Week Two...Big Post

So in my first week I was asked by one of the guys, what I dislike about living here, and I did not have a real answer, but now I am ready. The bats and drive by bodas. I will explain the former later in this post; the latter is what I am concerned with. When I return home I will definitely have much more awareness, not just emotionally and mentally, thanks to the bodas and everything else driving by on the streets I will have some serious physical awareness to accompany those. Wow, when you are walking anywhere watch out! These things come flying by inches away from you, and I can't count how many Ugandans now know the phrase "Holy Sh%&!" because of me. So I have now grown eyes in the back of my head and can easily escape into the ditch on the side of the beaten dirt road a good few seconds before the motor bikes come whizzing past. It is much easier to hear the eighteen wheelers charging down what is not big enough for a two way road, and at that point you just jump into the bushes with the cows and the bulls a meter or so from the road. I still have not determined whether it is safer to be walking or on a Boda because the road is a literal free for all, and either way you are going to get the black lung from a the black clouds of exhaust coming out of all the passing vehicles. Despite the moments where I am thinking "What the hell!" when something is going too fast to be that close or when traffic momentarily switches sides, it makes the journey to school interesting.
Now to get to the bats I have to explain my evening journeys up into the hills. Where I take my iPod, which draws many interested looks from the locals, and my book, "The Power of One," which I know that I probably won't read but for some reason I bring it anyway. Once I have my not so necessary necessities I start on my run, jog, walk, frolic up the road. It is much nicer going up than going down. As I ascend the hill, at a pace that is set by the song I am listening to, I start to see the vast beautiful nature that makes up the "Pearl" of Africa, and down below Jinja is funneled into one clump of smoke from all the trash fires, and the kind of smoke that tries to blackout the sun, billowing out of the all purpose factory. Yet this is a small scar on the vastness that you encounter on your ascent. Everyday I pass shells of houses that have been started but seemed to be abandoned, the groups of kids I race that have jerrycans in each hand are going to fetch water, and obviously the cows and bulls. When I reach the top I have the same feeling you get when you have the house to yourself, it is a marvelous freedom and independence, but instead of being in New Jersey I am in Uganda which is really quite funny. With the hill to myself I practice my vocal exercises which are quite obnoxious and embarrassing, but there is no up there, so when I arrive, the hills are most definitely alive with the sound of music. My first adventure up the hill I was foolish enough to sit up there enjoy the amazing view of Lake Victoria and the beautiful sunset, and walk down at dusk...Bat time! Holy crap! I tried to keep my cool descending the mountain with bats fly by me left and right, and a couple of injured bats flapping around on the ground, Gross! I then passed this house that people actually live in and out came hundreds of bats just as I arrived. I could not quite take being surrounded like that, which I had only seen in movies, so the rest of my journey became a sprint home. I used my book to cover my face because at that point I felt I could survive a bat flying into my arm or something, but a bat to the face would be way too traumatizing to recover from.
Class is going well. I now have about 270 students. Yet I have the most classes with P.6 at St. Andrew's, and I have come to enjoy them the most. Yesterday I had two classes with them that straddled an hour long break. At that time they proceeded to make a huge raucous trying to get me to dance for them. So I told them that if one of them came up front and did a dance move then I would do one as well. By this time we had all the kids that weren't in P.6 shoving their heads through the windows, and trying to get a look through the door. This then proceeded to turn into walkoff where they would do a dance move and I would follow it up. I went through every move in my repertoire including a super crappy moon walk, and by that time the classroom including the ten foot perimeter surrounding it was going nuts. All the kids were laughing and screaming, and that was pretty hysterical.
Class has been going well, and the kids are actually learning a lot. I am a far superior math teacher than anything else and I quite enjoy it. I get to teach but it is also a lot of fun in the classroom. I play seven-up with them most classes, and I tell them stories when they nag me, and when I embarrass a kid that is not paying attention or I get "mad" with the class it is quite affective and also kind of funny to me because who am I to punish anyone.
There is just an enormous amount of stuff that I am experiencing that otherwise, I probably would never get the chance to do. I am incredibly lucky, and giving my time to teach these wonderful kids is not something I do not quite consider payment, it is more like a reward.