All the World's a Metaphor

25 September 2016

When I was little, I played piano a lot.  Like every day a lot.  There was this one song I remember that was like the music you’d hear at a big horse race.  It was like “dun dun nun nun dun dun nun nun dun dun dun dun duuuuuuun.  That doesn’t translate well over text.  Oh well.  Each time I practiced it, I’d play it faster and faster like the horses were running faster in the song.  I think I was convinced that the faster and louder I could play, the better I was at piano.  At least that’s what made sense in my head.  That’s probably why in high school band I would always associate slower with softer.  Or softer with slower...I don't remember.  Either way, Rizzo and Saylor would always yell “Slow doesn’t mean soft!” or vice versa.  Anyway, the song I played as a kid had text along with it like “And they’re off!” or “...rounding the bend,” and “And the winner is…!”  Stuff like that.  The faster I played it, the worse I was at it, missing notes and hitting the wrong chords and the like.  But as an aspiring 5^th grade pianist, I didn’t really care.  The song just kept going faster until the big black horse won it (that’s what the text said at the end of the page).  Well here’s my big metaphor, because this week was that song, minus the piano.  And horses.

Let’s back up, first.  The weeks following the tea party were full of speed bumps.  First, I call the grant coordinator, Jenny, to ask where in the world is this grant money, it’s only been, you know, four months.  She checks online and says it looks like my grant was never submitted.  Say whaaaa?  I got confirmation emails that it was; I even got the Country Director’s approval email.  I sent all of those to her, and she calls HQ in D.C.  I’m trying not to sob uncontrollably on the phone.  Don’t tell me that after all this fundraising and work we did, that I’m the one coming up short on my end of the deal.  Jenny says she sorted it out and I should be getting the money within a week or two.  Whew, OK.  But then I tell all of this to Steven and he tells me that his uncle, my beloved carpenter with whom I had this whole elaborate plan, budget, and shelf measurements, has moved to Kampala.  And isn’t coming back.  Cue hyperventilating.  I was expecting setbacks, but not two in two days.  At least MST was the next week, and I could get some time to recoup with other PCVs.

    MST came and went with wonderful friends and foods, I took a girls weekend up to Sipi and went chasing waterfalls, Nyege Nyege Music Fest in Jinja happened with more wild rumpus-ing, and then I had 2 quiet, boring, sickly, uneventful weeks back at site (I was stricken down with flu and was cooped up for a while).  But this week.  The week of beginnings!  My grant money finally finally FINALLY came in last Friday, and I pulled all it out of the bank, into strategically marked envelopes, and now it’s dwindling but for a good reason.  Work has officially begun on the library!  And we found a new carpenter that agreed to do all the work for the same price as the last one!  I’m imagining everyone throwing their hands up in the air and fist pumping silently as they read this because that’s the level of excited I was, as you should all be.

Cue Monday:  Meet with the Parish Priest to tell him to call the brand new carpenter we found to give him the OK to start on the work.  He beat me to it, and said he already told the guy to begin and can we get a deposit on his labor pay?  I love this priest guy, he’s one step ahead of me, and I’m thankful for it. 
Call my electrician.  Turns out he’s too busy and can’t do the work anymore.  OK.  Fine.  I’m good at setbacks by this point.  Steven said he had a friend who is just finishing his last year of electrician school and that he could do it.  Enter Sharif. Sharif was my saving grace.  He came promptly, checked out the place, I gave the guys the money budgeted for installation, they went and bought the supplies and would be back the next day.  We’re off to the races.

Cue Tuesday:  Sharif meets me early at the school with his official orange hardhat.  I got to wear it.  For him to install electricity in the library, he says he has to connect the power from the office, to the staff room, and then into the library.  It was an all-day job.  We broke for lunch for maybe 20 minutes, so not what I’m used to, and kept at it.  While Sharif was up in the rafters giving me a heart attack, I was busy taking inventory of the books that already in the room.  We have a lot of text books, primers, and readers!  More than I had originally thought.  I started putting the same books together just so we can see what we have when the new shelves come in.  When Sharif was all done, we turned the main power switch back on, tried the lights in the library…and nothing.  Nada.  God said let there be light, and decided nahh not today.  But once they messed around with the main switch, everything was up and working and God was happy, too.  We had working sockets and bulbs in the staff room and library and all was well.  So the staff room unexpectedly got power too!  The teachers were just OVERJOYED.  They kept saying how they wish they had a place other than the classrooms to charge their phones, and now they do.  Pretty sure they liked that more than the power in the library.

