A Black Friday Alternative

Hey everyone! Me again!

So this Friday is the big black Friday shopping event, right? Well if you're looking for an alternative for some neat holiday gifts, here's an idea!

www.twerwaneho.etsy.com

This is an etsy site that was created by another PCV in Uganda. She works with orphans and vulnerable children to make crafts, and all proceeds go towards continuing this work. Here's what she says in her bio:

I am a current volunteer in Uganda and am constantly learning from the amazing women around me and am happy to share with you what I have learned. My crafts are made of of beads, natural materials such as banana or palm fibers and seeds and upcycled fabrics.

Twerwaneho Orphans Community Initiative (TOCI) is located in Fort Portal, Uganda, and dedicated to helping orphaned children and children with special needs. Twerwaneho (pronounced "Twer-wan-eh-ho") means to work hard for ourselves and that is what I hope to teach the children here in Uganda, to work hard for themselves and then to help others. Each of the pieces of jewelry and craft are designed and handcrafted with love and made to help raise money for the children. I am happy to do special colors and custom orders.

All proceeds go directly to TOCI to support the orphans, vulnerable children and those with special needs.

She hopes to add more to the site in the weeks to come, but it might be a good place to look for a unique gift that will make a difference this season!

Love and miss you all,

~emily~

Got Savings?!

Hey Everybody!

Hope all is well with you! Happy Thanksgiving! We are sad to be away from home on one of our favorite holidays, but hope that everyone has a wonderful time being together and celebrating the holiday! We are having some PCV neighbors over Thursday and plan to make mashed potatoes, vegetarian gravy, soy chunks (taste better than they sound!), bread, green beans, and pumpkin cake! So, it should be a good time, even though we can’t be home and celebrating with family there!

Things at the college are winding up for the year! First year students begin their exams in just a couple of days, and two weeks from now the year will be finished! We will be helping “invigilate” the exams for the first year students (3 days of exams, 6 hours of testing each day!), then our work at the college for the year will really come to a close! Outside testers are coming for invigilating the second year exams, and all marking of the exams is done outside of the college at a national marking center. Hard to believe we’ve basically finished our second of a total of 6 terms here at the college!

Even as things are winding up for the year on our primary projects, we’ve started another really exciting secondary project! We are working with thirteen local businesspeople and community members to set up a VSLA (village savings and loan association), and we are so excited about it!

In Uganda, a very small percentage of people use banks. They have high fees and are inaccessible for much of the population. As a result, microfinance is big. There are microfinance institutions in every town we’ve visited and many people use them to take out loans. However, even microfinance doesn’t work for most lower class businesspeople and community members, as many people don’t have much credit or “reliability” from a traditional banking standpoint, and again interest rates and fees are high.

The VSLA is a response to all of this. It’s an opportunity for community members to come together to save with one another each week, and grant out loans to one another each month. It’s wonderful because all of the money comes from the people in the group and stays within the people in the group. Interest is charged on the loans, but is payed back into the group so that at the end of the saving cycle (about a year) whatever interest has accumulated on the loans is paid back to the members based on the percentage of the total that they have saved. It’s a really exciting model that encourages sustainability and community togetherness, and doesn’t rely on outside grants or mzungu money! :-) So, we’re in the midst of the beginnings of our first group. So far the group has gotten organized, elected leaders, written an constitution, and collected all of the necessary supplies. The plan is that the group will begin saving with one another in the next week or two.

The VSLA model was started by an NGO in Uganda and has now expanded into other countries as a banking option for poor communities. So far it seems to be exactly what Uganda needs and we really hope that it can fill the need for savings and accessible loans in many of our community member’s lives. There is a great manual that’s walking us through as facilitators and tons of details about the VSLA project that I won’t bore everyone with here! But, if you’re interested you should google VSLA or check out vsla.net. It’s a really exciting opportunity and we think it has great potential for communities like ours in Uganda and other countries in similar savings/loans positions.

So, that’s something we’ve been excited about in the last few weeks and will definitely keep you posted about in the weeks and months to come!

Love and miss you all!

~emily~

Pics

Hi Everyone,

I added a couple of pictures to our "Life In Bushenyi" album. Nothin' too special, but check them out if you like! Click Here!

Love and miss you all!

~emily~

Seasons

Hey Everybody!

