Lessons from my visit to Buwaga village

On Sunday, we decided to go visit Peter’s family. He was feeling a bit homesick and I am always up for an adventure, so we headed to the village of Buwaga. Buwaga is about 66 kilometers from Mukono, which required us to take a taxi and motorcycle to reach. I wish I could describe the taxi experience for you, but words just don’t do it justice. One of the things that I did notice was that there are many “rest” areas in which many people engulf the taxi and offer snacks. Now when I say “engulf” I mean that they push open all of the windows and shove snacks and drinks through them in front of your face. At one point, I tried to keep the window shut and a boy pushed it open. The taxi stops literally every few kilometers at what is called a stage. The passengers can ask the taxi to stop at any time, which makes more room in the taxi, but also causes the conductor (the person who closes/opens the door and takes the money) to hunt for more passengers by stopping at other stages and shouting the location from the window. I actually fell asleep in the taxi and was awakened suddenly by Peter that we needed to move to another taxi. Often the taxi drivers shift people, especially if they are not going further to another town. So, they find a taxi that is going to that particular location. Finally, after about two hours, we reached the main center, Busembatia. At that point, we met up with Peter’s brother, Wilson and his wife, who helped us to get a motorcycle to go to the village. One of the traditions here is to offer food, whether you are hungry or not. So, of course, Peter ordered my favorite soda and snack. I love the apple soda here called Mirinda and mendazi. After our snacks, we headed to the village. I wish I would’ve taken a picture of all three of us on a motorcycle (Wilson, Peter, and I), but I forgot.  

sodas and mendazis

Busembatia

The Post Office

Tracy - Simon Peter's niece

rest area

By the time we had reached Peter’s family, I had received many, many stares and shouts. Kids react two ways to a muzungu (white person/foreigner). They either yell and scream, “muzungu” or they run away crying. If they yell at you, you need to wave to them and they will be really, really excited.

I learned many, many things in the village.

1.     Nudity is common, but it is not offensive. It is common to see mothers nursing their babies in pubic and little kids running around without or very dirty clothes. I also can't get used ot the no shoes thing, but most children run around barefoot. One of my friends suggested it was not nudity, but poverty. I would agree.

2. Not many people in the village speak English and there is a huge language barrier problem. 

Peter and some beautiful ladies in the village.

Me, Peter's mother, and her grandchild

3. There are many, many crops grown in the village including simsim, corn, rice, coffee, mangoes, oranges, sorghum, etc.

sesame (simsim)

drying sesame

sesame

rice!!

rice

sorghum

Enjoying a mango the Ugandan way!

 4. People are very, very curious about me and always want their pictures taken. 

Baby carrying a baby.

This baby cried and ran away until another girl captured him.

Do you know why this baby has a protruding stomach?

5. Water is essential. This town has many boreholes, which is an incredible resource. There is no piped water in this area, so people (in most cases children) walk to get water. We walked to the borehole from Peter's parent's house and I think it was about a half mile or so, which again is VERY close! 

Pumping the water

This water is clean, although I would still boil.

Rachel - one of Simon Peter's cousins

Many children were gathered around.

6. There is Universal Primary Education (UPE) here, but it is very, very poor. We stopped and took pics at the local school where Peter attended. You will notice there are missing seats on the benches and very primitive facilities. They do, however, have a water tank, which was donated by a local religious organization. This is essential because it collects the rainwater from the room and supplies the school so that children don't have to waste time going to get water. 

Buwaga Primary School

7. Electricity can be found in the village. Apparently it came about two years ago to this area, but you have to independently hook up your own house. Peter's family does not have electricity yet, but the wiring in the house is done. The power grid here is very, very unstable and electricity goes often at least a few times a day. We have a generator on campus, but many times they only run a generator for one side of the campus where most of the classrooms and offices are located. I live on the other side, so I often lose power around 8 or 9 a.m. and then it returns in the evening.

8. Some people still believe that more than one wife is a symbol of power and prestige. While walking on Peter's family's land, it started raining, so we ran into a someone hut who was renting on the land. The man had two wives and many, many children. The children were very curious of me and trying peeking into the storage hut where we were taking shelter. The parents live in the main house (yes, both wives).

land

parent's house

crops are the main source of income here

Children stay in these smaller huts.

