The World I call Home II

Music Students Cultural Dances: Although a few months ago, the students of NTC, Kaliro for their practical exam produced cultural song and dances, and I was given the privelage of sitting and watching it all. Although just being students and partaking in these activities for a mark to pass school, they all performed incredibly well and this was more than an eye-opening experience to the rich and deep cultures of Uganda.
Bigger than Art: An art student of NTC, Kaliro tries to decide how he is to arrange the lot of his art in order to show to the community his gracious talents.
Passing By: The view between two taxis passing by...
Gizmo and I: She refused to eat the ground nuts, but I still made a mess of my back porch, littering the ground with the shells of the tasty little morsels.
My Two Other Roommates: These two, currently pictured here on my table, not sit on a couple of shelves just near. Sculpted by an NTC, Kaliro student, the man in the foreground is entitled 'Man Taking Local Brew' while the other is titled 'Gorilla Eating Bana.' Although beginning to crack a bit due to the heat and many other factors, these are two notable figures in my home and I am sure if you were to visit, they would great you with their amiable poses!

The World I Call Home

Me and My Library: Sitting here in the NTC, Kaliro Library, I am filled with joy being surrounded by so many resources whether a classic novel or a volume of literary journals on some out-of-this world bird. Unfortunately the condtion of most of these books include feasting silverfish and mold, while the ceiling above my head would be pouring water all over if it was not for the pleasant day outside. Even with these resources though, the majority of the students lack a(n) understanding/reason to use these books...one of my tasks for these next years is to prove to these communities how lucky they are to have such a facility and to motivate all to take these resources by the reigns.
My Daily Walk: With my home just behind me and Gizmo meowing for me to return, I walk myself to work (not more than 500 meters) through towering trees and maize fields to find myself welcomed ever-so-warmly by the NTC, Kaliro community.
We Know We Look Good: Greg and myself find ourselves 'forced' to sit behind the families of the bride and groom at an introduction ceremony (a ceremony to introduce the bride and groom to the community prior to processing to the church for the official marriage) in Kaliro. Both wearing formal Busoga garments, and of course being bazungu, there are definitely more photos than this one circling around the town of Kaliro...
Me and My Work at IST: At our technical training in Kampala, I stand here with my proposed project to create a Guidance and Counseling Office at NTC, Kaliro. This project stems from desires by students and staff-prior to my arrival in Kaliro-to develop a Guidance and Counseling Sector to focus on HIV/AIDS awareness amongst a number of other topics.
Not Even Phased: I did not know this photo was taken (Thanks Lisa Robbins), but upon seeing I became amazed at the types of things that are no longer shocking...What other time in my life might I by non-chalantly picking my finger nails (or whatever) I am doing while a truck of armed-personel speed by...

Reporting: Bagisu Circumcision—Imbalu—Sends Boy to Manhood

Pre-Circumcision Procession: These boys—having been through hours already of processing—are making their last leg through the village after having been doused in yeast by the elders before they garner their last ounce of strength and courage to survive their fateful date with the elders to become men.

Jubilation Streetside: As the majority of the ceremonies are going on within the village on the opposing sides of this road, many of the village peoples are celebrating—with no end in site—by cheering on the candidates and consuming beverages with all their neighbors. This gentleman—one of the elders—carries this horn with him, and as a ceremony has come full-circle, with a boy having been circumcised and becoming a man, will blow the horn announcing to the people this event.

The Strength and Courage: Having just gone through a public circumcision with hundreds of villagers around, this young boy has just begun his journey to becoming a man. A condition of this ceremony is the strength and courage of the boy must be higher than one could ever imagine. By this I imply to you that to gain the highest respect and appreciation from your family and community, one must remain nearly motion and emotionless. Each candidate receives a 'percentage,' rating how well they showed strength, and courage, therefore each blink of an eye, each tear, each wince, each swallow of saliva and each little motion reduces this percentage...

