For the Kids

Sometime in Late June?

The Roman Calender decrees a week passed at TeachInn. A week for birds cuz man has time flown. Living alongside the adoring and adorable masses of Bukiga's blessed Ugandan farmerchildren, the school fills us volunteers with vigor, pride, and utter exhaustion come sundown. Every class we teach, roars of welcome greet us as we walk in the classroom door. The kids knows us by name, as evidenced by their perpetual screaming of them. At this moment, dozens of kids have discovered my journal writing location and intently peer over this scribbly cursive I write. Their laughter rises and falls between stares of perplexed fascination. Since the children are subject to a strict regimen of route memorization in the classroom normally, the mandated role of the foreign teacher is one meant to stimulate other modes of learning. Particularly the fun ones. Games, art, song, dance, slang instruction, and the like. It seems I have marked the arrival of hip-hop in this village. When I flow a simple rhyme to beats/ these kids will move their feet / don't matter if they don't eat / we go till the end of the week...
Spare houre give way to lovely long-distance runs atop hills patterned with checkered-quilt patterned farms. Each evening, hours of football (termed soccer for you Yankee isolationist holdouts) organized by the Arsensal and Manchester worshipping kids elapses on a hilly, bumpy, and and brilliantly small pitch. The capricious nature of the course, along with the individualist styles and athletic upbringings of the students, often causes a level of ball-hogging that even the greediest American forwards shy from. And it's a delight to watch or imitate.
Memorable names of kids; most of which still do not sound as cool as the indigenous surnames: Fortunate, Gift, Evidence, Promise, Jericho, Happy, Apple —wait, now it is apparent Fortunate is leading a band of little twerps in requesting I "give us music". For one, they are much more melodic than I. For two, where do these snots get teh nerve to mess with my personal space with such a laborious request? I oughtta take a cue from the full-time local teachers and carry a ruler to instill some hard-knock discipline onto these selfish ingrates. jk.