Cue Wednesday:  The chainsaw guys who were supposed to come and cut down the trees for the timber for the shelves and such didn’t show, they had another gig.  I organized another bookshelf in the library and did prep work for the girls’ club next week.  I can’t actually remember if I did more than that, I was super tired; those books are heavy and I’m constantly covered in dust.  Eggs!  I bought eggs that day.

Cue Thursday:  The parish priest wasn’t kidding when he said the chainsaw guys would be there at 8AM.  8:15 he calls, wondering where I am.  Thursday also decided to be the day where we thought it was going to rain all day, but then decided to snub us and just be thick and hot…all day.  Poor chainsaw guys.  So we settle on a cutting fee, and I’m moving back and forth all day to check on them.  Kind of paranoid about someone stealing the cut timber, but I brought them protein bars so I don’t think they’d let that happen.  Got laundry done.  Evening comes and Steven helps load the cut timber planks onto his boda and slowly slowly transports them 9 or 10 at a time.  I’m waiting for him in the storage room where we unload all these planks.  They’re heavy.  We stop at around 70 something.  Carrying splintery wood planks make me tired.  And dusty.  I was Miles Davis jazzed for bathing all this week.

Cue Friday.  The chainsaw guys are back!  I go to Masaka, get some errands done, pick up two wonderful boxes of completed RUMPs from Calvary Church (yinz are the BEST, they are BEAUTIFUL and in time for my workshop next Wednesday!).  Come home to pick up the rest of the timber, but Steven has football practice so we had to move it in the dark and it felt like we were on a secret mission since no one was around. 

Cue Saturday:  Meet Teacher Tophil in the library to move all the excess stuffs that didn’t belong there to the storage room.  He brought students to help, but they didn’t go to Biikira Girls so they didn’t know me, and all they did was gawk.  But the things were moved out, the room was swept, and it’s really starting to look good.  Next week is for scrubbing the bits of paper stuck on the walls from old posters to prep them for painting.

So that was my week.  My schedule here is either binge watch grey’s anatomy and nap, or work my butt off all week.  Never anything in between.  I'm just continually riding that peace corps roller coaster; the highest highs, the lowest lows.  And I’m really living up to my status as a health volunteer with all this education work, huh?  I’m starting to regret giving the health staff my whatsapp because now all the message I get are “we haven’t seen you,” or “you’ve been lost.”  I’ll try harder next week.

That’s all that’s going on here.  Got a few welcome weekends for the new cohort coming up.  Oh!  Big news.  At the end of October, I’ll be going to Zambia with another PCV for the HIV/AIDS Boot Camp!  Super excited to meet other PCVs from other African posts and to learn more about the movements and projects going on for the fight against AIDS.  Keep fist pumping, all.

Coming home for Christmas this year and would love to see as many as your faces as possible.  Drop me a line if you’ll be around the Indy/Pitt area around the end of December!

All’s well here,
Bisous,
Kelly

"My cat's really cute, wanna see a picture??"

 

Tea for Twenty

12 August 2016

This blog post is kind of difficult to write.  Not because it’s super emotional or traumatic but because I’m a super klutz and spilled my entire cup of tea over the keyboard and now the keys are kind of sticky even after sitting in rice overnight.  C’est la vie.  I apologize now for any horrible spelling errors; the P and Y keys are really tough.

Remember how I talked about a big working tea fundraiser that would bring in beaucoup bucks to the library renovation fund?  Well, it happened!  I spent the week leading up to it in a permanent frenzy trying to make sure that donors were informed, the staff were ready, and the venue and supplies would be sufficient.  Three days before the event, Brother Patrick and I met with the chairman.  Originally, the party was to be held at Kyotera Stirling, remember?  The town hall-esque place that the chairman owned and would lend us the space, chairs, tables, cups, thermoses, for free?  Yeah, well, three days before the event, doesn’t he say “wouldn’t it make sense to have the tea party at the school?  Let’s do that.”  And yes, it definitely would make more sense to have it there, but it’s in..you know…three days.  He tells me not to worry, we’ll inform everyone, he has all their contacts.  I wasn’t so sure.  I tend to spaz a bit (ok more than a bit) when things change so suddenly, but my friends kept reminding me that in Uganda, things work out.  Maybe not how you’re expecting them to, but they always work out.

