A Really Long Blog About Rats and Schoolchildren

I have two topics up for discussion today: critters and school. You would think these would be two different categories, but they definitely intertwine. Well, maybe not that much.

Let's begin with critters that have been in our home (and by "our home", I mean the Hollenbeck's house that me, Rachael, and Emily have now taken over). In our living room, we have some wicker furniture that isn't exactly new. After being here for a few weeks, Rachael noticed that bites were beginning to cover her arms where she had laid them on the furniture. And these weren't pretty, round mosquito bites. These were lumpy, nasty looking bites. Kathy thought that there may be some bugs in the furniture, so we decided to varnish it in hopes that the creatures would die. A few days after they were varnished, when we finally thought they were gone for good, Kathy started getting bitten. So yesterday we decided to take more action. Kathy and the boys sprayed about two cans of Doom all over the furniture. When they shook it out, literally hundreds of little black bugs fell out all over the floor. Rachael was only *slightly* grossed out.

Other than that, there aren't that many bugs here. Unfortunately, we still have rats, and yes, I meant that in plural. We're not sure where the rats are hiding, which means they're really good at it. Yesterday Kathy pulled all the innards out of the oven and found nothing but rat poo when she was hoping to find and destroy a nest. Today there was a run-in with Rodney in which Micah ended cutting the rat's tail off with the end of a broomstick, but he didn't actually kill Rodney (whom we might actually need to rename Rodnina). And as a tangent from rats in the house, I found a baby rat--little, tiny, pink baby rat--crawling across the dirt floor of one of my classrooms today. I don't know how it got there as there was no nest. I picked it up (really grossed Emily out) and threw it out, but it still didn't die! I'm becoming more and more amazed (and slightly disgusted) at the durability of these creatures.

Now that we're on the topic of school--kind of, I invite you to walk in my shoes for a moment. This week I've tried to do a lot more reflection and observation on the schools I'm working in. Something I've truly learned while being here is to observe carefully before passing judgment on certain practices, and that is what I'm trying to do in class rather than simply saying "Oh, this is really different, it must be bad". So close your eyes--well, don't do that, then you won't get anything out of this experience--and pretend that you have really curly hair, are dressed in a skirt, and are walking towards a concrete building that I fondly know as Nkokunjeru Primary School.

I look towards the white (and dirty) walls of the P5 classroom. The white iron-bar door is open, and I can see the children's faces through the barred windows of the classroom. I hear them whisper excitedly--"Teacha Rora, she's coming, Teacha..." I enter the classroom to look over about forty mischievously smiling faces. The teacher's desk is empty--I wonder where Joy is this time. Out for the whole day? Just the period? Will I have the entire hour and twenty minutes to myself? I say "Good morning, class." They reply "Good morning, teacha." "How are you?" "We are alright, thank you teacha." They look tired this morning, so I make them do a few stretches before sitting down. I pull out my book--today we are reading The Gruffalo. I have one of them read the title and ask if they have ever heard of this creature. They say no in unison. The kid on the front left row has a gaping hole in his crimson sweater, part of the school uniform. Teacher Joy shows up unexpectedly and sits in the teacher's desk as I begin. I read through the rhymes of the story (they are being exceptionally quiet today--is it because loud-mouthed Evas is gone or because their actual teacher is sitting in the classroom?) and stop at the end of every page to ask questions and see if they are keeping up. They answer the questions "yes" or "no" in unison. They are doing well today--is it because the teacher is here, the story is simple, or the plot of the story in involves a trick that makes it closer to their culture? By the time I finish with the story, the teacher needs to go over her own lesson and I don't have time to give them the assignment I was excited about, and the only creative assignment they might have for the whole year. Bummer. The newspaper-covered notebooks will have to be filled with more copied lessons, but at least today was easy. On other days I had the whole class to myself and it was hard. Every time I turned my back, kids changed seats and swapped notebooks. When they gave me the answers to their comprehension questions, all the answers were exactly the same. They whispered things about me in Runyankole and I heard the word "muzungu" passed around, even though they know my name. Those days are harder.

Now let me take you to my experience in a classroom at the Bible Baptist school--one that is actually very common in schools here. The P2 class was taking their midterm math exams today, as was the rest of the school. Teacher Cissy--who is actually a very nice lady--picked up her long switch. She began walking around the classroom looking at every test. She would pick through each one, find a fault, accuse the student loudly of something, either being lazy or copying or not thinking about what they were doing, and then switch them hard on the rear a few times. One little boy she grabbed by the arm and kept shouting, "What does it mean to 'take away'?? Don't you know it??" She switched him until tears came out of his eyes and he was too stunned to actually answer the question.

