School Starts

Classes began on Monday for the students, but half of them didn't show up. Monday morning we got up and were taken around to each of the classes to introduce ourselves. I have to introduce myself as Madam Zalwango Ashley. It is so weird to be called Madam. And I am supposed to call the other teachers Madam and Master, which is going to take some getting used to. The students were so well behaved. When we entered a class room all of the students stood up and said in unison "Good morning teachers. You are welcome teachers. This is P 4 (or whatever grade level)". We would say back "How are you?" and they would answer "We are fine teachers". It was so cute. At first the students were really shy around us, but today they started to open up.

We taught our first official class today and it was P.E. for P1, P2, and P3. We taught one music class last night, but we had a 30 minute warning and were totally unprepared. We played a name game and then wound up playing Heads-Up-7-Up for a while. Afterwards another teacher organized the students together and they sang for us. My heart absolutely melted when I heart them. They sang a bunch of different songs and some of the songs had motions that went along with them. In the background a few of the kids played drums. It was so beautiful!

Next week I should be getting into a more normal schedule. I know that I will be teaching English for P5 every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Together Noreen and I will be teaching P.E. for P1 and P2 everyday and every few days we teach art and music. There is also debate that we have to help judge, sex education, bead making, and general assembly where all of the teachers (including us) have to make a speech to the children. I am looking forward to having a full week of classes. Bye for now!

My First Week in Community

I just finished my first week in community. I got extremely sick the first day (probably from dehydration), but I am much better now and the rest of the week was thoroughly enjoyable. I am staying at a little house right outside of the school grounds with my volunteer partner Noreen. It is a pretty nice setup, however the electricity hasn't been working for 2 weeks now so we had to do everything by lantern light. School doesn't start until Monday so there weren't many kids around. We mainly hung out with one of the teachers named Moses. He kept us entertained pretty much the whole week. We went to visit many of the schools around and I was able to talk with some of the directors of the schools about the Ugandan education system. It was very interesting to hear what they had to say and I learned how hard the students are worked. They start school in the morning at 6:00 and they don't end until 10:30pm! Could you imagine? Other than visiting schools, Moses took us into the forest to search for monkeys. We found a few and I got some really good photos. I also went to a community meeting about the best way to care for cows, especially during the dry season. Everything was conducted in Lugandan, but Moses translated some of it for me. I found out that the Heifer Project International has partnered with some other organizations and does work in the communities around here. I thought that was pretty school since JUC raises money for Heifer International. Next week I should begin teaching classes. I have no idea what subjects I will be teaching. Hopefully it goes well! I also think that we are going to do a safari next weekend, which should be awesome. I am super excited to start this next week. I almost forgot to mention...I have a new Ugandan name. My new name is Zalwango. Well I am off to Kampala to go to the Saturday market. Talk to you later!

Where's Mukono?

For those of you who are wondering where Mukono is, here's a map. Mukono is a little northeast of Kampala -- see the red circle.

I made it to Uganda after being delayed a bit. I flew from Dubai to Ethiopia and we were only suppose to have a 1.5 hour stop in Ethiopia before continuing on to Uganda. After sitting on the plane for a couple of hours we found out that one of the engines had a mechanical problem and they were going to try and fix it. We wound up staying on the plane for 6 hours until they canceled the flight. After a ton of confusion and frustration everyone was finally taken to the Hilton Hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to stay for the night. On the way there, Catie and I met two students from the University of North Carolina. After talking with them for a while we discovered that they were going to Gulu, Uganda to work with their partnering agency for their GlobeMed chapter. I am helping to start a GlobeMed chapter at CU next year and I thought it was so funny to run into them. We had dinner with them and hung out for a while. It was really nice to be able to hang out with some college-aged peole and to talk about GlobeMed. In the morning we flew into Entebbe and met the other volunteer from the Real Uganda who was on our flight. All three of us were picked up in the airport and taken to Mukono Town to the volunteer house. The drive was fairly interesting. Ugandans are pretty crazy drivers, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. There were cars driving on the shoulder and passing each other all of the time and there were people lining the streets. The countryside is absolutely beautiful...everything is very green. It was interesting to drive through different parts and see the vast differences between the haves and the have nots just from the road. When we arrived at the volunteer house we were briefed by Leslie about Uganda and what to expect while volunteering. Then we just hung out with some of the other volunteers and went to bed fairly early. I should be leaving on Monday to go to my village placement in Mpoma to work with the Mpoma community HIV/AIDS initiative. They run a boarding school with 270 students, 120 of which are orphans. I will be teaching at the school and doing community outreach work with them. I am super excited! And the good thing is that I think I will also have time to do some traveling. Catie and I are thinking of doing a safari, a white water rafting trip, and we may head up to Gulu to visit Madelyn and Arelien from GlobeMed. Well I got to go, but I will try to keep you updated as much as possible.

The flight from Houston to Dubai actually wasn't too bad. Since we had a 13-hour layover, the airline gave us a hotel room and it was really nice to be able to sleep in a real bed. We got up and got to the airport without any difficulties. We flew to Ethiopia to make a stop and to refuel the plane or whatever they were doing. While we were in Ethiopia they discovered a mechanical problem with one of the engines and after sitting around for a few hours they cancelled our flight. It was super frustrating, but we finally figured out what was going on. The airline sent us to the Hilton Hotel in Ethiopia and so we are staying there for the night and should be leaving for Uganda in the morning. It was really funny because I met two people from GlobeMed (the club I am trying to start next year) who are going to Uganda to work with their partnering agency. Catie and I had dinner with them and are hanging out with them. Hopefully we will make it into Uganda tomorrow.

I'm packing to leave for Uganda right now. I'll be posting stories and photos as time allows.