November at home means crisp leaves, cold air, football games, and upcoming holidays! We’re still in the heart of the rainy season these days in Uganda, but we’re also heading into two other exciting Ugandan seasons - exam season and grasshopper season!

First - the lighter of the two - it’s grasshopper season in Uganda! Just to be perfectly clear, grasshopper season means the season for eating grasshoppers! It’s a time of year literally everyone looks forward to! In certain parts of the country grasshoppers are jumping around everywhere in plague-like proportions and people have set up lights to attract the grasshoppers and enormous bins underneath the lights to collect them. The collected grasshoppers are then delegged, salted, and deep fried. They are sold in markets and on the bus for about 20 cents per bag. This weekend while traveling back from Kampala, the bus merchants usually selling meat on a stick, grilled bananas, and sodas had bags and bags of deep fried grasshoppers as well! Ryan was brave enough to try them, but I was not (I prefer grasshopper mint cookies!!). He ate the whole bag (probably more than 50 of the little guys!) like it was no big deal while I watched, totally grossed out!!! When I asked him if he’d get them again his response was short and sweet - “definitely!” So, with another exciting food under his belt, my dear husband can say he has tried a Ugandan favorite snack food! I am, however, still blissfully ignorant of the crunch of the grasshopper! :-)

The other big season that everyone is obsessing about right now is the big exam season. Exams are HUGE in Uganda, and the entire country takes the same standardized exams at the same time. The Ugandan school year runs from February to December, so exams are all beginning now that we are in the final month! The exams started in the last couple weeks and everyone, including our students, are all abuzz about them!

Ugandan students take a number of exams throughout their schooling years. At the end of each year of school there is a big promotional exam that determines their ability to pass to the next level of schooling. Beyond the promotional exams, students also take a number of really large exams that to a certain degree determine their future possibilities and thus have a lot of importance! Those “biggies” are the PLE, the UCE, and the UACE.

At the end of primary school in P. 7 (like our 6th grade) they take their PLE (primary leaving exam) to assess their primary learning and determine their further schooling options. If they go on to secondary school, they take another big exam (the Ugandan Certificate of Education exam) after completing their first four years (O level). (Most of our PTC students come to us after completing this level). But, if that goes well and they have the funds to continue with secondary school they move on to A level and finish their two years there with the Ugandan Advanced Certificate of Education exam. With a population of 32 million people and half under the age of 15, you can imagine just how many Ugandan kiddos are stressing about exams as we move into November.

As you move around the villages and towns, signs posted everywhere ask for silence because exams are in progress. Radios are talking about the exams. Strangers in taxis are all talking about them - it really is a phenomenon!

And, the exam frenzy has not passed by the Bushenyi PTC students. The last few weeks have been a time for a great deal of studying (or revising, as they call it!) and much talk about what the exams will hold. Our first year students are gearing up for the promotional exams that will determine if they can return to school in February, and our second years are working on the big ones - their final Grade III Teacher Certification Exams. From what we can figure out, the exams will start in about two weeks, and by the first weekend in December everything should be completed. Results come out in late January or early February, after which those passing students can begin work as primary teachers, or return to school for their second year of PTC studies.

The whole exam craziness is a bit of a stressor for us to. It’s hard to know how to help our students be prepared, but still work to develop critical thinking skills in the midst of it. Many of our students only want us to tell them past exam questions and answers, and absolutely refuse to do any higher level review. (i.e. the discussion groups I tried to facilitate today were an absolute disaster!!) It’s also hard because many tutors aren’t going to classes, and the ones that are seem to be teaching a quicker version of everything they have taught over the entire year. Even considering “cultural sensitivity,” I simply can’t bring myself to do this! I’ve had a lot of time thinking about this working in Title One schools in the states, and my philosophy is that the time before a test should be more of a spruce up on things that should already be known, and not a mad blitz to reteach everything in a shallow and test-focused manner. I know it’s the same debate that goes on in America - should we teach to the test or trust that the good teaching we’ve been doing all year will by its very nature prepare our students. Add to it the “only one right answer” mentality of so many Ugandans and its a bit of a mess.

