, more song birds, more grandeur in general. We followed up a three peak ridge to reach the top. On each side of the ridge was a gorge that stretched out into the land ending in a beautiful river that flowed into the rolling foothills. Each of the foothills looked like a quilt because the locals terrace and section them off for farming, making for stunning view after stunning view. On one of the sub-peaks we stopped to check out a couple of chameleons as they crawled on us changing colors. The day progressed and we were greeted with some warm moist wind blowing in from east. As it rose, though, it cooled condensed and turned into wispy fast moving clouds that would envelope us one second and then vanish the next. It made the experience all the more mesmerizing, but made taking pictures tough. Finally, as we approach the top, we have to use some locally made wooden ladders staked into the mountain side because it is so steep. They are made of, what appeared to be, solid cedar branches. They weren’t bad, I only pulled out a few rungs on the way up, and one more on the way back down. Fewer than I expected. At the top we had lunch, recuperated, and braved the cold wind and fog for as long as we could so we could stand in awe at the majesty around us. Sun light was piercing through the clouds like arrows lighting up hill and valley in a marvelous symphony of illumination. It was like having box seats to God’s own concert of mountain, valley, clouds, wind and sun.
Finally though, the wind, clouds, and fatigue overcame us and we began our descent. Much faster going down, a little too fast at times. Slipping here and there wasn’t bad because the ground and vegetation was pretty soft. But if you slipped a little too far, you were likely to pitch right over the side of the ridge. That drop was far enough that it didn’t matter how soft the ground was, you weren’t going to walk it off. So we took it slow and steady and made it down to the bottom of the mountain into the thick bamboo grove. This alone was an accomplishment and a spectacular way to end our day, but then the clouds saw fit to bless us with some hail. Little pea gravel hail that kind of stung your hand, but bearable at first. But then it really opened up on us and came down in such a torrent that we were walking in a river of pebbled ice. Despite the discomfort we counted it as a bonus. We got to have a white Christmas.
After our stay on the mountain we moved out to a beautiful lake for New Years where we meet up with about 60 other PCVs and enjoyed three days of lounging around in the sun, swimming, drinking, playing cards and being Americans. On top of this, I finally got word that I could return to site. Wooooohoooo!! Apparently the Center for Disease Control had officially declared the mysterious disease “yellow fever.” I don’t know if I buy that, but I don’t care. I am vaccinated for yellow fever and PC said I could go home. So on January 1st, I made the long three day journey from the very wet and cold southwest to the very hot and dry north.
When I arrived home, everyone was happy to see me and commented on how fat I was looking (fat equates to health here so it is a compliment). Then I got right to work. So much to catch up on. Clean my house, do laundry, roast g-nuts, fix bike, patch tires, make a road, organize rugby team, meet with the chief, check in with the head teacher, visit friends, fetch water, and fix the fence. So much to do and so little time to do it. I was home for about a week, and then I had to leave again, only this time with a smile on my face.
John Sullivan is making his way out to visit me as I type this. We are headed out to Mt. Elgon, the highest peak in Uganda. Then we’ll play the rest of the trip by ear, but our options seem to be: Riverboat Safari in Murchison falls (hippos, crocs, leopards, birds and such), white water rafting on the Nile (they are putting in a new dam soon so that may not last long), or go to my place and see if we can shoot some critters with bamboo bows and arrows (the local favorite is the bush rat, but guinea fowl and bushbucks are a possibility too). He will be here until the 25th of January, so we don’t have that much time.
I guess that brings me up to date for now. We’ll see how Sully’s visit goes and then maybe I’ll have some more to share with you all. Maybe even some pictures too.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Life Is Still Good
Life is still good. I'm having some issues with the neighbors. They let their goats run loose everyday and they are destroying my corn. I'm pissed needless to say but I'm not sure what is & isn't culturally appropriate to say. So far I've caught a few + demanded the owners bring me bamboo so I can finish my fence. I have 1/2 an acre so that needs about 200 yards of fencing so getting the bamboo is slow & tedious. I might have to break down and start hiring people to help me.
Teaching is going a lot better this term. I asked the students to tell me what changes I should make. Some of them were really helpful, but others were complaints out of my control or complaints about my calculator policy. I don't allow calculators in my class because these kids can't multiply single digits without a multiplication table.
