Almost the End

The kids just finished revision week, meaning there was even less order in the JSS than usual, and are taking their English exam on Monday. Maybe. There's still rampant copying, football during breaks, a lady in a leopard print skirt selling peanuts (groundnuts) on the steps outside. Cameras at both the JSS and especially for the younger kids who hang around outside PUSU are a big hit.
Last weekend we went to visit the other United Planet volunteer site in the eastern Volta Region; highlight was an overnight in a mona monkey sanctuary. Next week is more adventuring to the north, hopefully toward the elephants and largest outdoor market in west africa.
Probably no internet until the big return to the big US, but I'm sure make-up posts will follow. 2 weeks left in Ghana. See you soon!

National Holidays: yours, mine, and ours

I'm not sure what Republic Day is; neither, apparently, are any of my aquaintances in Putubiw. Regardless, July 1 was a national holiday, a day off from school, and cause for a long weekend. We spent another cloudy weekend at the beach: gray sky, slate ocean, white waves. Green Turtle lodge was all open with sand replacing flooring, had round outdoor showers, self-composting toilets, musty tents, great food, and a quiet location on a gorgeous beach. Lots of walking and reading in the dry corners of the central lounge.

A short week of teaching was as eventful as the others. On Thursday and Friday, Rebecca and I were the sole teachers at the JSS until the religion guy rode up on his bike well after the first lesson was finished. After friday classes, we went into Cape Coast to take a van to Accra for the weekend. We met up with a dozen other United Planet volunteers in honor of the 4th of July. Our Nepalese country director took us to an Irish Pub in the Ghanaian capital for American Independence Day. I guess that works. It was certianly fun. and the kareoke at the sports bar that followed was equally unexpected. Maybe next time we'll try to introduce Putubiw to fireworks and s'mores.

Some days Putubiw smells like roasting marshmallows, followed by burnt popcorn. These are the days they burn the piles of crushed sugarcane stalks. In the hours preceeding the aromas, the puttering of the old motors that press sugarcane reverberates off of the clinic and houses at the bottom of Putubiw hill. That's how we left on Friday, and what we will be greeted with on the walk to school Monday morning.

Off to another day exploring Accra. Happy 4th of July!!

Language Lessons

Yesterday we introduced Putubiw's Primary 4 students to bears, the Berenstain variety. Although all the kids know farming, the red barn and silo pictured on Farmer Ben's farm reflect none of the small plots of plaintain trees and cassava plants of the fields surrounding the village. At least the hens looked familiar. I had them each draw an animal on the chalkboard: the goat, sheep, and dog alluded to skillfully simple rhinos. Today, 10 more Primary 5 boys and girls are leaning over their exercise books as Ben gives them and impromptu spelling test. The idea is to reinformce grammar and improve spoken english with a different Primary grade each weeknight. We played games and reviewed colors and adjectives most of this week.

Rebecca and I are discovering the need to review basices at the JSS too. Our Form 2 review of pronounts, subject, and object was quite similar to last week's 5:00 classes on nouns. Both forms have now completed, though not mastered, paragraph writing. Some errors like subject-verb agreement are to be expected in a new language while others like the exclusion of all periods (full stops) result from the lack of reading/writing practice in any language. With time, we've begun to understand how to divide lessons between reading, notes, and written exercises to keep the classes in a semblance of order. It's difficult when the JSS is staffed by 3 teachers who appear for seemingly ad hoc lessons without regard to their timing; we greatly confused 2 of them when we asked to look at the master class schedule.

New topic, new line, indent new paragraph. The weeks are starting to flow together, a sure sign that I'm settling into a Putubiw routine. We still remark about the abundance of goats, leave a trail of children calling "obruni, how are you, i am fine, thank you" in our wake, and rely on Kelvin to translate what the mothers call from their stoops once they exceed our knowledge of mfantse (fante) phrases:

welcome akwaaba
good morning mema wo ache
how are you? otee den?
(or "apume", accompanied by wild hand gestures, according to the woman who greets Rebecca and I on our way to school with the deep exclamation)
I am fine me who ye
My name is Sarah Wofre me Sarah
goodbye (Putubiw kid style) Obruni-bye-bye

Adventure No.2

Finally a keyboard that types normally! This weekend United Planet organized a trip for us to see the sights of the Central Region; we hit all the major points on the itinerary, with a few unexpected happenings to keep things interesting.