Let's examine these situations a little bit. Actually, I'll just go over things in the schools that I'm trying to weigh and judge:

• Teachers either not coming to class, coming to class really late, or leaving a class alone. This would be a huge fault on the teacher in America, but these kids are a lot more indepenent than American kids. A lot of times, a teacher has to spend half the lesson copying large amounts of text onto the chalkboard and the rest of the lesson is spent letting the students copy the text in their notebooks and then reading the text over and over and over and over. Sometimes the teacher will just leave when there's nothing for her to do. Teacher Joy is very hit and miss, even though she's a really nice lady.
• Schools having very few resources. American schools often complain about not having enough money for this or that, which can be legitimate, but these schools manage to scrape by with so little. They have blackboards (which can just be boards painted black), chalk, chunks of foam for erasers, a few old homemade posters here and there, desks, and concrete walls. The kids bring their own supplies which are a pen, ruler, compass, and really cheap notebooks. They have about one school uniform each. Actual schoolbooks are a rarity. AND YET--would money actually make much of a difference in this situation? I don't know. The kids at Bible Baptist are better educated, but have less books than the kids at Nkokunjeru. I actually think this has to do with smaller class size and having teachers that care more about them.
• Creativity. Students never receive assignments that challenge them to think creatively. There are no art classes or creative writing projects. They learn the facts, the culture, the essentials. But how can they incorporate creative assignments when it takes so long--an hour and twenty minutes per class period per day, actually--for them to learn the necessary facts? Lessons are made up of repitition and memorization because the kids can't take books home, and even if they could, I doubt the lessons would change. Yet they still receive 60s and 70s on their exams.
• Discipline. This is the biggest issue that I wrestle with because it has two sides. The traditional method of discipline in school in the past has been beating. This was recently banned, but it's still widely practiced even in the government schools. It's said that in Uganda if you don't beat a child, he won't turn out well, and in some ways I do have to agree with that. In the classes I've been in, the students have worked much more efficiently when a stick was out and would become lazy when it wasn't. But I'm really uncomfortable with tears and screaming in the classroom. Kids here are really tough, but I think that beating them makes them a lot more shy and soft spoken and doesn't train future leaders. I've been wracking my brain, but I've had the hardest time trying to come up with a better way of doing it. You can't have parent-teacher conferences. The principal is not going to deal with disobedient kids. Detention won't work because school doesn't get out til five and no teachers want to stick around after that. Making them work during breaks won't make the work turn out any better, and teachers aren't going to stick around during breaks to watch them then either. I'm still working on a cultural alternative, which is hard because the only thing that seems to work so far is fear.

There are a lot more in my journal, but those are the biggest ones. This week has not been easy in school, but I've been learning a lot. Honestly, there are things in both American and Ugandan classrooms that could be valuable for everyone to observe. For example--they do a lot of group recitation here and it actually works really well, but I haven't seen it much in American classrooms past second grade. They are also ridiculously resourceful. Trying to figure out how judge the best of both worlds, however, is the difficulty. I have to catch myself in thinking, "In America, we do it this way, and it's far more efficient..." because that isn't necessarily true. Teaching here is very cultural, and I have to respect that.

Oh no. Kathy just screamed in kitchen.

Rodnina must be back.

Ok, let's end this. Thanks for taking a moment to step in my shoes. The purpose of coming here was to learn--and now my head is full.

Happy Father's Day!

Usually I have a theme for blogs already thought out before I write one, but I'm having a difficult time today. Hmm....theme of the week? Hey, Emily Mcgee got here. Emily is another intern. She's from Mississippi, has a really cute, fast Southern accent, and is my new roommate. She got here on Monday, so I've spent a lot of the week giving her a kind of orientation/dragging her around town with me. She doesn't mind being dragged.

We found a coffee shop on Wednesday and have already been twice because it's the closest thing here to a cute American coffee shop even though the only special drink is a cappucino. The owner actually asked us (mostly Emily because she has more coffee experiece) to come back and train her workers to make lattes and whatnot in exchange for a free drink. Welcome to Africa.