So the three days before the party were spent collecting supplies, like tea, and making sure the staff knew of the change.  The day of, we secure a chapati guy, all the needed materials, I buy milk, and everything was in motion.  I show up about an hour beforehand and the P7 room is all set up.  The sisters from the church came and helped put it all together.  There’s a table in the front of the room covered in a beautiful cloth, chairs set up for the special guests, tables in the back set up all nicely decorated for tea, and even a TV in the front of the room playing music videos from a DVD (we don’t want the guests to be bored while they wait).  To top it off, an artist from the PTC stopped by to draw some welcome signs on the front chalkboard.  Everything was coming together.  Except one thing:  we were planning for maximum 50 guests.  I bought tea and bananas and coffee and bread and butter and chapatti and milk for 50 guests.  The room is set up for approx. 50 guests.  The number or people who show up? Not including staff, maybe 13.  My heart kind of sunk when we began, I couldn’t believe how few people had come.  But then again I wonder if it really would’ve been a bigger turnout at the former location. 

"Enjoy Da Day!"

The work tea went really well, though.  We had a schedule and everything.  Opened with prayer of course, thanked everyone for coming, the chairman made opening remarks about the library, kind of took a detour with his own agenda and how he’s raising money for cancer research (ok, let’s get back on track, now), and we had a library tour…in the dark.  The sun had long gone down and we don’t have electricity in the library room YET.  We will.  After the tour, we came back and took tea and people came up one by one, made a little speech, and dropped some cash in the donation box.  Everyone was in good spirits, enjoying the tea, socializing, donating money, it was an all-around good time.  My favorite part though was looking outside during the speeches.  We had left the library door open and some students had come back and snagged some books from inside.  They plopped themselves down outside the security light and were pouring over the books, taking turns reading out loud and having a great time.  That was really the moment that stuck with me.  It was nice having people come and donate, but it’s really the students that matter most here.  I want to finish this project more than ever now.  It’s a slow job, but if students are able to have a free space to come and read different books, then I’ll feel accomplished.  Libraries are kind of in my blood; I’m channeling mom’s mojo into this one.

 

After all the donations, cash and pledges, we had raised over half a million shillings!! WOW!  From the few donors that came, they were extremely generous.  We’re only about 150k off of our community donation requirement.  I’m so proud of the library committee team, they’ve even pledged to donate 80k shillings!  It’s a great feeling to see something finally start coming together.  Now all I need is the grant money to come in and we can start on constructing the shelves and tables.  After the term is over, I want to start cleaning out the room, organizing the books that are already in there, and maybe even begin painting.  It’ll happen slowly slowly, but it’ll happen.  Goals are accomplished with patience.  I learned that when I mended my first mosquito net during training, and I’m learning it now.

In other news, remember all those RUMPs kits I got?  Well the PEARLS put their sewing skills to use and at the end of the menstruation lesson, each girl got to make their own reusable pad.  They loved them!  They can make them, they can sell them, they can use them, all good things for girls and menstruation.  Let’s work together to talk about it and kill the taboos. Check out the pictures:

Dorah using her killer sewing skills

Reticia

Gladys 

Jane and Angella

Olivia and Jane

This is where I stop for now.  It’s been a busy two weeks filled with meeting the new country director, having technical immersion where 3 PCTs stayed at my house for training for a whole week, PEARLS club meeting and prep, having my solar lights kick the dust, having my solar lights replaced, figuring out how to pay for those solar lights, getting other electric fix ups done around my house, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, washing A LOT, having Medical Access come to train us on yet another computer program that we are to start utilizing immediately (yeah ok, we’ll see), and constant running around the towns for printing, shopping, meeting, greeting, etc.  I was glad that this past week was a bit more relaxed.  Mid-Service Training is coming up at the end of the month; it’ll be great to see the whole cohort together again.

I can’t remember if I wrote this before, but I’ve stopped counting water stations.  (As I write it, I feel like I’ve already said it.  Oh well, I’ll say it again) At the beginning I was going from point to point, water station to water station, counting down the days to the next break, the next vacation, the next…whatever.  Counting down the days until Peace Corps is over.  I don’t want to do that anymore.  It’ll be over before I know it, and I’m going to wish I would’ve been more present in the everyday challenges and accomplishments.  So no more counting down.  No more water stations.  I have a year left to experience this wonderful place and a year to make lasting memories and relationships.  I’m not counting down those gifts I've been given. 