Our first stop was Kakum National Park for the canopy walk. Yes is was touristy, yes we did see more white people than expected, and yes we did have an entire secondary school class in our tour group. But Ben, who drove and accompanied us, wisely kept us at the front of the group and once on the walk it was easy to get lost in the "tropical semi-deciduous rain forest." The walk is 7 suspended walkways connecting trees that stoically stand tall above the canopy. More than one person on a walkway at a time brings back memories of the playground plank bridges we used to run across as kids. Peering down towards the ground yields an unexpectedly simple view of the forest: as overwhelmingly green, as diverse in shapes and forms, and as still as it appears while looking up towards the tree tops.

After departing, we briefly paused at the side of the road to buy Fan Ice, vanilla ice cream sold in pouches. It's the consistency of slowly melting soft serve, but the fact that there are frozen treats sold from carts along every major road is enough to leave me in awe. Sachets are big in Ghana; water is sold in expensive bottles as well as 500ml packets known as "pure water" for a few cents apiece. You can't walk more than a few feet in Cape Coast without hearing girls calling "Purewataaa."

Next stop was Elmina Castle, the largest castle used in the slave trade in sub-Saharan Africa. The tour was incredibly interesting: dungeons for the women and men connected separately to the same 'room of no return'; two churches; and the governor's expansive living quarters. His two-part living room is approximately the size of the largest cell used to house 100 women awaiting departure. Atop the castle, there were amazing views of the palm-lined beach, fishing boats lined up along the canal, and the small roofs of Elmina.

Our UP-sponsored weekend stopped unexpectedly once Ben helped us check into our hotel with the promise of a 1:00 pick up the following day. The hotel, housed in one of the colonial era buildings, Bridge House, was in an awesome location just across the canal from the Castle. Left with a free afternoon and access to the hotel's second branch on the beach, the three of us decided to wander toward the other Coconut Grove property. The walk was a little longer than anticipated, but made our drinks on the beach a little more enjoyable. It was strange to imagine spending an entire Ghanaian vacation at a resort, without meeting any of the people we've encountered in Putubiw or those who we greeted on the walk there. We startled quite a few women by replacing "how are you?" with "o tee den?" We can successfully count to 59, greet, inquire "how are you," and ask names. The kids that flock to the windows of the library every night find us even more amusing now.

After dinner on the porch looking directly at the Castle's formidable whitewashed walls, we called it an early night and enjoyed having a warm shower, AC, and a top sheet on our beds. This morning we walked around the fishing town at a less than strenuous stroll and saw a few of the posuban shrines that decorate the area. To the best of our understanding, historically each "company" in town decorates a site that may have been used as storage and/or a meeting place. They are bright, often with full size figures. We passed a sailing ship above one building, Adam and Eve and other various characters, and a more simply decorated but equally bright shrine with lions. All have multiple stories and balconies that allude to the colonial architecture still prevalent along the main road in town.

We spent quite a while pouring over our 3 identical copies of Bradt's Ghana guide, discussing which idiosyncrasies we would write to Philip Briggs about. Our next few weekends of travel (Accra, Green Turtle Lodge on the Western Coast, Biakpa in the Volta region) should be great.

Call Me Esi

Each day and sex has a name in Fante and therefore everyone has two names to remember. for me it is now Esi, a Sunday-born girl.

As Rebecca said on the ride to Cape Coast, it will never cease to be a marvel that taxis come to Putubiw. How any car can make that trip -- across puddles that look like ponds and hills reminiscent of roller coasters -- more than once in its lifetime will forever puzzle me.

The Form 2s were tolerably well behaved today, and the dreaded reading is behind us. Ghana time being what it is, we may make it back in time for dinner and the JSS session at the library. I really like working with the students and Ben and Kelvin our hosts at PUSU are fun to be around too. This weekend we are looking forward to a trip to Kakum National Park for a canopy walk as well as tours of Cape Coast and Elmina castles. All is well, and the sun even shone a bit this morning.

