Last Week and Traveling Home

I am finally safe and at home, but I will briefly write about what went on the last week in Uganda.

Leaving the students and teachers at Sir Samuel Baker was very difficult and goodbyes are even harder when there is a good chance of never seeing the people ever again. My last day at school was Thursday and after a great final lesson (if I dont say so myself) on the 5 major East African countries, Tonny took a few pictures of me with the class of boys. They expressed how happy they were to have me at their school and thanked me for helping them learn, something that the vast majority of American students would never even think of doing.







Saying goodbye to Tonny and the other teachers was the most difficult. We exchange contact information, even though I am sure it will be very difficult to stay in touch. Ugandans are very strong people, both physically and emotionally. They are nowhere near as emotional as we are and they would rather aviod goodbyes all together than have an emotional farewell and get teary-eyed. I am sure that Tonny and I will keep in touch and we even have high hopes that one day we will be able to get him to the States.
Oh, I shaved my head (so did many other guys I traveled with. I have always wanted to shave my head and I figured that if I didn't in Uganda, I never would. I think I look very good, and may continue to buzz it. It was a very tramatic experience it, but I handled it very well. Here is a picture of how good Bill and I look.

Friday night all 18 of us went out for our last dinner together at Bambu (now called Fuglys) and we had a great time. Group 3 met us out to say goodbye and spend one final night with us. Michelle told me that she hired a Boda Boda driver to find a belt that I wanted, but he could not find it anywhere around. She has to be one of the greatest, most thoughtful people I have met and hanging out with her is one of the things I miss most about Gulu. I am sure she is enjoying her last week in Gulu by helping their economy thrive by spending as much money as possible. Thanks anyway Michelle, it was a very nice gesture, and much appreciated.

We left Katharina's Saturday morning and loaded the mutatu for the long drive to Kampala and the craft markets. I spent the last of my shillings at the craft market on gifts and even more souveneers for myself (as if I needed any more.)

After giving us only a half hour to shop we were off to Jinja, where we would be spending the night ON ther Nile River.

The place was amazing and watching the sun set on the Nile River was incredible.

After almost seven weeks of dealing with me, this was finally Michael's last night of having to deal with sharing sleeping quarters with me. He was the greatest roommate I could ask for and should get a medal for dealing with me for so many nights.

The next morning we went White Water Rafting on the Nile followed by Bungy Jumping into the Nile. It was one of the greatest days of our trip and a day I will never forget. I have been Bungy Jumping a few times, so I was not terrified, but I give a lot of credit to a lot of my friends that have never been before and took the plunge.







Sunday morning we got up and left for Kampala and spent our last night where we started, the Backpackers Resort. It was very fitting to spend our last night together where we spent our first night together.

Our trip to the airport was pretty quite Monday morning because we did not get much sleep (there was 15 of us in one room) and it was very early in the morning.

Saying bye to these people that I became very close with was very difficult, but I am positive that we will stay in touch and see each other soon. Words can not describe the how amazing it is to step out of the car at JFK seven weeks ago, totally alone and heading in to this experience having never even spoken to anyone you would be sharing this adventure with. Fast forward seven short weeks, and some of the friendships that I have formed will last for the rest of my life. It is such a great feeling to know that I have close friends all over the country and I can not wait to see them again. They have taught me so much and I am a better person for knowing them.

Many people have asked me if I will be returning to Gulu next summer. The answer is that I would 100%, it was the best 7 weeks of my life, but I am not sure that I will. There is so many placed I want to see and so many things that I want to do. I am sure that I will be having another adventure similar to this next summer, and hopefully with many of the friends I made on this trip, but I am not sure if there is anything else for me to do in Uganda. I love Uganda and the people there, but I will use this coming fall and winter to decide where my next adventure will take me, and if it does happen that I am back in Gulu next summer I am sure that the experience will be just as rewarding.

Thanks for reading about my adventres and I will be sure to update this blog with any news of the conditions in Gulu and Uganda, and any news from what Invisible Children is working on.

Thanks again, Wanen (goodbye),
-Ryan

PS - For those of you that are wondering how my trip to Amsterdam with Bill and Kevin went, you will have to ask me in person because there will be NO written blog about those few memorable days. SORRY!

I still dont have time to post right now because we have to pack. We will be leaving tomorrow morning and heading to Jinja. We will spend tomorrow night (Saturday) in Jinja right on the Nile River. Sunday we will go White Water Rafting and Bungy Jumping into the Nile (sorry mom), Monday Kevin, Bill and I are heading to Amsterdam for a few days. I promise to post about the last week soon. See you all very soon.
-Ryan

Pictures

I dont have too much time to do a blog right now, so I will post some pictures of the past week. Will post again soon. - Hope all is well. - Ryan

Fort Patiko

I spent most of the day on Thursday working on my binder that we are giving our teachers. It is basically all of the lessons that we have done with them and any additional lesson plans that we think will be beneficial to them in the future. I am not going to be going to school tomorrow because I am going with Lisa Swetman to Atanga to run the round table and to pick up the boys. With only one week left, there is so much that I still feel like I need to do for the research project and the binder need to be turned in, however, I always work best under pressure so I am sure I will get it all done next week.

We got the news today that tonight would be the last night of Bambu ever. The owner left and after trivia night tonight the place will close for a week or so and reopen under new management and a new name.

We walked in to Bambu and the new owner made an announcement that whoever wins the nights trivia game will win the last 4 Bambu T-Shirts ever made. I have been dying to get one of these T-Shirts, and was determined to win this time. Round 1 was filled with questions that I was 100% sure of the answer. I was extremely confident that this would be the week we would win. Round 2 continued to give us questions that we knew most of the answers. Half way through the game and we were feeling good.

The last two rounds were pretty terrible. I don’t know where they come up with some of these ridiculous questions, but most of our answers were complete guesses. Needless to say we lost, and all hopes of me ever getting a Bambu T-shirt were washed away forever. Or so I thought.

Michelle could apparently see the defeated look on my face so she worked a little bit of her magic and approached one of the members of the winning team. She bought the T-shirt off of one of the guys. It was probably the nicest thing anyone could have ever done. I now have a Bambu T-shirt; I don’t care that I did not win it because it is so cool. I will think of Michelle when I wear it every day of my life.

I got up early Friday morning and Lisa Swetman and I went to the IC office to pick up the van to take us to Atanga. We managed to get the big IC van and we were off to the Atanga round table and pick up the Atanga boys. We were both starving when the van pulled away and fortunately the driver stopped to get petro and I ran to Country bakery to get some chicken samosas. I was literally running through Gulu in white flip flops (it was all I could find early in the morning) and looking completely disheveled. As if we don’t stand out in Gulu enough, I managed to make even more people stop and stare at me. I did not care though because the chicken samosas were so delicious that it was worth all the blank stares I was getting.
I finally got back to the van and we housed the samosas in a matter of minutes. We were ready for the hour and a half bumpy ride on the long dirt road. Our mutatu driver was a really good driver; so good that he was able to get to about 110km/hour, which is very fast and extremely terrifying when you are sitting in the front seat. There seems to be no system of driving here; no lines in the road, no signs, no street lights, but they just know what to do. It really is amazing, and even though I was a little scared of driving head on with another mutatu at mock speed; I felt confident that he knew what he was doing and that we would be safe.
Other than the bumpy, scary ride, Lisa and I had a great drive up to Atanga and a good talk. I look forward to purchasing her music on itunes when I get back to the States, and cant wait to set up a Teacher Exchange reunion to visit her in New Orleans, well Baton Rouge.