All is well.
Until next time,
Kelly

Wait, hold up, I forgot the cat.  We like to take snapchat selfies:

 

 

One year and one month

5 July 2016

There’s something almost therapeutic about walking into my house after a long day and hearing the gentle hum of the electricity.  It makes it easier to scoop some natural peanut butter and homemade granola (yeah, I made something) into the yogurt I just bought from town and plop down on my front step to watch the kids come home from school.  Just like Guys and Dolls, my time of day is the golden hour: right between 6 and 7 when the heat is gone and the sun starts to set over my health center.  All that’s missing today is my crazy cat romping around.  He’ll be back within the hour for dinner and he’ll need brushed to get all the woods crap out of his fur.  These are the quiet nights in the village that I love.

RUMPS Kits!

Not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but I’m long past the one-year in country marker.  Before I start belching out a RENT song about how I measure a year, I’d like to just say thanks for the constant support I’ve received from friends and family back home.  I’ve long since run out of room to hang up cards and letters (but keep sending them!!), and the texts and skype calls I’ve gotten are the extra push that helps me get out the door every day. 

Speaking of saying thanks, a big shout out goes to the Missions team at Calvary church back home!!  I told mom how I was struggling teaching RUMPS since I couldn’t keep spending my minimal living stipend on supplies to make kits.  So she sent out the call, the troops were rallied, and last week I picked up four boxes from the post office chock full of absolutely BEAUTIFUL RUMPS kits!  Each one has two towels, cut pad shapes, needles and pins, a button, ribbons, and a little instruction sheet with a diagram if my words don’t translate well.  Thank you THANK YOU for the generous donation and support you’ve shown me from 7,000 miles away.  These kits won’t be wasted.

A recap of what’s been going on:  I’m back from Europe!  The trip was a short one but a needed one.  It was great to see everyone, to drink draft beer, to get gelato randomly, and to be annoying tourists wherever we went.  Plus, the broski decided to FINALLY pop the question and I’m getting a new sister next August!  All is well on the home front.  Counting down to Christmas now. 

The Biikira Girls Primary School Library renovation is coming along slowly slowly, but it is definitely coming along.  I am constantly blown away by the teamwork and support the library committee shows into really making this a worthwhile project.  Head teacher Teddy and Brother Patrick are always willing to make time for meetings and negotiations.  Just recently we’ve met with the Parish Priest of Biikira and he has very generously agreed to donate all of the necessary timber we need for new shelves and tables!!  That saves us near a million shillings for other supplies for like you know, books.  I love how everyone is so involved, even Sampson, our local carpenter, is the sweetest for riding out to the school on his pedal bike just to have a meeting with the priest and discuss proper timber cutting wood things.  I backed off and let them handle that stuff.  I have the planning down; they can talk carpenter logistics all they want.  Plus! We met with the chairman of the Biikira Boys and Girls schools for a meeting last week as well.  He was so into the project that he is going to help mobilize various donors around the area.  I’ve printed pledge cards encouraging people to donate, and he’ll pass those out and invite them to a tea party at the end of the month!  In Kyotera, he owns a gathering place thing where people hold meetings, performances, nighttime drinking and socializing…what’s that called.  A social…club?  Social space?   You get it.  It’s an open – EVENT HALL.  Think event hall.  That’s the word I wanted.  Anyway he’s letting us have the tea party there free of charge so all the donors can come, hear more about the project and why it’s so important to invest in a girl’s education, and then donate all at once.  I’m pretty sure he said, “It’ll be an easy way to get a lot of money very quickly.”  You go, chairman.

Sampson and the Priest looking over the timber

Bro. Patrick, Teddy, and Chairman Joseph after our meeting

I’m also collecting donations from the kiddos, too.  I think I said that in the last post?  Not a lot, just like 100 shillings, 200 shillings, whatever they can give.  I’m trying out different forms of rewards.  Like short term reward:  donate in your class’s tin, get a sweetie.  Then medium term reward:  the class which raises the most money at the end of the school term wins a super awesome super cool ice cream party!  And then of course the long term reward being a brand new bright and colorful library.  Everybody wins. 