Til the next taxi trip...

It Must Stop Pouring

7Sunday was a great beach day; otherwise it's been gray since last friday. The past 4 hours of rain have competed with Kodwo's blaring R&B as thesoundtrack to my afternoon.

Rain is Africa's pause button.

If it doesn't stop, there will be no library hours tonight: nothing to do. Especially in and around Putubiw, where the channels engraved by downpours like this cut 6" wide and twice as deep into the roads, travel is both unpleasant and unpractical in the rain. Usually, at 5 we walk up the hill to PUSU's office/library (about a dozen books, a desk, a chalkboard, and benches). Primary school students come for an hour lesson in English grammar andreading. Yesterday we began helping with an open homework help session for JSS students between 7 and 9. It keeps the nights busy and is easier than working with a full class of40.

Mornigs at the JSS are slowly finding a rhythm. 1 or 2 classes each morning, though the number of children in attendance varies more than the rotating class schedule. Their textbook resembles our foreign language texts with a combination of readings, grammar, and oral/written exercises. However, the school still operates on a memorization-based system. Questions have a right answer, and my prompting of "why?" is met with blank stares. Our accents/vocabulary, lack of enforcement mechanism (I'd look ridiculous trying to wield a cane even if I desired to), and their age (between 11 and 17, with an average of 14 or 15) create a trying situation. The Form 1 class is more receptive and paragraph writing lessons yielded a small improvement. It's no small request to ask kids who have rarely read a story and whose native speech is an oral language to write compositions on a prompt such as "describe your clothes in three paragraphs." The Form 2s are good at avoiding gazes and bad at silence, but the reading we're trying is over their heads, and mine too as I try for the 1st time to explain it in English. My memory for simply synonmys and my ability to generate concrete concise definitions is improving.

There"s still thunder outside. Here, there is never confusion that a rumble was just a car or a trash can. Luckily all three volunteers brought 4 books and we have already scoped out the bookstore in Cape Coast. Since Casey arrived, major brainstorming has filled notebook pages, but assessing the practicality and value of such schemes is still to come. Working on Putubiw time is part of the experience.

Happy Flag Day

this birthday mimicked the last: rainy, gray, and at the beach. But an overnight in a hut at the Anomabo Beach Resort is quite the (welcome) departure from a day full of seining in the Nature Center's communal waders.

the white noise of waves hummed at Rebecca, Casey, and I as we ate on the porch restaurant overlooking the beach and, later, as we used the covered recliners as an escape from the dripping skies rather than the sun. Despite the drizzle, or perhaps because of the calm that seemed to pervade the day, I quite enjoyed the 14th.

In honor of the holiday season, happy anniversary Grandma and Grandpa, happy fathers day Dad, happy birthday Grandpa, and happy flag day to the rest!

A Slow Start

the place that United Planet and its volunteers have in Putubiw is hard to understand. the oddity that is our presence here is certainly a door for cultural exchange but is also extremely brief. We're caught in a paradox: we're here to use our own knowledge and skills towards projects we can accomplish but are also tethered to PUSU. And any indigenous development project must demand that their volunteers work with its own vision. It's hard to balance enacting PUSU projects and filling in idle time.

It's easy to notice how far I've ventured into unfamiliar territory during the down time in week 1. Afternoons have been saturated withreading and apathy. Helping PUSU figure out what to do with us is mostly a trial in patience.

But there's hope yet. Rebecca and I will begin teaching at the Junior Secondary School (JSS) on thursday. In the evenings there will be a session for primary students. Yesterday we accompanied the students to a day of athletics (a track meet) in a nearby village Acrofo. It was fun, even as an unaffiliated spectator, to experience the unabashed joy of a hundred students whose years don't outnumber their fingers cheering for one of their classmates. The women, on reprieve from selling snacks, often yelled the loudest and jumped the highest. I guess some aspects of motherhood are universal.

