LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!

Laundry Bins

The house

Wow I can't believe we have less than 2 weeks left. With that noted, we have split up and assigned the gifts we would like to give to the people we have appreciated and meant here. As well I have started to give away some of the stuff I am not going to need anymore, such as girl products, batteries, jewelry, and clothes. I also have been trying to take photos with each of my students, including a class photo! See this one below! Today I also did my final batch of laundry before I leave! I am really hoping I won't have to do it again, because I know upon my return to my family I will have to re-wash everything anyways. If I have never explained the laundry, I will now. So what I do is get three buckets and fill them half full of water. The water comes from these yellow jugs (see photo) and have to carry them to where I do the laundry and pour them in the buckets. I use the first bucket to soap and drench my clothes; from here I rinse the clothes three times in water! It is a lot harder than it looks and takes about an hour by hand. From there you also have to wait all day for the things to dry and hope that it doesn't rain on your clothes. Not knowing the exact weather is quite hard for planning things. Unfortunately it has not rained in three days in Kasese… this is good for my laundry plans but the native’s crops will suffer if rain does not come soon. So please keep them in your thoughts and wish for rain!

 

P6 Class Photo! 

This week in class I felt really proud of the work being done in my classroom. First I started to integrate reading into my students’ Dictionary unit. The way I am incorporating the books at the moment is having the students copy down words they are unfamiliar with in their reading logs. From here my students learned six steps to defining the word in the context of their clues. The steps included:

Context Clues Work

1. Write the sentence from the book with the words in it.
2. Guess the meaning of the word
3. Look up the meaning in the dictionary (Looking up is one of the skills required to learn by the curriculum).
4. If there is more than one definition, choose which one fits the context of the book.
5. Write a new sentence using the word.
6. Sketch a picture of the word.

This process, worked really well for a majority of my students. I felt as if setting up in this step by step process really allowed for students to dig deeper into how to understand texts and dictionaries. When assessing the students’ work, in which they each had to do this process with 3 words, I would say only 2-3 words were not used correctly when rewritten in a new sentence. I hope to continue to intertwine promoting reading and the required curriculum of reading. I say promoting reading, because it is not a part of any of the curriculum I am suppose to teach. I want my students to learn to learn on their own and enjoy texts. So now I give them 10-20 minutes each day for individual reading and I circulate through the students to read with them. I also promote the idea that the students should read what they like and when they do not like a book to find a new one. The students have also gotten the opportunity to leave our classroom and read all over the grass or on chairs or in the library during this time. Although a short time, I hope that each day the students begin to see the wonders of books and enter the reading zone.

My Students Reading the Leaders from the USA

Group Work Final Draft

In math class, I had to re-teach about the special angles and feel like they finally have reached a point of understanding with the topic. Tomorrow I will spend using my period to finish this topic before moving on to constructing perpendicular lines given a point. On Thursday and Friday, the students worked in small assigned groups. I had noticed during group work, student rarely use one another for talking about the content. So I decided to have the students only turn in one set of answers per a group. After presenting this to the groups and explaining that if one person does all the work and something is incorrect, they all get the answer wrong. I suggested that the within the group, the members talk with one another and make sure they have the correct answers. The groups transformed! Students began to look to one another for how they did the problems and worked together to finish the final set of solutions! I was really proud of the students for working together and out of the four groups there were a total of only 3 incorrect answers! I hope that this promoted team work and for students to view one another as resources for each other.

My Student Arnold playing against the Deputy Headmaster
in Soccer

Friday after school, there was also a teacher versus student soccer game! I did not play because I do not know how to play soccer, but I designated myself as official photographer. It was neat because many of my students played! So I was really rooting for the students to win, which they did! It was so neat to see some of students that I did not know well doing something they appeared they enjoyed! Today we are also getting four Canadians who are coming to the school to coach the student team I saw on Friday in soccer. The Canadians are also organizing a tournament amongst schools in the area! I really hope I get to see my student play and hopefully win before I depart.

One of my students is a twin! Here
is a family photo of them.

