I now pronounce you....

I now pronounce you….

Bad Table Manners...

Chapel 

This week has been eventful in Kasese and Rwentutu. So let me chat to you about my teaching first and then the other cultural experiences I have had. As my frustrations came out in my last blog about how to really diversify my teaching, I have come up with one way that the students have been receptive to. I have been having them act and write dialogues to present during class. The students are actually pretty funny and were quite creative. On Tuesday, I had the students create a restaurant in the room and I choose waiters and waitress to take orders from the other students at their tables. The tables were each given a certain amount of money that they had to take in consideration during their ordering. I felt like this help apply mathematics to their English curriculum. The students even reminded each other the table manners we learned Monday while they were ‘eating.’ This was also the day that my supervisor Enoch cam to observe me. He stayed for both the English and Mathematics sections I taught on Tuesday. The feedback was quite good. He did say I need to relax more during teaching math, that day was the day I started the geometry… so I actually was quite nervous… but on the opposite the subject I am least confident in (English) he said I taught very naturally! Back to my first point, I had them also act out the table manners! Many of them choose to reenact bad table manners to show the opposite. Here is a picture of the students reenacting the table manner of “sitting properly while they eat”…. The kids were all laughing while the two students fought over the plate and moved throughout the room pretending to eat. I am really glad I choose to add some drama into the classroom; I have found it allows more multi- intelligences to be reached with little resources. Although this is all good, I have found a I feel like I am lacking a major part of my teaching, which is allowing for students to really explore and research. Because the library is not organized by subjects and there are no computers it is hard to ask the students to go and look into various topics and share out what they have learned. I would love to do more student centered teaching, but with words like napkin or sauna, where the students have little to no prior knowledge and no way to research… I become the main resource of information in the classroom. I have found a book of local hotel at our home and think I will use this to create a writing assessment for the unit. I will be having the students read and look at pictures from hotels and use this as a resource for writing a narrative.

Sorry forgot to flip it upside right!

With continuing to educate on these topics solo, I have began to see the strengths of my students. I can see what students will answer questions, which will do the homework once it is assigned, the ones who need more motivation or one on one time. I look forward to using my thoughts on the various students to apply their strengths in ways that will become a teaching tool. Those are my educational thoughts for now…

At Rwentutu, I have little time to spend with other classes, but at lunch we always get visitors from other classes who would like to spend time with us. You can see in this pictures a few students and me! Once I brought my camera out they all wanted to be in a picture together, so I could not resist joining them… for some of you are asking of more pictures of me and not just everything else! I also gave one girl some papaya hand sanitizer, she was obsessed with the smell and I caught her smelling her hands 5 to 10 minutes after I gave it to her! She was adorable. I also decided to go to chapel today… here is many students singing while they are waiting for the sermon. My student actually led the sermon today! He did absolutely fantastic. I am

always impressed with the bravery of the students here to get up in front of everyone and do almost anything!

Other non-school related things we did this week was visit the Equator. If you didn’t know almost every day of the year here are 12 hours of light and 12 hours of day. So at the 7 o’clock times, it switches within 15 minutes. I find this quite interesting because it has been told to me to not go out alone as Buzungu when it is dark and there is such a short range of time to actually go out and do things on our own. We love the people who we live with and work with each day, but we have been also wanting to prove to ourselves that we can be independent with our time here in Uganda. We have been conscious about trying to have a native with us while it is dark.

Tradition to give the Bride a necklace 

Finally we went to a wedding today! Well it was the giving away of the bride, the ceremony is on Saturday (which is also my friend Julia’s wedding! Sorry I am missing the day!). It was so interesting to see all the colors and people who came out to celebrate the day. Here are a few pictures with further descriptions. The most surprising aspect I noticed during the celebration was the limited amount of involvement of the groom. Of the two hours we were there, he was opening in the celebration for about 15-20 minutes. 

Cutting the cake with her brother 

Bridesmaids 

Just another week in Uganda

Made a Word Wall for the Class!