Back to slow internet

Hi all,
We're in Cape Coast for the afternoon basically to check email. It's only about 20-30 minutes by taxi (which from Putubiw is a regular sedan). The keyboard is a bit troublesome, but if all works well, there should be two posts below from my first week. I'll be sharing a phone with the two other ND volunteers, the number is 00233248493396, just in case I can't email it. Wishing for some AC,
Sarah

The Place Where the Yams Are Kept

re The intrigue of travel often lies in the juxtaposition of foreign and familiar: what attracts, what is relevant to the known, what frightens or bewilders. Today, after watching A Cinderella Story, something staring Amanda Bynes, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, I walked to the porch where I was immediately spotted by a band of pointing 5-year-olds. The transition from watching American films to waving at Putubiw"s youngest made me realize why snippets from my own life in DE felt like scenes from a TV show when i got back from Uganda. White people are "abruni" here; I heard that a lot today.

Ghana is beautiful. Trees are tropical, the non-major roads are peachy tan earch eroded by the rainy season, the coast is in places both rocky and sandy and always alive with breaking waves. Putubiw, which means "The place where the yams are kept" was named for its useful location atop a hill. It overlooks plenty of green and 4 other villages. Our first task upon arrival (after a jaunt to Cape Coast to pick up mattresses) was to meet the chief. Observing tradition, a "linguist" was present to speak for us, though the chief Nana is a seemingly welcoming and reasonable leader and spoke to us directly as well. Having been accepted into Putubiw officially by the chief, we"re protected, are part of the village of 2,000, and are freen to move around. Putubiw,while rural is what would come of a Kampala suburb chipped away from the city and transplanted a 20min drive away. The first thing we were shown upon arrival was the open air distillery (series of covered water tanks and containers of fermenting sugarcane juice) where "apatuchi" is brewed. One constant during the days has been the putter of the machine 100m from our house pressing sugarcane to extract the juice.

At the bottom of the hill lies "Beatrice"s House" where we"re staying. It is a concrete structure with water and electricity both larger and nicer than my homestay in Kampala. There are 5 bedrooms, a spacious living room, small kitchen, and a bathroom with a working shower (!). The issue of hot water is not relevant. We spent most of today with the kids of the house watching movies on the desktop computer set up there. We also walked to the school, about 10min away. PUSU"s Ben, Kelvin, and Joseph seem very nice and dedicated to the project; PUSU"s been working with volunteers from UP since they began arriving about a year ago. It is still a tiny operation, and I"d guess about a dozen volunteers have been through. On monday, we will go meet the head teacher and will know more about the teaching which will begin Tuesday.

Accra

"Ghana is what people see in their dreams. Those who are here are the lucky ones." That's how United Planet's young assistant describes his country to volunteers.

Lucky is: humid.When we touched down in Accra at 9:30am, it was 84F. Now at7:30pm, the heat of theday has at last escaped the buildings but it's still ridiculously muggy. Yao, the assistant, met Rebecca, another ND volunteer, and I at the airport and took us to a hotel in
Osu, a smart part of town with plenty of restaurants and a Wrangler Jeans store. After a briefing, we ate lunch at a cafe on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of Guinea. A flight of steps, tall and steep, led to multiple levels of tables which were protected by a wall from the drop-off and the spray of the waves throwing themselves toward the coast. We visited the tomb of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, and a small museum about the history of the slave trade in an old fort. Accra is hot, roads are paved and relatively clean, named shops sell specialized types of goods, and people stare much less than in Kampala.

Tomorrow we'll travel with Raj, the UP coordinator, to Putubiw in the central region, west of Accra and just northeast of Cape Coast. Rebecca and I will most likely be co-teaching English in the junior secondary school (~middle school, lucky us indeed) for 1-2 classes each morning. After a free afternoon, we'll help with the review sessions run in the evening by the Putubiw Student Union (PUSU). the Union is our host in the village. We'll be living in a home (essentially as boarders) with a family just out of the center of Putubiw. What all of that will be in actuality once we reach the village is yet to be seen...

Goodbye, Fort Portal, I'll miss you

a glimpse of my last week and a half

Can you believe it?

Fort Portal has a small, tight expat group. We met them all within the first week. It’s important to find people experiencing life in a way similar to you and to “speak fast English” with. (Uganda has certainly taught me the importance of annunciation.) That’s why it’s was great to visit the part of our study abroad group still stationed in Kampala last weekend.

