pedagogy, convoy, chicken testicles, father’s day, and a haircut.

sat, 6.16 through sun, 6.17 – after our first week in the schools, this weekend was a nice break.  on saturday morning, we discussed the book we read before coming, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire.  it got to be a pretty deep and heavy conversation…much more than i was ready for at 9am on a weekend!  it was a great discussion, but it was just pretty difficult to wrap my head around some of the conflicting ideas.  the biggest question, and by far one of the hardest to definitively answer, is the one of our overall impact here…do the positive effects of our presence in the classrooms outweigh the adverse effects of our presence in the war-torn area of gulu.

after our book discussion, we went to the acholi inn for lunch.  it took forever to get our food…once again, african time is VERY different from ours…but we ate out on this huge lawn under giant trees and the weather was mildly sunny with a nice breeze, so it was quite enjoyable.  phil, seth, and i all ordered the goat skewers, which left much to be desired, but the company was great.  later in the evening, after spending more time just walking around the town and meeting people, we stayed in at the volunteer house and enjoyed a low-key night in.  later on, several of the invisible children mentors (they work one-on-one with the i.c.-sponsored children  to help guide them in their studies and their lives) came over and hung out with us.  my friend david, who also works for i.c., came by too.  before long, david, peter paul, and anthony were teaching us how to play a card game that they call ‘convoy’ (it’s more or less the same as uno, but with a regular deck of cards and a few new rules).  they were really funny because they were talking trash and teaching us how to talk trash “the ugandan way”…hilarious and lots of fun.

on sunday, i went to isaiah’s house so that we could plan our lessons for monday.  having a visitor is a very big deal here, and the people of uganda get very excited when they have a guest.  isaiah introduced me to his wife and their son, as well as the 2 daughters and son of his brother that he takes care of…kinda surprising, considering he hadn’t even mentioned being married or anything in our previous conversations about family.  as is the custom here (which is rather similar to that of southerners in the u.s.), they pretty much offered me food from the moment i walked in the door and didn’t stop until i left.  the funny thing is that in acholi culture, if someone invites you into their home and offers you food and you decline,  it is considered VERY rude.  so, regardless of how full you are or how much you just ate, you’re eating…pretty much whatever they put in front of you.  on this particular day, isaiah’s wife had prepared a whole chicken, a lump of millet bread (think halfway-cooked bread dough), rice, and beans…and this was only a few hours after they served me tea and fried cassava strips.  needless to say, i was pretty stuffed…but, like i said…whatever they put in front of you. 

now, when i say ‘whole chicken,’ i pretty much mean everything but the feathers, the beak and the feet.  it was cooked in a broth of sorts, and the heat had tenderized the meat such that the wings and legs had come off in the stirring.  right after i selected a small wing from the pot and was psyching myself up to smile while eating something that could quite possibly taste awful, isaiah and his wife glanced at each other and laughed.  i smiled and asked him what i had done, and he proceeded to explain that it is customary for the guest to eat “this piece here,” a statement that was accompanied by his using the spoon to lift the main section of the chicken slightly from the broth-filled pot.  first of all, this was a MASSIVE chunk of fowl.  at the sight of it, i had a brief conversation with my stomach, who was already mad at me for stuffing down cassava chips and tea after eating lunch a mere hour prior.  it went something like this:

Stomach: ‘heck no…you better find a way out of THIS one.’

Me: ‘but i can’t be rude…’

Stomach: ‘rude, my foot…you are NOT eating all of that.’

so i ceded to my stomach and resolved to at least attempt to find a way from having to eat this huge thing.  now, to add to my desperation, i noticed as isaiah lifted up the meat that there were pieces and parts that i had never dreamed of eating and that, in my experience, had no dietary value and thus were normally removed.  but again, T.I.A., so of course they are used.  so there in front of me sits this enormous portion of chicken, testicles and all, and i’ve just been informed that it was intended especially for me.  i’ve been given many gifts in my life that excited me…this was not one of them.  i must have pretty much worn my un-excitement all over my face, because isaiah smiled and then, just as i was beginning to return my wing to the pot to swap it for the other ¾ of the chicken, he said, “it is okay…you eat the one that makes you comfortable.”