Well contrary to my title, it was not just an ordinary week here in Uganda… it was my first week of Student Teaching! As my last post announced I was in primary 6, I have now taught each day of the week English and Math. The material that they are learning is actually quite different than anything I have seen in a upper elementary or middle school curriculum. For English, they are learning about Restaurants and Hotels. This topic basically revolves around me teaching them about 50 vocabulary words and being able to understand how to be a customer in both locations. I am struggling on how to make this topic really visual for my students. I have been trying my best to get some hands on items to show them. For example, when I had to teach them the word fruit on Wednesday I had heard them talking about the word fruit in the past two days, but I knew I still had to instruct them on the meaning of the word. So I decided to bring in a tomato, why a tomato? Well I decided that it is not very sweet and is at times not considered a fruit. So a definition of fruit is a seed container that grows on a tree or plant. So we discussed that this fruit grew on a plant and I cut it open and passed a piece to each student so they could examine the seeds within. They loved this! And on a whim I decided to change much of my lesson plan… I had this hands on material that they rarely get and

P6 hard at work! 

knew that upcoming was learning about adjectives, so why not develop a list of adjectives for this fruit. The students then could use both their senses and previous knowledge to add to the discussion. Originally my CT said I should wait and teach grammar after the vocabulary is taught, but I could not pass up on this opportunity. Turns out that a few of the students are quite confused about the use of adjectives and now that I have introduced it I will try to tie it in each lesson to make a well rounded curriculum. I also did this with when the students were learning about toothpicks, I explained most people in America use floss instead and let them all have some…. They all tried it out and it was so amazing to see their eyes light up when trying to stick this white string between their teeth. Unfortunately I am now out of floss…. I guess I’ll use toothpicks. On the other hand, I am going to start talking about hotels and I have no visuals to use… how do you make students understand what a sauna is when you can’t show it or experience it? I had an idea of getting pamphlets from hotels around Kasese, but as I have looked I cannot find much. So any ideas I would greatly appreciate it!

As for math, they were learning about finite systems…. If you don’t know what it is, look it up! So it was pretty common sense for me, however, I had never learned about this topic explicitly before. It has been actually really smooth and fun to teach. I have been introducing many word problems during my teaching to have the students apply more mathematics to critically thinking. For instance, my latest question was “My sister started school in September 2011, she will graduate in 56 months. What month will she graduate?” This problem was given to them in a comprehension check that I had them do on Friday and not one student got it. They all used only the 56 months to figure out the month on a table, however they did not account for the month she started school in. I was a bit disappointed with my teaching when I have stressed many of similar word problems to the students. I decided that tomorrow I will write out step to step how to examine a word problem and spend the whole lesson examining word problems. I will end the lesson with having the students write their own. I am hoping that by doing this the students can develop skills about how word problems work and do a reverse thinking on what I have been teaching them! On Tuesday, I begin teaching them Geometry… I can’t believe I have taught a whole unit already…. Granted it was very short. The geometry that they are learning is how to construct parallel lines, triangles, hexagons, and perpendicular lines using only a compass and ruler. I did not learn this until college in a 400 level course! So I am really nervous yet excited to see how they do. I’ll keep you updated.

Number 5 was a question that I developed for
the more advanced students in the class to differentiate. 

With teaching, I have been trying to figure out how to make the curriculum culturally relevant. I feel like I have been able to develop rigor in the classroom, however I am struggling to find topics that I feel develop critical consciousness in both subjects. I finding out that it takes much time to understand culture and that you truly have to start with the basics and must research to do this in a classroom. I have also been attempting to look at my students abilities within the last week. I have been starting math with having one students write a practice problem and another student explain that student’s work, and noticed the students knowledge of the topic varied. So as I developed the comprehension check I put basic to difficult problems on the assignment. The picture  here shows a problem that I had not taught the students but they have the tools to solve. I put this problem in to provide challenge for students who were more advanced. The entire check was set up as do as many as you know how to do and explained to them as a check to see if we can move to the next topic or review some of the things that were not clear during the week. This is the reason why I am spending tomorrow as a lesson on word problems, because it was the most consistent misinterpreted question of the check. I have found one or two students who I have decided to sit down with during breaks and review some more of the basic concepts and will be sure to check on more during class. I think it is so important to differentiate the curriculum for both students who learn at a slower pace and a more advanced pace to keep all students engaged in the classroom, so I will strive to do this here.