Outside of the classroom this week, we visited the local natural hot springs in the area. The water was super hot and I did not take a liking to it. There were many people there bathing and relaxing with friends. We went there with Enoch and his friend Loice. Afterwards we went to celebrate Loice’s birthday at her home. She brought out foods and drinks for the six of us. It was nice to sit down at a person’s house and just socialize at a table. I feel like many times we do not get this opportunity. This also inspired me to want to meet my students’ families. I wish I had more time here to meet the ones I could, but I am going currently reaching out to one family to visit them before we leave. I hope that they will take us, because their son is also in Heather’s class. I hope to find out on Tuesday if they will let us meet them! Part of being a teacher for me is to understand the families of my students or their background. With most of my students boarding, I am not able to meet their families, but I hop when meeting families I can see the value of education and family a family has.

Hot Springs in Kasese

The beautiful Rain Forest during Chimp Tracking!

The latest attraction of my week was chimp tracking. So I was fairly excited for this opportunity but after an hour of doing it, I knew it wasn't really my thing. Chimp tracking basically became I hear chimps somewhere and then start to walk in that direction off the trails and through the rain forest. I loved seeing the forest, but did not enjoy the fact that no one told me that I was suppose to wear pants and then my legs got cut up… I was not too happy with the off trail walking at that point. This was one for the fact that my legs were getting covered in unknown vegetation and that it depletes the conservation efforts that people make to protect our natural environment. I felt as if I was going against what I promoted all summer and the idea of Leave No Trace! The worst part was when we would find the chimps, within two minutes they would be gone and we would start chasing them again… I also did not get a very good picture. Although on the way home we saw 4 elephants! 2 of which were crossing the street and we got to see them moving pretty close to our location!

Well off to greet the Canadians soon! 

Xing Elephant Crossing

The Big Five (or Four)

Decorating for the
Restaurant

So it has been a pretty exciting time since my last blog on Thursday! I will start my conversations where I had left off. On Thursday night of last week, we went to a rotary club meeting with our friend Bryan. At the meeting, they address concerns of the town and spread awareness of the community. Although we arrived late, they welcomed us with open arms. We were asked to introduce ourselves and one the of things we had to say was our relationship status… I did not ask why, but I found it quite strange that this was asked of us due to it being a personal question. I will want to ask Bryan the next time I see him to get more information on that, because even here I have been told they do not tell their parents that they are dating until the engagement to be wed! Knowing that I was quite unsure if it was appropriate to say I was dating or if I was suppose to say I was single. We also meant a few other Bzungu who were at the meeting. It was nice to know that the community is making efforts and suggestions from within the community to better individuals’ lives.

Customers

Our Waiters

On Friday was the most exciting day for my teaching! During the English class and lunch period, my students had two tasks…Pick a book to use for the dictionary unit and set up the classroom as a restaurant. The end of last week marked the finishing of my first English unit. With that said, part of my educational philosophy is to do hands-on activities, so I had promised the students we would put their knowledge of restaurants into practice. Our classroom was transformed into a variety of sitting areas, a counter, waiters, a hostess, chefs, and customers. Each student had a role to do some of the tasks. We had students making the menu, inviting the P6 teachers, gathering the food from the cooks, decorating table mats, picking flowers for the tables, and arranging the room. After all their hard work, the restaurant was a success. Many of the students used the vocabulary words we learned and even corrected the teachers’ table manners! I was very proud of each of my students!

Our Chefs

Counter and Hostess

On Saturday we rose at about 5:30 am for a game drive and boat cruise in Queen Elizabeth State Park! It was soooooo cool to see the animals in the wild! It was almost like my families continual visits to the Animal Kingdom in Disney World but about 20 million times better! My title of the blog refers to the top 5 animals you can see in Uganda.

1.      Leopard

2.     Lion

3. Buffalo

4.      Rhino
5.      Elephant

We saw all of them but the Rhino, because the Rhino does not live in this part of Uganda! I was so excited to see the leopard because our tour guide who has been doing this over 10 years has only see the Leopard maybe 15 times! Here are some additional photos.

Cob

National Bird... the Crested Crane

Warthog

Baby Hippo

When I returned to school on Monday I shared some of my photos with the students. It was disappointing to see that many of them had never heard of or seen a picture of many of the animals. I have heard from many people that most Ugandans have not traveled or know much about the environment of Uganda, so I was not too surprised that my students had never seen them… I was more disappointed that the schools have never taught the students at least to recognize the animals who live no more than 30 minutes from at least our school. There is so much to learn about National Parks, especially since it is one of the major tourist attractions in Uganda that provides revenue.