all at once, my brain, my stomach, and the rest of my body all let out a collective sigh of relief.  i politely told him that i didn’t want to be rude and that if it was prepared specially for me, i would gladly partake.  he smiled and told me that he wanted me to enjoy my meal and not to feel obligated.  after assuring me that it would not go to waste, he encouraged me to eat the piece on my plate…so i did.  so no, i (thankfully) did not eat chicken testicles, and the food was not all that bad.  i felt like the michelin man after i ate, and i couldn’t even think about eating dinner that night.

for dinner, we took phil (who was pretty homesick since he was away from his wife and 3 daughters for the first time ever on father’s day) out to eat.  we were all missing our dads too, so it was a nice vicarious father’s day celebration for all of us.  we had a cake made at a local bakery and they even wrote “happy father’s day, phil.” on it (yes, they put a period, not an exclamation mark…hilarious).  the cake was DRY…as if they substituted the oil with oh, i dunno…sand, maybe?  but we all got a good laugh out of it, and it meant a lot to phil.  after the cake, one of the girls who was here for a few weeks (who also happens to be a few weeks shy of her certification at the paul mitchell design school) gave me a haircut.  not a bad weekend.

more catching up.

mon, 6.11 through fri, 6.15 – our first week in the classroom…we are supposed to be observing for this week, but i think isaiah and i are both comfortable beginning our team-teaching by thursday.  all of the classes that i’m going to be teaching are senior-5 classes, which means they’re basically the equivalent of american seniors in high school.  the difference is that these students had to pass a test to get to this level, and they have chosen to focus on literature.  therefore, they are pretty serious and interested in the subject matter, which makes it way more fun in class.  our class has only 8 students – 6 boys and 2 girls – and it pretty much functions like a college class.  it is in stark contrast to the classes that my fellow teachers are in…most of theirs have between 80 and 140 students IN EACH CLASS!  ridiculous.

at the school, the schedule (or time-table, as they call it here) is much like those at colleges in the u.s.   classes begin at 7:30am and go through 5:00pm.  most classes are 80 minutes long, and the students typically take 5 classes each day…their schedules change every day too, just like american universities.  there are basically 2 main breaks during the school day: one around 10:30 or so where they serve hot tea (which is really good) and these little beignet-like cakes they call mugati and then another lunch break around 1:30 where they serve posho (this thick, nearly solid substance that is something between mashed potatoes, day-old dried-up play-doh, and corn meal) and beans most days…i usually try to stick with the beans with as minimal a helping of posho as i can get away with.  on wednesdays and fridays, they usually have some form of meat (which i’ve tried to avoid altogether…think beef jerky CHUNKS in beef broth…NOT good) with rice.  i find myself leaning more towards protein bars and water for my sustenance during the day.  i’m so glad i packed all of those nutrigrain and protein bars…thanks mom! J

we’ve had a good bit of downtime in the afternoons and evenings, and i’ve gotten to know several of the interns who were here when we got here.  there’s also 2 girls and a guy from a school in michigan who are here working with h.e.a.l.s. (an after-school organization that jolly started).  the guy’s name is josh, and he and i are a lot alike.  we’ve ended up hanging out a lot at night, playing cards by candlelight or watching movies on someone’s laptop when the power’s out, which is quite often.

on friday, i didn’t have any classes to teach, so i hung out at the house and went to town in the morning.  one of the other teachers didn’t have class either, so we went to a relaxing lunch and walked around town.  it was a nice break from the fast pace we’ve been keeping.  i was a little homesick because i started thinking about the fact that everything that has been familiar and comfortable to me over the past few years is about to change drastically.  moving to houston is going to be a great experience, and i know that’s a door that God has opened, but it’s still a little nerve-wracking. 

all in all, a good week…it seems like we’ve been here for a really long time already

Iwo 101.

i’m beginning to learn bits and pieces of the native language, and it’s amazing…it’s so cool when you greet someone with an “i tye ma ber,” “i tye nening,” or “apyoyo” rather than a simple “hello”…and they love the fact that we are trying to learn it.  they always smile and/or giggle at our butchering of their language, but it is obvious that they enjoy hearing it come from a muzungu’s (white person’s) mouth.  in addition to greetings, i’ve learned various phrases, like ‘see you later,” “i am doing great, how are you?” and how to count in lwo.  not exactly easy to learn, but i’m getting there…

amazing people.

the people here are incredible.  compared to the lavish lives we lead in the u.s., these people have nothing.  but whenever i greet one of the acholi people, they respond with a smile that touches me to the depths of my soul.  i have played soccer with some of the kids during down-time at school, hung out with people closer to my age in more social settings, and interacted with younger kids in the town and surrounding villages.  there is something more genuine, more beautiful about the way the natives smile.  as i’ve thought about it and turned it over and over in my  mind, i’ve decided that it is a matter of appreciation of life in general.