As for life outside of school, on Friday we went to a local church in the Rwentutu area. Doreen invited us in when we came to pick her up at the church to go home. We entered the church and notice two Bzungu and our assistant head master, King James, helping translate the service. We entered at a time in the service when they had just received new Bibles in their regional area language and they were going to distribute them. These Bibles were a gift from the Bzungu. As they were handing them out, one Bible was given to our school! All of a sudden about 12 students from the school came up to receive the Bible… included two of my students. As I sat there watching them take a picture with the Bible they were to bring back to school, I felt a sense of pride in my students and the school. I am not sure what brought on this feeling, but it made time feel slow and all I could do is smile. It is amazing how after only two weeks of being at the school and only one week with my students that I am already complete attached to the school community. With only 5 ½ weeks of teaching left, I am going to make the best of it. Even visiting the church for 20 minutes, the people sitting around us began to greet us or talk to us after the service. The community in the Rwentutu area is so generous and grateful for our work at the school and showing interest in what they are doing.

Walking up to the Waterfalls 

On Saturday, we traveled to Fort Portal (it is really difficult not to say Port Fortal!) to visit the waterfall and

Caves... A site where they found a human skeleton

caves. Some pictures are below. During this guided tour of the area, we saw a natural waterfall that comes from the mountains and travels to the mountains, which is a bit confusing because it is the same mountain range. We also were told a local folklore of the caves. This story was about a princess whose father did not want her to marry and have a son, because the son would take his spot as king. With this selfishness, the king cut off his daughter’s breast and left it in the caves. The stalagmites and stalactites are then memories of the daughter’s breast. However story did not end there, the daughter’s servants snuck in a prince to impregnate her and she birthed a son. This son was taken into the wilderness to be killed, according to the king’s order… however instead was left to be found by the local people. The son grew up and came back to kill the king. It is then believed that the son survived because he could suck the breast of the mother in the caves, or the stalagmites and stalactites. It is fascinating to hear these myths of the region because they are so lively and exciting and something that is so spiritual to the people of the area. We also learned that explorers of the caves found pieces of pottery and skeletons there, showing that the area was used as a shelter many years ago. Learning about this history, I wish I knew more about the Rwentutu area, because I would love to bring that type of cultural history or folklore into my classroom. I have pondered about what the students learn about folklore and if it is part of their literacy curriculum. Many of the books I have seen in the library look like books that are more pop cultured instead of recreations of myths. As a child I would have loved folklore if it was about the community I was living in… which it never was because much of the Native American culture had disappeared in Sheboygan…

We also visited the crater lakes from the area's old volcanoes!

Hope all is well with you tonight…. Feel free to comment on my blog J

The worries of being Muzungu

Today (Sunday) was probably the first day I felt as if I was treated different because of my skin color, besides people looking and shouting Muzungu at us. We decided that it would be a good day to go to eat and ended up a restaurant that said they served pizza (we are craving American Food). So we get there and the chef is not there so there would be no pizza. We soon find out from the waitress that the chef is coming to make us the food! Awesome, right? So she told us it would be 10000 for each pizza. So if you have ever been to a restaurant here you would know that it takes like 2 hours to do the whole process of ordering and eating (I really appreciate the speediness of American restaurants now and waitress… there is no tips here). So we got a bit warm sitting inside and switched to the outside. In our boredom we start playing word games and such when 3 young boys come up to the side fence of where we are sitting and starting trying to talk to us. “Ma’am how are you?” They kept asking with no response from us. We ask them to leave and they said only if we gave them 500 shillings. Well we were not going to do that because then it may lead for them to ask us more. They are quite persistent and we call the waitress and ask her to tell them to leave us alone, and she looks at them and says they are fine… Even after we explained they were asking us for money and bothering us. So she did nothing and we decided to move back inside. Then after waiting more than 1 hour for our food we got our pizza, but not the ones we ordered… they were not great, but we ate anyways. When we get our bill its 200000 shillings! We have learned that it probably wouldn’t do anything to say anything, so we angrily paid and left.

Kobb

On our walk home it was dark, around 9:00pm. Boda drivers continually tried to talk to us on each corner we passed as well as men making kissing noises at us…. We eventually notice a car sitting on the side of the road with its lights on. When we continue to move, it follows us. Talk about freaky! So we stop at a place we go to buy snacks and such and it slowly drives past. It turns around and waits about 3 minutes before it finally leaves the area. We continue to make it home safely. It is quite uneasy the feeling you get when your skin color defines you and people act different to you because of it. It gives me great pride in my education classes that they stress cultural acceptance and pedagogy.

I thought I should share some of these thoughts with all of you.

