Jerry-Can Hurdles

Sorry for the short post this week! Things have been busy, but not much else to report on.

Well, the cacophony has returned with midnight preachings of the Gospel. Last night I awoke at 3am to hear someone shouting the Gospel through blaring speakers. I mentioned it at school today and surprisingly, most of the teachers agreed that it was disturbing the peace and the middle of the night was not an ideal time to hear God’s word. Today the school held a church service before Easter, what the locals call Thanksgiving. It was actually my first time in church in Uganda; I’ve managed to evade this long, but came out of the service unscathed. It was a short, 2-hour service (yep, that’s considered short in this country. Just wait for Christmas…) where the children brought gifts in donation to the church, either of money or goods. Afterwards the goods were auctioned off, and I was able to buy two bags of avocadoes and onions for less than 50 cents! The kids did a lot of singing and clapping, along with drumming and it made for a really fun service. However, halfway through the service, my co-teacher told me not to cross my legs because it is impolite for women. It’s a male thing here. I’m also not supposed to whistle! Something I find very hard to repress when I feel the urge to whistle.

Last week, our school hosted an athletics competition with six other neighboring districts. I was impressed by the crafty construction for track & field events. The lanes were made out of twine and sticks, and jerry cans were placed in the lanes as hurdles. They also had javelins and weighted balls for field events. Unfortunately, most of the girls wore skirts to run in, which made hurdling a bit difficult.

For Easter this weekend, Caitlin and I are off to Lake Bunyonyi for a few days to relax lakeside with our friends and jump off an epic rope swing. Happy Easter!

Cat on a [Wet] Tin Roof

 It’s been a slow week, not much news to report aside from two important changes: rainy season has unofficially begun (the locals have yet to give me an approximate date for the rain) and we got a cat. Yep, that’s right, Captain Cuddles has a new home in the lush gardens of Kabale district. In case you don’t know the back story, when I was at homestay over Christmas, I was delighted one morning to find two little fur balls in a box in our kitchens. My fellow Volunteer thought it would be fun to name the kittens Sergeant Mewington and the other Captain Cuddles. The names have stuck, although much to our disappointment, the Sarg was taken away by a surly neighbor. I asked my host mum if I could take Cece (for short) with me to site, and she was more than happy to oblige. My host dad dropped her off, kitten and caboodle and we’re one big happy family.

Now, to report on rainy season…. When it rains here, conversation is drowned out by the pounding rain on the tin roof so you can imagine how difficult it is to teach a class when the rain causes such a din! I can barely hear myself speak. My Read-Aloud with my 3^rd graders, reading “The Little Red Hen” was cut short the other day because they couldn’t hear me. TIA.

The exciting news from school is that the library is stocked with books, all donated by various charities. I opened one box to find over 60 copies of a short, easy African folk tale about a spider—perfect for guided reading with my 4^th and 5^th graders. There are also brand new slates (yep, slates, it’s old school) for the little kiddos to practice letters and numeracy, albeit it tends to be a cluster-ahem when we do use the slates. The kids get totally over stimulated (as if having a muzungu in their classroom isn’t stimulating enough) and wound up and end of fighting over chalk or who gets to sit closest to me. But telling them to have a clean slate is always fun.

The library as of now looks a bit like a bomb went off, and mould is eating its way through some of the boxes, but my goal is to shift the library to another room and re-organize it using the students’ help.

Another source of endless amusement is the signs that are posted around nearly every school or college in Uganda. The campus is adorned with, shall we say “inspirational,” quotes that inspire good behavior, such as “ Life Has No Spare Parts” or “Pornography is a Hidden Evil”, or my personal favorite “Say No to Gifts for Sex.”

Last weekend we spent at site, cleaning up house and spending time with our neighbors. It was a badly timed weekend however, since from Friday night through Monday morning, the evangelists were preaching about God and the Gospel in the town. We spent the entire weekend listening to blaring music, shouting “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen!” and other ramblings over a scratchy microphone. After three sleepless nights, when the cacophony was turned off Monday morning, I was ready to kill someone. How can something so holy make me want to do a crime so unholy?