Week 69 (11 - 17 Nov 2007)

Photo: Insects are a delicacy in Uganda. For the Ugandans at least. These are grashoppers which our neighbours very kindly let us try. They were still alive as Lillian was taking the wings off but we ate them later, after being fried. They taste much the same as maggots and white ants.

We had a rest from the school service on Sunday morning as we had been invited to an ordination service in town. Simon, the eldest son (i.e. first born) of Ondoma John, the Chairman of the Ushindi Board, was one of the ordinands, having recently completed his masters degree at Durham University in England. The time on the invitation said that it would start at 9am but ours was changed to 10am and we arrived just behind the Bishop. We were ushered into the church and were told that the service would “start now”. “Now” loses its meaning in translation. The service actually started at 11am – and finished around 4.30pm. I don’t have the stamina to be an Anglican! There was food afterwards for around 800 people an we couldn’t leave anyway because after we parked the car more chairs and a marquee were erected blocking us (and the Bishop) in! The serving of the food was efficient and we had a chance to chat to several people including other members of John Ondoma’s family and the Bishop. We were just about to follow the Bishop’s car out when one of the clergy based at Kuluva asked for a lift back, then another – so eventually we left with a car full of clergy, wives and luggage! So we took the opportunity to visit Molly and Isobel briefly as they had just returned from the UK in the morning.

Having been fairly busy recently, we went to town after lunch on Monday for our usual supplies and collected some AIM post from Diguna. It was a pleasant surprise to meet Hannah who was very kind to us last year when we arrived. She and her husband Kurt are very experienced missionaries and recently returned from Germany. They will be going to Kenya eventually but are filling in temporarily back in their previous post in Arua i.e. travelling to Congo and Sudan etc. We also had a stop off at a children’s party at the Asiki’s home – with fizzy drinks, pop-corn, biscuits and sweets as the food! We only stayed for an hour or so as the thunder was starting to rumble in the background. Cathy and her girls had arranged the party games very efficiently and gave us some ideas that the students at Ushindi might like to try for some light entertainment. Most of the children here have no experience of party games – or parties.

As there was still no power at Kuluva I was beginning to panic about the examination papers that we need to set. The science papers include multiple choice questions which take ages to type – once suitable ones have been found from past papers. Also chemical equations and symbols are not easy to type accurately. We decided last year that it would be easier for us to type them up on the laptops – the school secretary who types the other examinations is extremely grateful as she hates typing the science questions too! But laptops need power. So, on Tuesday, off I went to town to the SIL (Wycliffe) office begging for power. The SIL (Sudan) team has been moved to Sudan (or the members have left for other reasons) and now there is only one person left! Sarah is from the UK and although she works in Lugbara she is actually concentrating on East Congo. Lugbara people are in Sudan also. So Sarah seemed to be happy to have some company for a day. She let me have full use of the SIL office. Actually, her garage! It does have two desks and is as large as one of our rooms! So I was quite comfortable – and the cat also tried to make herself comfortable on my lap! I worked solidly from 9am to 5pm with only short breaks and managed to complete the two S3 papers only! And my head aches. I managed to send a few e-mails too. But that didn’t make my head hurt any less.

On Wednesday morning I taught my S1 Biology lesson early and went back to the SIL office in town. By the end of the day I had completed the first draft of the remaining papers for S1 and S2. A total of 35 pages! No wonder it took so long! I had taken Andrea’s laptop to charge both yesterday and today so she was able to at least start her Maths papers - a total of 8 pages when finished. Thoughts of marking them all does not fill us with joy. But at least it’s a relief to finish setting them.

We were teaching more on Thursday and did the mark schemes for the exam papers i.e. checked for mistakes and to make sure the questions could actually be answered. We also started typing up notes from the Workshops for the teachers.