On a different note, on Saturday we went to a pool near Queen Elizabeth National Park, driving through we saw some pretty awesome animals… here are some pictures.

Pumba! Well really a warthog 

Related to this, in my P6’s science class today they were learning about resources from the environment. The teacher, King James, explained how many people come to see the exotic animals, like the elephant here in Uganda and how the children know that this is a resource. Then King James started talking about how he would travel to the USA in order to see two things, snow and a live bear. It makes you think about what draws tourist to Uganda or even the USA… I think there is a misconception that many white people who visit are here for the safaris or exotic animal sight-seeing that are frankly costly and do not show appreciation for a holistic view of Ugandan culture. I hope that my students know that I am here for them and to learn about having a life here in Uganda rather than seeing exotic animals. I think the way they view my visiting can and would affect my teaching if they do not understand that. I am going to begin to think of a way to have this conversation with them and would love to know about their feeling about Muzungu visitors.

Babboon and Baby 

First Week Updates!

Today has been a very exciting day! But before, I shall get you up to speed with my week. So as you know I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday surveying classrooms to choose for my time at Rwentutu Christian School. Each day some of the teachers had not yet arrived or the class had private revision time (almost like a study hall), yet little work to complete…. Therefore I was left alone with each P4, P5, and P6 for more than an hour. With each class I did similar things with, I taught them games and tried to learn names… as well during their actual classes I surveyed the material I would possibly be teaching. The games I taught the children were London Bridge is Falling Down, Ninja, Link Tag, and Down by the Riverside, each went over fairly well. The kids continually wanted to learn and play new games. I believe that Link Tag went over the best (see a picture below with P6); we played for over 20 minutes in the P6 class. Not only did I teach them my games, but they also taught me theirs. They have a game where they pass a stone around and sing the following tune

 “There is a rumble in my hand,

It will travel throughout the land,

Is it here? Is it there?

It will travel everywhere”

My first day visiting classrooms. P4. 

During the tune, the group sits in a circle and passes the stone. When the tune is over the stone stops and everyone cups their hands, one individual hides the stone in their hand.  One person is outside of the circle looking away. When the song is over the left out person returns and tries to guess who the stone is with. They love they this game! It has been an interesting time trying to remember games that require very little number of props. Luckily my time as an ALPs facilitator and camp counselor has paid off. Although this does show the limited resources the children have and I will be forced to experiment with the natural environment while teaching! I am excited for this challenge because it will be a skill that I shall use for the rest of my life, I shall never know the instructional materials I will be provided with when I go into my own classroom.

A chicken decided to visit my P6 room and
climb in the closet. 

Link Tag with P6! 

Me with the students in Baby Class. 

Speaking of classrooms…. Drum roll please! ... I have chosen….. P6! Each classroom was so unique and caring. While choosing the room I really wanted to have strong cooperating Math and English teachers and rigorous curriculum. I paid special attention to the math portion of their curriculum, I felt like that is possibly were I am most likely to end up in a school. Although their math curriculum is more rigorous than I had in my primary school years, they are going to learn about constructing angles and polygons using only a compass and ruler. This skill I did not learn until I was in College Geometry, level 400 something in college! I am excited for this level of rigor, because my previous math semester I was in a 2^nd grade classroom teaching measuring and shapes. Not only will this material challenge my students but also keep my math skills up to par. I am nervous to see how they do with this material, when in a primary 6 classroom in America we do not focus on such high level geometry. With the P6 class, I have also found are not as astonished to have a Muzungu teach them, I draw less attention to myself in their classroom than I did in the others. I foresee the biggest challenge for me is to talk slowly and enunciate my words while trying best to decipher their accents. See my class schedule for the weeks below!  You may notice they have a good amount of play time, but their school day is from about 7am to 5pm.

Daily Schedule

This week the four of us also attended the schools chapel time. I was glad to see the gathering once, my student Louis was a main leader in leading the singing, I was very impressed. They then went into a short sermon about the Salt and Light within people. It was also interesting to observe that the preacher preached that if the students spoke only English at school it would make the Lord happy. This tie between education and religion is very foreign to me, I never attended a Christian school or have studied much faith, and to have it said to be tied directly is quite unique.  I was unsure about attending this portion. I am not a place in my life where I have decided on my faith and Christianity is very strong here. I will decide soon, but I am not sure if I want to use their chapel time as a way to dissect their culture instead of for my own faith. I will keep you posted.