Then, there’s the discouragement I know every teacher faces at one point or another in realizing that all the work they have done appears to be a complete loss and nobody seems to have gotten anything from it! An example - today I went to teach my Special Needs Education classes and tried to foster some reflection on what they had learned about SNE and what they thought about the current status of SNE in Uganda. I got very few people to give me any sort of inkling that they had learned a thing from me all term, and the most enthusiastic students could only come up with this: they think teachers who teach children with disabilities should be paid extra salary and should not have to work with them if they do not want to. (Thus, completely going against everything have tried to help them understand over the past six months!) So...it’s a bit of a challenge.

Then, there’s the aspect of the scores. According to the university that regulates the exams, a student can pass and become a primary teacher by achieving a minimum score of 50% in each of the examinable subjects. This means that we are passing students who may know exactly HALF of what they should know! It’s especially alarming because every bit of content on these exams is covered through teaching the national syllabus, so in theory it would be possible and even reasonable for students to get very high scores! It’s hard to see a lot of hope for a struggling educational system when we begin to understand the cycle of poor teaching and unprepared teachers.

But, in all of it, we’re doing what we can. I keep trying to remember “We Are Marshall” and trusting that more got through to the students than they are letting me see on the surface. There’s a wonderful sustainability in teaching in that even if few people actually learned, more than just cramming for exams, those few people could actually reach hundreds, or thousands of kids during their time as a teacher. So, it’s good to keep that in mind as the exam craziness threatens to make us feel a little down about our work here so far.

So, that’s what’s on our minds these days - salty grasshoppers and stressed out students! Hope you are all well and enjoying the final days of fall! We love and miss you all!

~emily~

CarniBULL!!! (+ Pictures!!!)

We have just finished a crazy fun day at Bushenyi PTC! We are really exhausted and sunburned, but happy! I want to tell you all about it!

First, a little background...this is the final term in the Ugandan school year, and our PTC students will take their final teacher exams in about a month. Our second year students just returned from their final student teaching practice and now are focused on preparing for their pen and paper exams. Their final score is a combination of the practical (student teaching) and theoretical (pen and paper exam) scores. The students last year passed at a rate of over 99% - a real victory for the college! Before they took their exams last year, the principal had promised them a bull if they received great scores. (Seriously - a real bull - to be slaughtered, chopped up, and eaten). However, once the scores were published the students had already “graduated,” gotten jobs, and dispersed. So, alas, no bull to be had.

So, this year the principal decided that he would preemptively offer the students a bull in anticipation of their great scores. So, he proposed we create a day to celebrate them and have them all commit to getting a great score on the upcoming exams. We both thought this was a fabulous idea, as the students here don’t seem to get celebrated enough! So - we were all in for the event! And...I got put on the committee for planning it!

Being on a committee in Uganda is not as glamorous as it sounds. More often than not, the committee never meets, and when it comes up in conversation later, those who have been assigned to it usually have forgotten all about it. As Uganda has turned me into a vegetarian, I wasn’t super excited about helping out with the slaughter and butchering of a bull. I had a feeling nobody else would participate in the planning, so I decided to try to take matters into my own hands.

After a little brainstorming with Ryan and our PCV neighbor Jean, I decided it would be fun to have a carnival type of event with games to enjoy rather than spending a day watching a bull die and listening to incredibly long speeches! So, I wrote up a little proposal and submitted it. About a three weeks later (after multiple rescheduling!), the committee finally met and we discussed the plan for the day. Although, as it turns out, there was still a bull slaughtered and plenty of long speeches, we also had a morning of carnival games, a “drive in movie” outside after dinner, and a lot of fun!

Since the day was all about the “bull,” I thought it would be cute to try to organize my carnival games around the bull theme - a carniBULL! The play on words didn’t pan out too well, as carnival is not a word that Ugandans know, but I enjoyed thinking of my cleverness throughout the day and I think my fellow Americans thought it was funny too (Thanks Jean and Ryan)!

Our “carnibull” turned out to be a sort of cross between a carnival, elementary school field day, and a seven year old’s birthday party. We had to work with a really limited budget, local materials, short prep time (by the time everything got approved we only had about 4 days to get it all put together!) and the reality of trying to explain each new game to our large amount of students. So - simple, cheap, and fun was in order! We decided on pin the tail on the bull, “bullseye” bean bag toss, 3 legged race, waterballoon toss, musical chairs, human tic tac toe, and a “bottle” race for the events of the day. And, since we weren’t sure of how engaged the students would be, we decided to make the day into a sort of competition between classes. We even made a paper mache bull pinata to be given to the winning class! Almost all of the games were completely new to our students and they absolutely LOVED them! We were a little worried, since nobody in America over the age of seven would be interested in playing games like pin the tail on the bull and musical chairs, but there was no need for us to worry! The fact that the games were new and fun was enough to keep the students excited and interested! There was so much laughing and cheering (and a surprising amount of competitiveness considering the caliber of the games!) - it was a complete blast!