The Fish Eagle

We also stopped at a craft market in the park and I realized it was definitely set up for foreign tourist. I know this because I wanted to buy a bag there and I knew the bags were only suppose to be 15,000 shillings because they are the same I have seen in all the craft markets… but the lady of the store told me it was 20,000 shillings. I told her it was too much and I could not buy it, immediately she said that she would give me a discount for 15,000 shillings… It was my first attempt at bargaining, but I guess it wasn't too hard to lower to 15,000 shillings because that is already a Mzungu price. I was glad not to have to pay for the extra 5,000 shillings! I am so grateful that at home at most locations prices are fixed and that the prices do not alter based on your origin or skin color.

On Sunday, we took a hike around the Kasese area! After hiking up a step, almost non-existent trail we say all of Kasese at were the future home of the King will be built for the region. We also went with Enoch’s friend Loice. She was one of the first women to be represented in the national council and continental council! She had also taken us for tea! I have learned that I really like African Tea! I bought some tea bags the other day to bring home, hoping I can make it when I return! Here is a recipe if you to try it out!

African Tea

- 1 cup water

-1. 5 t Tea Leaves (we used black tea) 

- 1 cup milk

- sugar

Make hot water and tea, add the milk. Sugar to taste. :)

Monday was also another great day for teaching! Last week Thursday I had taught about a transversal line in math and its special angles. Although, I think it was not explained well and many of the students homework should that they did not fully understand. So I decided to re-teach it. I did this because of the assessment I took on their homework as well as the fact many students had missed that day due to it being right after the school break. It took each special angle step by step and used color coding for the students to do in their notebooks. The students rarely get to use markers or colors for their learning and I thought this would be a great way to engage the visual learners in the classroom. It worked great. I have also begun to slow my pace of teaching, which had helped because the students were on task with my lesson and the notes on the board. The homework also was excellent and showed much more understanding! On Monday we also found out that today, Tuesday, there would be no school. On Saturday it had been announced that today would be a public holiday for a Muslim holiday. The government has been trying to allow for public holidays that are not just Christian to meet the needs of the Muslim populations as well (here is a Huffington Post article about the holiday: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/14/eid-al-adha-2013-feast-of-sacrifice_n_4096669.html ). I think this is a great thing for the government to do and show its inclusiveness. Although, it is interesting that it was decided only 4 days before that it would be  a public holiday and it was only announced over the radio. In America, most of us get our information from the internet. Most of the students were excited to have the day off, but I am quite sad because there are only now 11 days of being with these students. I will forever miss them all…

Have a magical day. 

Another day...

Boating on the Lake in Bwera

So I have been talking a lot about what I have been doing as a teacher, but really not as much about how this write up about how this current travel and teaching experience in Uganda is affecting who I am. So some of you know I have been plowing through writing many applications for jobs after graduation… through this process I have asked my past supervisor and methods TA to write me a recommendation. He is also the person I had asked to write me a recommendation for coming to Uganda… so he is basically good luck and an awesome person for helping me out. He directly asked me “influencing your sense of professional purpose and practice?” In my response to him, I have began to actualize how my student teaching here is answering this question.

• “A main part of why I wanted to student teach in Uganda was to understand the idea of culture, as you may know. And being here has only more complicated the idea of culture, yet allowing me to understand it more (which yes is a bit contradictory). I can see what I have been taught as culture as a total way of being and it is true. I have learned it’s the expressions you use to confirm something, the facial expressions you use when you are agreeing, the sense of time.... basically so many things that it cannot fully be explained here. But starting to understand these things has shown me how culture is so entwined with education. For instance, the people I have meant here have meant here say they like to live a simple life and do not worry as much about money as we do at home. Last week, after a month of the term, the school ran out of money because of the students not paying their school fees. The school is fairly basic and serves the same thing each day and has minimal teaching resources, yet they do not bother people about getting money. It is only when the school ran out of money that the students and staff were told of the dilemma and asked to help have students bring in school fees. At home, I could never imagine a private school allowing for students to continue being educated without some of them paying a dime. The simplicity is so new to me and I can only barely fathom this idea of living by the bare minimal until all resources are gone. Yet then I remember, why do I need more than I use, how could I be that selfish. So going to work in an area of high needs or in completely different culture I have to remember to appreciate who the people are and how they live. The only way to learn that is to be involved in the community and understand where the students are coming from. As well I am struggling yet beginning to learn many ways of doing things with only chalk and a chalkboard. The first few weeks, I felt as if I was losing myself as an educator because I could not figure out to tie my love for hands-on curriculum with their resources. Although I still cannot truly be as hands on as I like, I have the students go out of the classroom and use the environment to learn math or to involve drama in learning English... all of which I would put more emphasis on technology and tools in most American classrooms. All of this has made me want to be a better educator and continue to learn ways to use what I have to be the best educator I can be while tying in my pedagogical beliefs.”