So now the students are understanding me better and class is more fun. I don't have to kick kids out nearly as often and kids are beginning to show up more and more. There are still about 20 or so who have only came once, but the rest are doing well. One of the changes I made was giving weekly quizzes. The students really like to be able to see how they are doing each week. It also keeps me really busy. 240 students are a lot to grade for.
I am also getting a long with my fellow teachers a lot more too. We laugh and joke in the staff room and just the other day they brought up wanting to make some side income. So I suggested soap making. Another PCV has done it at her school and it is a big success, so I figured we could give it a shot. Everyone of the teachers seemed really gung-ho about it, so we will see if their actions follow suit. Folks here seem to have a hard time following through on their words.
Case in point: Two months ago I had to go for 2 weeks of training in the capital, so I asked one of my students to finish planting my garden for me and do a few other things. In exchange I would bring hims some sneakers + a school bag from the city. Well I help up my end to be sure. But he only did half the work. He made excuses and I believed him even though the neighbor said otherwise. So I gave him some other work instead. He failed to do that on time but I forgave him and gave him other work. All this time he has been insisting that I give him the bag and shoes. He promises the work will be finished on Saturday so finally I gave in. He's 15, I know where he lives, and he is my student. I should be able to trust him. Well that was a mistake. Saturday rolls around and he is no where to be seen. A week and he isn't around. Finally he comes back all smiles and jokes as if nothing is wrong. So I chew him out and demand the bag and shoes back. He starts getting sour and even says I'm being rude. Cultural differences aside, he is acting like I'm at fault. He says the bag and shoes were borrowed by a friend and sure enough they aren't at his house. His parents live 14km away in the village so I go and talk to one of the local elders about what I might have done wrong and what I ought to do now. She says I was in the right and that she would handle it. That was yesterday. We'll see how things go.
In other news, Pearl, the gal I've been tutoring on the front porch most evenings, just had her baby. I haven't seen her or the baby yet but I hope she brings him by soon. I also want to wish her luck on her exams. I sure hope she passes.
I finally got some aluminum foil and have lined my satellite dish with it. I lit one potato on fire and burnt two more before I finally got the right distance and rotation speed figured out. Then I preceded to roast sweet potatoes for me and all my neighbors. Awesome! Then, that very night a storm came in and blew the damn thing halfway across the garden. Wouldn't you know it: It was bend up pretty bas so its going to take some work to straighten it out. I might have to get the welder in town to make some supports for it.
As for the windmill pump. I am working on a miniature version first. I just got all the parts from town to make a small dual piston pump using 1/2 inch pipe parts. The non-return valves were pretty expensive, but if it works I'll have running water in my house. More on that if it works.
I also have been at the mission quite a bit because a dude from Milwaukee came in for a week to do some water filter training with the Parish. Apparently the Parish here is partnered up with Three Holy Women Parish of Milwaukee. So I've been sharing cultural insights and learning how to make water filters out of sand and gravel. Cool stuff!
Lastly, but not leastly, Penny G has moved up to "Best-Friend-In-The-World" status as she was the first to send me a care package. Not only that, but it was full of BBQ sauce and coffee. I have been exercising every ounce of will power I have to not consume it all in one week. So a giant thanks to you Penny. I will give you a giant bear hug next time I see you. As for the rest of you slackers: Shame.... shame.
I reckon that is about all I got for now. I wish you all the best.
In peace, love, and laughter,
Dave
Teaching is going a lot better this term. I asked the students to tell me what changes I should make. Some of them were really helpful, but others were complaints out of my control or complaints about my calculator policy. I don't allow calculators in my class because these kids can't multiply single digits without a multiplication table.
So now the students are understanding me better and class is more fun. I don't have to kick kids out nearly as often and kids are beginning to show up more and more. There are still about 20 or so who have only came once, but the rest are doing well. One of the changes I made was giving weekly quizzes. The students really like to be able to see how they are doing each week. It also keeps me really busy. 240 students are a lot to grade for.
I am also getting a long with my fellow teachers a lot more too. We laugh and joke in the staff room and just the other day they brought up wanting to make some side income. So I suggested soap making. Another PCV has done it at her school and it is a big success, so I figured we could give it a shot. Everyone of the teachers seemed really gung-ho about it, so we will see if their actions follow suit. Folks here seem to have a hard time following through on their words.