Brick by Brick, a company in Masaka, has a program specifically for libraries.  They aim at holding trainings for teachers on how to maintain and preserve libraries for the long term.  We’re talking sustainability, people!  This is what Peace Corps is all about!  So I’ve signed up my school and we’re set to receive a free training on how to catalog, keep track of borrowers, preserve books, how to treat books, etc.  I am so freaking excited.  It’s really rewarding to see this team with me on this project.  Plus, it really helps to have a project that’s moving along instead of twiddling my thumbs in my office all day, counting how many people do a double take or even back up when they pass my office to look at me again.

Also news:  I kept going on and on about a girls’ health club that I wanted to start.  I think it was just anxiety and fear of failure that stopped me from actually doing it.  But I finally put on my big girl pants, marched into the admin office at St. Agnes vo-tech school, and talked with Father John Mary about Uganda’s PEARLS Girls’ Club.  These girls will be:
Powerful
Enthusiastic
Aware
Refined
Ladies.

Uganda is the pearl of Africa.  Get it?

Our first meeting is this week and I am super pumped.  I have team building stuff to do, snacks and sodas, games, etc.  I need to channel my camp counselor skills into this one.  I want it to be fun and educating, but I also want it to be a safe space where girls can ask those really tough questions and feel at ease among their peers.  It’ll take a lot of work, but I’m up for it.

So I think it took about a year, but I’m feeling like I really love this place.  Uganda has welcomed me with open arms.  My community has the biggest arms of all, really.  Never do they laugh at me, ask if I know Luganda, or point or tease me, unless it’s the nice kind of teasing.  That’s not to say there are things I also really don’t love about this place either.  It’s easy to get caught up in the bad.  The harassment on the street, being surrounded and bombarded in taxi parks, how I can never find a printer, the fact that it hasn’t rained since before I came back from my trip and I’m nervous about there not being enough water, or being laughed at every time I speak Luganda.  That last one gets old really quick.  But besides all that, there’s so much more about this country that I love.  I love my quiet village and the kids who watch me play ukulele after school.  I love feeling safe in my house, having my solar lights working again.  I love being included in meetings with my staff and being valued as an instructor who has something to offer (at least on the computer).  I love being able to meet up with other PCVs on the weekends and celebrating things like our one-year anniversary or the 4^th of July.  I love that everyone at my local trading center knows my name and when someone calls me mzungu, they are quickly corrected.  Things are hard here, sure, and things move more slowly here definitely.  But I’m thankful that I was randomly (or maybe no so randomly) placed in Peace Corps Uganda.  And I’m more thankful that I have another year here to solidify the friendships and connections I’ve made and to finish the work I’ve started.

Brenda and Benja lounging

Berna is preggers

Crashed a wedding. Cake ceremony!

Hi, Maria!

Happy One Year Anniversary!

We hate taxis so we snapchat

Happy Fourth of July!

With that, thanks for checking in.  Mwebale nnyo, mikwano gyange.
All’s well here,
Kelly

Almost forgot the cat tax:

Up in the trees

He doesn't like the hammock

He loves me, I swear

Waking me up every morning

F is for Friends who Fundraise Together

Woah, another blog post?  Keep em coming, Drummond.

So let’s have an update on what’s going on.

Peace Corps emphasizes primary and secondary projects.  You know, the stuff we’re supposed to be doing to make a difference at our sites.  Well since my health center pretty much has its act together, I’ve been seeing less and less of a need for me there.  I mean sure, I give HIV Prevention and Positive Living Talks in Luganda (toot tooting my horn) during the week, and I’m teaching computer lessons to the staff.  We just moved the new computer up to the ART clinic in a locked caged desk thing and it has a solar battery so we don’t have to worry about the power being on to enter data.  And those are going well, don’t get me wrong.  But I didn’t feel like those were big enough projects.  So since I’ve been working with Biikira Girls Primary School lately, I’ve been making this library renovation into my primary project.  My champion said I could, so that’s what I’m doing.