We pulled in to Atanga after only 50 minutes. This ride usually takes 90 minutes. That should tell you how fast he was going. When we arrived we immediately saw Bill, followed by Big John. Kevin was in class so I gave Bill my video camera to film him for a little while. As I was standing outside of Kevin’s class I saw a bunch of kids walk by leading a goat. The day before the students almost started a mini riot because they were promised a goat by the headmaster for a competition they won. The headmaster kept promising them the goat, and the goat never came. Today they finally got their goat and everyone was happy. I knew what they were going to do with this poor goat, so it was difficult to watch it frolic along without a care in the world. They led the goat to the nearest tree, tied a rope around its arms and legs, and hung it up. Not long after did they kill it (I am trying to give as little detail as possible) and skin it. It was pretty disgusting, but very interesting to watch. The boys were so welcoming to Lisa and myself and they all came up to us and wanted to shake our hand. They loved the video camera and all kept walking in front of the camera as I was trying to film the butchering.

After taking all I could stomach of the butchering we went inside and started the round table. It was a very quick round table because all we had to discuss was the observations (which have already been set up), goals for the final week, and the Fort Patiko trip on Saturday. It is just Bill, Kevin and Big John in Atanga so the round table went very smooth and their teachers are all very nice men. As we were leaving their school we drove past the poor goat again (no longer even recognizable) and the students were taking out the stomach of the goat. It was a little too much for me to stomach, and I was happy to not be there when they roasted the goat because I did not want to be forced to eat anything.

We stopped by the boys “hotel” on the way back to Gulu. It is not terrible, but it is a very different experience from where we are living at Katharina’s. They do not have much, no electricity, no shower, no tv, basically no fun at all. They have chicken and other little animals basically living with them and I have to admit that I am very happy to be staying at Katharina’s after seeing where they are staying. We are not living the life of luxury by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to them we kind of are.

Anyway, on the way home Lisa and I caught the boys up on what has been happening in Gulu all week. They are usually starving for gossip by the time they get back from a week in isolation. The ride went by very fast and before we knew it we were back at Katarina’s and saying our goodbyes to Lisa. She came with group one and stayed for an additional week because she was not quite ready to go home. I tried my hardest to get her to stay another week with us, but was not successful. It was great to get to know her and hopefully we can visit her soon in Louisiana or maybe even see her perform in St. Louis at a benefit concert Big John is talking about organizing.
After an afternoon of typing up lessons and doing a bit of research we met most of group 3 at Da Pub for a while. It was nothing terribly exciting, just a typical Friday night at Da Pub. We all had to get up early the next morning for Fort Patiko.

Fort Patiko
We met our teachers at 11:00 Saturday morning at the IC house. We all were on our way to Fort Patiko, the headquarters for the Arab slave trade of Africans. Sir Samuel Baker (who my school is named after) is the man who is accredited to ended slave trade in Uganda, and he made it into a fort, where he lived with his family.
This weekend excursion was different for us because this time our teachers and their families were invited. Tonny and Lawrence both came and they had never been to Fort Patiko so they were very excited to see it. The mutatu ride was very sketchy as there were 20 of us in the van; some were kids, but it was very jammed packed. Michael and I were the only munu’s in the van so most of the conversations that were had were in Lwo.

The ride took about an hour and I was really itching to get out when we finally got there. It was really a beautiful site and we spent the first hour or so climbing the rocks and trying to one up each other about how high we could climb on each rock. We then had an amazing BBQ. Each school was responsible for bringing a different type of food and us at SSB needed to bring fruit, the easiest thing to bring. There was enough pineapple for 100 people so we did our job.

After lunch Big John took a few of us on a tour of the Fort and it was pretty amazing. We saw machete marks in the rocks from where the slaves who were not able to work were beheaded. It was really incredible to be standing in the exact spot where all of this took place not too long ago. We also saw the cliff where people were thrown off if they were resisting the beheading. Most of our teaching partners have ancestors that were taken here, so it was very emotional for a lot of them.

After the tour we were off to hike to the top of the mountain. It might be the most fun I have had in Uganda. It was not easy and a few of us did not make it to the top (I did of course.) There were a few moments that were pretty frightening but the view from the top of the mountain was priceless. It was great to spend the day with our teachers and their families. We saw a different side of them and they saw a different side of us, which was great.

That is all I am going to write about now. I need to continue working on the research and my binder. Hope all is well at home. I’ll see you all next week.
-Ryan

P.S. The internet is very slow today so I will try to put up some pictures tomorrow.

Personal Timelines

I forgot to add last week that we went visit MEND. It is where the Invisible Children handbags and messenger bags are made by Acholi woman. It is in order to give these woman work and make sure that they are being treated properly. MEND takes care of these woman and is helping them to get their lives together. We got to meet all the woman who make the bags and take a pictures with the woman that made the bag that we purchased. It was very cool and I encourage you all to check out the mend link through the invisible children website.

Monday was probably the most uneventful day so far here in Gulu. I did not have class today, however, I decided that I would like to start filming more of this experience and making a video of our time here in Uganda. In the next two weeks I want to try and film all 17 of us in class, or working with the children, and all 5 of our partnering schools. I also am going to try to get footage of all the hangouts we go to and all the shops, stores and restaurants we frequent. It would be a nice way to remember this experience and fun to share with friends and family when we return.


Tuesday is my day off regularly, but I go in to school for our round table at 4. I did a lot of planning in the morning and continued to work on our research. Michelle from group 3 and I spent the day together and had a very fun day. We started our date at Café Larem, then went up smelly alley so she could check out our pad, then went to lunch at Kope Café. Kope Café is notorious for its extremely slow turn around time and I was pleasantly surprised when my steak sandwich only took 1 hour and ten minutes to come out (keep in mind, there was only 3 other people in the entire restaurant when we were there.) I have absolutely NO CLUE what takes them so long, and I have no desire to find out. We met Lisa from group 1 there (she stayed an extra week because she loves Gulu so much) and she got us pumped up for white water rafting and bungee jumping on the Nile (as if I wasn’t already.) She went down to Kampala this weekend with the group one girls and came back Monday. I am not looking forward to leaving, but I cannot wait to go to the Nile and raft and bungee, it will really help to leave knowing that we are going to Jinja and do all these fun things.

We then went shopping for gifts and of course for things for ourselves. Nobody should allow the two of us to go anywhere by ourselves because she spends money like I do; on ridiculous things that we do not need. Anyway, we got a couple of dresses and made for her, and I tried to pick up my shirt, but the lady I had to pay was not there, so it is still hanging there. If it fits anything like the shorts I had made I am in no rush to have it. After an hour or two of shopping up and down the market we decided to stop at the Florida hotel and grab a drink. There we were had our first experience of someone coming up to us and asking for money. I have been here for over a month and have not had that experience yet, so it was kind of strange to see. The man could barely talk so it was hard to communicate with him. We decided it was best to get up and go because he was just staring at us and it was pretty bizarre.



It was then time for me to go to my round table which I was not looking forward to too much, especially since Michelle was going swimming at the Acholi Inn. Swimming in the pool sounded much better than taking a 20 minute Boda Boda ride to school and sitting in a meeting for an hour and a half. The meeting went fine even though none of my teachers were there. I would get into the logistics of what we talked about at the meeting but I am sure that nobody cares and would be bored to tears reading about it.

We went to dinner at about 7:00 and then Michael and I stayed behind once everyone left. We got a few extra sodas (YES sodas) and had a nice long talk. When we got home Kate invited Michael and I to the top of KSP. We said we would go but only for 1 hour. We met Apolo there and enjoyed a beer on the roof. I am so glad we met Apolo and his brother Obie on this trip because they give us so much insiders view on life here in Gulu compared to life in Britain. They have so much lined up for them and come from such a great family that I am sure whatever they do they will be the best of the best. I know that Apolo in coming to the States in December and I can’t wait to meet up with him and show him around. I don’t think he will ever leave NYC.
Michael and I were almost true to our word and were only out for an hour and a half which is a very impressive feat when we are in Gulu AND when Apolo is with you. He is the Acholi version of me and won’t let anyone go home if there is still fun to be had.

Wednesday might have been the best day yet at school. Michael woke me up at 6:55 when he heard Lisa and Sharon talking to my teacher Dennis on the phone. For some reason he called them and told them he would be in school at 8 o clock. I told them that was good for him, we did not have class until 11:10, so I would be there by 10:30.

