Home For The Holidays

After being home for a few days, I have finally gotten over my jet lag. The adjustment has been fine, and I am really enjoying how clean everything is here, myself included. It is kind of strange thinking that I had just been in Uganda for three months. The time just disappeared.

It was such an amazing experience, getting that experience and exposure will better me forever. I just fell in love with the kids when I was there, and loved spending all my free time just hanging out with them, and also teaching them how to throw and catch the football I brought with me. It was funny when I went to my little brother's wrestling practice last night, and I was asked to teach the kids some moves; I totally got into Uganda teaching mode, talking so slow with big pauses and exaggerated annunciation, and then repeating it over and over. They all looked at me like I was nuts.

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed it. In about two weeks I hope to have a video put together showing some of my Uganda experiences.

-Andrew

Dust Bowl

I went to school yesterday to see my students for the last time as they came to get their exam scores, and I closed my eyes the entire ride there as a thick layer of dust settled on my face. This place had turned into a dust bowl with the lack rain in the past few weeks so it was fitting that I was kept up all last night by the rain hitting the roof like something hitting metal in a very loud manner.
The exam scores were not so great, and as a result, twelve of sixty-five will not be promoted to P.6. The exams themselves were a pretty poor assessment of what the kids were taught this term, and contained most of what they had forgotten from the first two terms. With a good study and review program I am confident that the scores would be much higher and very few kids would have to repeat, but the schools just don't have the organization for something like that, and the classes are too big to pay attention to everyone.
Anywho, I said goodbye to all the kids, and today is the teachers' party. I am now packing to come home, and hoping that the Ebola outbreak in the west will not have an impact on my travel.

School's Out

I rode home on a boda because I was too exhausted to walk after Speech Day which was supposed to start at 11:00, but that turned out to be African time so we commenced at 1:00. It was a long day with the typical thirty minute speeches that are all too common with events like these. Despite the oppressing sun and late start, the show was entertaining with the kids' performances, accept for the computer demonstration which was very impractical because no one could see the computer screen on the stage, but at least the pupils I chose learned a little on the way.

As it dragged out the only thing keeping people there was the free lunch that was eventually served at five o'clock. I had already made plans to go to the Source of the Nile for dinner at six so I skipped lunch and the 100 yard queue. I didn't have much time so I took the boda straight to the Source, and Mother Nature provided an in prompt to shower. Despite the shining sun, the rain poured down down just as we reached the main road. It was pretty cool, but I was worried because the rain was very painful, pelting us in the face making it very hard to keep our eyes open, and on top of that it hadn't rained in a while so there was a nasty mixture of oil and water on the road. I said to the guy driving probably ten times, "Be very careful, the roads are very slippery." At the Source it was not raining, and I walked in completely soaked by the downpour we encountered on the way.
I was once again awed by the Nile, and I had the whole talapia and chips as the sun set on the exhausting and final day of school. I will say goodbye to the kids on the coming Friday when they come to get their grades, otherwise I am all but finished.