I am constantly amazed at how the children are always alone here. They really take care of each other because there are too many children for the parents to care for, so the younger siblings help out. There are an average of nearly eight children per family in Uganda, so they need a lot of help. I also read a statistic that 1 out of 7 children die before the age of 5 - which is about 14%. That figure shocked me and made me realize the fragility of life here in Uganda.

I really enjoyed my visit to the village and all of the lessons learned. I hope you enjoyed it too!

Primary 4 Visit

On Wednesday I went to St. Mary's Primary School to do an observation of the P4 class. I needed to do an observation for my class, but I was also really interested in seeing primary classrooms.

The students were learning independent/dependent clauses. Some things that surprised me:

• When given a paper, the students draw margins and copy EVERYTHING off of the board. They are like robots.
• There are at least 45 students in a classroom.
• The students sit very close and share space peacefully.
• The classroom is deadly quiet with the exception of call and response from the teacher. 
• The teacher is the ULTIMATE authority. He/she checks EVERY paper and marks EVERY answer.

Some of the students have seen me around the school, but they are still very curious about me. I try to listen to them carefully and make sure I speak slowly.

These are some pics of my students, Maggie and Beatrice. They are in my writing class. They are first year, first sem, education students.

 Hajara and Rosemary

I can't tell you how exciting it is to get packages from home. This one was from a teacher back home. She heard my cries for pumpkin spice latte instant coffee.  I was so excited that I made a cup within one hour of receiving the package!

This was a card from mom. She puts lots of pics of baby Ella in the card. It took about 10 weeks to get here, but it arrived. It seems that packages make it much more quickly than letter, which I find strange.

 Yep, awesome!

This is one of my favorite meals here, fried beef. There is also matooke (green steamed bananas) underneath the beef. Yummy!

 
I decided I wanted to make fish soup and invite a few friends over. We have access to a lot of decent fish here (and fruits and vegetables), so I wanted to make something fresh!

 I made no bake cookies and they were so yummy. Mom sent me cocoa, so I can make a lot of chocolate desserts now!

I bought this tilapia at the market for UGS 8,000, which is almost $3. I was so excited and it was absolutely delicious.

I guess that is all of the happenings for now. We will be starting exams soon and then it will be vacation time!

I can't believe Thanksgiving is coming next week. There is a Thanksgiving dinner for all of the North Americans, so I am excited to have some traditional food!!

New Standard Article (11/18)

The next article has been submitted for publication. Since students are struggling with comma usage, I wrote an article about it. Enjoy!

As promised in my last article, I will discuss comma usage in this week’s column. There are many, many uses for commas, but I will outline some that are appropriate for academic writing.

1. Use commas to separate three or more words, phrases, or clauses written in a series

After graduation, I secured a job, bought a house, and married my sweetheart.

Last Saturday, I attended a wedding, a graduation, and church.

2. Use commas to separate independent clauses (and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet)

The demonstration was over, but the crowd refused to leave.

The student explained her absence, yet the instructor still did not accept her late coursework.

3. Use commas after introductory clauses (after, although, as, because, if, since, when, while)

If you are sick, report to the clinic.

Although the timetable says we have class, today is a public holiday.

4. Use commas after common introductory phrases (participial and infinitive, absolute, nonessential appositive, and long prepositional phrase)

Having completed the final exam, he left the classroom.

To get a seat in community worship, you must come to the chapel before twelve o’clock.

5. Common introductory words should be followed by a comma (yes, however, well)

Yes, the lecture will be conducted at three o’clock on Thursday afternoon.

6. Use a pair of commas to set off clauses, phrases and words that are NOT essential to the meaning of the sentence

The United States, which is my home country, is located in North America.

I enjoy matooke, however, I dislike posho.

7. Use commas to separate two or more coordinate adjectives that describe the same noun

He was a difficult, stubborn student.

The powerful, relentless rain soaked the students walking across campus.

8. Use commas when punctuating quotations

The student asked their lecturer, “Will the final exam be difficult?”