School's been a bit of a blur. On Wednesday, I read a story to my Nkokunjeru class that led to a discussion on contentment. This led to me saying that the only way to contentment is through God. This led to questions of "What is heaven? What is a soul? Do I have two bodies?" Wow. Ok. So on Friday I went back and read the story of creation and the Fall. I wanted to do the whole gospel, but figured that's a lot for one class period. Well, in the middle of the story, the big scary principal man walked into my class and stayed for the rest of the period. To top that off, my teacher never showed up, apparently she had a burial to go to and didn't warn me about it. Afterwards, he called me to his office and asked me to prepare a lesson plan for him to look at Monday. Here's the thing, though. My job lately has been just to read stories and ask questions, then let the teacher teach and I explained this to him. I'm still not sure what he wants because I don't think he really understood me. On Monday, then, I will prepare a "lesson plan" for a Max Lucado book about children of the king, which should be ok because religion is allowed in the classroom.

On the other hand, I took Emily to her first day at Bible Baptist school on Thursday and she had fun. We ended up subbing for a sick teacher and did a lesson on Ugandan Social Studies (which, obviously, we are clueless about). Then we played Simon Says and sang a Bible song. There's also a mzungu guy who just started volunteering there and when he saw us he acted as if he hadn't seen a woman in years. He was a little...um...weird and...creepy...

I feel like I've seen Crystal and the boys a lot this week. On Tuesday, I made chili for their dinner (my cooking/kitchen survival skills are much improving). Their housekeeper watched over my shoulder the whole time, and she doesn't speak much English, so I had a nice awkward time. I kept sending my mother mental messages: thank you for teaching me how to brown meat, thank you for teaching me how to brown meat....

I saw Alice in Wonderland for the first time this week. It was a bootlegged copy and we watched it with female university students who had never seen a real American movie before. That was quite an experience.

Happy Father's Day. We made cards for "Daddy Dale" Hollenbeck and I got to call my parents for the first time since I've been here. I do miss them just a smidge--but I think I may miss McDonald's more.

Now I'm going to publish this and get off so that Joel can get on and read it--even though I'm at his house right now. Thank the Lord for the wonderfully entertaining missionary team he put here. Have fun, Joel.

It's all Greek to me...wait...

Alright, let's talk for a minute about possibly the most frustrating thing about missions, or short term missions at least:
LANGUAGE.
Our team began language learning with the good intention of being able to use it, but as I only have about five weeks left, I've gotten to the point where I almost don't want to try anymore. I know a couple greetings, numbers, and animal names and now all the words I learn congeal in my head because they sound so similar. I learned the word from "grandmother" today--I think--and it sounds almost exactly like the word for warthog. Coincidence? I hope so.

But really. Just about everyone here speaks English, but they don't usually speak it that well and you have to speak slowly and clearly with the hope that they catch most of your words. It's like speaking another language. I've learned that a lot of times if you want to have a conversation with someone here, you should let them talk, try to catch some words, and say "eh" a lot. It's a little scary when you take a boda too, because you can never be completely sure that they know where you want to go. That, and when they go over bumps you have the chance of falling off. Sometimes you actually do. Anyway...

As a tangent from complaining about language barriers, let's talk about what I did a lot with the kids this week: reading. My new plan at Nkokunjeru is to go twice a week and read a book to the kids/have a discussion or something. It's a new thing for them, because here teachers never read books aloud to the class, partly because they don't have books to read. Of course, you have to read really slowly and ask a lot of questions to make sure they're keeping up. This involves doing some retelling through acting, which I'm pretty *hem* gifted at. I've also started reading Robinson Crusoe to the P6 class at Bible Baptist, and they seem to have better listening comprehension.

Cereal. I love cereal. The cereal here isn't that good, but I eat simply based on the fact that it is cereal. Dale just bought six boxes of it to help satisfy my addiction. When I get home, one of my first plans of action is to have a giant bowl of Peanut Butter Crunch.

When you're in a foreign country, you find that the World Cup is a lot bigger deal than you thought it would be. I've watched some games since being here, and Ugandans get REALLY excited about football (and by football, I actually mean soccer, because everyone knows that the real football tournament is called the Superbowl and America wins that every year). Of course, English people do too. We had a viewing party last night for the USA vs. England game, and the two English folk on the team were "shattered" by the fact that we came to a draw.

Rodney Rat is STILL around. Last spotting was this afternoon. I think we should smoke him out, but Dale and Kathy mentioned something about that not being good for the house...

Oh, and another tangent to the language thing. I've decided to keep going to Bible Baptist for the duration of my stay. I'm the only white person there, and today most of the service was in Runyankole. Needless to say, I'm getting to know the Bible a lot better, simply because not being able to understand what they're saying makes me want to read some English.

Many of the women on the team have been really sinus-ey this week. Dale keeps talking about using a sinus rinse, which sounds gross. My dad would use the term "snot factory". I think this has something to do with the dry season finally being here. Dust, dust, dust....