Other things we did this week was walk to a local video store, named Bryans… we have gotten into watching the series The OC… it is a teenage drama and super addicting. It is good to have a taste of home when we do not have much internet data to use. Today we also went to the border of the Congo and Uganda. I was quite interesting to be there because just a few weeks ago, rebels from the Congo attacked Kasese looking for refugees. They also have very strict rules about going to the border. We had to give up our passports to the police, we could not step off of the bridge that was the boundary, and we could not take pictures of the Congo side. I am not sure what would have happened if we broke these rules, but I was not about to find out today. I also meant a police man whose mother’s name was “Masika Angela” or the same as mine! She apparently died awhile ago and the man, Peter, has now claimed me as his mother… who knew I would go back home to America with a 40 year son.

Well time to lesson plan and relax because it’s the weekend! Oh yes… 50 days until I return home! 

To the school!

So today was my first official day of student teaching, although, it was probably not like my cohort’s experience. First of all, in Uganda they do not really keep track of the time, they call this “Ugandan Time.” It basically means that you do things when it has progressed in the day rather than the actual specific time. For me this slowness and enjoyment of current time will take some getting used to, especially after last semester where I had to be in places each hour of the day and not a minute late. Anyways I started with this fact because it sort have changed the layout of my day.

Us in the area where we can have a teacher's lounge

We got Rwentutu Christian School and got to meet with the headmaster (Wilson) and deputy to the headmaster (King James). We learned a few things about both our school and schools in Uganda. We learned that our school has about 210 students expected to attend. Because it was the first day of classes, only about 40 showed up, Wilson said by the end of that week most students will begin to come. This apparently is a norm for the school; these students are also starting a week earlier than other Ugandan Schools due to our arrival. It was very kind of them to ask the government to let them do this; otherwise we would not have been able to fulfill the student teaching needs. P1-P5 have exams twice a trimester, while P6 has every other week, and P7 has each week. We now know that the rest of this week we shall be observing in classrooms that we would like to. I have chosen to view P4, P5, and P6. I was hoping to also see the P7 classroom, however because of their national exams at the end of the term, I will not be able to. This is quite understandable because the national exams determine their secondary schooling possibilities.

After this orientation we took a tour of the school. See a few pictures below of the school.

My possible future classroom! P6

They did an assebly and rose four flags (Wisconsin
Badgers!, Canada, America, and Uganda)

Interesting Facts of the Day:

•           More men teach than women
•           Islamic and Christian content is tested on during the national exams
•           There is a section on Fridays for social development
•           They loved learning the “London Bridge” game

I hope you found those facts interesting, because honestly the rest of the day was doing the all school assembly and introducing ourselves, and playing with the children. We were given names based on our family rank to say when we introduced ourselves….  I am Masika Angela… which means first born. The students definitely remembered our names with the extra Uganda information because many of them were Masika as well! Many children gather when we go in different spots, they will start to follow or sit closely and want to play. I have noticed that children can be children anywhere in the world even if their upbringing is completely different; they have the same basic needs as any child. Here are a few pictures of my time there today!

Reading a book to the many children who gathered by us

So instead of observing teaching or engaging in staff meetings or content (like originally planned), we played and enjoyed the company around us…. Talk about a change in pace for me! 

Kasese

Today we started our second day in Kasese, the town in which we will be living until October 31^st or better known as Halloween to all of you folks. Here is a few photos of our room. As you can see there is no shower room, but the entire toilet room acts as a place to shower. Another unique things that I have noticed about Uganda, is that in each place I am in the light switches are may not be in the room you are trying to light. At the guesthouse the lights were outside the doors of the shower room and toilet, here as well.

So we have done quite a few things in the past days that really have made the trip jam packed with tourist events. Let me tell you about a few more things that I thought were way more exciting than some of the locals, descriptions in the captions of each picture!

Copper Mining 

Small Children watching us from the field 

Goats are everywhere here!
They are like stray cats and dogs in the state!