Case in point: Two months ago I had to go for 2 weeks of training in the capital, so I asked one of my students to finish planting my garden for me and do a few other things. In exchange I would bring hims some sneakers + a school bag from the city. Well I help up my end to be sure. But he only did half the work. He made excuses and I believed him even though the neighbor said otherwise. So I gave him some other work instead. He failed to do that on time but I forgave him and gave him other work. All this time he has been insisting that I give him the bag and shoes. He promises the work will be finished on Saturday so finally I gave in. He's 15, I know where he lives, and he is my student. I should be able to trust him. Well that was a mistake. Saturday rolls around and he is no where to be seen. A week and he isn't around. Finally he comes back all smiles and jokes as if nothing is wrong. So I chew him out and demand the bag and shoes back. He starts getting sour and even says I'm being rude. Cultural differences aside, he is acting like I'm at fault. He says the bag and shoes were borrowed by a friend and sure enough they aren't at his house. His parents live 14km away in the village so I go and talk to one of the local elders about what I might have done wrong and what I ought to do now. She says I was in the right and that she would handle it. That was yesterday. We'll see how things go.
In other news, Pearl, the gal I've been tutoring on the front porch most evenings, just had her baby. I haven't seen her or the baby yet but I hope she brings him by soon. I also want to wish her luck on her exams. I sure hope she passes.
I finally got some aluminum foil and have lined my satellite dish with it. I lit one potato on fire and burnt two more before I finally got the right distance and rotation speed figured out. Then I preceded to roast sweet potatoes for me and all my neighbors. Awesome! Then, that very night a storm came in and blew the damn thing halfway across the garden. Wouldn't you know it: It was bend up pretty bas so its going to take some work to straighten it out. I might have to get the welder in town to make some supports for it.
As for the windmill pump. I am working on a miniature version first. I just got all the parts from town to make a small dual piston pump using 1/2 inch pipe parts. The non-return valves were pretty expensive, but if it works I'll have running water in my house. More on that if it works.
I also have been at the mission quite a bit because a dude from Milwaukee came in for a week to do some water filter training with the Parish. Apparently the Parish here is partnered up with Three Holy Women Parish of Milwaukee. So I've been sharing cultural insights and learning how to make water filters out of sand and gravel. Cool stuff!
Lastly, but not leastly, Penny G has moved up to "Best-Friend-In-The-World" status as she was the first to send me a care package. Not only that, but it was full of BBQ sauce and coffee. I have been exercising every ounce of will power I have to not consume it all in one week. So a giant thanks to you Penny. I will give you a giant bear hug next time I see you. As for the rest of you slackers: Shame.... shame.
I reckon that is about all I got for now. I wish you all the best.
In peace, love, and laughter,
Dave
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Mt. Climbing
Sorry for the delay all, but here is the long and short of it.
I, John Sullivan, and some folks from Peace Corps are going to climb Mt. Elgon and raft the Nile. If you want to come, you are all most welcome. We are planning for Jan 17-22 for the climbing and rafting, if you want to come earlier or stay later that is awesome. I know it is late notice, but if you can make it then great! Contact Sullivan (his email is somewhere on this blog) and ask him about he flight dates and airlines. He flies out on the 13th and arrives on the 15th. You might be able to get on the same flight so you all can talk trash about me before you get here, kidding... I hope. Again, sorry for the late notice, but that is the general way I operate.
Cheers Ya'll, and see ya there.
I, John Sullivan, and some folks from Peace Corps are going to climb Mt. Elgon and raft the Nile. If you want to come, you are all most welcome. We are planning for Jan 17-22 for the climbing and rafting, if you want to come earlier or stay later that is awesome. I know it is late notice, but if you can make it then great! Contact Sullivan (his email is somewhere on this blog) and ask him about he flight dates and airlines. He flies out on the 13th and arrives on the 15th. You might be able to get on the same flight so you all can talk trash about me before you get here, kidding... I hope. Again, sorry for the late notice, but that is the general way I operate.