Hospital in Bwera 

Wah… so I know that was a load full of information and stuff about me. I think having the prompt and motivation from his question really helped me focus on what I am learning here. So please if you want to know something, leave me a comment with a question and I would love to answer, because it is probably helping me more than you (not to selfish).

Enoch and his wife at the Craft Market

Secondary School in Bwera

Ramp being built

With school being out the past two days, it has been hard on me. Over the last week I have become really homesick. On Tuesday we went to Bwera, to visit Enoch’s hometown and to see some sights… I cried probably 4-5 hours that entire day and he was quite concerned with me. I am not sure why at this time in my trip this was happening but I think it really has to do more with the fact that I do not have close friends here rather than the culture. The other girls are great, I just take my time making friends and it is hard living with 3 others…. So basically I concluded I will never travel alone again! But when I was not sulking in my homesickness, I really enjoyed my time in Bwera. We got to visit a local hospital, with a great view of the town as well as one of the best secondary schools in the area. They even had computer class and chemistry rooms… it was so much different than Rwentutu, and holds home for over 1000 students! (Rwentutu has less than 200) Enoch was also telling us that they are building a library for the school and because it is now getting government funding, the school must provide access for those who are disabled. Here is a picture of the wheel chair ramp being built. It is good to know that Uganda is making an effort for students of all abilities to have equal education. On Wednesday it was Independence Day for Uganda… there was not much going on in Kasese, so I decided to take a personal day to relax and reflect. I much needed it, yet had regretted not going into town until today. When I was asked about my independence day I said I relaxed, others mostly responded that they stayed home or gardened…. which made me feel much better about the fact that most Ugandans in this area don’t do something special.

 

Steven and I 

Baby fascinated with
Bzungu

Reversing my thoughts a bit, on Monday we stopped at an orphanage. I was quite nervous about going to this place because of the sadness it might evoke in me. They first brought us to the babies…. I honestly don’t like babies very much so I stood by and observed. The children had such little toys to play with and laid on the ground. It smelt like stale pee, yet the young children seemed very happy, which is most important. Afterwards I got the chance to play with some toddlers and hear their stories. I meant a small boy named Steven who basically won over my heart. The lady working said he was found in a dumpster at day one. I am glad he is well and safe now… the school even sends the children who are of age to primary school… so there is hope for Steven to have a good life.

Best of days… 

Schools!

It has only been a few days since my last post but already I feel like I have much to tell. First of all I had my students finish writing their papers! I was overall very impressed. The students mostly need to work on their grammar, but many of them listening to what I have been teaching with how organize and structure the papers. The one thing that mostly affected their scores was not fully meeting the requirements for the assignment. For example, only have 13 vocabulary words instead of 20. Here is the student who we wrote his paper together. The end is where I challenged him to write on his own and he did a fairly decent job! I am very proud of his work and allowing me to guide him through the writing process. I have noticed his is a very visual learner because I taught the children how to indent and do the titles and such on the board before they wrote and he followed the directions when he rewrote his paper! I think knowing this will definitely improve how I have been teaching the English course by using more visuals during the mini lessons. I also compiled all the students’ work into a magazine. They have very little of their own work throughout the classroom and I wanted to give them something that they could be proud of as a class.

Netball Tournament. Mixture of Handball
and Basketball. 