Recently our pregnant team member, Crystal, has had to commit to complete bedrest because her baby isn't due for another five weeks and she doesn't want it slipping out too early. She also has two small boys to look after. Therefore, the other female members of the team have decided to step up in taking care of things around the house. Yesterday, Rachael and I underwent housewife training by making lasagna and tuna noodle casserole that could be frozen and heated up again after the baby actually comes. We ended with success, but it was quite a challenging adventure/ we completely wrecked the kitchen. A gas stove, unidentifiable ingredients, and no running water make quite a combination.

So, week = good. I felt like I grew in my relationship with Christ, which is ALWAYS good. The homesickness has also gone way down (though I did have a moment where I really missed my dad. Missing Father's Day is gonna be rough). I'm still not sure about a calling at this point, but I realize God doesn't exactly reveal things the way you expect him too. I'm not sure whether or not I want to go overseas long term. I don't know that I would want to do it in Africa. Either way, I'm learning a lot of good things and I'm open to possibilities. Of course, if I do go over long term, I'll work a little harder on learning the language--but I am getting pretty good at grunts and nods.

Sketchy

I really like the word sketchy. That's probably because it applies to so many different situations. For example, I rode a really sketchy camel this week. Now I'm in a really sketchy internet place. Sketchy as in no personal space. For a while there, some guy was reading my emails over my shoulder as he sat next to me arm-touching-arm. Ayayay. I mean, I like to snuggle, but usually I prefer snuggling with people I know or at least have been acquainted with. ANYWAY.

This week has involved a lot of time at the fair/trade show. I went on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Basically, any bit of shopping that I wanted to do is done. What's sad is that the best stuff there was made in Kenya. Kenyans are also really good at making you want to buy things. Fortunately, I've gotten pretty good at bargaining. One lady we met was named Rose. When I told her that my middle name is Rose, she embraced me and exclaimed that I was her "nameshake". Then she tried to get me to trade my sunglasses for a scarf. Many of the shopkeepers use the tactic of calling white people their brothers and sisters in order to make them want to buy things.

So I'm all stocked up.

Oh, and Christina and I rode a camel at the trade show. But I may have mentioned this already. There again, a very sketchy, ankle-biting camel. 

The rat problem is still around and wonderfully entertaining. On Thursday night, we found one in the dining room and tried to blockade it as Dale chased it with a broom. That was a failure. On Friday night, Rachael and I heard a bloodcurdling scream emanate from the kitchen as Kathy had re-found our malicious Rodney rat. Rachael grabbed her pocketknife and a plastic dagger and I got my panga (actually, it's Daniel's. shh, don't tell him about his wonderful new weapon). When we got to the kitchen, however, it has successfully been chased outside.

Six of our team left on Friday, which has been a little sad. Lydia our housekeeper cried when Christina gave her the final goodbye (oh yeah, and Lydia's basically the most awesome housekeeper ever). Rachael and I really weren't sure what to do with ourselves after everyone had gone. We went to movie night on Friday night at a missionary family's house and met some really clueless Canadian veterinary students. I'm sorry. Let me be nicer. Some Canadian vet students that I'm really glad weren't actually representing America. One of them didn't even know what a mosque was. Anyway, we watched Hitch and it was really strange when it ended, because it was like I'd gone to America for about an hour and a half.

On Saturday we had a pleasant pool party (yeah, alliteration) for Dade, one of the missionary kids. We even had a cookie cake and it was marvelous. After that, Rachael and I spent the evening with Crystal, helping her around the house. When the power went out, we put the boys to bed and watched a movie on her fully charged laptop. It was super.

Today I went to church at Bible Baptist, one of schools I teach at. There were about ten adults and forty children. I felt very tall. It was fun, though, because I actually knew the people I was at church with. Afterwards a guy named Rambo (he clarified for me: not Rainbow, but Rambo, like the movie guy) gave me a lift to a boda station on the back of his bicycle. I definitely got some air and clutched to the rickety back seat for dear life. Speaking of bodas, Rach and I found this really great boda guy. He's married, so he doesn't make marriage proposals. He even stopped on the side of the road to introduce us to his family. I definitely have his number and will be calling him in the future.

It's really nice to be starting to integrate into the community. Kids on the street know my name because I teach them in schools. On my way to church this morning, I got calls in the distance. "RORA!!" I would turn around and wave. It would be nice, though, if I could remember their names. One kid's named Timberlake. I do remember that. And  there's a Godwin. There's also about fifty Judiths and Ediths and Evases.