It was also a fair amount of craziness, despite Ryan and my best efforts to be our organized and punctual American selves. We ran the carnival for 460+ people almost completely by ourselves! The microphone that was promised to come never did, the tutors who had volunteered to help didn’t show up, the deputy principal in charge of overseeing the whole event was MIA all day, we had to start about 45 minutes late because protocol requires that no event can begin without an opening word from the “big man,” and the language barrier all created for somewhat difficult communication. But, the kids loved it, and Ryan and I learned another lesson in our continuing Ugandan education on flexibility and going with the flow! When I began to get stressed with the details of it all and my disappointment in the lack of involvement from my fellow Ugandan staff members, all I had to do was look around and see the incredible amount of joy on the students’ faces, and it was all absolutely worth it. It was a great success!!!

In the afternoon we ate a big traditional lunch, had singing and speeches, and had all the students sign their commitment to working for success on banners I had made. There was a brief “social hour” (dance!) before dinner, and a “drive in” movie showing of Invictus in the evening (for those of you who don’t know me well - I LOVE outdoor in movies! So....given the chance I had to introduce them to my students in Uganda!!). All in all, I think the students were excited and felt celebrated, and we were happy to be a part of it all!

We know the students had a blast during the event, and we’re also hoping it gave them ideas that they can take into their primary schools when they are teachers. We wanted to give them some creative ideas how with basically no money and limited supplies, lots of fun can be had! And - I think that came through too!

Although I’ve written all about the day, I think that the pictures and videos from the event really do a better job than my words! So, here’s a link to my facebook album from the day (CLICK HERE!), and a carnibull video blog is in the works! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading! We love and miss you all!

~emily~

We Are....Peace Corps

Our portable hard drive has proved to be one of the best things we brought with us to Uganda. The dozens of movies and TV shows we brought or acquired since we've been in country have been an absolute gift on nights when we just felt like vegging out and watching something. Since the sun sets every night around seven and we aren't supposed to be out after dark, some nights get long with not a lot to do! While we love reading, playing games, cooking, and talking, sometimes it's just nice to have a movie and popcorn! Thanks to our hard drive, we've seen some great new TV shows (Modern Family!) and movies, and loved watching some classics as well! (Sound of Music last week!)

Last night we scoured the hard drive and chose a movie that Ryan had seen before coming to Uganda, but I had not - We Are Marshall. While I am not a huge sports movie fan, I do enjoy a "feel good underdog" movie every now and then. Before watching the movie, I actually had no idea even the basic premise of the movie. (As evidenced by the fact that as the football team got on the plane that would ultimately crash and result in everyone's death, I was talking about how exciting it must have been to get to take a plane trip with all your friends and teammates! Ryan looked at me and said, "Do you not know what this movie is about?!" Ooops!) But, as it went on, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how the movie would progress: tragedy hits small town, unlikely coach steps up to lead a ragtag group of players, despite adversity they succeed with unprecented sucess, and all live happily ever after. I realize this may be an oversimplified view, but it's the jist of movies like this, right?

We Are Marshall surprised me though! Although it had some of the typical twists and turns I have come to expect (and, in all honesty, really enjoy!) of such movies, the end was a surprise. For those of you who haven't seen the movie recently, it ends with a back and forth game that results in a crazy pass and the first win of the season for the team. The town rallies behind them and different characters come to terms with their grief from the tragedies they have suffered. It's a good ending! But, before the credits roll, a bit more information is shared about the Marshall University Thundering Herd's success that year. After the exciting win that ends the movie, the team went one to win.....drumroll please....only one more game! No big championship, no great victory, just one more win. In fact, they didn't become a very notable team until more than a decade later. By that time, the coaches who had led the return of the Marshall Football program were long gone, the players had all graduated, and the town had moved on from the shadow of the 1970 plane crash.