Cheers Ya'll, and see ya there.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Some Pictures and coordinate location
In August Dave gave me some pictures. They are just a random assortment of photos, mostly of where he is living. He also provided me with his coordinate location. The coordinate location I have to encrypt because of PC policy. Click on the link below and the passcode is the same as the last post, but is one of Dave's mottos, all lower case, with no spaces:
If you need the passcode shoot me a facebook message or email: john.allan.sullivan@gmail.com
Also, the photos are located here:
http://www.flickr.com/x/t/0099009/photos/54600950@N05/
If you need the passcode shoot me a facebook message or email: john.allan.sullivan@gmail.com
Also, the photos are located here:
http://www.flickr.com/x/t/0099009/photos/54600950@N05/
Monday, August 16, 2010
Africa Lite
It is now the end of the school term and I am Pooped! (that's right, with a capital P). I started out the term by moving into my house, getting my schedule three days late, and making lesson plans. But that really isn't such a big deal because the students don't really show up for the first two weeks of classes anyway. The ministry of education says that students have two weeks to show up for school before they can be expelled. They also cannot be held back at all for poor academic performance, and the only legitimate way to have a student removed from the school is for behavior or failing to pay school fees. There really is more to explain, but to keep it short, Uganda has fully implemented the "No Child Left Behind" act.
So the first two weeks of the term were basically spent watching a few of the more serious students doing the general maintenance work around the school (mowing grass, cleaning class rooms, etc.) and getting all my little ducks in a row at my own home. I needed to mow grass, clear a path to the latrine, clean, put in a ceiling, buy stuff for cooking, pick up tools, and build a fence. A lot to do when you are supposed to be learning students names, making lesson plans, and grading homework. Keep in mind that staying up late to do the work doesn't happen because as soon as the sun is gone, work stops.
I obviously wasn't going to be able to accomplish all that in two months let alone two weeks. So I focused on my job, teaching. In my freshmen (they call it senior one, or S1 for short) math I have two lessons three times a week. Each lesson is 80 minutes long and is supposed to have around 65 students. However, my lessons are usually in the morning so they start 40 minutes late because the 35 students who do arrive, are extremely late. Needless to say, I get frustrated a lot. However, there are highlights. Some of my kids are truly interested and come and ask questions. They even come to my house on Saturdays and Sundays to do practice problems. I also teach S2 (equivalent of sophomores, also 65 in a lesson) in physics and I have been able to do some awesome demonstrations with them. I got some clear hose and demonstrated a siphon, I got a straw and demonstrated a venturi, and I used a piece of paper to show how an airplane wing causes lift. Things that the other physics teachers had never end thought of let alone seen. So all in all, I have around 230 students who I am still getting to know, some of whom I never will, and others whom I am extremely grateful to have gotten to know.
I don't like teaching inside the classroom. I am fairly convinced that it may be one of the least efficient ways to convey knowledge, and understanding is all but none existent. My preferred method is when they come to my house and I can use a stick to scratch in the dirt, use some bamboo and a machete to build a demonstration on the spot, but most importantly to answer questions they have and do it in such a way they have to ask another question to understand the answer. Mwahahaha, I'm such and evil-genius-educator.
On top of my students from my school, I am also tutoring a girl in the evenings in math and sciences so she can pass the national exam at the end of the year. She was in her fourth year in secondary school when she got pregnant a few months ago. Because, while it is ok for teachers to come to school drunk, it is not ok for students to come to school pregnant. She isn't the brightest star in the sky, but despite her set backs, she still wants to take the exam at the end of the year, carry out the pregnancy and then go onto the advanced level. I give here a standing ovation every time she comes to my house simply for her fortitude. Especially since her father, and her new "husband" aren't really keen on her bothering with education. Her name is Pearl.
Then I have the one and only entrepreneur in Uganda living in my community. This guy is on the ball. He is aware that all the billions of foreign dollars that are pouring into Uganda won't last forever. In fact, he has already seen it begin to wain. So before the well drys up, he wants to start a company. A lot of infrastructure still needs to build around the North, so he thinks a construction company could do very well while people are still building churches, schools, clinics, shops, roads, and other such things. On top of this, he wants to begin using some technology from South Africa that uses a hydrolic press, 98% local dirt, and 2% cement. This way of making bricks is 30% cheaper (no burning of clay), it is stronger, lasts longer, and takes less time. He wants to be ahead of the curve by jumping on it now. All of the stuff he has done without me. What he wants now is an engineering consultant to help him get off the ground. I'm not fronting any money, I'm not putting my name on anything, and he isn't asking me for that either. I think he is pretty genuine and really just wants me to tell him that his grand plan will work, and perhaps having a white dude helping his company will get him more business. In any case, I like where he is going with this, I can see the benefits of this technology, and I like him as a person, so I'm on board.