A committee has been formed.  Meetings have been had (with flipcharts!).  The budget has been planned.  Fundraising has commenced, as of today!  Here’s the low down:  the total budget we’ve calculated with shelves, tables and stools, paint and cleaning supplies, getting electricity installed, etc, comes to about 2.8 million shillings.  I applied for a grant (fingers crossed it works out) and the grant needs a 25% contribution from the community (approx. 750k shillings).  That’s a little over a PCVs monthly stipend.  So the committee and I have been brainstorming on some fundraising ideas, and I couldn’t be more impressed.  These teachers I work with are passionate about making this happen; they’ve been shooting great ideas back and forth, and I think we can actually do this.

Friday evening Brother Patrick, the Head Teacher, and I went to meet with the PP, the parish priest.  This is step one in our fundraising planning, the church.  We told him our predicament, and he allowed us to address the congregation on Sunday morning (today!).  He also offered to donate some timber that had fallen on church property to offset the cost of the bookshelves and tables.  This was all fantastic.  I went out and bought envelopes for people to pledge money into, and this morning, we stamped them with the school’s seal, and passed them around to the congregation.  The three of us who met with the parish priest also went in front of the congregation (around 400 people woosh) and talked about the library project.  No pressure, right?  Here’s the funny part.  Remember how I said the grant was 2.8 million?  Well some of my committee members thought that was kind of a low number and instead told everyone that we need 4 million shillings, 1 million of that coming from the community.  They’re really shooting high on that one.  So I thought that was kind of ironic:  Get in front of an entire church and lie.  They assured me we’d get more donations this way, so ok.  Anyway.  Some of the girls from the school were also standing up with us in their uniforms and they held the collection plate as donors came to give what they could.  It was amazing!  I was so proud of the team for being so committed and putting this plan into action.  At the end of the service we raised about 73k shillings, not including envelopes, those will come later.  So it’s a small start, but it’s a start!

The committee and I also planned to get the students involved.  We want them to feel like it’s their library space that they’ve contributed to and helped to make a reality.  So tomorrow morning, I’m addressing the girls about a competition.  I have 7 tins each with a class number painted on it (1-7), and I’ll be coming by once a week starting next term (this term’s almost over) for them to donate pocket change into.  100, 200, 500 shilling coins, whatever they can.  Once the term is up, whichever class has raised the most money will win a super awesome ice cream party!  Weeeee!   I’ll rent out the annoying ice cream man guy on his bike with the cooler tied to the back and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” playing over and over on it for the day and get a couple containers of ice cream from the Total in town.  It’s gonna rock.

We’re also asking other schools and health centers around the area to pledge money, too.  I’m sure my health center will help me out.

So that’s my life currently.  Short post, but I thought I’d give an update.  If you’re reading this, did the conversion, realized that 750k shillings is around 220 bucks and thought “That’s not too much, I can help with the contribution,” then that’s very sweet (if you didn’t think this at all then, woops, sorry, disregard).  But the thing is, I’m really pushing for the community to come up with this money.  I want them to feel responsible for the rise and fall of this project, instead of relying on foreign aid to swoop in again and do it for them.  Allison, an RPCV who used to live here in Biikira, told me about when she had to buy her first cell phone with her own money.  She took such good care of that thing that it lasted well beyond what it should’ve.  She said it was because she had to work for the money to buy it and was now responsible for it (she also put in a kick-ass library at Biikira Boys Primary School and I'm trying to channel her work effort into my project).  That’s the same attitude I want with this library project.  If the community donates, if the students contribute, I hope they’ll feel a sense of ownership with the library.  And if there’s ownership, the library will most likely be maintained for years to come.  So maybe I’m going into this too blindly and maybe this will crash and burn at my feet, but at least I’m trying, at least I have a project, at least I get to work with and mobilize a great team and community.  Even if this project fails miserably, it won’t be for nothing.  I hope.

That’s all the goings on in the kyalo.  If you like my post, definitely check out the ever witty Katie Jones’ blog.  She gave me the inspiration to write today instead of sitting on my ass and watching the fifth season of west wing…again.

https://unitedstatesofuganda.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/no-place-id-rather-be/

And as always, enjoy the cat tax.

Bisous,
Kelly

Drop Everything And Nap

27 March 2016

This post is dedicated entirely to Dottie Neal for her unfailing love and incomprehensible packing skills.  I laughed when she said there would be enough Girl Scout cookies to share with my friends thinking I could take on anything, but then I opened the box.  And oh my soul.  It was like Link opening a treasure chest or Indiana Jones finding the Holy Grail.  Immediately my face was lit with wondrous light and I started to cry a little.  No way in hell can my waistline take on 22 boxes of cookies.  No way.  Thank goodness East Welcome Weekend is coming up in Jinja and I have the perfect snack for a LOTR marathon.  So, PCVs, don’t thank me, thank Dottie Neal.  She is surely an angel.