So...it got me thinking about Peace Corps. While I think many volunteers hope that as they move around the world to serve communities in need, they will indeed have an experience worthy of a "feel good underdog" movie. And, undoubtedly, some of them do! But, for the majority of us, our service may only result in one or two wins - no great championships, no shiny trophies. But, I think it's important for us to remember that those one or two wins really are huge! Just as the Marshall Football team cherished those two wins as a chance to get their football program back on its feet and help a town recover from tragedy, our one or two "small" Peace Corps wins might make a world of difference to the people we live and work around, and to our lives as well!

The coach of the new Thundering Herd football team, Jack Lengyel, only coached at Marshall from 1971-1974. In that time, he racked up a 9-33 record. Now, I'm no football whiz, but that's not a great record. Yet, he laid a foundation that would ultimately lead the team to greater victories many years later.

We will be Peace Corps volunteers from 2011-2013. Who knows what our win-loss record will be by the time we will leave. I guess we will have to hope for those one or two wins, and realize that after we head home we may leave behind the foundation for greater things in years to come. It's comforting to know that even if our service doesn't result in a "feel good underdog movie," we can still have confidence that we're doing good work that will have an impact, despite its challenges.

So...after finishing We Are Marshall last night, I felt inspired! And I thought I'd share some of that inspiration with you!

Thanks for reading! Love and miss you all!

~emily~

Another New PTC Adventure

Well Term III in the Primary Teachers College world is full of many turns which we are finding as they seem to happen. The latest has been school practice, or student teaching. It started basically last Friday. They had planned a “brief”ing (can it still be called brief if it goes over 3 hours) to happen on school practice. So we waited all day for this briefing to happen and then at about 5 a student came to inform us it would be at 8 in the evening.

The briefing was basically last minute do’s and don’ts to the students. It is interesting because the tutors seem to think that they need to give the students an answer for every single question they may have out in the field. Rather then just teaching them critical thinking skills to find their own answers to questions. So we went over seating arrangements, learning aids, proper PE uniforms (for the majority of the briefing), how to write capital and lower case letters, and many other things. Every tutor had to be sure to include his or her input (even if their input was the same as the last tutors). Emily talked about how these students had the ability to change the teaching profession, and not just reciprocate what their teachers were like. So if their teachers were not on time, they could be. If their teachers caned them, they do not need to cane. If their teachers humiliated them they did not have to do the same to their students. They were all very excited and encouraged by what she said, especially since most of them were asleep before she came up.

The next day the students were ready to leave by 7 am for the schools. They slowly trickled out throughout the day, and the last group left around dinnertime. The schools do not provide anything for them so they have to take it all with them. When I say all that consists of: their boxes for clothes, mattresses, flour (for Posho and Porridge), beans, paraffin, and wood for cooking with. They loaded everything up and off they went.

This week we have been getting to observe them out at their primary schools, which has been really fun. So each morning we pile into the school truck and get dropped off at the various primary schools. Emily and I have been getting to go together, which it has been nice to bounce ideas off of one another. Each day we get there basically right as the school day is starting and make a plan with the 10 to 12 second year students that we will observe. Then most of the day is spent sitting in the back of the classroom watch how they do and looking through their lesson plans. Then after we are done observing the student teach a 30 to 40 minute class we meet with them to discuss our observations, and their reactions.

So far we have loved getting to build more one-on-one relationships with the students that can often be hard to do when they are all at the college. Some of the common mistakes or areas of concern we have seen are: not knowing effective alternative discipline techniques, variety in teaching methods, and not engaging students very effectively in the classroom. The things that we find the find most hopeful for our students are that they are excited to teach, their classrooms are very well organized, and almost all seem to really enjoy their students. So overall we have been very encouraged with were are students are at, and really enjoy getting to see them teach.

We were a little worried that two mzungus (white people) would cause a huge disturbance at these primary schools, and most of the time it doesn’t. You always have at least a couple students looking at you in class, but usually they are not always the same students. But our students always come right up to us when we get there and greet us and that makes us feel right at home. We have about 2 or 3 more weeks of school practice, and then the students will get graded by the national moderators for school practice. So hopefully these weeks of teaching will get them confident going into teaching jobs in just a few more months (some could have jobs as soon as February)!

Well I hope you all are doing well back in the US, and we hope that you are enjoying your fall!

Love,

Ryan