I still haven't gotten my solar death ray to work. I finally got a busted six foot diameter satellite dish about a month ago, but the only reflective material I was able to get was aluminum paint which did not work. It would only make your hand hot, not light wood on fire. But now I am in the capitol and here they have everything, so hopefully I'll be able to get some aluminum foil at least.
My windmill is on hold at the moment. The local community is a little leery of me doing anything with or near the borehole-well. The school shares the well with all the villagers out of kindness and to keep them happy and so if I go and start putting a big scary windmill on it they are afraid it will damage their nearest source of water. That is a legitimate fear I suppose, as clean water is still not an easy thing to get around here, so I will have to do some more sweet talking with the locals and the school to get that one going.
Now I am in the capital city for some Peace Corps training, enjoying a pool, beer and friends. I have a minor infection in my hand from using a hand hoe to dig up (plow) a half acre of garden. I got my beans, corn, onions, cassava, and potatoes in the ground in exchange for a giant bruise on the palm of my hand which then turned infected. Part of it was that the ground was really hard, part of it was digging like a man possessed to vent my frustrations with the ministry of education, and part of it was "if your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough." So my bad bruise turned into an infection, which I didn't know could happen, but did. After it swelled up to the size of a balloon, I realized it wasn't just a bruise and had the doctor at the local clinic lance the abscess. The doctor used a local anesthetic, but knelt on my wrist just in case. The local anesthetic did the trick because it was a world better than when I was trying to squeeze it out myself. Story short, I now have a 1/4 inch hole in my hand that is healing nicely. Obviously I can even use it to type. Oh, it was my right hand by the way. If it was my left, I probably would have had to see the doctor a lot sooner.
So that brings me to the tittle of this entry: Africa Lite. I was talking with a few other volunteers who had already served in west Africa. Guinea, Togo, Mauritania, and others are worlds off worse than Uganda. So even though I have pretty much listed nothing but set backs in this entry, I definitely have it easy compared to what they had. Even when compared to other East African countries like Kenya, we have it made in the shade. I just read in the local paper about how Kenyans come to Uganda and make a killing in nearly any venture they try, and Ugandans who go to Kenya... come back. Thinking about it, life here really isn't too dang bad in a simple "are you living or are you dieing" kind of sense. You throw seeds on the ground twice a year. Two hours in the morning you tend to them and you harvest twice a year. A mud hut only costs labor, and most medical supplies are so cheap that people are dieing of malaria more often because they don't like doctors than because they can't afford treatment. So if you start thinking that you might be sorta be tempted into thinking that I have it rough... DON'T! I actually have a bigger house, more pay (relative to the standard of living), and better health care than at any other time in my life thus far. I do manual labor because I like it, and my job could be much, much worse. So T.I.A.L.
Well, that is about all. I am anxious to go back to my home and garden and begin lessons for next term and correct all the mistakes I made this term.
In laughter, larder, and love
Dave
So the first two weeks of the term were basically spent watching a few of the more serious students doing the general maintenance work around the school (mowing grass, cleaning class rooms, etc.) and getting all my little ducks in a row at my own home. I needed to mow grass, clear a path to the latrine, clean, put in a ceiling, buy stuff for cooking, pick up tools, and build a fence. A lot to do when you are supposed to be learning students names, making lesson plans, and grading homework. Keep in mind that staying up late to do the work doesn't happen because as soon as the sun is gone, work stops.
I obviously wasn't going to be able to accomplish all that in two months let alone two weeks. So I focused on my job, teaching. In my freshmen (they call it senior one, or S1 for short) math I have two lessons three times a week. Each lesson is 80 minutes long and is supposed to have around 65 students. However, my lessons are usually in the morning so they start 40 minutes late because the 35 students who do arrive, are extremely late. Needless to say, I get frustrated a lot. However, there are highlights. Some of my kids are truly interested and come and ask questions. They even come to my house on Saturdays and Sundays to do practice problems. I also teach S2 (equivalent of sophomores, also 65 in a lesson) in physics and I have been able to do some awesome demonstrations with them. I got some clear hose and demonstrated a siphon, I got a straw and demonstrated a venturi, and I used a piece of paper to show how an airplane wing causes lift. Things that the other physics teachers had never end thought of let alone seen. So all in all, I have around 230 students who I am still getting to know, some of whom I never will, and others whom I am extremely grateful to have gotten to know.