Today is Easter, which means there are multiple mass services, the ice cream man is playing “feliz navidad” on his bike, and people at malcoal are a little more drunk than usual (and a lot more friendly).  Sister Immaculate stopped by my house yesterday and told me church would be packed in the morning; there are some people who only come to church twice a year, on Christmas and Easter.  Don’t worry, Sister, we have those, too.  So I was up before the sun, Bilbo was purring on my feet for once instead of tearing down my mosquito net, and I trekked up the hill for mass wearing my nicest dress.  Mass starts at 715ish.  I get there at 7 and you’d think people forgot it was Easter.  Everything was decorated nicely and all, but it was empty.  And dark, the power was out in town…still is, actually.  I’m not catholic, but I pretend to be kind of.  I’d rather my community see me on a weekly basis and remember that I’m still that foreigner that’s here for a while than not see me at all.  If that means pretending to be catholic, then sure.  What does it matter?  I don’t take communion, though, because I know non-Catholics aren’t supposed to.  What’s the punishment, though?  What would happen if I did?  I keep imagining a lightning bolt scenario, but who knows. 

Mass wasn’t too long; we got out just after 2 hours. The choir even sang “Michael rowed the boat ashore” in Luganda, and I got a kick out of that.  Faith and Gloria walked back with me to my house and I gave them lollipops and explained that American kids get sweets for Easter.  They didn’t really care, they just liked the fact that they had lollipops now, and ran home.  Today is also my good friend Steven’s birthday.  We’re going to Masaka later for an Easter brunch to celebrate a little.

  Other than that, things are more than quiet in Biikira village.  Last week, I had my first big event, DEAR Day!  Stands for Drop Everything And Read.  I was the regional coordinator for the Masaka area, and I got other PCVs set up with posters and stickers for their own events.  Basically, people all around Uganda stop what they’re doing and read for at least 20 minutes.  I worked with Biikira Girls and Boys Primary Schools and also the Buyambi Boda Stage where Steven works.  I brought the boda guys some newspapers and explained what DEAR Day was all about.  They were pretty into it!  I passed out stickers and read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to them while perched on a boda (don’t worry, Peace Corps, it wasn’t running). 

 

Afterwards, I ran up to the school, and heard the roar that only 400 students can make while they’re impatiently waiting for this event to start.  Cue anxiety.  I met with the teachers quickly before we started and they all looked at me and asked what we were doing today.  Forget the fact that we had 2 previous meetings about the event, let’s explain everything all over again.  The kids lined up in assembly and were eager to get going.  

P1 and P2 worked on their alphabet sounds until I came in to read a story to them.  It was, you guessed it, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  It was a big hit that day.

P3, P4, and P5 had buddy reading sessions in groups.  I haven’t been a camp counselor in a while, but I felt myself turning back into one, trying to get the kids to settle down, or just sit in one place for a second as I passed out books to the groups.  There were hands everywhere, trying to grab multiple books.  I could’ve used 3 more Kelly’s to help me.  Or maybe a teacher or two.  But the teachers at Biikira Girls School hadn’t done DEAR Day before, so they stood off to the side and watched me get mobbed by children.  They helped me with crowd control when I brought out markers for the kids to sign their names to the DEAR Day posters I brought.  That was worse than the books.  I had to bow out and check on P6 and P7, the older kids.

These kids were great.  They were diligently working on their creative short stories to share with the class.  I told them before that the students with the best stories would win a prize, so they were all about it.  The teacher running the room had everything under control.  He had the students swap stories, read them, and then summarize them in front of the class.  He picked the top 5 stories that were interesting and well written, and those students won books with a DEAR Day sticker on the inside to commemorate the day.  The top prize was, of course, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  A little young for a P6 student, but she loved it regardless.

We got a group picture of the kids holding up the signs they signed (or mostly signed).  I didn’t space it quite right, so it looks like DEARD ay!  It was close.  The kids had a good time, and I felt like I had just run a few miles.  Really, I was exhausted.  The required 20 minutes turned into 3 hours.  Great for reading, great for napping.