My guilt got the best of me and I managed to get out of bed, get some “breakfast” (a piece of cold chapatti) and I rolled into school around 9:30, still very early for class. I walk into the teachers room and guess what….. NO Dennis! I figured he must be somewhere around campus so I took out my laptop and showed some of the teachers some pictures from home and some pictures of our trip so far. They were loving it and could not believe the little amount of clothes that people were wearing at the beach. It was hilarious.

Time flew by and I had a great time showing them my life at home and my life outside of school here. At 11:00 there was still no sign of Dennis. Today is the day that Sharon and her teacher Christine were supposed to observe us in class. I called Dennis and got no answer. So I went to the classroom and told some of the boys that we would have the lesson on Friday because that is the next time we have class. They said “how about you do by your own.” Now it was an 80 minutes class and Dennis and I had planned for about 50 minutes of him teaching about the Unification of Italy and me using about 30 minutes to teach about timelines and eventually we would put together a timeline of the unification of Italy.

I could not say no to the boys so I got my bag from the teachers room, told Christine and Sharon to come to class, and went to the room having o idea what I was going to do for 80 minutes. I could hear a lot of noise coming from the class before I walked in the room, but when I was in sight they all were silent and I did not hear a sound. These “boys” are s5, which means they have one year left at Sir Samuel Baker before they can go to university. Some of these boys are as old as 20-21.
I started out by explaining what a timeline is and why they were so helpful. Not one student has ever heard of a timeline, which surprised me until I remembered that none of the teachers had ever heard of a timeline either.




I then showed them the example of my history of the United States timeline and briefly explained the significance of each major event. They were enthralled because they are so interested in America and have so many questions to ask about life there. After that I took out another timeline that I made, a timeline about my personal life. I went through the timeline year by year explaining what significant events happened in my life. They loved learning about me and all eyes were on me the entire time.

Then I gave each student a sheet of paper and asked them to do a timeline of their own personal lives. I was hesitant to do this because I know that many of them have had very difficult lives and I did not want to bring up any emotions that would get them sad or depressed.

Some of the kids did the basic timeline of “started school” “started football” “entered Sir Samuel Baker school”, but some of the other students got very personal and I was amazed at how much they opened up. I have showed them to many of my roommates here, and they are all as amazed as I am. I will share one students timeline with you:

1988 – I was born In a war ravaged area in Northern Uganda. Gulu, Uganda
1989 – My mother died when I was not even 1 year.
1994 – My father died and I was left a total orphan.
1996 – I was taken to camp for protection from the Lord’s Resistance Army led by Kony.
1998 – I joined school primary one.
2004 – I did primary learning examination to join Secondary School.
2005 – I joined senior one.
2008 – I sat UCE.
2009 – I joined Sir Samuel Baker.

It was crazy to see the pattern in most of these kids. They had terrible lives, and the only thing positive they have to say is about their education. It was very eye-opening and I am so happy that these boys (men) opened up so much to me.
I actually have most of the lesson on film because I gave my camera to Sharon. With the inconsistency of classes around here I wanted to make sure that I got a good lesson on film before I left.



I am finally caught up with blogging. This was yesterday (Wednesday) and I am typing this on Thursday. We have a week and a half left in Gulu before we head to Jinja and then go our own ways. Matt, Catharine, Annie and Big John are hanging out in Africa for a while, each doing their own things; traveling, hiking, teaching. Kevin, Bill and I are off to Amsterdam next Monday, while the rest of the crew will be in New York and eventually home in less than two weeks.

Will update again soon,
-Ryan

Safari Part 2

Party Planner / Safari part 2

Friday morning I went into school very early; 7:45 to be exact. Not shockingly, my class had to take some sort of mid-term test (which I was not made aware of.) I was supposed to do my lesson on the Unification of Italy. I spent the entire night Tuesday night (while watching the Michael Jackson service) working on timelines to help the students understand dates and chronological order. I made a huge timeline of the history of the United States, I made a timeline of my personal life, and I made a timeline of our trip to Uganda. I then made a blank timeline of the unification of Italy, which they were going to fill in.

Things did not turn out so great because the mid-term lasted about 70 of the 80 minutes that I was supposed to have class. I spoke with the boys for the last ten minutes and introduced what we will be doing next week. I guess it is good because now I don’t have to plan for next week, but I was all ready for today, and I feel bad because this is the class that I have not been in too much, and we only have two weeks of teaching left. This is all part of the Uganda experience though and we just have to deal with what we are able to accomplish. Time management is a HUGE issue here and something that can really use some work.

We all keep asking each other if this experience is what we anticipated it to be before we left. It is a very difficult question for me to answer because I tried to not have any expectations before I left. I had absolutely no clue what to expect here. I have a few responses:

1) Safety – I feel much safer than I thought I was going to feel. The people in Uganda are so friendly, almost to a fault. I understand that we are different, and we are living in their home, but we cannot go ten steps without having to wave to people or say apwoyo. It sounds like a terrible thing to say, but imagine walking down any busy street in the States and every other person expects you to wave to them, or talk with them. I am not complaining, but I am just a little surprised at how much attention we get. I love these Acholi people though and feel just as safe, if not safer that I feel in a city back in the States.

2) Education – I NEVER thought that I was going to come to Uganda for six weeks and change the face of education. Never. However, I did not realize that I would learn so much from these people. I feel as though they taught me more than I taught them. I am sure they will disagree with that, but I think that is how most of us feel. I will take more back to my students and be a better teacher in the States because of these people here, and that makes the trip entirely worth it.

3) Poverty – I realized very early on in this experience that “poor” is simply a comparative word. These people are “poor” to US. They may know that they do not have much, but it is normal for them. They only need the necessities to survive and as long as they have them, they are happy. Everyone is “poor” compared to someone else. They may not even think they are poor until they see people that have more than they do. I do not know if I was expecting people to be begging, or to look unhappy, or feel bad for themselves, but that is not the case here, and that is awesome.

4) Overall experience – This experience has exceeded my expectations. My number one goal was to get to know these Acholi people, learn their culture and see and hear first- hand accounts of what these people have lived through. I have done that. I have also formed friendships with these Acholi people which will hopefully last a very long time. We are all better people for meeting these people and seeing their courage, bravery, determination, and strength is an inspiration to us all.
So anyway, obviously Friday was another easy work day, but I used the time to check out the sport championship at Pece Stadium which is right down the road from our place. This is the championship sport meet for schools throughout all of Uganda. There were thousands of people in attendance, but I think that John, Michael and I were the only Munu in the entire stadium. I actually felt like more people were interested in what we were doing than the actual races. John brought up the point that we are treated like a combination of a freak show and an “A” list celebrity. People were actually taking video with their cell phones of us just standing around. It was a little too awkward for me so we only stayed for twenty minutes or so, but it was something really cool to witness.

We went on the Safari Saturday morning so we decided we should stay in on Friday. Of course, it was not long before we decided to have people over our place as kind of a going away party for group 1. It turns out that none of group 1 even came, but we had one of the best nights yet. After we were done at our place we actually went to Da Pub to meet some of the group 3 girls. Nobody needs to hear any details about Friday night, but we all had a great time.

Safari Saturday

We piled in to our mutatus (which is never a good thing) on Saturday morning and headed off to Murchison Falls for Safari. Our mutatu consisted of myself, Michael, Tammy, Catharine, Mandi, Bill and Jon. As we pulled out onto the road our driver put a tape into the tape deck. For 3 straight hours there, 5 straight hours on the safari, and 4 straight hours home we heard the same 10 songs. This tape did not consist of unique Ugandan music, it was a compilation of great love songs. Artists included, Celine Dion (2), Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias (2), Brittney Spears, and a cover of Bryan Adam’s “Everything I do, I do it for You.” Never again will I hear any of those songs and not think of this Safari and this group of people.
After the long trip to Murchison Falls we finally arrived at the gates of the Safari. We were literally red from the dirt kicking up from the mutatu in front of us. Our hair was red, our faces were red, our clothes were red, our fingernails were red. We were completely filthy, but very relieved to get to the gates. The Safari is broken up into two parts. Part 1 (which we did Saturday) is the water Safari on the Nile River (no rapids or anything like that.) On our way to the river we say hundreds of animals including giraffes, elephants, antelope, and other things that I had no idea what they were.

