4th of July

Another post courtesy of the seniormost American Southern Ugandan Ambassador, Sharon Bullock:

The school and our lodging is situated upon a slope. Every morn when it's still dark around 6am, someone beats a drum slowly from our place. This lets the kids in the surrounding area below know it's time to prepare for school. Time is a funny concept in this country. There's not the Western linear thinking, but something jumbled up in another dimension. Previous volunteer teachers have tried and failed to get students understand telling time. It's true, many activities involve standing around and waiting but it's not always an annoyance. Time isn't an issue. We continue to enjoy our teaching experience with kids. Yesterday, Leif and I were in a middle school age class and we were supposed to continue a previous lesson on germs, hygiene, proper washing, etc but it turns out most students know more about that than we do. I think they are force fed this theme many times. We decided to scrap that lesson and install one of our own. First, we taught them a song with great lyrics, rhythm. They naturally picked it up quickly. Then we gave them the writing prompt, "If I was the leader of my village I would help it by..." Wow, it was amazing what they came up with. They didn't fly off with imagination but instead managed to incorporate much of what they previously learned in essay form. Many wrote detailed facts about the environment, soil erosion, deforestation, harmful chemicals to lactating mothers, etc. No outlines, no drafts, only first and final copies written in ink with good handwriting and near-perfect spelling. There's something to say for copying factual information from the board. I plan to beef up that aspect in my classroom because I think it leads to quick and efficient note-taking in the future. Some of us learn beast when writing it down.
This morning Leif and I walked to the other school we sometimes teach at. These kids aren't as used to muzungos so a couple hundred yards before reaching the school we're met by a greeting party-- a band of 7-9 yr old boys who hold our hands and bring us along. They are really too cute. For our time here we took the class of 80 outside for game fun. Leif led them in stretches and aerobics and then we formed 10 relay teams for lots of running. At first, it was hilarious because the idea of running in TEAMS is foreign. After many false starts, they finally succeeded. It's an indescribable joy to watch kids laugh and play when you know the playing occurs so infrequently.
In a short while we will have our tree-planting ceremony. Leif bought a guava tree and I selected an avocado plant. They're planted on the school grounds with the idea that kids will have food available to them when hungry and they won't have to snitch from the neighboring fields. Shouldn't we have fruit trees on our our school grounds? Instant healthy snack.