Halfway between Kampala and Fort Portal, the bus pauses while approximately 87 hawkers attempt to sell chipati, gonja, water, or meat on a stick through the windows. In more rural stretches, peddlers instead sell produce and live chickens.

We got into the city on the day that taxi and boda drivers were on strike and without public transportation Kampala is a different place. I’ve never seen so many Ugandans walking. It is probably safe to say that Emily’s 21^st birthday in Uganda is not what it would have been in the US, but a dozen of us spent a fun but casual night sharing practicum stories.

Saturday turned out to be one of my favorite days of the semester. The biggest ordeal of the morning was walking down the mud road from the girls’ house. The Uganda-red muck caked on the bottom of our shoes and crept up the gentle curve of my black flats until there was danger of it overtaking the tops of my feet as well and I lost all hope of looking smart. A few of us had brunch in town just down the block from Christ the King Church where my host sister, Barbara, was getting married in the early afternoon. I was early (and of course they were late) but eventually I sat with the boys from my homestay: my brother Derrick, Ibram, and my neighbor Charles. The wedding was a long mass in Luganda for two couples, each with their own side of the church. The priest’s vernacular homily was occasionally interrupted by key Ugandan English phrases such as “can you believe it?” or “by the way…” Though the wedding party was outfitted in white dresses and suits, the colorful traditional garb that filled the pews ensured that the day felt truly Ugandan. The family was less central to the day’s events than I expected: the parents of the bride didn’t have an air of importance, Barbara’s sister Jackie acted as wedding coordinator rather than bridesmaid, and her brother Derrick was sitting halfway to the back of the church. The service was beautiful and it was wonderful to see everyone again after a break and with such a cause for celebration. After saying hello and goodbye to those I knew, I walked through Kampala and caught up with Katie before returning to Emily’s for a quiet night of cooking and watching DVDs.

Barbara, her husband Daniel, and the wedding party on the steps of the church. Can you spot the apple?

On Sunday Kimberly and I got in the same taxi as Yvonne and Eve, the sisters we’d met the previous weekend, and I knew F/P was a small town. For the last 90 minutes of the 4hr trip, we were 5 across in the front row of the taxi. Did I ever think 19 adults and 2 small children could go that far in one van? Nope, but we did. The walk home felt great. Now the countdown has begun: less than a month left.

African sun at noon: wear sunscreen. Reapply.

Denim jackets, sleeveless hoodies, plaid, layers, Mr. Feeny: Boy Meets World is so wonderfully American. I let Eddie, my Rwandan neighbor at the hostel, borrow the first season and told him that that’s how we grew up. My life could use a laugh track sometimes. It was great to watch a few episodes last weekend with 3 other SIT students visiting Kimberly and I from Kampala.

We were up early Saturday morning and the Kabarole Tours van picked us up from the hostel and drove about an hour to a trail head. The hike was a little over two hours in the Rwenzori mountains to the “warm springs” which turned out to be sufficiently hot. As Kimberly put it: ‘in the US they make paths wind back and forth. In Uganda they just cut the trail straight up.’ There was a lot of walking up and down and around (as is to be expected) and the last thing I wanted when we got there was to get into hot water. So we chilled quite literally in the river and then attempted to get into the springs. There were three pools: the nicer and more removed pool for the men, one for the women and children, and a third deserted pool that our guide said “stopped working.” Our central location made us quite the show for the 50 or so male onlookers who finally disappeared toward lunchtime. It was once again amusing to be the tourist rather the one leading the tour and I watched our guides to see what “novelties” they pointed out to us. The chameleon changing color on my yellow shirt won me over on the hike back. We drove home, showered for twice as long as usual, and spent the next 24 hours being really mzungu.

Mountains of the Moon hotel is just .5km from the hostel but was worlds away from our bagged lunch of rolex (an omelet rolled into a chipati) on the rocks by the stream. It was nice to treat ourselves to a good meal and unwind. On Sunday morning we all woke up with sunburned backs and put the girls on a taxi back to Kampala. We met up with 2 other SIT students and Brother Leon who took us to lunch (and, as has become the norm for encounters with Holy Cross, drinks). 2 hotels with swimming pools in 2 days: did I accidentally leave Uganda?