We finally pulled up to the docks and not long after did our boat pull up and we piled in. The boat was just for the 15 of us and our tour guide. The water tour was amazing; we saw hundreds of hippos, we saw crocs, and a bunch of rare birds (which I really couldn’t care less about.) Anyway, the tour took us to Murchison falls, which is a waterfall. We could only get so close to the actual falls, but the scene was incredible. We all took a bunch of pictures (I am sure together we have literally hundreds of the same picture) but it was really nice to look at. Not as amazing as Niagra Falls, but maybe just as beautiful. There is a bunch more I could tell you about day one of the Safari, but it was basically just us looking at a bunch of animals, and hanging out on top of a boat for a day. On the way back to our campground we were all pretty exhausted and were anxious to get to our tents (not to mention I had not eaten one thing all day and it was probably around 5pm at this point.)

We finally get back to the dock and it was only a couple minute drive to our campground. We chose our tents and Michael and I chose the first tent we saw (it was a great idea until 3am in the morning and the bar was still jam packed and our tent was right next to the bar.) We put our things down and went to grab a bite to eat. I had some sort of vegetable spaghetti but to tell the truth I would have eaten anything that was in front of me at that point. I don’t think that one person talked during dinner because we were all so starving. After dinner we all rushed to the showers to clean off the red tint on us. Even though the shower was still freezing, it was great to have a shower with water pressure. We ended up sitting around the campfire for a few hours, but were all in our tents by 10:30. However, there was a group of about 30 kids from England and they were partying all night (at the bar right next to our tent.) If I was not so exhausted I would have been a little more social, but I had absolutely NO desire to do anything except sleep. Unfortunately that did not happen, and I ended up getting about 3 hours sleep before we had to get up at SIX AM!!! I was less than pleased when I found out that we had to get up that early, but the tents were so small and so close together that I guess I would not have been able to sleep in much anyway, and in order to see the good animals we had to get a move on real early.

We piled back into our mutatus which was blasting “Escape” by Enrique Iglesias and drove back to the ferry to get to the other side of the river. One we were on the other side, we piled back into our mutatus and the safari began. I am not going to go into too much detail about this either because I am sure you all can imagine what a safari is and what it entailed. We saw a bunch of wild animals, and sat on top of a mutatu for about 5 hours. The best part of the trip was sitting on the mutatu; it was like being on a rollercoaster (a very dangerous rollercoaster with no seatbelts or protection preventing you from falling off.) We saw everything except Lions (which people were pretty upset about, but it did not bother me for some reason) and it was well worth the money spent.

The drive home consisted of 4 more hours of the same love songs and a flat tire. We had to wait on the side of the “road” until the driver fixed the flat, which was actually surprisingly quick. As we pulled in to our place “hero” was blasting again, and I got some great footage on my video camera of everyone singing along. We all know every word to all ten of those songs, and I will certainly be making a mix of all the songs and sending them to everyone when we get home.

When we got back on Sunday the Pabo guys left pretty quickly and the rest of us went to dinner then set up a huge poker tournament. There were 11 of us and the pot was a total of 130,000 shillings. This may not come as a surprise to anyone, but I won. It was a great ended to the weekend.

We have a lot of research we have to do in these next two weeks and they should go by real quick. We also will be observing each other in class this week, which should be interesting. I also would like to visit all of our participating schools and get some footage of each school and maybe even of all 17 of us doing something in the classroom. It will be cool to put together a video at the end of this of all we have accomplished and all we have seen and done. I know I have been talking a lot about all of the fun things we have been doing, but everyone here is doing great things in their schools and even though all of our experiences have been different, we are all making the best of our situations, and getting everything we can from the community and our surroundings.

I hope the group 1 girls (and Phil) arrive home safely and I hope that you all had a great time in Jinja and Kampala. It was great to get to know you and hopefully we will all stay in touch.

After a month here, we are all staring to come to terms with leaving Gulu. It will be real bitter-sweet. However, I am expecting Jinja to be one of the best days ever (white water rafting and bungy jumping into the Nile) and Amsterdam with Kevin and Bill to be a trip of a lifetime in itself.

Will write again soon,
-Ryan

Typical Wednesday and Thursday

Regular Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday started out as a regular day in Uganda. I was woken up by my 10 roommates around 6:30. For some unknown reason they like to get up early and sit around and chat. I managed to stay in bed until around 8 though. I took an ice cold shower for about 1 minute and managed to find some clothes that were not terribly covered with dirt and dust (today is laundry day for the guys, so I will have “clean” clothes for tomorrow.)

I then took the short walk to Katharina’s restaurant for breakfast all by myself. When I walk from the hotel to the restaurant it is like I am a celebrity walking down the red carpet. I have kids running up screaming “Ryan” “Munu” (white person) or “Obama.” It was a lot of fun for the first month, but it is getting a little annoying now and I find myself shimmying along the wall so nobody sees me. I am sure I look ridiculous, but it is a huge pain to re-wash your hands at the restaurant. I don’t mind so much on the way home, but I try to avoid everyone on my walk there.
Anyway, I had delicious pineapple, an egg, chapatti, and a really tasty “doughnut”, it might have been the best breakfast yet. Also the coffee here is really good, and I have a really difficult time starting the day without it.

After breakfast I went back home and got ready for school. I got my bag and my wallet, and of course my sunglasses and hat for the Boda Boda ride. I took about 15 steps out of my place and about 6 Boda Boda drivers were in my face in a matter of seconds. I choose the one that looked like he would drive the fastest because I was a little late, and off we went. I made probably the worst choice of all time because not only was he THE SLOWEST Boda Boda driver of all time, he went in the complete wrong direction and it took about 30 minutes to get to work. It was a beautiful ride through an area I have never been in before (which is a little frightening to think about) but, I was kind of in a rush and this was not the best day to get lost. He eventually got me to school. I was covered with dirt, a half hour late, and wearing the most wrinkled shirt in Uganda. However, when I walked in the teacher’s room everyone was thrilled to see me and nobody even questioned why I was late or looked like I had just rolled around in the mud and crawled to work. In fact, my teacher was not even there yet. Time in Uganda is VERY casual. It is more like “class might start around 8:30, if you can get there, that would be great, if not, we’ll just start a little later.” This is hilarious because it seems like no matter what time class starts, it always ends at the same time.

So, after rushing to work and panicking because I was late, more time passes and my teacher does not even show up. My only class for the day had been canceled. Now what?
I found my other teacher (Tonny)and planned with him for the next day (Thursday), we actually did a lot of work, and it was well worth my time coming in for the day. I stayed for tea time (a daily occurrence, which involves some delicious tea and something like little fried dough balls.) It is my favorite time of the day, and 100 times better than lunch.

I ended up leaving school after tea time and headed to pick up my shorts at the fabric place that I was at yesterday. Let me just tell you that they are the most hysterical shorts I have ever seen in my life. The girls I was with specifically told the lady that I did not want pleats, I guess my shorts have as lot of pleats in them (that is what they tell me) and they are SKIN TIGHT. They are hilarious and I can’t wait to wear them around when I get home to the States. I also got a matching shirt made which is definitely wearable, although the buttons are a little uneven. Oh well, for ten dollars I got shorts and a shirt custom made and I am sure the laughter that I will bring to people’s faces when I wear them will be worth the ten dollars.

After the fabric lady I went to Café Larem which as always was filled with Munu. We all know everyone there because we are all there on a daily basis. If we are not there to use the internet, we are there to have an ice coffee, read, or have some of the only ice cream in Gulu (which they just started making last week.) Some of the group 1 girls were there and some of my buddies from group 2 and we decided to go to the Green Tavern for a while because we might not have a chance to hang out again because they leave Saturday morning. I, of course, failed to remind them that we had trivia night on Thursday and let them think that this might be the last time we would all hang out.