We normally get up around 6.15am (I manage it by 6.30am) then waken up an hour or so later. But on Friday we both slept in until 8am. What luxury! Andrea was still feeling a little rough so missed the assembly in the afternoon. We do admire the stamina of Ugandans. The Principal mentioned the need for students to have enough sleep, especially in the examination period. The Deputy reflected on the fact that many students were ill at present, some fairly seriously and thus had been sent home to recover. Most of the students were ill with malaria, he said. Afterwards, I asked if there were fewer mosquitoes around in the early hours of the morning (from 5am onwards). And how des the ringing the school bell every morning at 5am help the students to get enough sleep? I suggested that those student who wanted to get up early could set their own alarms and those who needed more sleep could remain undisturbed. I left it with him to discuss with other staff and make a decision. [I’m writing this on Tuesday of the following week – we haven’t heard the 5am bell since Friday!] During the evening devotions the pressure lamp suddenly expired and plunged us into darkness. I don’t mean the semi-darkness in the UK – I mean real black darkness. The students continued to sing, but I couldn’t see any of them – they don’t “glow in the dark” as we do. Fortunately I had my torch so you can imagine me sitting with 130 or so students singing at the tops of their voices with one small torch lighting up the school hall. Then they sat down and it was my turn to speak. Holding notes and a torch isn’t easy and speaking into blackness is a little unnerving too. And I even had a visual aid to hold (a bottle of Coca Cola). Now, it would have made sense to talk about Jesus as the Light of the world – especially as the light returned as I was speaking. But now you have to work out where a bottle of Coca Cola comes in Mark’s gospel! I’m a teacher; I don’t give all the answers!

On Saturday we had a welcome rest although Andrea spent some time writing up notes from the staff training – our intention is to give them each a copy of our notes and their suggestions. Adaku John, our neighbour called in to check our roof leaks. He climbed into the roof space and immediately spotted some holes which he proceeded to patch up then went onto the roof outside to seal from there before making a final check from the inside. I said that if I was his age I would have done it myself! Pity it wasn’t done properly the first two times. But hopefully we’ll have no more leaks. The highlight of the afternoon was watching the S4 students who left recently play against a team from the rest of the school, including a teacher. The rest won narrowly 4-3 but it was an entertaining friendly match.

Week 68 (4 - 10 Nov 2007)

Photo: The result when lightening hits a solar battery - this was in the boys dormitory.

On Sunday I decided to see how many boys were still in bed 5 minutes before the service was due to start. Only about 5 and they soon jumped out! Too many were still slow in getting to the hall but the girl’s weren’t much better. But why is the service at 8am I wonder? The Chaplain, Isaac, took the communion service. As we were resting back in our house I realized that there was a general commotion coming from the boys dormitory – strange as they should all have been in prep. in the classrooms. I arrived to find the boys lining up, with others searching them and another keeping the dormitory doors closed. Some money had been stolen so they were investigating themselves. They did not find the money and agreed to make a voluntary donation to cover some of the loss. This raises some issues about security, especially of cash, as well as student investigations. The only other issues I had do deal with were the low battery power in the classrooms (it was a grey day so little charging form the solar panels) and a student who had walked for nearly 6 hours back to school but had still not managed to get her school fees. Those who had not paid their fees were being denied food. I gave her permission to get food – I wasn’t going to send her back to her Uncle’s house again.

Due to our schedule and plans for the week, life skills day on Friday and workshops on Saturday, we decided to collect some things from town after teaching our Monday lessons. The flip chard we ordered arrived but the holes in the paper pad are in a different place from those in the stand. This is Africa, the home of innovation when things don’t go as expected! We called into Cathy Asiki’s – she was in the middle of some party games with one of her daughters and her friends. It was good just to relax and watch them. We also called at Diguna for some post and met Hannah, whom we haven’t seen for many months.

Tuesday and my turn to go to Kuluva for some electricity and peace. I got the peace. But the hydropower had broken down so no electricity. The engineer who usually fixed it is in Germany but Diguna knew of another engineer who was coming from Congo. A bit frustrating but I was still able to do some other things and think about the Life Sills and workshops.

After teaching my biology lesson on Wednesday morning I prepared to drive to Kuluva to join Andrea only to realise that I still had the key to the Lacey’s house on my key-ring. Andrea also left her key-ring at Ushindi – so we both got it wrong! When I arrived, at about 11.30am she was sitting on the veranda finishing her marking. The only problem was that veranda’s generally don’t have toilets. There was still no power but much frustration. I tried to phone the Hospital Administrator, Jackson, to find out the progress on the power but we were cut off before he could say much and I couldn’t get him back again – it turns out he was in town. The meat in the freezer was beginning to thaw so we decided to return to Diguna in town and see if we could use their power for a while and some space in their freezer. We also arrived just before lunch and they allowed us to join them giving us a chance to meet some of their current team. So this is where we are, on top of Arua Hill, with power for the afternoon so that we can finish our preparations for the Life Skills on Friday and Workshops on Saturday.