I don't like teaching inside the classroom. I am fairly convinced that it may be one of the least efficient ways to convey knowledge, and understanding is all but none existent. My preferred method is when they come to my house and I can use a stick to scratch in the dirt, use some bamboo and a machete to build a demonstration on the spot, but most importantly to answer questions they have and do it in such a way they have to ask another question to understand the answer. Mwahahaha, I'm such and evil-genius-educator.
On top of my students from my school, I am also tutoring a girl in the evenings in math and sciences so she can pass the national exam at the end of the year. She was in her fourth year in secondary school when she got pregnant a few months ago. Because, while it is ok for teachers to come to school drunk, it is not ok for students to come to school pregnant. She isn't the brightest star in the sky, but despite her set backs, she still wants to take the exam at the end of the year, carry out the pregnancy and then go onto the advanced level. I give here a standing ovation every time she comes to my house simply for her fortitude. Especially since her father, and her new "husband" aren't really keen on her bothering with education. Her name is Pearl.
Then I have the one and only entrepreneur in Uganda living in my community. This guy is on the ball. He is aware that all the billions of foreign dollars that are pouring into Uganda won't last forever. In fact, he has already seen it begin to wain. So before the well drys up, he wants to start a company. A lot of infrastructure still needs to build around the North, so he thinks a construction company could do very well while people are still building churches, schools, clinics, shops, roads, and other such things. On top of this, he wants to begin using some technology from South Africa that uses a hydrolic press, 98% local dirt, and 2% cement. This way of making bricks is 30% cheaper (no burning of clay), it is stronger, lasts longer, and takes less time. He wants to be ahead of the curve by jumping on it now. All of the stuff he has done without me. What he wants now is an engineering consultant to help him get off the ground. I'm not fronting any money, I'm not putting my name on anything, and he isn't asking me for that either. I think he is pretty genuine and really just wants me to tell him that his grand plan will work, and perhaps having a white dude helping his company will get him more business. In any case, I like where he is going with this, I can see the benefits of this technology, and I like him as a person, so I'm on board.
I still haven't gotten my solar death ray to work. I finally got a busted six foot diameter satellite dish about a month ago, but the only reflective material I was able to get was aluminum paint which did not work. It would only make your hand hot, not light wood on fire. But now I am in the capitol and here they have everything, so hopefully I'll be able to get some aluminum foil at least.
My windmill is on hold at the moment. The local community is a little leery of me doing anything with or near the borehole-well. The school shares the well with all the villagers out of kindness and to keep them happy and so if I go and start putting a big scary windmill on it they are afraid it will damage their nearest source of water. That is a legitimate fear I suppose, as clean water is still not an easy thing to get around here, so I will have to do some more sweet talking with the locals and the school to get that one going.
Now I am in the capital city for some Peace Corps training, enjoying a pool, beer and friends. I have a minor infection in my hand from using a hand hoe to dig up (plow) a half acre of garden. I got my beans, corn, onions, cassava, and potatoes in the ground in exchange for a giant bruise on the palm of my hand which then turned infected. Part of it was that the ground was really hard, part of it was digging like a man possessed to vent my frustrations with the ministry of education, and part of it was "if your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough." So my bad bruise turned into an infection, which I didn't know could happen, but did. After it swelled up to the size of a balloon, I realized it wasn't just a bruise and had the doctor at the local clinic lance the abscess. The doctor used a local anesthetic, but knelt on my wrist just in case. The local anesthetic did the trick because it was a world better than when I was trying to squeeze it out myself. Story short, I now have a 1/4 inch hole in my hand that is healing nicely. Obviously I can even use it to type. Oh, it was my right hand by the way. If it was my left, I probably would have had to see the doctor a lot sooner.