Kate, Apolo (our Acholi/British friend) and I went first, and not long after did Lisa from group 1 pull up on her Boda Boda. We were quickly joined by Lisa (group 2), Matt, Annie, Abbie, Lauren, and Obie (Apolo’s brother.) We stayed for a couple hours and enjoyed each others company. The group 1 girls had to go home for their last meeting and instead of coming to the hotel for dinner the 7 of us got into Apolo’s car and headed to an amazing Chinese restaurant. The food took a LONG time to order and come out, but when it did I was very happy with our decision to drive here. I ordered the sweet and sour chicken and it was just as good as it is in the States. It is such a big deal when we find places with food we love here because we get the same food over and over again everyday and it is so exciting to get something normal.

Anyway, apparently we came back loud because the next morning everyone yelled at us, but we had a fun night. Thankfully Tonny was at school to plan with today because if he was not there and we did not plan, I would have felt like I did not accomplish anything today. I feel like we are now planned for most of the next two weeks and we can now use our time together for things other than planning.

Thursday
I woke up Thursday listening to people complaining about how loud we were last night. Everyone can hear everything in this place and unless we crawled in on or hands and knees, they would have heard us. I am sure they were not trying their hardest not to wake us up either, but this is all expected when you live with 17 strangers from around the country for a month and a half.

Everyone was completely over everything very quickly because when I walked out of my room I was wearing my brand new outfit of tight pleated shorts and matching button down shirt. Everyone busted out in hysterics and if there was anyone that was not awake, they were awake now. Everyone ran into their room and got their cameras and took pictures of my Huckleberry Fin outfit. Everyone begged and pleaded with me to wear the outfit out today and to trivia night tonight, but I decided against it. I get enough stars simply walking around as a munu, I do not need to draw any more attention to myself. I told them I MIGHT wear it tonight to trivia night because basically everyone there is a munu, and they all know me anyway and won’t think anything of it.

After my fashion show I went to school in normal clothes. I taught with Tonny today and the topic was the causes and effects of British use of indirect rule in East Africa. Can you believe that I am teaching this stuff and actually know what I am talking about?

Tonny introduced indirect rule and some advantages of indirect rule. I then stepped in created a cause and effect chart with the boys. Once again, using visual aids can really help the students see things in a different way. I put the chart on the board (only breaking the flimsy chalk one time this time) and had the students all come up with 3-4 causes for indirect rule being put into use in East Africa. I then had them get into groups and share their answers, and followed that by having students come up to the board and share their work with the class. This is not something that is commonly done in Uganda in the first boy I asked to come to the board seemed unsure and almost nervous, as if it was not alright for him to do. He was probably thinking “does this white man know that we don’t do this in Uganda,” or “I better not get in trouble for this.”

After the first boy successfully wrote his answer on the board and explained it, the rest of the boys were all eager to have their turn. I obviously could not have all the students come up, but I will be sure to choose new boys next time we use the board.

Morris (the boy whose parents died) came and talked to me after class and I explained to him that I would help him figure out where the IC office is so he can get a scholarship form. He wanted to have my phone number so he could call me but I am not sure of what the procedure is on that, so I told him I did not know my number (which I don’t.) I told him that next week we would get together and figure out when is a good time to go to the IC office. He is such a good kid and I hope that it will be easy for him to get these forms and be accepted for the scholarship program.
As I was walking back to the teachers room after talking with Morris, another kid walked up to me and handed me a letter. I did not recognize him, but he obviously knew who I was. I said thank you, and that I would read the letter later. I knew what kind of letter it was going to be because a few of my friends here have already gotten one. It is not the type of letter you want to read in front of the kid that gives it to you. I will call the boy “Bobby.”This is a very common letter that us teachers have been receiving here in Gulu. The stories are very heart-wrenching, but we unfortunately have to remind these poor kids that we are help to help educated them and we cannot hand out money to everyone that asks. It is VERY different from them begging for money. They sincerely want to be our friends and tell us their life stories. They want us to know them and they want to know us. Here is the letter that “Bobby” handed me:

“Dear Brian, (many people here call me Brian because they do not have R’s)
It’s a pleasure to have this chance to communicate to you in this letter. I am a Ugandan by nationality, Acholi by tribe, and a boy of 16 years old.

I am studying in the school mentioned above (he wrote Sir Samuel Baker at the top in a heading), this year I’m in Senior two East (the equivalent of about 9th grade.)
So Brian, I am an orphan. Both of my parents were killed by L.R.A. in 2004 when they were weeding cassava in the village. And they left us five in this world. Now as I am talking, my grandfather who is a peasant farmer is the one taking care of us.
And our problems now are:

School fees. The school which I am studying in is very expensive not only expensive but also a boarding school which needs a lot of requirements which disturbs my grandfather to get it all for me. Due to this fees problem, I keep on paying part payment and they always send me away from the school to go and bring the balance remained. This one make me to stay at home looking for money while missing a lot from school.

Our grandfather always sells me food he harvested from the garden for buying clothes, medicine, and paying our school fees. This leads to famine outbreak at our home. So now, I am requesting you kindly if possible to help me paying my school fees.
I will be gladfull if you put my request under your consideration.
Thank you sincerely,”
“Bobby”

As you can see, it is very difficult to not go to our wallets and help these kids out. But, there must be some sort of procedure these kids have to go through. It sucks, but that is the way things have to work in order to ensure sustainability.
I will keep you all posted as to what happens with these two kids. Hopefully they can both get into the scholarship program, which will ease at least some of their many burdens.

Shifting gears, Kate, Lisa, Sharon and I met some of the teachers we work with at Da Pub around 5 (with Michael and his teacher, Matt, and Big John). It has kind of become a weekly thing, and it is great to hang out with these guys outside of school. They are a blast to hang out with and time always goes by so quick. We unfortunately had to leave them at 7 to go to dinner with the rest of the group, but we made plans for the same time next week.

Finally, Thursday night took us back to Bambu and the last trivia night for group 1. We all did what we promised to do on that first trivia night and dabbled in the bottle of white mischief. It was, as always, a blast, and this week even Tonny, my teacher, met us out. Michelle, Jo, John and I did terrible AGAIN, but I don’t even go for the trivia anymore, it is more for the people there.

Group 3 even made an appearance and then once we cleaned Bambu out, we went to Boma. Michelle and I had a treacherous walk there, but we arrived safely and were there for quite a while. We even left before the rest of group 3 which is unheard of. Like the gentleman I am, I made sure that Michelle got back to the IC house safe and sound, and took the lonely Boda Boda ride back to Katharina’s. I am not sure how much she handed the Boda Boda driver to get me home, but it was the fastest Boda Boda driver in all of Gulu and I reached home in under 2 minutes. I should have gotten his number to take me to school every morning so I don’t have another ride like yesterday morning.

OK, I am sick of writing because I am typing this at Kope Café and there are flys on every part of my body right now and it is taking forever to type because I have to keep stopping to swat them away.

I will post soon about the Safari this weekend.
Wanen (goodbye) for now
Ryan

Bead Lady, Morris, and the late great MJ.... And Noah.

We were all off to a slow start on Sunday morning and we had the unfortunate task of going to a book talk on “Song of Lawino.” Bill and I decided to walk to the IC house so we would be late to the book talk and when we walked in the talk was half over. I have to admit that I did not participate in this book talk and kind of felt like a fool showing up late. However, it was kind of foolish to schedule a book talk the morning after our 4th of July party. Anyway, after the book talk we had a little time to kill before the bead lady showed up. While we were waiting we decided to get a volleyball game going at the IC house. It was basically group 2 and 3 and it was good to get to know each other better. The game started out real slow because we were all dragging a little bit, but as more people joined the game, our competitive sides started to come out.