“I will turn in my coursework,” the student assured the lecturer, “before the due date.”

9. Use commas to set off all geographical names, items in dates,, addresses, and titles in names

St. Louis, Missouri is located in the middle of the United States.

Today is November 15, 2013.

Dr. Watuulo, Ph.D., will be the featured speaker at the conference.

One of the problems that students have is identifying if clauses are essential or nonessential. Here are some tips:

·      If you leave out the clause, phrase, or word, does the sentence make sense?

·      Does the clause, phrase, or word interrupt the flow of words in the original sentence?

·      If you move the element to a different position in the sentence, does the sentence still make sense?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, than the element is nonessential and should be set off with commas.

Essential (no commas) versus nonessential (commas)

Students who cheat only harm themselves.

Daniel, who often cheats, is just harming himself.

The student wearing a black skirt is my daughter.

My daughter, who attends UCU, is wearing a black skirt.

The candidate who has the least money lost the election.

The Democratic candidate, who has the least money, lost the election.

Adapted from Purdue Online Writing Lab (owl.english.purdue.edu)

Television, Teaching, and Packages

I have had such a good, good week. My weeks are very crazy and busy. It is hard to describe how the life is here, but nothing is predictable or goes the way you expect it to go.

Television
After much searching and contemplating, I decided that I wanted TV. I know I don't really NEED a TV, but I am seriously dying for one. So, I noticed that there was a sale at one of the local stores and purchased a Samsung flat screen. It is small, but no perfect for me. 

Since I live in an apartment on campus, I did not feel comfortable with getting a dish and the receiver for dish is really, really expensive (about $400). There is no such thing as a deposit here, so you buy the receiver. I decided to go with Gotv, which is a decoder which costs about UGX 99,000 ($40). Then, they gave me a antenna and I was a bit confused. I guess I didn't realize I would need to put an antenna on my house.

So, this was the first attempt. Emmanuel (one of our maintenance guys) attached the antenna to a broom and the signal was about 60%. That meant that the picture was in and out, which really, really drove me crazy. Emmanuel said that I needed to get a longer pole, so I asked him to buy one for me. I can't imagine transporting a pole on a motorcycle.

 This was the second attempt. A very large branch that gets an awesome signal.

 

I have CNN!! I have about 32 channels for about $8 a month. So exciting. Another cool feature that my TV has is a USB drive, which allows me to play any downloaded show on my TV - oh, modern technology! 

Teaching
I spent Tuesday at Principal High School. We were working on vocabulary and I taught students the Frayer's model, which includes the word, definition, picture, and sentence. After we went through several examples, I checked the students' work. They had all copied my pictures and sentences, even though I asked them to make their own. They are so used to copying the teacher that they write whatever I write on the board in their notebooks. It was unbelievable. Then, I asked them to pick 4 of the 8 words and make their own sentences. Again, they copied sentences from the passage and just substituted a few words. One of my students wrote: I only grimace when I am being beaten. My jaw dropped. Words can't describe what I felt when I saw that sentence. Yes, I am living in another world.

Me with the Senior 3 class

Simon Peter with his class.

Lunch (chicken, gnut paste, posho, matooke)

Packages
Today I received a letter from my mommy with stickers enclosed. My students LOVE stickers even though they are university level. I also can't wait to share these stickers with my secondary students!

When the PR office text me that I had mail, they didn't tell me I had a package. When you get a package, the post office sends a slip of paper to say come pick up your package. It costs UGX 2500 (about a $1 to get the package). If the package is bigger, it costs more. I don't really know what this money goes to cover, but I know I must pay it to get my package. I have argued with the post master several times about it, but to no avail. So, Roberto (the guys who works in our PR office) went down to the post office in Mukono to retrieve my package. I was not expecting anything for another couple of weeks, but was so pleasantly surprised to see a package from one of my college friends, Vickie. She sent me Hershey kisses in fall colors! It was so exciting! I literally made peanut butter blossoms with fifteen minutes of receiving the candy!

Hope you are all doing well. I have three more weeks of classes and then finals. Tomorrow I am off to the tailor to get two dresses I asked her to make. I will post pictures, of course!