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)