I really hope they like it! Another exciting thing going on is the class has written letters to my future class at Hawthorne. Reading these letters brought a variety of emotions to me. Many of the students have greeted the USA children in “the name of Christ” and say that they “love them.” Some of the children have asked for phone numbers and say that they hope to visit the USA one day. Maybe about 5 or 6 students also asked if the USA students if their parents were still alive. As I contemplated this question, it was interesting. I feel like this is not a common question asked back home to people, because it is rare that many children have lost a parent. I also learned the life expectancy here is 45 years old. This makes sense why my students may have experienced loss of family in their lifetimes at such a young age.  When sending this letters over email to my CT at the USA school, I had to explain much about the children’s writing (such as what is net ball & football, why they greet them in the name of Christ, etc.). I anticipate the students responding to my students here! I have learned much about my students as well through these letters, the ones who have loss parents, their future dreams, what they like to do. I found letters are a great way to get to know your students. As a teacher I feel cheesy when I am asking them questions like that, especially to older students, but when they write letters they want to express who they are through writing. I love learning what my students can expose me too!

Just a really good picture! This little girl use to be afraid
of white people, but she held my hand on Friday!

So on Friday, the teachers and us were pulled out from our class for a staff meeting. I regret not quickly writing some practice problems before I left, therefore losing out on 30 minutes of learning for the students, but the meeting was important. Our head master came in and announced that many of the students have still not paid this term’s school fees. With this said, the school no longer has the resources to feed the students and pay the staff. The meeting was to discuss what should be done. It sounded like the students were all going to be sent home, including the ones who board. After much discussion, it was decided that students will go home Monday afternoon instead of that day. The reason mostly being was so the school could contact the students’ families who board announcing the children’s arrival. So on Monday the students will stop school until Thursday. Wednesday they already have off due to the Independence Day. The school is unsure about how many students will be able to return with money. It was sad being in this conversation because I just wanted to pay for the food that the students needed, but I knew I couldn't support them for the entire term. I hope that all my students can find the resources to pay the school fees. I am so proud of each and every one of them that I do not want any of them to lose a chance for a good education. This also inspired me to one day sponsor a child at the school. I hope that when I leave I can do this. The schools website actually provides the information and ways to sponsor a child. I think this is at least what I can do to pay the school back for such a wonderful opportunity to teach their children.

Emily giving a speech!

Invisibles

On other school news, today we went to a Senior Six farewell graduation party for our compound neighbor Birra. She invited us to the school for this event as special guests. We had to help pay for the ceremony but we did not mind giving to the school. As a special guest, one of us had to give a speech, we had to start the dance party, and bless and cut the cake. As we entered we also entered with the senior six class down a red carpet… we were a bit under dressed compared to their fun party dresses and suits. We sat and watched speeches wishing the students luck and thanking their teachers. There were also many miming (like karaoke) performances. When these happen, many people dance up to the performer and give him/her money. I saw this as well at the wedding we saw, and found it so interesting that people truly cherish when people perform… especially when fine arts are taught little to none in the schools. They also had a dance crew called the Invisibles perform. This group is one of the best in Uganda! One of their members is number 4 individually! It was awesome to watch… I have a few pictures, but I cannot load the video until I return to the USA. After about 3 hours of celebrating we finally left. Ugandan events are quite loud and full of speakers and music, therefore causing us to become very exhausted. It is also hard to hear what they are saying, because there were two MCs who continually talked together and back and forth. Luckily our friend Birra was one of them, so it made it very fun to see her MCing the event! She looked beautiful, or as Ugandans may say “she looked smart.” Smart is basically saying someone looks very good. Here are a few pictures from this great event!

Mr and Mrs Party!

Birra and Us! She is soooo pretty!

Dancing around the cake table! 

Elius my P6 Student!

Watching this event and also seeing many children around makes me so grateful for how people celebrate the completion of an education. I think it is important for children who are young to see people who were like them finish school and going on to do more important things. This event although was prior to their final exams, therefore the students in the senior six class do not yet know if they will make it to a good university until those are finished. It is interesting to note that the USA isn’t the only one with high stakes testing… in no means do I mean I like that in any way….

Have a good week! 

Obuchire! (Good morning in Lhunkozo)

Adding some decoration to the walls of
the classroom!

