Sarah in Uganda

Afternoon Program:

The class on the first day of school (first row: Tina, Mattia, Dan, Peter; Second Row: Newhu, Kato, Babyire, Prossy, Fadah)

Last Tuesday I started the Afternoon Program, which was originally started as the Morning Program by the previous years of Fellows. Since Elliot and I both have an interest in working in the clinic and the morning hours are usually crazy, we decided to amend the program and change it to the afternoon.  The week before John and I had walked around the village and invited 6 new students who had never been to the Morning Program—or any school—to join us on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The first week I was the only teacher since Elliot was still completing his training at Rakaii but I will definitely be happy to have him to help tomorrow. It’s hard to think of activities to keep 4 to 7 year olds interested and engaged for several hours while trying to include an educational component! Hopefully having two brains instead of one will help us think of some ground-breaking or just entertaining activities to keep the kids entertained. Last week we worked on ABCs and had the kids running in circles singing the song but since a bunch of older siblings who go to regular primary school showed up I’m not sure how much the little ones actually learned. But alas I will keep dancing in circles like a fool and hope that the image of the crazy mzungu Sarah running in circles will help the alphabet stick in their heads. 

Since my last blog post, we have installed the six solar panels installed donated by MIT Engineers Without Borders. It was quite the typical Uganda process to get them through customs but after a little over a month they finally arrived and Elliot, John, and a local university student Emmanuel, climbed up on the roof like monkeys and installed them all. Since then we’ve had power all night and have gotten into the habit of watching movies with the nurses who live here, Tushabe and Rose, each night. It’s a nice reward to look forward to at the end of each day. Since we have so much power now, last Thursday at the end of the Afternoon Program we set up the projector and had all of the kids in to watch Happy Feet. I was a little concerned about how their attention would hold since it was in English but Happy Feet ended up being the perfect movie to show since there is enough music and dancing and cute animals that it kept the kids thoroughly entertained. My favorite part by far was when the credits were rolling and a bunch of the kids got up and started dancing like Mambo had been all movie.

 St. Gertrude’s

Today was our first day teaching at the local primary school St. Gertrude’s. I am teaching P.5 Math and P.6 English. Math doesn’t seem like it will be too difficult to teach as long as I can get the kids to understand me but English is going to be much more a challenge. English was my first subject and after the headmaster introduced me and left the room I had a momentary moment of panic when I looked out at the 20 something expectant faces but eventually took a deep breath and dove into the lesson I had prepared. It is way harder to explain the nuances of the English language than I ever realized. I know how to speak English but teach it to non-English speakers? Not so much. But I have numerous pupil and teacher books so hopefully I’ll be able to figure it out soon.

Clinic Work

Last Monday I was working in the pharmacy when John came up to me and told me that I needed to go outside and greet this older woman who loves all mzungus. So I went outside and took the woman’s hands in mind and went through the whole greeting exchange which brought a huge smile to her face. Thinking my mzungu greeting duties were over I headed back inside. Apparently after I left she was so happy she told John she could die happily now. Then a little while later, Tushabe, one of our nurses, came and got me to tell me that same woman didn’t want to be seen until I was in the room to examine her as well. So I followed Tushabe back to the exam room wondering how this was all going to work out since I have no medical experience and was not really interested in having to examine this woman but was happy to be a good sport. Ended up just having to take her blood pressure with the automated cuff (yay for start buttons and automatic stop buttons on modern technology) and then feeling her shoulder joints and knees for arthritis. The rest of the time I just smiled and nodded while she explained her complaints to Tushabe slash me. I was later told that just my presence made her feel like she had gotten the best care despite the fact that I actually did not provide any real care to her.  At least I was able to make one person’s day a little bit brighter just by being a mzungu and sitting in the room while Tushabe provided the real care.  Too bad it’s not that easy to make everyone happy.