Now that a good weekend of tourism is done, it’s time to get back to life in F/P.

Eddie returned the DVD set within 3 days. Since I sadly don’t have more, he’s back to watching Family Guy at night.

I am fine.

Here’s the experiment: to each person that I pass on the walk to work I’ll say “Hello,” then I’ll count the frequency of the responses I get. There are only three: the rare “hello”, even scarcer “how are you,” and the most common “I am fine.” That final response to any English greeting strikes me as funny, and people are always willing to smile back.

Kimberly and I walked the half hour down-up-downhill trip to town both yesterday and today. It’s good to stretch my legs and each time I walk up-down-uphill back, I’m struck once again by the sight of Fort Portal tucked in between green pastures dotted with houses and cows. Really, if they had postcards in Uganda, I’d send you one.

Last fall, our study abroad coordinator posed the question: “what’s Africa?” Eventually someone stumbled “…it’s a continent…?” That idea is becoming more real to me with every conversation about travel I have. Uganda has already provided a multiplicity of experiences: Kampala homestay, a short safari, rural homestay, numerous taxi and bus trips, and now the practicum stationed in F/P. And those headings don’t begin to cover the minute details that shape my time here: bananas and matoke, latrines and showers, chickens and cows, or bikes and bodas. Sometimes it’s hard to decide what to blog about: is it too trivial, too idealistic, too stereotypical, too mundane? My take on this semester is just one addition to the diversity of Africas being shared. Luckily there’s enough room for all of them here and they don’t have to compete; it seems like it’s just a matter of getting the most out of whatever people and sights you happen to have around you.

Today I was content to the utmost extent with the bit of the continent I found myself on. After days of rain, the sun quickly established its dominance over this Sunday. It’s amazing that at precisely 10:00 the cool morning evaporates into day. I celebrated the absence of the blue soap so common at my homestay while washing my clothes (no more residue dwelling like bruises on my yellow shirt). While most families here wash clothes, dishes, and bodies with the same type of soap, I have multiple face washes in my room: that’s the lifestyle difference I was most conscious of and embarrassed by in Kampala. With my shirts left decorating the clothesline and errands to town accomplished, I was quite happy to get lost in a book while basking in the backyard. There were a few passages in chapter two of Barak Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” describing his mother’s experience living in a foreign country that I surely appreciated more here than I would have at any other point in the past.

Except for the invasion of insects we experienced tonight, all is well. Cooking adventures have been more or less successful (always yielding something edible) and it’s been novel to shop for fresh tomatoes and bananas (or better yet the baby bananas, ndiizi) every few days. There’s thunder in the distance now, I suppose it’s silly to expect a full twenty four hours free of precipitation. I hope the walk to work isn’t too muddy in the morning. As they say here, I am fine. Goodnight!

An hour and a half later we ended up in Kamwenge

The more we get together together together the more we get together the happier we’ll be.

80 voices paused, 160 hands balanced shoulder width apart, and a common intake of breath was appreciable. Three seconds later the chorus returned:

For my friends are your friends and your friends are my friends (don’t forget to point!) The more we get together together together the more we get together the happier we’ll be.

Perhaps appropriate at a conference on primary education, the sight of teachers, headmasters, local government officials, and NGO representatives participating so fully involved in nursery song was fascinating. During the two day education conference in Kamwenge District topics included the status of local education, exam results, and NGO partner experiences. The quality of teaching, class size (pupil to classroom ratio 83:1), lack of resources, parental contributions, and prevalent student and teacher absenteeism were major issues. The lack of a literary culture struck me overall: inefficient teaching in large classes, unsupportive parents, and limited supply of books deprive kids of the practice required to really learn how to read. The conference was an exceptional opportunity to listen to the stakeholders give their own take on the statistics that I am so familiar with; it would have been easier to contextualize the information if I had heard of Kamwenge before we drove into town. Increased attention to school basics such as penmanship and question interpretation was called for; I got a lot of complements on my handwriting. Considerations for the “girl child” and persons with disabilities were usually excluded from presentations but were mentioned during open discussions.

