#7 June 15th- Monday

I have a map of Africa in my classroom. It was surreal to watch the image of our plane move past the Mediterranean Sea, over the Sahara and the Nile, to Lake Victoria. It was like a dream. The Entebbe airport is really small, but clean. Three of us lost luggage, so we were delayed trying to work that out.
We met Amy, the director at the airport. She has a lot of energy and has a vision for using drama in education. She has a 7 year old daughter named Hero who is coming next week. I wish I could have Julia come out with her. We loaded our bus and went off to the Backpacker’s Hostel in Kampala. I’m staying in a room with the guys and I made the mistake of sleeping on the top bunk. (It’s pretty warm up there). Backpacker’s is a rustic getaway with a bunch of 20 something travelers. At this point in the trip, I feel like a tourist. We are a bunch of American’s looking out from a bus like we are on safari in the city. We all feel awkward about this. I can hardly wait to get to know people here.
Later in the day, we went over to Garden City to exchange money. The exchange rate is $1 to 2,100 Ugandan shillings. Some of us cashed in $500 making us “Shillingionaires”. We bought minutes for Matt’s cell phone, which we will be able to share during the trip. I’m glad to say, It works! Lisa was able to call me and it was so good to hear her voice. I set her up on Skype before I left, so there is no cost for us to receive the call and very little cost for her to send it.
After the exchange, we traveled to the Lubiri School where we were hosted by Michael Okot, Jolli’s brother. The Luburi School is one of the best performing public schools in Uganda. Their motto is. “We learn by doing” The first thing I noticed was a couple students outside of the administration building checking out their grades. All student scores are public knowledge and they care very much about succeeding. Uganda has national standards that students must master if they are going to proceed to the university. The school has about 3,000 students and the average class size is between 60 and 80. We visited a few classrooms to get a feel for how a high performing Uganda school operates. For one thing, the classrooms have nothing but chalkboards and seats. There is a library where students have access a copy of their textbooks. All around the schools there are messages about AIDS painted on the wall like; AIDS is a fire, don’t add wood, Poverty invites AIDS, be industrious, Have compassions on those with AIDS, fight the stigma of AIDS.
We were also able to meet Jacob, from the original IC film. He was the boy who cried at the end. Jacob has grown so much. He is 20 years old next year and plans to go to the university. He is a gracious guy. We could hear some of his classmates giggling when Michael Okot pulled him out of class. He is handling his “celebrity status” very well.

Later, at Backpacker’s we hung out and saw some monkeys nearby. I got some very close up pictures. I was about 2 feet away. We have access to a shower, my first in 3 days! It was good to wash off the funk. At night we ate at Sam’s. It was really delicious Indian food. (As I write this, a monkey is jumping over my head in the tree!!!!) We ate with Emmy Okot, Jollie’s husband. He is a very warm and gracious person. When we got back to Backpacker’s I went straight to bed. One of the guys on the trips snored so loud that it made my bed rattle. I woke up to the Muslim call to prayer at 5 am. I’ll write more later!