I saw army ants for the first time. They're super fierce.

This place is starting to feel like home, even with power outages and rats and sketchiness and really annoying people who call you "muzungu" everywhere you go. I think it starts when people know your name (even if they cant pronounce it right to save their lives. I don't know why I have the hardest name in the world to pronounce). I mean, there are all kinds of things to love about this place, and the number one thing is the people. The people who remember your name, who are genuine, who like to say "ndyaho" when you greet them with "agandi". The kids are my favorite, even if they're extremely blunt. Hugs and handshakes come in plenty.

Yay Uganda.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

No, I didn't give any cookies to any mice--one, because cookies don't exist here and two because if I had a cookie, I would be eating it. However, it is harvest season so the rodents are fleeing into our house. Three have been spotted this week--one in our bedroom last night right before sleepytime. Guess how much sleep I got last night...ugh...We named this one Henry. He was pretty cute, but I would prefer he were in a cage or dead.

This week has been exhausting and full of new experiences. On Monday, we had a party for Janessa's birthday. At 8, the power went out and suddenly I discovered that Uganda has about a zillion more stars than America. It was amazing. We found a glowworm. The boys also decided that it would be a good idea to try to slide down the hill on cardboard boxes. The next morning their bodies discovered that it wasn't.

On Tuesday I we went to the fair for the first time. Fair = trade show with some really sketchy rides. I got sick off the of the food, but it was fun. We went back today and I got a ton of really cool souvenirs and also learned how to bargain. Unfortunately, a lot of it was actually Kenyan stuff because Ugandans aren't very crafty...but I still got an egg with a map of the world etched on it for two dollars. Oh, and Christina and I rode a camel. It was the scariest thing I did today.

Yesterday our housekeeper taught us how to make chipatis, which are like fried tortillas. It was really fun and I burned myself with hot oil. Now I can fry anything. Last night we had seven people in the kitchen making dinner, which was really, really, really fun until Dale decided to break out the raw goat meat. I didn't stick around for that bloody mess. And speaking of bloody messes, we're going to kill one of the pigs soon and have a roast out in the yard. It's gonna be AWESOME.

Oh, and on Sunday I had a dance party in a tree. See, when I'm at school, I de-stress by having dance parties. So I was up in a tree listening to music and I really couldn't help myself. A few minutes later, I saw all seven little boys, Hollenbeck and Ugandan, sneak out into the yard in a line and hide behind the potato pile. Now they won't let me live it down.

School this week has been interesting. I think I'm going to try to cut down on it and switch the days I go to each school. At Nkokunjeru, the kids are really hilarious, but they are ready to push each of my buttons that doesn't understand Runyankole. I'm trying to learn all of their names. If anybody has ideas on how to keep a class quiet while you're grading their work, I'm up to hearing them. On girl wrote me a letter. The first three paragraphs were about how much she loved me and the last was asking for school fees. I just didn't know what to do with it.

At Bible Baptist, the kids are actually pretty similar though they push a lot less buttons. One of the kids made me a really cool ball of plastic bags. A P3 girl gave me a cookie and a P1 boy gave me a crumpled piece of roll. I had to eat it even though I had no idea where it had been. At the end of one P1 class, the kids were crowding around me and I tried to teach them some games. One little girl suddenly thrust her hand in my armpit and exclaimed, "It is water!!" *rolls eyes* They are really cute, though.

I have had two experiences with Ugandan tea. The first is really hot, oily milk. The second is a porridge that tastes a lot like cream of wheat.

I lied to a boda driver this week to avoid a marriage proposal, and I feel no guilt. As soon as he asked if I was married, I told him I had a boyfriend in the states. He still tried to sway me to take him as a Ugandan husband, but I told him my big, strong, tough boyfriend would be angry if I married an African man while I was away. Besides, the driver overpriced me. I'm not really a fan of riding bodas.

I was a little homesick until I took a nap yesterday. I dreamed that I went home and all the basketballs were deflated--so I couldn't play--, there was a new table in the kitchen, and my ex had moved in while I was away. Suddenly I don't really want to go home anymore.

I took Micah Hollenbeck's copy of the 7th Harry Potter book, so I'm actually really content here now.

My chacos are my new best friends. 

The 4 weekers leave tomorrow, which is sad, but it will lift a little stress. I'll soon have a room to myself for about a week, and then another short termer girl will get here and move in with me. Maybe by the time she's here, the mice will be gone. We'll see.

Osibe gye! --also know as "spend your day well"