#22 June 30th- Tuesday

-Team Teaching

Imagine millions of wings covering the ground for miles. It was a flying ant massacre. After the first rain of the wet season the ants swarm. People run out and gather them for food lime manna from heaven. I ran down the long path today and met Jananan on the way. He was riding his bike so we kept up a good clip. I had to hustle because we had an early start at the school for testing. When I arrived at Gulu SS the students were waiting for the examination, but the teachers had not yet arrived. Because we were proctoring the first exams, we were responsible to check to see if students had paid there school fees before they might sit for the exams. It was a tragic sight. About 20% of the students were cleared to sit for the exam. The rest of the students were left on the outside looking in. This puts teachers in a tough spot. Some teachers let all the students in to test, reasoning that they could be sorted out later. Others told the students to go home. David and I decided to let them in with the knowledge that the head teacher might come by and send them all out. If a student does not sit for testing, they may need to repeat the course. As it turned out, Geoffrey was in the group of students who had not paid. He told me that he had paid for his school fees with the money he made from the pictures on Saturday. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. When I saw him later in the day I asked if he could show me an example of one of the pictures he took. He said that he would.
Later in the morning I sat with the teachers in my Teacher Exchange group to discuss and upcoming conference that we will present at. Our question to address is that of how to make an impact on students given limited contact time. The Ugandan teachers all feel that there is sufficient time to cover their curriculum, but not enough to cover other responsibilities. Since there are no guidance counselors at the school, this task falls on teachers. Most students do not take advantage of this because they don’t know how. It’s tough for the teachers as well because it is an expectation that they do this, but there is little support to make it happen. I was impressed by the solutions that Ugandan teachers developed to address this. Most teachers do not know the names of their students. We discussed ways to learn those names and suggested advantages of calling students by name. We talked about even adding a student name tag to the school uniform. Opoki James suggested creating an “advisory” time with students to meet with a certain group of students on a regular basis. We also discussed the idea of adding a “trust/ relationship building lessons into the regular class time. I love that these ideas are coming from our teachers. They want to excel and it’s so good to see them engage in the conversation. The conference will be held this weekend on Friday and Saturday.
In the afternoon I came back to the hotel and took a nap. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather. My friends woke me up to say that Geoffrey was waiting outside for me. He brought a picture that he said was taken on Saturday. I was pretty sure it was not taken on Friday. Geoffrey seemed like he was hiding something. I asked him if he was being truthful. At first he said he was, but after time he confessed that he was not being honest. He said that he had taken the pictures, but that when he went to develop them the computer somehow deleted them. It sounds like a more likely story. He looked like he was going to cry as he told me about the situation. He asked me to forgive him. I did and I think that I see now that he is going to need a lot more support to make this happen. He is such a bright kid and I really want to see him make it. Please pray for this one, if you do that.
Later in the afternoon we learned that Ryan (one of our T/ Ex teachers) had written a description of each of us in his blog. It was one of the coolest bonding moments we have had as a group. He is hilarious and encouraging beyond belief. We all laughed hard and decided to go out for dinner together. We shared stories and laughed like I haven’t laughed in a long time. He went out to a hotel called Boma for food. We ordered the garlic steak with chips. It was so good!!! Matt (my roommate) and I had a deep conversation about our spiritual journeys. I think it would be fair to say he is a “seeker”. I have so much respect for him as a person and I think we are a perfect fit as roommates. He came on this trip last year, so he has been a great help to the rest of us.
When it was time to come home we took a wrong turn in the dark. Thankfully there was a large group of us. We ended up walking through a garbage dump in the pitch black dark laughing until our sides ached. Wendy stepped in some mystery mush and was getting queasy on the way home. The people we passed thought it was pretty funny seeing a parade of muzungu cruising through their neighborhood late at night. I felt bad for the kids who were taking a bath as we walked by.
Later in the night group 3 (the next T/ Ex) teachers came in. We met them at Kope Café and some went out for a drink. I went back to the hotel to get some rest because I knew that Wednesday was going to be a busy one.