Our heads hurt after all our thinking yesterday. All we needed to do on Thursday, was teach. And make the final preparations for Friday and Saturday. I spent the afternoon and evening writing notes on the flip-chart. That’s a paper version of PowerPoint, for those who’ve forgotten. And we finally agreed which parts each of us would do on Saturday so that we could be free on Friday evening to have a rest. At least, that was the plan. But ….

Life Skills Day. Friday. Normal lessons cancelled for different activities. First problem, the breakfast for the students was late – or at least not enough was cooked the first time. So the planned start at 8.30am was delayed by half an hour, putting the rest of the day’s programme out. Then some of the teachers hadn’t arrived by 9am. Andrea had difficulty getting information from some of the others to find out what they were doing so that overlap would be limited. No chance. She was taking the first two sessions, on different topics one of which was “coping with emotions”! Practice what you preach! I patrolled around and went into some of the sessions. There was still much teacher talk but where there were student activities I’m not convinced that the students (or the teachers) realised the point of them! My own sessions followed (self awareness and self esteem) and were fairly reflective for the students. They were very co operative and did try but the idea of reflection was beyond some of them. We had planned that I would only do this with one older group but the teachers from another session pulled out. Or rather never arrived in the first place. Still, we could look forward to the afternoon session by an experienced group from the HIV/AIDS unit at Kuluva Hospital. Except that they arrived an hour late and their programme was over three hours long. In the end, I had to stop a film so that the students could prepare for their evening meal before dark. There was not allowance for their being an hour late. We also thought that we had agreed that they would talk for no more than an hour to the whole school to leave time for more individual question sessions. However, parts were good (i.e. parts were dire too!) but the students who had the stamina to remain in the hall found it useful and informative. We were very hot and tired and thinking about what we still needed to do for Saturday. Andrea was also doing the student evening devotions and simply read Psalm 139 – the original emotional intelligence. Being delayed in the afternoon, I spend the rest of the evening finishing writing on the flip chart.

On Saturday we arrived bright and early to set up the staff room for the workshops on Managing Student Behaviour and Assessment. We were ready to start at 8.50am. But we had only seen one other teacher and she was busy organising the catering for the day. Therefore, we started half an hour late, again putting pressure on our schedule. But we made generous time allowances and made up most of it by lunch time. In the end, 13 of the 16 staff were present although the Principal was unable to stay for most of it. It was hard work but the staff were co-operative and seemed to begin to understand the reasons behind our assertions e.g. look at the underlying causes of student behaviour and try to change those by changing the experiences of the students. They realised that many of the student behaviours were as a result of teacher actions! As for assessment, we asked some hard questions about our testing, invigilation and reporting. Time will tell if we were able to communicate effectively. We were exhausted by the evening but had some power left on the laptops so watched a short DVD.

Week 67 (28 Oct - 3 Nov 2007)

Photo: Solar panels being attached to the roof - at last.

The Rev James Ombanya preached at the service on Sunday morning. He is the Assistant Chaplain at Kuluva Hospital and an HIV/AIDS counsellor. He is an entertaining speaker and all the students were glued to his every word. We were also interested in how he structured his sermon and mixed in relevant humorous stories to which the students could relate. In the afternoon there was a meeting for parents about health issues and school fees – it was visiting day too. It was interesting but not as entertaining as the service! We were able to chat with some of the students who didn’t have visitors and may inadvertently “adopted” some Sudanese students. Others who didn’t have visitors seemed to look more than a little wistfully at groups of parents and students chatting.

