Oh! I just linked the blogs of my fellow travelers so check them out. Many of them make it to the internet much more often then I do... some are even better writers, hard to believe, I know!
So I mentioned that my teacher, Sarah, had a baby girl, but here is the crazy news... she named the baby Jolene. So very cool, and strange and awesome! I have yet to meet this mini-me, but I will this weekend. I don’t know her Acholi name yet either. Everyone here has two names, their Acholi name and their Christian name. We were given names on our first night in Gulu, mine was Aber (pronounced Abay). It means pretty one or good one. I’ll take it! My teacher’s first daughter Winsey shares my Acholi name. Sarah says this makes us twins... except that I’m seven years older!
Tomorrow our school, Sacred Heart, is having a Homecoming celebration. Old students will be coming to celebrate and check out the school. The girls spent all day cleaning and getting the school ready. It is a boarding school, so all of the students live there as well. My new teacher Rosemary is a dorm teacher so she invited me to come and inspect the dorms. The dorms are basically one big airplane-hanger like building split into four sections by a wall that reaches ½ way up. Each section houses 36 bunk beds pushed two together, with trunks lining the walkway and mosquito nets and laundry hanging from the rafters.
Rosemary was not happy with the way that it looked because there were towels hanging from the end of the beds and the cobwebs had yet to be swept. She said she will come in early tomorrow to check again. We have to report tomorrow at 9:00 am for prayer. Christianity is taught in most schools here and is talked of often socially. It is assumed that everyone is religious here, most are Christian of some sort or Muslim. It is so strange to here it referenced in English class!
We have eaten a feast tonight... let me tell you about the food I have eaten! Tonight we ate a fish, I think it was Tilapia? I asked Nancy how she prepared it and she said they just set it out in the sun for a day or two and then salt and fry it. Picture the fish in piles, drying on the side of the road with the eyes blankly staring at you. It is so freaking good!! We ate this mixture of g-nut paste (peanut butter-ish) and vegetables, which was strangely good! Kasava, a bland version of potato, but really good warm with butter or hot sauce. Bo, tastes like spinach and other greens mixed. Rice and beans, rice and beans, rice and beans.... forever rice and beans! And not refried beans either – just beans. Of course, that is dinner. For lunch everyday at school we are offered Posho and beans. Posho is a mixture of millet and maize. It’s like a really thick, bland porridge. Today I had a peanut and jelly sandwich back at the house! It was soo good!
Actually, people keep feeding us here so I’m certainly not starving! Who ever said I would be loosing weight here was so very wrong. I’m going to come back heavier, gasier and smellier! I average one bath every three days... don’t get me wrong, I do baby wipe off every morning!! I also usually wash my feet every night before bed. Last night my roommates laughed at my feet because the bottoms were so red they looked black!!
Oh and for those of you who mocked my crocs, they rock!! I wear them everywhere and my feet are nice and comfortable... I do think they may be starting to smell a bit though. I can’t tell, the common smell is a mixture of baby wipe, deet and sunscreen. In fact we are going hiking this Saturday afternoon and I will be sporting my rocking crocs!! Those, and a long sleeve shirt and pants. I only have four bug bites and I got three in the last two days. I think it was from playing volleyball out on the lawn out front.
We are having an American picnic on Sunday and we invited all of the Ugandan teachers to come. We will be trying to make American food in Uganda which is not always easy! Most of our food is cooked over a wood fire out back. Bre made Chipati (like a thick tortilla) yesterday morning for breakfast. I took pics! I’m going to try and make an apple pie. I don’t even know if we have a pie pan! This should be an adventure!
I miss you all, but am enjoying my time here! Can’t wait to share stories with you all!
Love and apwoyo!
Jolene
Friday, July 11, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Happy 4th of July!! (belated)
It is Sunday!! Happy belated 4th of July all! We all almost forgot here, until we saw Aaron’s nametag at the conference which had the message along with little fireworks drawn in. I missed celebrating on Friday but we had the teaching conference with all of the American teachers and Ugandan teachers that morning and an article review discussion right afterwards at 5, we were all talked out and just ended up coming home and playing cards. I don’t even miss tv here because it feels like we are camping. There are 11 of us staying here and we are getting along pretty well for people who have been out of the dorms for quite a few years!
We ended up having a mini-celebration Sat. afternoon after the 2nd day of the conference. We all went over to the IC house, where everyone else is staying and played volleyball, cards, hung out, napped in front of the fan! (We don’t have one and it gets pretty humid here right before the rain… at least for the west coast people it’s humid!) We looked into buying one, but it was going to cost around 50,000 shillings which is like $55.00 for a really basic fan. We decided against it.
My teacher, Amono Sarah, gave birth on Wednesday night to a baby girl! Which is awesome and not. This means that I will have to find a new teacher to work with. So far I plan to stay with one of Sarah’s classes, work with another geography teacher, and hopefully get involved with the teacher training college that we live next door to. I observed on of their classes last week and I am going again on Monday. I really would like to know how teachers are trained here, because what we IC peeps have noticed is that lecture is the main method of teaching.
Most of our teachers lecture and give notes and the students copy notes, there is very little participation from the students in most classes. The students are extremely respectful to all teachers but the student-teacher relationship we enjoy in the states is lacking in the classroom here. It will be interesting to see how this develops as I get to work more with all of the teachers. I miss you all, but am loving it here! I will have so many stories to tell when I return I will bore you all to tears!