African tea (milk, tea, and a lot of sugar) was served from jerry cans multiple times throughout the day; the provided meals and a travel allowance attracted participants (contrast that with conference registration fees!). Participants were overwhelmingly male (65/80) and numbered 120 near lunchtime when the church hall was fullest. A little blame-passing began on the first afternoon, but the conference concluded with groups of stakeholders each brainstorming short-term goals for themselves. Each time the microphone was passed, a new presenter shared his own views at length. During these speeches, I caught many attendees in brown suit coats staring over at me in the back row. Even though these looks (the same that I get everywhere) are without judgment, they are simultaneously without purpose and I find them disconcerting. It goes back to American mothers chiding their preschoolers for staring at others; here it is the older generation that teaches kids to wave and call to mzungus. It’s just different and strange to me. As is standard, we ran two hours behind schedule (sometimes stretching to three) from opening remarks through the Local Council chairman’s hour-long closing sermon on dependency thinking.

I attended the conference with two others from KRC. Kabarole Research and Resource Centre (KRC) is an indigenous research group well-established in the area, located 25 minutes by foot from the hostel where I’m staying. The hostel is in a great location out of town down a dirt road, quiet and calm. Upstairs from the hallway of dorm rooms is the office for an NGO that works with local orphans and pays school fees for 400 or so students (so there is the occasional straggling kid hanging around, but it’s Uganda so that’s expected regardless). The woman in charge, Carol, is a white haired lady who plays the role of tough-love grandmother well. I was suspicious upon first meeting that she was disillusioned by too many years of NGO work, but I think she’s a genuinely nice lady with a pure no-nonsense attitude toward life. It’s cooler in Fort Porrtal (F/P) than Kampala (K’la) and my fleece and raincoat will be put to good use. It’s the beginning of rainy season and the first two afternoons here blue thunderstorm clouds blended into the Rwenzori Mountains and created an eerily uniform cornflower blue sky. I’m excited to be in my new home for the weekend to explore a bit and maybe even relax.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from Uganda!

Today, Monday, is a national holiday which really just means that there was no traffic jam this morning. Sunday was celebrated across the country with church services and food in colossal proportions.

After a brief but muddy walk to the nearest Catholic Church, Nick and I attracted an audience of approximately 30 children daring one another to run close or say hello to us. The service started abruptly but was simple and familiar. Afterward, we took a walk to see Baha’i Temple whose green dome stood atop the next hill.

Baha’i religion stresses oneness: of humanity, religions, and manifestations of God. It exudes and essence of inclusion, moderation, and calm. The service was silent except for congregants’ readings (taken from multiple faiths) and a choir that took advantage of the great acoustics in the 9-sided room. The simplicity of the quiet rite was reflected in the wood paneling, blue and green stained glass, scattered Persian carpets, and plain pews inside the temple. Just as the Baha’i landscaped grounds were an odd green oasis in Kampala, our visit was an interesting religious encounter on Easter Sunday.

A yellow-gray sky and persistent rain suggested that it would endure all day; the weather kept its promise. I made it home soaked and bundled into a dry skirt and fleece. Lunch was piled onto full size dinner plates: the obligatory matoke, rice, chopped cassava, purple yams, cabbage and beans, two meat dishes I left uninvestigated, greens, diced green beans, and fresh juice. From other SIT students’ reports, 3 o’clock brought similar spreads to their homes as well. I spent the afternoon curled in a chair reading while the family watched Ugandan movies dubbed in Luganda.

The heavy lunch that characterizes Ugandan Easter is a far cry from the sugary start of Easter egg hunts at home. I brought a bag of jelly beans to the resource center today and they disappeared quite quickly (thanks mom!). I’ll be glad to have a basket and a chocolate egg or two next year.

Today I became a millionaire. Too bad it’s Ugandan shillings and has to last me for the six-week practicum. Kimberly and I are taking the 5 hour bus ride tomorrow to Fort Portal where we’ll be staying and I’ll be working with the Kabarole Research and Resource Center. My final paper will be on education in Uganda and work with KRC seems like a great chance to help with research in the field. Fort Portal is a smaller (much smaller) town in Western Uganda with one main street. When I visited last week I was charmed by the hills surrounding my hostel and the blue Rwenzori mountains in the distance (I’ve been surrounded by flat American cornfields for too long). I’m excited to go back a place where the people you pass greet you with a smile and an English “I am fine.”