With all our travelling around and extra teaching recently it was good to be able to spend a little time on Monday just catching up. During the next two weeks I should be able make up all the lessons missed due to our absence at the start of last term. Manessah (and Isaac) arrived after 4pm to fix our roof. I did say that I was beginning to wonder which Monday he had meant in his text on Saturday evening! I had also thought of letting him know that we would be away for December and the start of January so that he could plan in advance! But he found the “blunder” which caused the leak and solved it fairly quickly. He completed the remaining work – apart from the hole, salt and powered charcoal for the lightening conductor and the bulb that needs to be replaced. But I think it would be easier for me to do those that try to arrange for someone else!

Our friends, Ann and Allan, who have recently arrived at Kuluva from the UK, have had to go to Kampala for a month. They have kindly given us a key for their house so that we can have a retreat and be able to use our laptops more easily. It’s very kind and today, Tuesday, is my first trip – Andrea has stayed at school today and will come tomorrow on her own. So I hope to be able to catch up with the blog, e-mails and some planning which is easier to do on a laptop than in my head!

I’ve just had a short break from writing the blog and as I looked out the window saw five large monkeys playing in the trees about 50 feet away. Then I heard some rustling in a bush about 10 feet away and turned to see two more enjoying a midday snack of fruit. We eyed each other warily for a few minutes before I left to get something to eat myself! Who needs a wildlife safari or zoo when you can just look out the window! However, the monkeys can be a pest too – I won’t leave out anything they might pinch!

Even with a full day of electricity I didn’t manage to do all I had planned and was exhausted by 5pm. But at least there is an opportunity to return next week – or earlier.

Andrea walked to Kuluva on Wednesday for her day of electricity - I left the laptop there so she only had to carry it downhill on the way home. She seemed to have a fruitful day. Mine was full of interruptions and eventually I had to explain to Mary (our home help) that I needed time to think and could not do this with too much noise in the background. Mary and Joyce had been talking almost non-stop since they arrived at 11am in the usual Ugandan way i.e. loudly. She apologized and fully understood explaining that Africans do talk loudly and forget that muzungu’s (white people) often prefer quiet, especially the older ones! My meeting in the afternoon with the Principal was looking at the job description of the Deputy but had clear implications for the role of the Principal too. We finalized the areas but need to work on how they could be carried out.

After teaching our lessons on Thursday we went to town for supplies, which included a roast chicken with chips at the Catholic Centre. The chicken didn’t fight too much and eventually lost – but it was a tough one. Andrea was feeling a little rough so when we arrived at the Asiki’s she had a rest on one of their very comfortable Ikea chairs. Yes, Ikea in Uganda. Hm. Not in Arua though. Meanwhile I was working with Cathy, the Principal and another school governor to re-write the school mission statement. Cathy noted that she had no idea where the first one came from and couldn’t understand it anyway. I thought it was just me being thick. Anyway, they chatted and I noted then pulled together their seemingly random thoughts and they made surprising sense! SO I was given the “opportunity” to write it up to present at the next Board meeting. No one else had made any notes. Must remember to forget a pen next time. Is it possible to remember to forget? It is possible to forget to remember as I do that all the time.

My left knee was “paining” as they say here, on Friday morning. I think it must have been the way I was sitting yesterday. So I need to rest it. No arguments from me (but no sympathy from Andrea either!) She’s beginning to feel a little better i.e. starting to do more than any normal person again. Our roof is still leaking and the patch is growing. Assembly was OK and for a planned short one wasn’t too long (45mins). I took the student devotions, when Levi, the equivalent to a traffic warden, was called. Afterwards I did a patrol around to make sure prep. time began. S1 were expecting a history test at 8pm. A good time for a test methinks?

All the other teachers seem to have left the site on Saturday – but I’d planned to be Teacher on Duty from Friday evening anyway. There weren’t any major problems but it’s difficult to relax or do anything useful when you might be interrupted at any time. Some boys asked to go to get their heads shaved. More than usual. They looked a little sheepish when I wondered if they just might find if the football was being shown anywhere. Some admitted openly that they hoped they would so I wished them well and to make sure they were back before dark – on one condition. They had to stop by the house to report in and to tell me the final score. Manchester United were playing Arsenal and those teams have more supporters here that any other teams. While they were away I managed to get the final score on the internet and they were a bit surprised that I knew before they got back. (2-2 by the way.) We investigated the school’s generator and managed to show a Planet Earth DVD in the evening. They couldn’t hear the commentary but provide their own and really enjoy the animal chases.