Very Long Post

6-26-09 - First Week of School
I need to catch up with these posts so I will write about the first week of school all in one post.

Sir Samuel Baker is about a 10-15 minute Boda Boda ride away from our home. I enjoy the ride to the school because it is a very pleasant rode with little congestion. We got to school in time to watch the morning assembly. Of course all eyes were on the four of us because the kids are not use to having Mzungu (whites) walking around their school. Most of the kids will laugh for a minute or two when they see us, but they are very nice and respectful. Oh, Lisa, Sharon, Kate and I all have some VERY interesting stories about the toilet situation at the school, but that is not at all anything that should be in writing or really ever retold again. However, I will share some of these stories when I return home if you are terribly interested.
I will be working closely with Tony and Dennis, both of whom are student teachers at Gulu University. I sat in Tony’s European History class and was amazed at how intelligent he was. He is 24 years old and has never left Uganda in his life, but he is so well-spoken and knowledgeable. There were lizards and bugs in the classroom, and almost all of the windows were broken. There is one blackboard, which is cracked in half and very difficult to write on. There was two pieces of chalk and no eraser. That is literally the only materials that he has. The students were sitting 3 to a bench, and only a few had books. The boy’s notebooks are so meticulously neat because they use every last bit of room. They do not skip lines, or skip pages, or even doodle in them. I am sure that purchasing another notebook would be difficult for them, so they take care of what they have and are sure not to lose it. Despite their surroundings, the students were totally focused and there was little to no fooling around.

Right now Tony is teaching the students about the Belgian Revolution and it is a bit intimidating because I have absolutely NO knowledge of the Belgian Revolution, so I will have to teach myself about it before I can start teaching the kids. In Dennis’s class we will be teaching about the European missionaries coming to Eastern Africa. We will see how that goes. My goal here is more about teaching strategies rather than content, so I am not too worried about it.

I am really excited about working with these University kids because I think that I will have a longer impact on their teaching. It is difficult to try to change the way an experienced teacher does things and I think that by working with these new teachers I will hopefully help them to learn new techniques and styles of teaching that they take with them.

The power went off on Monday, but we had our laptops charged and we all met in the living area (an outside courtyard) and played a music game. I played the song and they all had to guess the song and band name. It was absolutely hilarious and I laughed harder than I have in a long time. There were animals and bugs creeping all over everyone which made for a lot of screaming and freaking out, myself obvious included. It was our first night without the Pabo and Atanga guys, which was a real bummer because we got real close, but they will be back on Thursday and Friday and we will have a blast at the Rhino Santuary this weekend. The music game really brought the 11 of us that are left here together and we think that we will make it a Monday night ritual which would be nice after our crazy weekends.

Tuesday I had a great talk with one of the teachers in the teacher’s room at school. His name is Tom and he is a “tech” teacher at SSB. He is very involved with trying to change the curriculum in Uganda. We discussed the fact that many of the “important” things that these students are required to know for their yearly tests is simply useless knowledge. We agreed that they will become Jacks of all trades ad Masters of none, because they simply get the information in their heads, store it until the yearly test, and never use it again. I will be the first to say that the educational system in the States is far from perfect, but Tom and many of the teachers at my school are extremely interested with it. They have asked me just about every question they can think of and they cannot hear enough about what happens in the States.

Wednesday was the most eye-opening day yet since I have been in Gulu. I am starting to get close with Tony, my Ugandan teacher. He told me stories about growing up here and what it has been like living in a war torn area as a kid. When I asked him if he has known anyone that has been abducted by the LRA he looked at me like I was joking. His response was “many many people.” He said that he has had many friends abducted and that his cousin was abducted in 1996. This cousin just returned last year and was gone for 12 years. I did not ask too many questions about it, but I am sure that someday soon I will get more details.

Tony also said that in 1996 one of the dorms in our school was attacked and many students were taken. This was the exact same dorm that Tony lived in when he was a student at Sir Samuel Baker in 2002. He said that one night the LRA came to the school and were circling around his dorm. They were all hiding and he thought for sure that he would be taken. For some reason (I think the doors were locked, or they ran into a guard) the LRA did not come into the dorm this time.

TOTALLY changing gears, we went to Bambu for trivia night again on Thursday. You can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when they announced that it was TV/Movies/and Music night. I thought for sure that we would win hands down….. I am not too sure how it happened, maybe because I was being too social, too busy flirting, or maybe I was simply not focused, but we did not win. I had a great time, and once again Bambu lived up to its expectations. It was great to hang with the group 1 girls and I was beaming to be back with Lance and Justine after they spent the week in Pabo. Lance walked in to Bambu and bought 14 Nile Specials. They both were walking around with their arms filled with Niles and passing them out to friends they missed. I look forward to them returning every Thursday night. My boys Bill, Kevin and Big John will miss trivia night most weeks because they don’t usually return until Friday. I will be sure to stock up for them when they get home. Matt has been really stepping it up at night when I feel like going out for a little bit and the Atanga boys are not here. Michael has not been feeling too well this week so I will give him a break, and Little John (who is much taller than me but about 8 inches shorter than Big John) had quite an impressive showing Thursday night. Also our group 2 girls have been hanging in and impressing me left and right.

On Friday, back at school, I taught for the first time. It was only about half of the class, but it was good to start doing something. I taught my S5 European History class and everything went great. S5 is equivalent to about Junior or Senior year and there were only about 20 kids in class. They were 20 of the greatest, most polite boys I have ever met. All their eyes were on me the entire time and they seemed riveted by what I was saying. Of course they could have just been looking at my messy hair from the Boda Boda ride, but I like to think that they were focused on the words coming out of my mouth. I somehow taught about the Belgian Revolution and some of the reasons the revolution started. I did a pretty cool lesson on press censorship which I did not get ANY help from my roommates. I was asking everyone to do it for me on Thursday night, and there were no takers. I do not like that we are getting so close because now nobody is doing anything for me anymore. It was much more fun when everyone was trying to impress everyone else. Oh well. Group 3 will be here next week. Maybe they will do things for me for a week or so.

Friday night took us back to the rooftop of the KSP. This was the biggest group of us yet. It was just about ALL of group 2 and there were only a few girls missing from group 1. This was organized by none other than yours truly, and I am very proud to have organized the biggest outing yet. I think I might stay in Gulu and become a party planner. People were laughing, dancing, and really enjoying one anothers company. However, believe it or not, out of the close to 30 of us that were there, I don’t remember getting one single “thank you Ryan for getting us all together.” That is pretty messed up. Anyway, I am pretty sure that when group 3 starts coming out with us it will be the biggest group of Mzungu EVER in Gulu Uganda.

The kids in Gulu have examinations next week so I am not sure of how much we are going to be at school. I think we will have a lot of down time next week, so I am sure I will be posting more often. I will also write up a post of the Rhino Santuary trip we took this weekend (or what I can remember from it.) But not now because the Atanga boys are leaving now and I have to pretend that I am going to help them carry stuff to the van. I have found that as long as I keep walking back and forth to the van people think that I am helping.

I am sorry that I have not been talking to anybody on the phone, but it is kind of difficult to do when we are so far apart time wise. I just want to let you all know that we are doing great and hopefully this last month will be just as amazing as the first two weeks. I will let you know what I think about the group 3 kids when I hang out with them on Tuesday night. And of course I will let you know how classes and planning are going as well. Hope everyone’s summer is going great. Talk to you soon.

- Ryan