Hey Look, Africa

Mbale, Hadoda village and the Kenyan border, Busia, Kampala, Fort Portal...it's been a long week and a half of traveling across the width of southern Uganda. Practicum preparations are almost done and as of next Wednesday I will be located in Fort Portal working with the Kabarole Research Centre studying Uganda's Universal Primary Education program. It's time to try out the wireless with a few pictures of eastern Uganda, one dominated by green and one by pink: farmland skirted by flowering bushes and the school uniforms of innumerable students that came to our yard to play and take pictures.

Kampala-bound

We just drove by a lady balancing a jackfruit on her head. Wikipedia jackfruit. It’s sticky sweet, reminiscent of fruity Smarties and texture-wise like hard boiled egg white (without any other sensatory implications).

Yesterday I rode a boda boda 21km from Annah’s home to our meeting point in Busia. My driver had a helmet, I did not, and I was sitting sidesaddle with 2 bags balanced on my lap. Pretty sure that’s what the mother meant during the “no motorcycles” instruction when I was younger. Once I found my balance, driving the narrow roads was an “I’m in Africa” moment. The sun, the landscape, and the mixture of confusion and amusement on the faces of people I waved to in passing (plus the absurdity of riding a motorcycle in a dress with a full LLBean backpack) were collectively captivating. And it was spectacular.

The whole excursion week has been like a long and welcome vacation. We didn’t stay in or originally planned hotel because, as our director informed us just before we left, it burned down. So we stayed at Noah’s Ark (no animal theme, sadly) but at lunch at our intended destination twice. They had pancakes and I’m not certain whether they were really fantastic or I’m very baked-goods deprived, but I know I’ll be experimenting with cinnamon, ginger, and Bisquick in May. The 2 hikes to Siipi Falls left us terribly dirty but engergized, excited to have some exercise, and gave us a chance to climb rocks and pass precarious bridges. We hiked the first trail at dusk and because it’s dry season saw a fine mist of a waterfall that was simple and unjustified in pictures. The second day we did another few hours of misting falls and cool (literally) caves. At the Ark, a common dining room/reception area was the perfect place to gather and watch tv. We managed to pick the, like, most mzungu movie ever: Clueless. The best part was Cher’s description of her ex-stepbrother’s “post adolescent idealistic phase,” which we can probably all identify with a bit.

From Siipi Falls we were dropped at our rural homestays in pairs of 2 and were told to research a topic within the village. Tom and I wanted to visit a school, so we picked education and went with our neighbor/translator/friend (who called my cell within 3 hours of me handing over my number) to many homes. At each we were invited to sit in the main room or hut depending on set-up and income level could be gauged by the presence or quality of seat cushions on the angular wooden chairs. Décor consisted of old calendars: the 2006 Presidential Candidates calendar, 2003 Give a Cow program calendar, 2007 The Rise and Fall of Sadaam Hussein calendar. Political print ads, especially for Museveni, dominated the remaining wall space, with an odd ABC poster here or there. I looked at the “Our Beloved Presidents and their Wives” each night at our homestay but Museveni in his goofy safari hat on the front wall was my favorite.

A close second was the amount of pink in the village. Not even the pastel Rwandan prision uniforms prepared me for the dozens upon dozens of kids in buttons up shirts or dresses in varying styles but identical color. Many young me also wore the color either because of the material’s abundance or as remnants of their past days in school. I’m grateful to whatever whim inclined the school to institute this color; the black white and pink pictures I took striking.

On one of our walks, Ben told us “life is good here. Except for the poverty.” Life was indeed different, but crops grew, kids ran around, and people were overwhelmingly friendly. Going to rural Africa and sleeping in a thatched hut for 3 days is as novel and entertaining as it sounds. But living with a family and being so obviously an outsider requires careful consideration of every conversation and action. I never forgot that my backpack contained more possessions than most homes we visited. The experience gave me good insight into the way many Ugandans live outside of Kampala; that said, 3 days is only enough time to being formulating questions and wishing for the time to get answers.