No time to rest, though.  Unfortunately, the wife of my friend Francis had passed away earlier that week, and Thursday afternoon was the burial.  Francis is the HIV counselor at the center and, all the staff members were going to the service together.  So we piled into the back of the center’s pickup truck (smaller than the kind of truck you’re thinking of) and traveled no more than 2km to Francis’s house.  It was a really big event, kind of like a sad picnic.  There was a full church service going on (communion and all) and maybe 200 people all in one spot.  We found a spot on the ground to sit and listen to the service (not that I could understand it) and went up when it was our turn to the grave site.  I’ve only seen in movies where people throw ash/dirt in the grave, but that’s what happened here.  My heart went out to Mr. Chibi (Francis).  He has 8 kids.  Some are older and have kids of their own, but others are still in primary school.  I haven’t seen him since that day, but I hope he’s back to work soon.

Dry season is finally rolling out and the rains are finally finally rolling in.  Can’t tell you how much I love walking to malocal for groceries and coming back with a dirt line on my sandals, my body covered in sweat, and dust in all my nooks and crannies.  It’s pretty gross.  Like every time I blow my nose or clean out my ears: dirt.  I don’t want to mention my hair.  And when I workout (on the rare occasion), I leave a sweaty Kelly-shaped outline on the concrete floor afterwards.    But now the rains are starting to come slowly slowly.  Especially in the morning, I love when it rains.  I can take my time, make a third cup of tea, put Bo on my lap, and watch a few West Wing episodes (Again. I have nothing else to watch). 

But until the rains come in daily, Mackenzie and I have taken advantage of the glorious “pool day” in Masaka.  We’re making it at least a monthly occurrence.  When we have a free weekend, we’ll pack a bag and head into town to a hotel with a pool and lounge all day.  We even bought inner tubes at Nakumat!  Pool days are necessary days.  Just to get out of the village for a few hours and relax a bit.

Something I’ve started getting interested in is capacity building.  Now we’re supposed to be capacity builders anyway, but I’m now really stepping up and working on training my staff on computer usage.  I wanted to teach a typing class, but it’s kind of difficult when there’s only one computer in a cramped room.  So slowly slowly we’re getting there.  Vincent and I have been working together on data entry.  I’m teaching him so when I’m gone, he can continue the work.  Besides me, there are only 2 other medical staffers that know how to operate the computer for data entry, so I want to get as many staff members computer-savvy as possible.

My friend Martin wants to learn, too.  He’s leaving Biikira in the fall to continue his medical studies, and his program requires him to have a laptop.  He doesn’t want to fall behind his other classmates, so he asked if I would help him buy one.  We tried to order one from a site that supposedly ships to Uganda (neither Amazon nor eBay do), but both times we placed the order, it failed.  And I felt like I let him down.  But he went with his friend into Kampala and picked out a nice Dell laptop, just a few years old.  He came by my house one night as I was taking my evening tea and this time asked if I would help him operate it, how to type, use Microsoft Word, Excel, and how to access the internet.  I said of course I would, that I’d be happy to help him.  He paused and explained how God puts people on paths and sometimes those paths cross or connect.  He said how thankful he was that I was here volunteering at the same time he was going for more studies.  He said he didn’t know what he’d do for computer lessons if I wasn’t around, that he’d fall behind in his program.  And when he walked away, I started to cry a bit.  Rarely do Peace Corps Volunteers feel validated in the work they’re doing.  More often it feels like we’re doing more harm than good, or like we’re not doing anything at all.  Mom always tells me my victories are going to be one person at a time, and she’s right. Martin and I have been working together on his basic computer skills, and I can see him understanding more each time we meet.  And although I know the work I still want to accomplish here is a lot, this was exactly the right kind of boost to keep me going.

So that’s my little success story.  I don’t want to spend my time bragging on my blog, but I also don’t want to complain about everything either.  I’m trying to make it a mix of both.  I’ll try to write more and more often in the future, but we’ll see.  My holiday to London and Dublin with the family is coming up (46 days, but who’s counting), and I’m really jazzed for it.  It’ll be nice to see everyone again and come back refreshed, ready to continue my projects.

All’s well here.  Hug a Girl Scout leader.

-Kelly 

(Enjoy the cat tax)