October!

It is October already! Seriously, the time here passes so quickly. It’s already mid-October, and in a month it will be my birthday, and in 5 weeks, I will see my sister! I was just thinking the other day about what I was doing a year ago – had just moved home to my Dad’s house, was working for my friend’s consulting firm doing some really interesting work and enjoying my last few months in the U.S. It honestly seems like just yesterday. And already a second group (since I arrived) of PCVs here in Uganda are COSing (close of service), i.e. their two years are finished. It’s crazy to think the next group leaving will be the group just 1 year ahead of us, and many of them are my friends as some of them are also here in the Teso region with me. It makes me a bit sad to think about it; two years really will go very quickly. I feel like I already have to start thinking about grad school, finding a job, etc. And that really scares me!

In the last month, I have kept quite busy with work. In a nutshell, I’ve been working on getting our 18 initial VSLA groups organized in Kachumbala, and I’ve started teaching life skills at an all-girls primary school. Starting VSLA groups have taken longer than I hoped due to funding, logistics and many other factors. First, my organization along with two others in my town – Build Africa and UWESO – have had to sort out the parishes and villages where each of us will implement VSLAs. This would seem like a simple task, but it has taken many meetings and discussions since May to finally arrive at a resolution. Build Africa and UWESO have been working with VSLAs previously so it was easy for our organization to simply say, “we’ll take parishes and villages where you both are not working yet.” But to write, and agree upon, the MOU among the three of us was a big task. Finally, as of two weeks ago, it is complete. My organization will start its work in 6 parishes in Kachumbala sub-county, Bukedea District. I’ve met with our CBTs (community-based trainers) and organized the groups, based on their location, and desired size of the groups. Unfortunately, due to an issue with some missing funding from one of my organization’s recent projects, the money we were supposed to use on VSLAs was used on this other project for the mean time until that money finally comes into our account. At this point, I’ve priced all the materials needed for the toolkits – just can’t buy any of it without the money. As soon as I know we have the money and are able to therefore buy all the materials within a matter of a couple weeks, I will start training the groups, which should take about two weeks, and then the groups can start saving and lending. I had hoped to have this up and running by November, when my sister comes, but it now looks like that won’t happen. It is quite frustrating, to say the least.

Teaching life skills is a different story. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it, but I actually really do thus far. The girls boarding school, where I’m teaching, is located just about a three-minute walk from my house. It is associated with the Catholic church, which makes it a bit tricky to teach some lessons. For those of you that don’t know exactly what life skills are – they are skills that are used to empower children to make wise decisions, have self-esteem, remain healthy – basically to help them make the right decisions, reach their goals and lead a good life. Peace Corps puts a big emphasis on life skills, as they are very important and even if children drop out of school at some point, they still have these skills to use in their lives.

As a result of recognizing the importance of life skills to Uganda’s child population, I decided to go to two primary schools (Kumi Girls and Kumi Boys-which actually isn’t an all boys school) to offer to teach life skills, and possibly another club, at their school. At both schools, I will be teaching life skills, and starting a math club with the students. So far, I’ve only started teaching life skills at Kumi Girls, to a P7 class (about the ages of 11-14, depending on when they started school). My first lesson went well, I think. I was quite nervous, but the girls understood me, asked questions, and responded to my questions – all of which I was afraid wouldn’t happen! At the end of the lesson, I told the girls they could ask me, and my friend, Maaike (Dutch friend, who came along w/ me to help) any questions. What I meant by this was, questions for them to get to know us better – such as, “what is life like in America (or Holland)?” But instead, the first question that was asked was “What is sex?” Holy crap, I almost died right there. Without thinking, I said, “Maaike, you want to answer that?” I’m not even sure what we said. Following that, we got questions like “how do you suppress sexual urges?” I was definitely not prepared to answer these questions yet. I, of course, know I will have to discuss these things with the girls during life skills lessons, but it was the first one, and we were just trying to keep it to an introduction of life skills and an introduction of us, as the teachers. I’m going to have to get better at answering these questions, without laughing, and without turning red in the face, myself. I never thought in a million years I’d be teaching kids about sex! The funny thing is these girls know the exact words and phrases that their teachers use regarding these subjects. For instance, the question, “how do you suppress sexual urges?” – what kid would ask that? Only one that has been told over and over by their teachers to “avoid sexual urges or temptations.” Even when I asked them to come up with a list of obstacles or issues that children in Uganda face, all the answers were exact words/phrases of the signs that cover their school’s lawn and walls such as “avoid lonely places,” “defilement,” etc. I’m not sure the children really understand these ideas, rather just repeating what they hear all the time from their teachers.

I also now have two new neighbors in the other half of my house – a Dutch girl (Maaike) and an Italian girl (Carola). Both are here volunteering with Red Cross for 2-3 months. It has been great having them here! They arrived about a month ago, and it is so nice to have people to talk to all the time, hang out with, watch a movie with at night, go out to dinner. We’ve been to Kumi Hotel a few Friday nights with their supervisor, attended a graduation/baptism party, had dinner parties – all things that are more fun to do with other muzungus, instead of being the only one at these functions. Last week, Maaike and I also went to Kampala for a couple days. I had a grants committee meeting at Peace Corps (I’m now on the grants committee for 3 months; we review other volunteers’ grants for funding small-scale projects in their villages). I showed Maaike around Kampala, and we went out with one of my Ugandan friends, who moved from Kumi to Kampala to go back for his master’s degree, ate lots of good food, spent too much money. All in all, a great time. Carola will be leaving after my birthday in November, and Maaike will leave in December. Not sure what I will do without them, or my Build Africa volunteer friends. But there is, fortunately, a German volunteer here with the Catholic Church just a few minutes away from me. She just arrived in September, and she will be staying here for one year so I will have more muzungu company for awhile! She is also teaching life skills with me at Kumi Girls, since the P7 class is so large.

This week, I also helped Red Cross with registering people in a few villages for food distribution that will take place next week. In the village I was working in, we registered 150 people – mostly women, elderly and the disabled. There has been a famine in this part of Uganda because of the lack of rain, which has resulted in a poor harvest season. Fortunately, in the last few weeks, it has been raining almost every day – just for an hour or so in the evening, but at least it’s something! It was really interesting to take part in this, and I’m looking forward to next week when we distribute the actual food.

Other than these updates, I don’t have much else to add. In a week, I will be leaving for a week of life skills training with Peace Corps. It’s our last training until our mid-service conference in April/May. By the time I get back to Kumi, it will be November already! I think two of my PC friends will be coming up to Kumi for my birthday, along with Amy, me and the two Red Cross volunteers, and my Ugandan friends – should be a good time! Then the week after, I will be leaving for Tanzania to go on a week-long safari with my sister! I’m so excited, but also nervous that my sister will hate Africa, because she’s already being melodramatic about all the shots and medicines she has to get.

Picture update: Sorry, still haven’t posted pictures yet. I hope to get to it in the next couple weeks, and at the very least, definitely before I leave for Tanzania. Bathroom is complete, except for the running water. Landlord is still trying to find the money to install the water. I really hope it’s done before my sister arrives, or it will be bad.

Thank you for all the recent packages! They have been arriving much quicker than usual! I really do appreciate them. Congrats to Tina and Jeff on getting married! Happy birthday to all those with October birthdays – too many to list! And enjoy the fall weather for me; I miss it!