Rwenzori Mountains

Along those trips there were so many children! Children in Uganda are so energetic and lively compared to any other children I have ever met. Even watching them from afar they seem to be enjoying life relaxing and entertaining selves. Although when you get close as a Mzungu, they start to smile, hide, wave, or say hello. It is quite strange to me to get so much attention from people when I am walking by or in a car, but even as we hiked the children who live in the Mountains starting waving to us for great heights away.  With this thought the girls who I am on the trip with are very outgoing, as for me I am not so much, so they tend to direct attention to the fact that we are in certain places. This is great for me to see the interactions of Mzungu with the native people but is kind of the opposing reason for wanting to come. I am really interested in culture and when we constantly have people looking at us or wanting our attention, I am not really seeing how the people here live when Mzungu are not around. I hope as the trip goes I come out of my shelf or the natives of Kasese start to recognize us and we direct a bit less attention.

Back to the tourist events, that hike was a big trek for me, being at quite a higher altitude I have not adjusted to well but allowed me to contemplate what each of child of the mountains is exposed to each day. The children who lived upon the mountains, I had wondered if they attended school or were able to socialize with many other Ugandans. Not only for them but I never really considered how geographical elements could limit children’s access to school and for those children they have to climb up and down the mountain each day if they go to school (the school was at the foot of the mountain).

We also took our first trip to the market to buy some food. It was hard to actually know what was going on. Juliet, a native who lives with us, came along and would buy all the stuff for us. As there were five of us trying to buy one thing, I didn’t really understand how things were purchased or bargained for. I hope to go back with only one or two other people to really get to try out purchasing things on my own.

I will write soon! Start in the school on Monday! Look for a post then J Also for those of you who would like to contact me I am usually online around 2-3pm or 10-11pm your time! So if you need to chat let me know when you will be there.

Buganda

Buganda... did you know that its original name? When Europeans came into the country they could not hear the "b" sound when it was pronounced due to its soft sound and largely the country has now been referred to as Uganda in its pronunciation.

So I do not mean to blog each day, but I want to be able to remember what I have learned and think I may as well share my learning with all of you. Today was all about learning about Uganda and its people/history. Yesterday we got a brief overview at the Museum but today we visited two sites of Uganda's Christian past. I have an article here that explains a few of the things I learned about the Christian history in Uganda. This article will better explain my pictures I have posted below.

Basilica Church of the Uganda Martyr... 

under the Alter is where 22 

of the Martyrs were burned alive

Another location of the Martyrs who
were burned alive for their belief in their Christian Faith 

The Tree stump under this tree was there when
 the Martyrs were tortured for 7 days causing a long and painful death

Although I do not practice any religion at this time in my life it is amazing to see the power of faith through the stories of these Martyrs. It is told that as they were burned alive, they sang hymns to the Lord and were saying they would be with Him soon. I was truly honored that we had the opportunity to go to this historic place and see first hand parts of the history (experiential learning.... look at that!). It will be interesting to learn about the education's role in teaching children about this event in history.

This day we also made a trip to the craft market! I have already pinpointed a few gifts I am going to get for family and friends when we return here in October for our flight home! One thing I would like to invest some money in is a few hand painted pictures of animals, the people, and parts of the culture. Each mural was so unique and I feel like I must bring one to remember my experience here in Uganda forever.

City Life

Woah! Well I have officially been in Uganda for 24 hours and a jam packed 24 hours it has been! Getting out of the Entebbe airport was no problem, super small and very uncomplicated! We quickly found Samson, Enoch, and Mi Jeung... finally the whole group was together and we had meant our partners in Uganda. Then the whole driving situation started... I have a lot to say about this driving situation.... so here is quite a rant. 

Arriving at the Entebbe Airport right after getting our visas!

The Markerere Guest House where we are staying this week 

The driving in Kampala is crazy. Not only that we are in van that has a cracked windshield and 3 working seat belts (there is four of us!). Luckily it seems pretty sturdy when it actually drives. People on the streets are crazy, there is no set lanes and people go in and out of traffic. I mean both cars, people, and bobas (kind of like a moped). People just cut people off and there is no sense of "yes person please merge" versus "that person just cut me off!"  It is quite scary and is super jammed packed during the day. As well you wouldn't believe how many people are selling things window to window to the cars in the streets. There is people selling tennis racks, toilet paper, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, sunglasses, bush sheers.... every thing you can think of. Enoch (our supervisor) decided to look at a pair of bush sheers until the lights changed and we went racing off with the sheers. The guy who was selling them gave us a nod and said he would catch up. We went 1/2 mile before stopping and the man was only a few seconds behind us.... we were not going slow (I am not even sure there is a speed limit!). Enoch inquired about a price and was told about 25000 shillings, Enoch was not happy with the price. He ended up buying them, but told us the price was probably high because of us Mzungu in the back seat (Mzungu = white person). More about that in a bit. So yeah driving is scary! Plus to top it off they drive on the left side of the road.... 