So that brings me to the tittle of this entry: Africa Lite. I was talking with a few other volunteers who had already served in west Africa. Guinea, Togo, Mauritania, and others are worlds off worse than Uganda. So even though I have pretty much listed nothing but set backs in this entry, I definitely have it easy compared to what they had. Even when compared to other East African countries like Kenya, we have it made in the shade. I just read in the local paper about how Kenyans come to Uganda and make a killing in nearly any venture they try, and Ugandans who go to Kenya... come back. Thinking about it, life here really isn't too dang bad in a simple "are you living or are you dieing" kind of sense. You throw seeds on the ground twice a year. Two hours in the morning you tend to them and you harvest twice a year. A mud hut only costs labor, and most medical supplies are so cheap that people are dieing of malaria more often because they don't like doctors than because they can't afford treatment. So if you start thinking that you might be sorta be tempted into thinking that I have it rough... DON'T! I actually have a bigger house, more pay (relative to the standard of living), and better health care than at any other time in my life thus far. I do manual labor because I like it, and my job could be much, much worse. So T.I.A.L.
Well, that is about all. I am anxious to go back to my home and garden and begin lessons for next term and correct all the mistakes I made this term.
In laughter, larder, and love
Dave
Monday, June 14, 2010
Mailing Address
This is Sully, but I have Dave's mailing address for those who are interested. Unfortunately PC rules make it so I am not allowed to just post it publicly, but luckily due to a trick Dave showed me I can encrypt it here. You need to know the encryption key to access it. The key is a motto of Dave's (all lower case with no spaces).
If you don't know the passcode shoot me a facebook message or email john.allan.sullivan@gmail.com
Friday, May 21, 2010
Aceba Kimara
I have finally arrived at my new community. The place I will call my home town for the next two years. After 10 weeks of gruelling training and endless anticipation, I am finally here in Lamwo District in Northern Uganda. I am in the extreme North, only a stone's throw from Sudan, so the weather here is HOT! This is the rainy season and I am still breaking a sweat just by getting out of bed. The only time I feel comfortable is when I'm standing in the rain.
Being in a new land, and on a new adventure, calls for a new name. My language instructor is pretty awesome in general and was really good about picking out a name for me. I decided that since David is Hebrew for "Beloved one", my Acholi name should be something along those lines. So that is where Kimara (Kee-mara) comes in. In Acholi it means "They love me." Pretty sweet. Then after being at site for just a few days, the local folks started calling me Aceba (Acheba) Kimara, or just Aceba for short. In Acholi, Aceba means strength and courage as it was the name of the rwot (chief) who founded that little community in which I now live. Because of this, the people also refer to themselves as the Aceba people, meaning their tribal group. So now my full name means "The Aceba people love me." Pretty sweet! "They like me, they really like me."
The past few weeks at site have been pretty uneventful because it is term break. The schools here have 3 terms per academic year starting in February. I have gotten to know the Head Teacher (my boss) pretty well. He is a very non-traditional guy with a lot of education. He was in the seminary where he got his degree in divinity, then after the war in the North broke out, he left the seminary and became a teacher. Then he went to Cairo to study Arabic for a bit then onto Islamabad University for Islamic studies. He speaks 7 languages, of them are German, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. He is married and has 3 kids, between 5 and 15 I think. All in all he is a pretty awesome guy and has been pretty interested in some of my plans.
My plans: Let me tell you. I am teaching math and physics, and what better way to get kids interested about such feared subjects than to build stuff, especially if it ends in fire, explosions, or slip-n-slides. So my first project will be to find a busted satellite dish, one of the 10' diameter ones, and line it with aluminum flashing. Then light stuff on fire :). After we get done burning everything insight, we can use it to do some sweet math on how much energy we are focusing on a single point. Then we can move on to actually using such an impressive instrument of death to cook the school lunch of beans and posho. The school spends over $50USD a week on firewood to cook the lunch. My sweet dish might help reduce the cost... or I might create a bean-posho explosion that rains fragments into southern Sudan starting WWIII. In either case, it will be epic.