The bead lady showed up for group 2 and3 just as we were finishing our game. I was stunned by how many beads she had. Believe it or not, these beads are made from paper although you could never tell by looking at them. We all bought an exorbitant amount of beads and I am sure made the bead lady’s day. Most of group 2 left after buying the beads the Pabo guys headed back to Pabo, and everyone else headed back to our place. I hung back at the IC house for a while and talked with some of the kids from group 3. 5 of the will be headed to Ananka for the week and the other 10 or so will be here the entire time. Darren is actually from Connecticut and Jo lived in Groton, CT for a while. They all seem to be real cool and I look forward to spending the last 3 weeks with them.

That was absolutely all we did on Sunday. Nobody had any energy left and it was great to just hang out at home and relax.

Monday came and Sharon and I played our usual role as mom and dad when the Atanga boys went back for the week. Lisa and Wendy joined us this time and I tried to get it on film but my battery was dead, so next week I will be sure to capture the moment.

I then went to school for an afternoon class. I taught about the British methods used in colonization of East Africa. The students seem to be much more comfortable with us now and it is easier to do our job when we are not being treated so differently.

I used some big graph paper and made a flow chart explaining the process of colonization and how one thing led to another. It is amazing how a simple chart or visual aid can help so much in student understanding.

I then explained the ten major methods used in colonizing East Africa. The people here speak very soft, and it is hard for us to hear what they are saying. On the other hand, I am sure that for them it is like we are screaming. While teaching I had to force myself to talk softer and not be so loud. After getting through the teaching I played a review game with them. I had them get into teams of 2 or 3 and designate one person in the group to be the scribe. Once that was settled I put up another piece of graph paper with the ten methods on it. I would say a sentence describing one of the methods and they had to tell me which method I was referring to. For example;
• These were used to spread rule in Uganda and Kenya. Some offered their men to fight for the British or their territories were used as bases for fighting the enemies of the British.

The students then had to choose the correct answer, which we all know is African Collaborators.

I also had a blown up beach ball in class, which doubles as a globe. I would throw it to a student and he would have to answer the question. The students loved catching the ball or letting it bounce off their heads. It is not often that the students have fun in the classroom here, and if I do anything here I want to help the students and the teachers understand that learning can be fun, and if the students are having fun while learning, they would be more excited to learn.
I also talked to Morris today, the kid that asked me last week to promise to not forget him. After class we walked to another building and sat down at a desk. Morris is 16 years old and told me that both of his parents died when he was a child from Aids. He has been living with his aunt since, but he cannot live with her much longer. He says he has much difficulty paying his school fees (which is a very common and major issue here.) He kept stressing that he was not asking me for anything, he just wanted to be friends, and said that my friendship is what is important to him. We have rules here that we are not suppose to give money away to kids so I told him of the Invisible Children scholarship program and said maybe next week we can get the form and fill it out to see if he is eligible for one. He seems like such a nice kid and I would love to be able to go to the ATM and give him money, but I understand that that is not what we are about, and it would go against Invisible Children’s policy. I told him that I would talk to him more about it on Thursday and we would go from there. I am looking forward to getting to know Morris more and doing whatever I can to help him. The main reason I came to Uganda was to form these relationships with the Acholi people and I am happy to have bonded with many of them already.

Monday night Phil from group 1 and some of the group 3 girls came over to our pad to watch a movie, right when they got here the power went off, so we have to watch it on a laptop, which kind of sucked. I actually went into my room and Michael and I tried to read over the roars of laughter from our roommates watching Dodge Ball. It was a mellow night, but I wanted to rest up for the big Michael Jackson memorial the next day.

I had a day off on Tuesday although I still went in at 4pm for a round table with the teachers, which is always a blast (I am being very sarcastic.) So, Tuesday was jam packed with things that I have wanted to do. A few of us had the day off so we went all over town together. Let me try to remember what we did.

1. We went to the Ethiopian restaurant which I have heard was delicious. Delicious is an understatement as it almost brought a tear to my eye. Maybe I am an idiot, but I have never even heard of Ethiopian food. We got a sample platter, which is HUGE, and was more than enough food for the 4 of us. The sample had 8 different famous Ethiopian foods and I am telling you, SEVEN of the EIGHT of them were unbelievably good. The other one was not bad, but I chose to stay away from it. It kind of looked just like dog food. Here is the best part: The food platter was 15,000 shillings, which is about 7 American dollars. Our entire lunch came to 19,000 shillings, less than 5,000 shillings each which is less than $2.50.

2. We then went to get some fabric. I know, I did not think that those words would ever come out of my mouth in my life, but they did. Most of the fabric around seems to me to be what I call “girl fabric.” We then made it a mission to find me some “man fabric.” Of course, being the spender that I am, I bought some fabric at “One Mango Tree” and had them make me a shirt which they said will be ready next week. I could have stopped there, but about 2 shops down I saw some man fabric that I liked much more. So I asked for them to make me some shorts. The girls gave them VERY specific directions of what I want. They took my measurements, told the lady that I do NOT want pleats (whatever that means) and that I want them to look like “American Man Shorts.” I will let you know how this turned out when I talk about Wednesday. Before I left the lady said “would you like me to make you a shirt too.” I obviously said yes, even though I JUST had a shirt made for me. So I gave the lady 20,000 shilling to make me custom made shorts and a matching button down short sleeve shirt. FIVE DOLLARS! It was actually a lot of fun shopping for fabric, and I think I am now obsessed with it.

3. We did a little shopping for gifts too. Although I just ended up buying more stuff for myself. Shocking, I know.

4. Before heading home we went to Crane Bank. I cashed in $100 and in turn received 200,000 shillings. I love this place.

5. After a long day of shopping and eating I decided that I needed to reward myself. Kate and I went to Da Pub (which I now call “The Da Pub” because I think that is hysterical) to have a Nile or 2 before dinner. While we were sitting outside having a drink and enjoying each others company something VERY bizarre happened. A man walked up to us with a big black garbage bag in his hands. I still have absolutely NO IDEA why he came up to us, but he pulled out THE NICEST FABRIC I have seen since I have been here. As Kate was shooing the man away I told him to wait because I wanted that fabric. He told me it was 30,000 shillings for 6 feet (? Or yards, I have no clue) and Kate told me no, that was too expensive. If she was not with me I would have given the man 30,000 shillings and called it a day. So I did a little wheeling and dealing and ended up giving him 25,000 shillings and walked home very happy with a few Niles in me and the coolest fabric in Gulu. I still have no idea what I am going to do with this fabric, but I like having it.

6. Dinner left a little something to be desired and I had about 2 bites of whatever it was, but I did not care. We finally went back to our place and watched the Michael Jackson memorial service LIVE which started at 8pm here in Gulu. It is something that I will never forget; watching Michael Jackson’s funeral service in Gulu, Uganda literally sitting next to a man holding an AK-47 in my home (David our guard joined us for the memorial.)

7. Tuesday ended with Michael and I talking about Noah, from Noah’s Arch, for about 2 hours in our beds. Don’t ask.

I was going to continue, but I have to go. People are now going back to the Ethiopian place for lunch and I need to go. I will post about Wednesday and Thursday (last trivia night at Bambu with group 1 girls!) hopefully later on. Also, we are going on our Safari this weekend, so I might not be able to post for a few days.
Hope all is well, and Big Brother 11 is keeping everyone occupied. No spoilers either, I am looking forward to watching 20 hours of nothing but Big Brother when I get back to the States.

***** Also, I DID NOT HAVE TIME to edit this, or even re-read it, so if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes, I dont want to hear about them.******

Ugandan 4th of July part 2

As I sit down to write this journal entry I realize that words are not going to do Saturday night justice. I don’t think that I know words that can explain how amazing it was. In twenty years, when I think back to my experience in Uganda, Saturday night will be the night that I remember first. There will never again be an independence day where I do not think about Gulu and all the wonderful people in Uganda. I was kind of bummed out on Saturday for a little bit because the 4th of July is probably my favorite day in the States. Not only did this live up to every 4th of July I have ever had, it surpassed it (although the only thing missing was my family and friends from home.)