Street Vendors

Crack in the windshield and crazy traffic

So yes I am a Mzungu, which isn't suppose to be offensive in any way rather than just a phrase. Enoch describes us as having "golden skin" which basically most Ugandan people take as those with money. It is interesting being a minority in an environment  I was told so much about how I would be a minority before I started that I am not sure if it is just in my head or actually true the amount of people who stare or give me looks. It really could just be paranoia or true.... I am thinking a little bit of both. The moment I walked out of the Guest House room this morning I thought I was out of place, but I could just be living up to the expectation of what I have heard rather than really feeling isolated. Just some random thoughts....

Other things we did in the first here is go to the Ugandan Museum and have a chat with Gillian, a professor in the school of education here at the Markerere University. She was telling us all about the high stakes testing and how teachers are usually only those with 11 years of primary school. Most teachers also are forced and told to only "tell information" rather than truly use various teaching methods.... which should be interesting for all of you who know how I teach... we will see soon. I also heard from Enoch that the teachers we teach with adjust to some new methods when we are at the school with them but do not uphold those as after we return to the states. This is quite disappointing. I wish there was such a way to instill a more diverse way of teaching in the schools that is doable and applicable to the teacher's expectations from the government and parents. 

Uganda Museum

Dancing at the Kampala Rotary Club

Alright day one is done... only 59 left to go (my mom is counting down)! 

Amsterdam!

We made it to Amsterdam! It was about 6:20 am here when we arrived, we got there about half hour earlier than our scheduled arrival at 6:55 am. I can't believe we are already halfway done with the trip. Three of us are already at the airport here and meeting our last group member in Kampala!

So traveling internationally not as bad as I thought! I did get a random scan at the scanners and starting to cry... It was basically 5 minutes after saying goodbye to my entire family and Dennis. It was quite sad and I was just wanting to make it to the gate to meet up with Heather. Luckily, I switched seats to sit next to her on the way to Amsterdam. I got to sleep half the flight and reminisce on all the same thoughts and questions Heather and I were getting from our friends and families about the trip. Glad to know my friends weren't the only ones with a ton of questions that I didn't know the answer to!

Amsterdam airport isn't too bad, but it is huge! There is a ton of random bars and stores that look so fancy. They even had an indoor smoking area (not that I am going to do that). So now I am here paying like 8 dollars for internet and about to go get a nice sandwich and drink! Wish me luck.... one last plan ride to Uganda. Wander how the airport will be there. Amsterdam is mostly English and really modern, how will this compare to Entebbe's airport!? I am so unsure about how civilized the communities and cities are there! I guess I'll find out in about 12 hours! I'll post pictures soon of the airport (Oh I got to see the sunrise on the plane! So cool!)

See you soon!

Leaving Tomorrow!

So here is my final post before I head out on my trip! It is Sunday Morning and I am planning to spend a majority of my day hanging out with my family and closest friends. It is unreal that I am leaving to go to the airport in less than 24 hours and then heading on a plane to Amsterdam and Uganda! I honestly don't think it will actually hit me until I am at the airport and meeting up with Heather (another girl going on the trip) to fly off at 4:00pm. My parents are already telling me I must check in at every stop and call them... I will try my best but I will probably want to sleep a majority of the traveling time! Here is a few thoughts going through my head as the last days in the states have passed:

1. I hate flying and I am not looking forward to traveling almost 24 hours before I don't have to fly again...
2. I still need to buy peanut butter
3. The weather there is about the same as here during the day right now, so I am not too worried about it getting too hot!
4. I am really going to miss my family, dennis, and caitlyn.... and all my friends who I just did not mention because there is too many of them and these are the last two I got to hang out with. 
5. I need to put new songs on my ipod
6. Will I forget to pack something?
7. Is my suitcase too heavy!
8. is this really happening!?!?! 
9. Three continents in within 2 todays! Woah... more than I have done in my lifetime!

Ok, well over and out for today! I will post once I get through traveling there... Wish me safe in my travels!