My other project is to build a windmill to pump water for the school. Right now the students are getting by just fine using the hand pump at the well, but they aren't using very much water. I want to use a windmill with 8' blades to pump 10L/s into a 10,000L tank 30' in the air so that we can irrigate 4 acres of beans during the dry season. This will have some significant start up cost, but will pay dividends when the school is no longer paying for 3000kg of beans during the dry season. It may fail miserably and just waste a lot of time and money, but even if it does, one or two students might just get hooked on this whole math and science kick. In which case: mission accomplished. Mission extra-accomplished if I make an awesome slip-n-slid down the hill infront of the school.
Other than that, I have been training for a marathon (bare foot mind you, cause that is how the Acholi do it), and I've been reading 3rd grade level novels in Acholi to work on my fluency. I figure once I can read the paper, spend a whole day speaking Acholi, and listen to the radio all without having to look up a word or resort to English, then I will be fluent.
Also, my mind numbing free time has hit. Of the books I have read in the past three weeks, I would recommend strongly:
"Lies my Teacher Taught me"
"The Last King of Scotland"
"Tall Grass"
"Heretics" or anything by G. K. Chesterton, he's a hoot.
I still don't have a house yet nor an address, but when I get some form of residence I will let you all know my coordinates.
In life, love, and libation
Dave
Being in a new land, and on a new adventure, calls for a new name. My language instructor is pretty awesome in general and was really good about picking out a name for me. I decided that since David is Hebrew for "Beloved one", my Acholi name should be something along those lines. So that is where Kimara (Kee-mara) comes in. In Acholi it means "They love me." Pretty sweet. Then after being at site for just a few days, the local folks started calling me Aceba (Acheba) Kimara, or just Aceba for short. In Acholi, Aceba means strength and courage as it was the name of the rwot (chief) who founded that little community in which I now live. Because of this, the people also refer to themselves as the Aceba people, meaning their tribal group. So now my full name means "The Aceba people love me." Pretty sweet! "They like me, they really like me."
The past few weeks at site have been pretty uneventful because it is term break. The schools here have 3 terms per academic year starting in February. I have gotten to know the Head Teacher (my boss) pretty well. He is a very non-traditional guy with a lot of education. He was in the seminary where he got his degree in divinity, then after the war in the North broke out, he left the seminary and became a teacher. Then he went to Cairo to study Arabic for a bit then onto Islamabad University for Islamic studies. He speaks 7 languages, of them are German, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. He is married and has 3 kids, between 5 and 15 I think. All in all he is a pretty awesome guy and has been pretty interested in some of my plans.
My plans: Let me tell you. I am teaching math and physics, and what better way to get kids interested about such feared subjects than to build stuff, especially if it ends in fire, explosions, or slip-n-slides. So my first project will be to find a busted satellite dish, one of the 10' diameter ones, and line it with aluminum flashing. Then light stuff on fire :). After we get done burning everything insight, we can use it to do some sweet math on how much energy we are focusing on a single point. Then we can move on to actually using such an impressive instrument of death to cook the school lunch of beans and posho. The school spends over $50USD a week on firewood to cook the lunch. My sweet dish might help reduce the cost... or I might create a bean-posho explosion that rains fragments into southern Sudan starting WWIII. In either case, it will be epic.
My other project is to build a windmill to pump water for the school. Right now the students are getting by just fine using the hand pump at the well, but they aren't using very much water. I want to use a windmill with 8' blades to pump 10L/s into a 10,000L tank 30' in the air so that we can irrigate 4 acres of beans during the dry season. This will have some significant start up cost, but will pay dividends when the school is no longer paying for 3000kg of beans during the dry season. It may fail miserably and just waste a lot of time and money, but even if it does, one or two students might just get hooked on this whole math and science kick. In which case: mission accomplished. Mission extra-accomplished if I make an awesome slip-n-slid down the hill infront of the school.
Other than that, I have been training for a marathon (bare foot mind you, cause that is how the Acholi do it), and I've been reading 3rd grade level novels in Acholi to work on my fluency. I figure once I can read the paper, spend a whole day speaking Acholi, and listen to the radio all without having to look up a word or resort to English, then I will be fluent.
Also, my mind numbing free time has hit. Of the books I have read in the past three weeks, I would recommend strongly:
"Lies my Teacher Taught me"
"The Last King of Scotland"
"Tall Grass"
"Heretics" or anything by G. K. Chesterton, he's a hoot.
I still don't have a house yet nor an address, but when I get some form of residence I will let you all know my coordinates.
In life, love, and libation
Dave
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