Yoga Fridays

Our teachers trying out triangle pose

 A few weeks ago, a teacher at my school asked me what I do normally for exercise. We had been talking about it because I've recently joined the men’s' pickup soccer games at the local pitch. Sport here is always according to gender: men play soccer, women play netball. I was certainly breaking the gender rules by playing soccer with the boys.

I replied that I practice yoga for an hour everyday to stay fit.

Yo-what?

He had never heard of yoga, nor had the other teachers when I asked them about it. I thought it would fun to teach a yoga class one day to introduce them to a practice that has become so popular in the U.S. Luckily, I have a friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer who lives nearby and is a certified yoga instructor. Amanda agreed to come and host a yoga class for our teachers.

I tried to talk up the class that week to make sure people would come, but found that yoga was a bit difficult to explain. "It's like stretching? But it's hard? And there are different poses? And they have weird names in some Indian language?" Not quite. They clearly had no idea what I was talking about. Stretching simply cannot be a form of exercise. I brought in a few cards I had from a yoga deck, showing different postures and types of breathing. This only seemed to cause more confusion. We'd just have to wait and find out what the heck I was talking about.

I urged any females who wanted to participate to bring trousers to wear, and boy, what a fuss this caused! Women here in the village are rarely seen wearing trousers; when they go out to field to dig, they are wearing skirts. Even netball can be played wearing a skirt. I've only ever seen one woman wear trousers in the village and that was my neighbor when she was harvesting beans (the big cities are, of course, an exception. Plenty of ladies wearing jeans there).

Lydia in Dancer Pose

Luckily, two of our teachers changed into trousers and it just made me so happy. They just couldn't experience the full potential of yoga by wearing a skirt.

Amanda brought a big tarp and a few mats for people to sit on, and we practiced outside on the grass. My school is up on a hill and overlooks the whole valley, so it was a gorgeous location for outdoor yoga. She began by explaining the meaning of yoga, which means "union" in Sanskrit. We both learned that in local language, it means "You bathe!" She also explained the origin of yoga, as a form of stretching for yogis before long periods of deep meditation, as well as the benefits of practicing yoga.

We started out with a rest pose, one of my favorites: Child's Pose. Turns out it wasn't a rest pose for any of the Ugandans, they could barely do it and were in stitches just trying. Amanda and I were looking at each other thinking, if they can't do Child's Pose, they're in trouble for the rest! 

Emily, one of our brave women to wear trousers!

She taught what a chataronga, or push-up, looks like, as well as upward and downward dog. We went through a few vinyasas, or flows, each time the teachers laughing more and more. They thought it was a riot and everyone was laughing. Amanda did a commendable job, trying to get everyone's attention over the raucous laughter to move on to the next posture. We moved on to a few balance postures, including Crane Pose, Mountain Pose, Dancer, Pigeon and Mermaid pose, their postures punctuated with loud "Ya, maawe!" which means more or less "Oh my!" . But I think the highlight of my day was seeing them do Happy Baby, where you lie on your back and grab your feet and roll back and forth like a giant baby. I've never seen my teachers laugh so hard, it was uproariously funny.

Frank was unable to participate, so he was our photographer and was called over by each teacher for each pose. "Teacher Frank! Teacher Frank! Photo me!" even for Shivasana, or corpse pose. We ended the class with namaste and a bow. We explained how popular yoga is in the U.S. as a form of exercise and staying healthy. Overall, it felt like a big success.

Amanda, our yoga instructor and fellow PCV

Mountain Pose (and getting out the giggles)

Constance couldn't keep a straight face

Pigeon pose proved to be one of the hardest...

Namaste, Patience!

A big thanks to all our participants!