All Alone!

My volunteer partner left on Monday and now I am at my placement all alone and no other volunteer will be coming for the duration of my stay. I seriously feel like I am going through culture shock for the first time here since Noreen left. It is hard to have no one to talk to about little problems and PE is definitely more difficult alone. On Tuesday and Wednesday P1, P2, and P3 all combined for PE. I had about 90 kids to deal with and it was quite overwhelming. The worst part is when I try to hand out the jump ropes and every kid is grabbing for them. I literally had to run up the stairs and tell everyone to stay at the bottom so I could hand them out one at a time. And of course every kid is yelling "Me Madam, Me Madam!". It is absolutely insane. At least the teachers have been really nice and are trying to help me out. Another interesting development was that Tuesday morning one of the students showed up at my house really early and told me that she was hungry because she hadn't eaten dinner the night before. I had no clue what to do so I gave her one of the NutriGrain bars that Noreen had left. She showed up the next day and again this morning. I haven't given her any more food, but I feel really bad. It is hard to ignore when a small child is telling you that they are hungry and you have food sitting in the house. But I know it is dangerous ground to walk to give one kid food because then every kid will be asking for it so I must resist! I am sure that I will eventually get used to being on my own and I have definitely had enough to do. There is always someone to hang out with if you look.

This weekend I am heading up to Gulu since I wound up not going last weekend...instead I hung out with all of the volunteers who were leaving on Monday. We had a crazy time in Kampala on Saturday and I wound up staying out until 6:00 am. But now I am finally making it up to the north and I am super excited. I will let you all know how it goes!