It has been a crazy few days for us here in Uganda. Let me catch you up in the classroom! So, on Tuesday I introduced my class to their writing assignment and the writing process. They have told me that they have never written a paper this long before, which got me a bit nervous. I gave my students a chance to rank hotel advertisements I found in our compound to use this as a prompt for their writing. So for the past two days they have been writing a lot! For some I think it was helpful to do some prewriting, but for others they did not even look at their prewriting, which caused for much information to be lost in their writing. I am surprised that in the sixth level they have not written a paper with more than one paragraph and I have had to do much guidance one on one with about half the students. Today as a mini lessons I talked about using introductory sentences and had students read a variety of ones I had found in texts that emphasis ways to start a paper. I handed the book to one student to read about 5 or 6 words in question form. He stared at the paper for about 10 seconds and I knew he could not read the words…. This was one of my worst teaching moments ever… I did not know his reading level and my cooperating teacher comes and goes and we have not gotten a chance to speak about the students’ abilities. So for the boy, I had to feed him the words to read to the class and I felt terrible to put him on the spot. I found out later that day he had only joined last term in the school and he was put in P6 because of his age, while his English level is not up to pare to the rest of the class. I spent much more of the class time guiding his writing. I would write parts of sentences to get him started and allowed him to tell me what to write or to fill in the rest of the sentences. I think this helped him start to understand how to use the vocabulary we were learning about in sentence structure. I honestly am so grateful for many schools in the states to have ELL specialist or support staff. I had to spend much time with this student and could not keep track of what many other students are doing. However, I know I made the right choice. Yes tomorrow some of the students may not have their papers done because they were fooling around, but with the student I worked with I feel like I have helped a lot in the classroom today. A similar thing is happening in math, I had a student who was absent for a whole week and now I am trying to catch her up. Luckily yesterday and today I have had a chance to sit down one on one with her while the other students are completing leveled math problems. I am anticipating reading their papers and seeing their math work from the past few days.

Me and some of my P6 Students!

With more interactions with my students, I have got to know a few of them more personally. We have also named the hen which comes in our room for hours each day. They taught me the work “Ersire” which means crazy in their regional language; this is what we named that hen! So now each time the hen starts to roam into our room we announce that Ersire is there! It is a bit nice to have a classroom pet… which lays eggs in our cabinet!

Lots of buckets to catch rain water

Other exciting news….. For 3 days we had no running water or electricity. The electricity thing was not too bad because really the only thing that was different was no laptops and having to wear our headlamps from 7pm and on. The water made it quite difficult. It was easy to buy water to drink, but we could not do dishes, laundry, showering, or flush the toilets. We learned that many people go down to a local river to gather water when this happens. It also started raining and Doreen ran through the house with buckets. It took us a minute to understand that she was collecting water! Heather and I quickly joined. I also took a shower in the rain because it had been almost 4 days since I showered!

Had to make this picture big! We found a place called Jambo in Kasese that makes
some American food. Had to get Mac n' Cheese. It was so good! I know we have to wait a long time
for food, however here we could see them cook and they only have one stove. So we became very
understanding when we ordered about 5 different things and were at the restaurant for about 3 hours.

Mi Jeung Cooking the Beans

Monday our advisor Maggie came from the states to visit some areas in Uganda and visit Rwentutu. It was strange to see a white person that we actually knew in Kasese, but it was nice to catch up. She also brought us some American food (like M & Ms, trail mix, Gatorade packs, and oatmeal packs!).  Then on Tuesday because she was here, we invited our supervisor Enoch, Doreen, the assistant headmaster King James, and Maggie to our compound to serve a dinner. Doreen was the main cook and cooked for 3 hours preparing food! I helped basically cut a few things, but she was the mastermind of it all! It was so nice to sit and relax with people from school, I almost felt as if I was home again. The food was quite traditional (see below for pictures) for food you find almost at any restaurant.

Sweet potato, Rice, Peas, Eggplant, G-Nut Soup, Matooke, Beans! YUMMM

 So only 15 more days so of teaching here and then it is back to the United States! I can’t believe in 3 weeks we will be leaving Kasese…. I am already getting sad that I will be leaving my students. Although I am excited to use my experience to be an even better teaching for all my future students. Which reminds me that I got offered two phone interviews this week by two schools? I am not doing either because of the start dates, but I was honored to be offered! Hope all is well!

Rocking Badger Spirit at School Today!