What made Saturday night so special was that we were ALL together; the 41 American teachers (and Amy and Catherine, our directors), our Ugandan teachers (more than 41 because some of us have more than one teaching partner), all of the Invisible Children staff, and additional friends of ours that we have made in Uganda. Even Justine and Rita, the Americans that run Café Larem were there. You all have them to thank for us all being able to be online as much as we are. They also supplied some of the most delicious desserts I have had in a long time.

Our party was at the Acholi Inn and it is like the 5 star resort of Gulu. It even has the only swimming pool in Gulu, which I have been saying there was no way I was going to go in because I was not sure how clean it was. For those of you that know me I am sure you can guess that it did not take me long to be jumping in, but I’ll get to that later.

As we walked into the yard of the Acholi Inn we saw tables and chairs spread out over the lawn area, and an empty stretch of grass towards the front which would eventually become the dance floor. Almost immediately I saw Okello Lawrence, my teaching partner (although I am not in class with him because he is the department head, but that is another story) Grace, who also teaches at my school and is Lisa’s teaching partner, and even Tonny, my student teacher partner. I was pumped when I saw Tonny because he had been sick and not been able to attend the conference all weekend, convenient right? I knew I liked this guy for a reason; he was “sick” for the weekend conference, but “managed” to get out of bed for the party. No, we all know that that is something I would do, but Tonny was legitimately sick and really did have to force himself to come to the party just to not let me down.



Not long after I saw them the WESTERN food came out, and the open bar opened. See, I told you it was an amazing night. The food was unbelievable and I loved watching the Ugandan teachers look terrified by not knowing what they were putting into their mouths. It was hilarious because they all laugh at me at school when I have to force myself to eat the posho and beans and pretend that I am enjoying it. It was now there turn to “guess” what they were eating. But, they all thought it was very good and they were shocked by how much I ate because they always see me eat at school and let’s just say that I fill up REAL QUICK at school. That is of course when I don’t sneak out of school and go to the Kope Café’ for a vegetable pizza or steak sandwich.

After dinner things really started to heat up. The DJ played plenty of Michael Jackson, which really brought both the American and Ugandan teachers to their feet. It is incredible how one man’s music can bring 2 groups of people from opposite sides of the world together so much. Every person there knew every word to every song of his that was played. You can say what you want about MJ, but he was an incredible entertainer and I would go as far as to say the most well-known, influential entertainer of all time.

Anyway, just when I thought that the music could not get any better, the unthinkable happened. They played a song called “Gulu Boy.” This is unbelievable because my roommate Michael’s teacher is a rapper and he gave Michael a DVD of a few of his videos and a video of his friend’s song called “Gulu Boy.” The two of us had been singing the song non-stop for the past few days and had NO CLUE that is was a song that would actually be played in public. The looks on the faces of everybody there was priceless as they watched Michael and I sign nearly every word of “Gulu Boy.” I don’t know if the American teachers or the Ugandan teachers were more surprised that we knew the song, but it was an incredible moment. I am not sure if you can find the song anywhere online, but I will bring a copy home and let everyone hear it or I will attach a link on the blog as soon as I can. For those of you wondering, YES, I now have to completely re-do my list of my 500 favorite songs of all time.
After jumping around like a complete idiot in the African heat I decided that it would be best to take a dip in the pool. I must have not been paying attention because I was so enthralled in the music, but many of my friends were already in the pool and looked to be having a blast. I bid farewell to Tonny (which is a story in itself, and I am absolutely NOT getting into it on this blog) because he needed to go home and I decided to swim it up. It was a blast and I taught some of the Bavubuka boys how to swim butterfly. I was shocked at how good they were, one was even better than me, which is not saying much because butterfly is by far my worst stroke. Anyway, when we got out of the pool, he said he would never forget me teaching him how to swim. I guess I really left my mark on the Bavubuka guys, even though I was kind of hoping the kid I gave my Kentucky Derby hat to would be back because I really miss that hat and kind of want it back. Hahaha. Just kidding, but I really did love that hat and looked really good in it.

Before or after going into the pool, I can’t remember the order of some of these things, might have been one of the best moments of my life. The music stopped and Amy came out with huge Ugandan sparklers that were like torches (of course mine only worked for about 3 seconds, but it was fun watching everyone else, actually it was not that fun and I tried to steal another one, but got caught.) She also had with her an American flag cake made by none other than Rose, from the wonderful family that took us into their house a few weeks ago. Anyway, as we all had the sparklers in our hands (working or not) I heard the greatest sound I have ever heard in my life. It was none other than the “Star Spangled Banner.” We all sang along at the top of our lungs, and I can say that if it was not THE greatest moment of my life, it is VERY close. Here we are, 50 Mzungus from all over the United States in the middle of Gulu, Uganda on the 4th of July signing the Star Spangled banner where just a few years ago people were being abducted, brutally attacked, and murdered.
Towards the end of the night (well, the night at Acholi Inn, certainly not the end of the night) the music stopped again and there was a speech by the biggest man I have seen so far in Uganda (and by big I mean large, heavy, and jolly, not tall.) He basically looked just like Idi Amin. He then proceeds to tell us that he was actually the president of Uganda for three days. I do not know the whole story, because I was not paying attention at that point, but I guess he is a huge deal, and very wealthy. He LOVED us and made us drink a toast with him (actually made us drink a few toasts with him.) He asked me where I am teaching and I told him Sir Samuel Baker. He said he lived just a little while from there and I must go fishing with him one day. I obviously accepted the offer, but I doubt I will ever see him again. Plus, he kind of scared me a little bit, so I think I am going to stay away from him. He was EXTREMELY nice, but if any of you have seen the “Last King of Scotland” you know exactly what I am referring to. And if any of you have not seen the Last King of Scotland, don’t watch it until I return home safely as it will only make you nervous.

After leaving the Acholi Inn many of us went to a party some guy named David’s house. Nobody really knows what he does, but it involves protecting Americans and involves being in control of a LOT of weapons. He says he is an “information specialist” and nobody has any clue as to what that means. We all just smile and nod. Anyway, most of us decided to go and check out his house. It was really nice and we all sat around a campfire in the back and listened to Mick and Lisa play the guitar and sign again. We were there for a very long time, and it felt just like a 4th of July party I would be at in the States.

As if that was not enough, some of us decided to go to the Havana Club. If I could redo the night I would have left this part out. We were THE ONLY Mzungus in the club and I don’t think I smiled one time. It really was a terrible end to one of the greatest nights ever. I took a Boda Boda home because I could not listen to the rap music any longer and finally got into bed around 4:30. Yes, it was very late, but when I awoke the next morning I found out that some of my roommates did not get back until 5, 5:30 and 6 o’clock. I was beaming like a proud dad when I found that out.
As always, this post has gone on for WAY too long, and I will stop here. It is now Wednesday, so hopefully I will update again tomorrow with what happened on Sun, Mon, Tue and today. Hope the summer is going great for everyone back home. Talk to you soon, and see you in a few weeks, - Ryan

Ugandan 4th of July / 2009 Teachers Exchange Conference

It has been a few days since I have posted and so much has happened, including the 2009 Teachers Conference on Friday and Saturday, and the greatest 4th of July party of all time on Saturday. I will begin by picking up where I left off and that was on Thursday.

I accomplished more at school Thursday than I have since we have been here. I originally went in early to grades some of the exams with Tony, but he was not feeling too well and was not in school when I got there. I used this time to plan with Dennis, my other teacher, and I will be teaching with him on Wednesdays and Fridays. We mapped out most of the next week and decided that I will be teaching The Unification of Italy, which should be interesting because I have no idea what that really means. I bought a few books which I will start reading tonight and hopefully that will clarify a few things (or everything) for me.

Tony came to school around 10 and I felt bad because I think he only came in because he knew I was there. We planned out the week and walked through what we will be doing on Monday (today.) I will be teaching about the scramble and partition of East Africa. I was a little nervous when I found out I would be teaching about the history of Africa because I also don’t know anything about this, but it has been really cool learning about Africa’s history while being here. It is even cooler to teach what I have learned.