By the way!
I haven’t showered in three days… you’d be surprised how fresh you feel with a baby wipe bath! Jealous I couldn’t hang out with you all for July 4th! Love the comments! Will answer the questions as I can, but I’m on Allison’s computer and she is waiting for it back!
Talk soon!
Apwoyo!
Jolene
We ended up having a mini-celebration Sat. afternoon after the 2nd day of the conference. We all went over to the IC house, where everyone else is staying and played volleyball, cards, hung out, napped in front of the fan! (We don’t have one and it gets pretty humid here right before the rain… at least for the west coast people it’s humid!) We looked into buying one, but it was going to cost around 50,000 shillings which is like $55.00 for a really basic fan. We decided against it.
My teacher, Amono Sarah, gave birth on Wednesday night to a baby girl! Which is awesome and not. This means that I will have to find a new teacher to work with. So far I plan to stay with one of Sarah’s classes, work with another geography teacher, and hopefully get involved with the teacher training college that we live next door to. I observed on of their classes last week and I am going again on Monday. I really would like to know how teachers are trained here, because what we IC peeps have noticed is that lecture is the main method of teaching.
Most of our teachers lecture and give notes and the students copy notes, there is very little participation from the students in most classes. The students are extremely respectful to all teachers but the student-teacher relationship we enjoy in the states is lacking in the classroom here. It will be interesting to see how this develops as I get to work more with all of the teachers. I miss you all, but am loving it here! I will have so many stories to tell when I return I will bore you all to tears!
By the way!
I haven’t showered in three days… you’d be surprised how fresh you feel with a baby wipe bath! Jealous I couldn’t hang out with you all for July 4th! Love the comments! Will answer the questions as I can, but I’m on Allison’s computer and she is waiting for it back!
Talk soon!
Apwoyo!
Jolene
Happy 4th of July!! (belated)
It is Sunday!! Happy belated 4th of July all! We all almost forgot here, until we saw Aaron’s nametag at the conference which had the message along with little fireworks drawn in. I missed celebrating on Friday but we had the teaching conference with all of the American teachers and Ugandan teachers that morning and an article review discussion right afterwards at 5, we were all talked out and just ended up coming home and playing cards. I don’t even miss tv here because it feels like we are camping. There are 11 of us staying here and we are getting along pretty well for people who have been out of the dorms for quite a few years!
We ended up having a mini-celebration Sat. afternoon after the 2nd day of the conference. We all went over to the IC house, where everyone else is staying and played volleyball, cards, hung out, napped in front of the fan! (We don’t have one and it gets pretty humid here right before the rain… at least for the west coast people it’s humid!) We looked into buying one, but it was going to cost around 50,000 shillings which is like $55.00 for a really basic fan. We decided against it.
My teacher, Amono Sarah, gave birth on Wednesday night to a baby girl! Which is awesome and not. This means that I will have to find a new teacher to work with. So far I plan to stay with one of Sarah’s classes, work with another geography teacher, and hopefully get involved with the teacher training college that we live next door to. I observed on of their classes last week and I am going again on Monday. I really would like to know how teachers are trained here, because what we IC peeps have noticed is that lecture is the main method of teaching.
Most of our teachers lecture and give notes and the students copy notes, there is very little participation from the students in most classes. The students are extremely respectful to all teachers but the student-teacher relationship we enjoy in the states is lacking in the classroom here. It will be interesting to see how this develops as I get to work more with all of the teachers. I miss you all, but am loving it here! I will have so many stories to tell when I return I will bore you all to tears!
By the way!
I haven’t showered in three days… you’d be surprised how fresh you feel with a baby wipe bath! Jealous I couldn’t hang out with you all for July 4th! Love the comments! Will answer the questions as I can, but I’m on Allison’s computer and she is waiting for it back!
Talk soon!
Apwoyo!
Jolene
We ended up having a mini-celebration Sat. afternoon after the 2nd day of the conference. We all went over to the IC house, where everyone else is staying and played volleyball, cards, hung out, napped in front of the fan! (We don’t have one and it gets pretty humid here right before the rain… at least for the west coast people it’s humid!) We looked into buying one, but it was going to cost around 50,000 shillings which is like $55.00 for a really basic fan. We decided against it.
My teacher, Amono Sarah, gave birth on Wednesday night to a baby girl! Which is awesome and not. This means that I will have to find a new teacher to work with. So far I plan to stay with one of Sarah’s classes, work with another geography teacher, and hopefully get involved with the teacher training college that we live next door to. I observed on of their classes last week and I am going again on Monday. I really would like to know how teachers are trained here, because what we IC peeps have noticed is that lecture is the main method of teaching.
Most of our teachers lecture and give notes and the students copy notes, there is very little participation from the students in most classes. The students are extremely respectful to all teachers but the student-teacher relationship we enjoy in the states is lacking in the classroom here. It will be interesting to see how this develops as I get to work more with all of the teachers. I miss you all, but am loving it here! I will have so many stories to tell when I return I will bore you all to tears!
By the way!
I haven’t showered in three days… you’d be surprised how fresh you feel with a baby wipe bath! Jealous I couldn’t hang out with you all for July 4th! Love the comments! Will answer the questions as I can, but I’m on Allison’s computer and she is waiting for it back!
Talk soon!
Apwoyo!
Jolene
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