 the people here, from an american’s perspective, have little to no reason to smile.  if you took the average american and placed them in the situations and conditions in which these people live daily, most of them would rather die than stay for a month.  we have become so focused on material wealth, success, power, and influence that we have lost sight of what life is really about.  life is about love…  loving God, loving others, loving the things that He has created around us.  these people seem to know this on a level that is far deeper and more genuine than i am able to comprehend.  they are amazing people, and their smiles are reflections of their innocent and loving souls.

i love my team.

God has been doing some amazing things in me and around me since we got here.  i am so fortunate to be in a wonderful group with several solid Christians who are very open about their faith.  our group consists of 6 people: 3 certified teachers (2 high school teachers and 1 ex-high school teacher who is now a professor at boise state university) and 3 masters students in nyu’s educational theater program.  from the time we arrived, the 3 teachers have ‘clicked’ and we get along great.  here’s a little bit about my ‘uganda family’…

phil is a professor in the education department at boise state university.  despite the fact that we are nowhere near each other in terms of age, we have gotten pretty close in the past 2 weeks.  he and i share a lot of common ideals and opinions, and we’re quite similar in terms of our general outlook on life.  his passion and love for his wife and children is so evident in the way that he speaks about them, and it’s really cool that he loves them so openly.  he is                            

wise, down-to-earth, and extremely genuine.  i love this guy.

danielle is the only other southerner in the group.  she is a middle school teacher from south carolina, and she is great.  like phil, danielle is really open about her faith, and the three of us have really connected in that commonality.  her intensity and passion for her kids and her classroom (both at home and here) are so evident, and they have been a motivation for me to become a better teacher.  she is actually a bit younger than i am (which surprised me…i figured i’d be the youngest teacher here for sure), but she is a truly gifted teacher who is wise far beyond her years.  she has such a contagious personality too…it’s really neat to see the kids flock to her and to watch her love on them.  truly inspiring and a wonderful person…the group wouldn’t be the same without her.

catherine was born in egypt, has lived all over the place, and now is a part of nyu’s educational theater program.  she’s a few years older than me, and she quickly became my long-lost ‘big sister’ in the group.  she’s very level-headed and rational, and always has great insight into whatever we are doing or discussing.  she is extremely complex, and has experienced so many different things in her life that are so amazing to me.  although she’s not boisterous or loud, when she speaks, it’s always worthwhile and relevant.  she has had some experience in the classroom, and she is very dedicated to her task here.  one of the deepest people i’ve ever met, hands down.

margot is a pseudo-southerner who grew up in virginia but now lives in nyc.  she’s also part of the nyu program.  she is one of the sweetest, kindest, and most positive people i’ve ever met.  i seriously don’t think i’ve heard her say a single negative thing the entire trip.  she is always smiling, an attribute that i didn’t initially think could POSSIB LY be totally genuine, but she soon proved me wrong.  her kindness is evident in her relationships with the kids and her interactions with the people around her.  i’m no crab by any means, but i can only hope to one day be as positive, uplifting, and encouraging as margot.  her smile is something that we all count on on a daily basis.

seth is also part of nyu’s program.  he’s from upstate new york, and i think has lived there all his life.  although we don’t have that much in common, he is a funny guy.  he’s really passionate about theater, and from the sound of things, he’s pretty good at it.  he is jewish, so it’s been pretty interesting to hear him discuss some of his religious beliefs.  kinda quirky, but a really interesting guy.

amy is our ‘mom’…she’s the coordinator of the teacher exchange program, and has embodied a really interesting combination of maternal responsibility, childlike excitement, and humble friendship.  when we’re all together, she fits right in as ‘one of us,’ but she also facilitates our discussions and daily debriefings quite well.  she’s not even 30, which makes it easy to view her as both a peer and an elder, depending on the situation.  she is crazy about her husband, who is an actor, and her 4-year-old daughter named Hero.  she has been the perfect person for running this program, and despite the crazy schedule adjustments, she’s done a fantastic job of it from day one. 

i figure that, as i continue to blog as much as possible over the next 3 weeks, i will probably be referring to my team members by their names, and i figured that it might be convenient to tell you a little bit about them…that way you know who i’m talking about. J