Thursday was also used to meet in our school group and finalize what we would be presenting on Friday at the conference. We presented on the question “How can teachers work together to improve communication between the school and parents.” It is a very special circumstance for us at Sir Samuel Baker because we are a boarding school and communication home is very difficult. I will get more into this later on when I am talking about Friday.

Thursday evening brought us the return of Lance, Justine, Tammy, Bill, Kevin and Big John. Only six of our friends at the IDP camps returned as one of the girls in our group decided to return home to the States. I did not get a chance to say goodbye to her, but I wish her the best of luck and hope that she got what she wanted out of being in Uganda for 2 and a half weeks.

Anyway, as with every weekly return of our friends, it was time to celebrate us all being together again. I mentioned in my last post about Thursday night being the only time that all 40 of us could be at Bambu, and I predicted that it would be a doozy. I was right. Not too many of the group 3 kids came out because they were still tired from their journey and orientation week (lame) but a few of them did and it was great getting to know them better. I have absolutely no idea who won trivia, but I did get a glimpse of the awesome Bambu T-shirt that the members of the winning team get, and it is now a goal of mine to attain one of them before I head home. That is all I will be sharing from Thursday night but I have a bunch of pictures from the night to share with all interested parties when I get home. Pictures are worth a thousand words.

On to Friday. It was VERY difficult to get out of bed early Friday morning and make the trek to Gusco for our teacher’s conference. Group 2 all took Boda Boda’s there and passed many of the energetic, well-rested group 3 members walking there. Group 2 kind of has the reputation of the party group among the three groups. I have to admit that we are a very fun group. I am sure that we all were regretting living up to that title Friday morning, but we all managed to present our topics beautifully and am sure riveted the audience.

My group, Sir Samuel Baker, presented second. This was good because we got to get it out of the way early and enjoy (for lack of a better word) the rest of the conference. We decided that the major issues at our school involving parent communication (of lack there of) were student performance, misinformation, and lack of information. The major reasons for lack of communication are DISTANCE (because we are quite a way from town where many families live) and EXPENSE.

After presenting the problems, we discussed some potential solutions. We were asked to come up with 2 potential short-term solutions (which could be implemented within the next few weeks or months) and 2 potential long-term solutions (which could take up to five years .) Being the over-achiever that I am, our group came up with 5 potential solutions.

Short Term #1 – Bulletin Board for parents. This could include copies of the school rules and regulations, school requirements lists, questions and comments section, students of the month, PTA announcements, Calendar of important events, extra-curricular information, letters from the head prefect, and contact information. The bulletin board was my idea and everyone loved it.

Short Term #2 – Increase of radio time. The schools get about an hour a week of airtime at the local radio station. Many parents get their information this way. We share this time with other schools and we would like to see if there is a way to extend the time, or to get our own time.

Long Term #1 – School Newsletter – Ideally this would be published once a year (I say ideally because the Ugandan teachers first said every 3-4 years. I was originally thinking every month, but did not consider the cost of publishing, and it is clearly not feasible or sustainable.) We decided on once a year and it would include any pertinent information. This could be something that the prefects could be in charge of and it would be something they could work on throughout the year.
Long Term #2 – Open house – This could be either once a term or even once a year. Parents would come to the school and meet the teachers and visit with their child. There would be exhibitions throughout the campus highlighting the student’s achievements throughout the year. To reduce the cost (or eliminate the cost completely) the parents would bring their own meal to share with their child. This would ideally be something that the child misses form home and would be a special treat for them, as well as bonding time with their families. The parents would also have the opportunity to meet with any teachers they choose and discuss their child’s performance.

We also had a goal of increasing the use of the telephone at our school. Most teachers do not use it, and very few parents even know about it or have the number for it. We want to get the number out to parents and suggest them to call it when they have any questions or concerns.

Our presentation went well as did all of the presentations. It was a LONG day, but I think that we all will benefit from being involved and hopefully we can implement what we learned and shared in our own classrooms both in Uganda and in the States. It really made me realize that there is NO MONEY in these schools and it really forced us to come up with ideas and solution that either do not involve money, or is extremely inexpensive.

We were totally exhausted on Friday night and almost did not even go out. As we were sitting home we realized that it would be silly if we all just went to bed and ended the night. We are only all together a few nights, and we want to get the most out of this experience as possible and learn about each other as much as possible. For the first time, ALL the girls decided to stay in and rest up for Saturday and more importantly, Saturday night. Kevin, Bill, Big John, Matt and I sucked it up and headed out to Da Pub. Things started out real slow and it was looking like it was still going to be an early night. That was not the case. It is very difficult to not have conversations run on for hours here because we are all so scattered around the country and have such different views and such different stories. The five of us sat for hours and hours talking about everything. We had some Invisible Children Staff friends come and go, and also some Ugandan friends come and go. It was a long night, but not a “crazy” night.

It was crazy enough for us to feel absolutely terrible the next day though. However, it was worth the bonding experience for us, and we have no regrets.
For some unknown, ridiculous reason, Kevin and I decided to NOT Boda Boda to the conference on Saturday. Instead we took the multi-mile trip by foot. OK, I actually do know the reason and it was because we would not be heart-broken if we were a little late to the conference. It started much later than it was suppose to on Friday and we figured that we could walk off some damage done the previous two nights instead of taking a Boda Boda to the conference and sitting around for a while. The walk was actually refreshing and made me feel much more awake and alert. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, the conference had not started yet when we strolled in 20 minutes late. We snuck into our seats and waited for further instructions.

I quickly realized that Saturday would be FAR more exciting than Friday because Saturday was all student orientated. We had some students from some neighboring school attend the conference and some special teachers (our very own Big John included) work with them throughout the day using various techniques. There were 4 stations outside which we would observe throughout the day. Station #1 was Art. Station #2 was Hip-Hop (Music and Dance.) Station #3 was Basketball, and Station #4 was creative writing.

We broke up into 4 groups and went to our first station. We would observe each station for about 20 minutes each and really take our time figuring out what was going on with the instructing and the learning. My group was BY FAR the best group because we could choose what corner we would go into and once everyone saw that I was in the corner by the door, all the fun people came to me. I don’t know if this was just coincidental, but I like to think that it was because of me. I was there first. Anyway, Michael, Bill, Mandie, from group 2, along with some of the fun kids in group 3 really stepped it up as the group to beat.

Station #1 - We saw the girls drawing what looked like their homes. Things had just started, so it was just some sketches at first, but it turned out that they were painting and this was the first time they had ever painted. I was amazed at how fantastic they turned out at the end of the day, and they all read a story that went along with their beautiful pictures.

Station #2 – Was my favorite. We saw the boys from Bavubuka working with the kids to help them write a hip-hop song and learn how to perform it. Michael took over on the drums for a little bit, and then one of the guys handed me some instrument, which I had no idea what to do with. Everyone was looking at me and laughing and I finally handed it off to Bill, who looked even more ridiculous with it than I did. I then slowly back away from the exhibition area and thus out of the potential for any further forced participation.

Station #3 was Big John’s station with the basketballs. He did an amazing job teaching a group of girls drills, which is a LOT more challenging than it sounds. The girls loved it and ended up putting on a great performance at the end of the conference which showed us everything that they learned throughout the day. As we were watching the girls play and Big John lead them, we had a talk about couching and sports we all played in school. Darren, who is actually from Connecticut, is a swim coach and we chatted for a while about swimming.

The final station was the creative station with Joanna from group 1. She was helping the students create stories about challenges they have overcome. Their stories were pretty incredible and when they performed at the end that incorporated drama into their stories and acted them out. It was pretty cool to watch, and considering the amount of time given, they did an amazing job.

We wrapped up the day by getting into our school groups and discussing how what we saw today could be incorporated into our school. I think that it was very beneficial for the Ugandan teachers who are not use to seeing such hands on instructions.
I QUICKLY ran out of the conference because all I could think about was napping and resting up for the big 4thof July party, which started at 6:30.

*************** Once again this post was MUCH LONGER than I expected it to be, and I have a lot to say about the 4th of July night, therefore, I will write about it when I get home tonight, and post it tomorrow. **********************