Wisdomed-Tailor taking Local Brew: This elder sat, and spoke to us as we relaxed taking a bit of malawi bringing to the scene an outstretched-hand from the past. This old tailor was filled with story, after story, after story, in Lugisu unfortunately (though I was provided with rough translations), as the Imbalu processions passed by.

Bazungu Shrine

From Left (Muzungus): Tim, Greg, Me

Atop the Bazungu Shrine just South of Iganga on Nenda Hill
Our Journey to this location began with 8 individuals crammed in to your average sedan and ended with an amazing view from atop this shrine. These children as well as others from the adjacent village journeyed with us to the top.

Life in a 90s Sedan

With open-backed trucks spilling over business-clad, shirtless and screaming men; my slow breathing takes in a smell of street-fried pork and dust to find some gospel to preach.  The current anxiety in finding the words to encourage your audience is not due to a shortage of power or the locally-foreign eyes cast upon me, but rather my own decision to pleasure my morning breakfast-desire with an all too sweet cup of dry tea and a Cup of Noodles.  I only mention this because it has begun to give me a feeling that a daily routine of the unmentionable sort could soon become irregular therefore the mind tends to focus more on the potential disaster than expressing my life’s events; and with that the situation will be recessed. 

 

Aside from the opening statement, my current sights focus on six construction men approximately 50 metres away and matching me being two-stories up.  They seem to be struggling to get the small metal support rods (those ones that eventually are encased in cement) to be in place.  As the skeleton of a structure—supported on all sides by scalfolding made from sticks that one might find covered in moss in a riparian zone—supports these six men the streets below are a collective mess of pedestrians, cyclists carrying 100 kilograms of maize, street vendors selling ‘quarter-machine’ novelty items and all too many types of motorized vehicles all with a mob mentality to get to their destination first whether it be 1 metre away or 100 kilometres.  The thought of this parade of maniacs is reminiscent of today’s, and nearly every drive to Iganga.  Whether the mode of transportation is your standard mid-90s sedan or a Japanese-made van/bus authorized to carry 14 passengers, I would give the opportunity a 95% chance of carrying nearly double the number of persons as the vehicle properly should. As the peke-pekes (motorcycles) zip by on all sides and every motor-vehicle honks their horn to command the road, our motor-car swerves to avoid a slow-moving vehicle while at the same time coming within inches of head-on colliding furniture set being pulled on a wheeled cart by a nearly life-depleted man.  In finally arriving at my destination I too was part of the scene in descriptive development above; only soon I left to sit where I am now, finding my spirits high as my world-flipped-upside-down is one helluva story…

 

Although English is the official spoken language of this country, it is to my experience as far away from my dialect as any other dialect, therefore often a conversation in my mother-tongue and a Ugandan in their state of speaking from a collected of learned words turns in to a storm of confusion and frustration.  So yes, I am fortunate to have the luxury of power (when it is on) and water in this country, that is by no means where my development of this story is intending to play its cards.  The other day power had been out for some 36 hours or so, therefore the expectation existed that it would return soon.  To my happiness I peer out the window to see neighbors across the street with their front light on and eagerly dash to the light-switch.  To my ultimate sadness I find no light filling every tiny crevice in my front room.  After a ten-minute manic state of trying every light switch and combination of light switches to see if I have missed something the past 3 months I have lived at my home, I call the neighbor to enquire if power was truly there or if he had purchased a generator…indeed power was there, but of course mine was not.  So the evening ended with torches in hand, and yes spirits were still high and mighty; who needs electricity?!?!  So the next morning I speak to the Estates Manager of the college, and he comes by to check on things.  He brings me around my front, to the neighbor’s side of the cement wall dividing our houses, and shows me that my power had been disconnected from the wires—it had become disconnected when they neighbor hooked up their own wires to tap in to my power.  Case solved, power was there, just a wire disconnected, not big deal.  It is not even any big deal that the neighbor was tapping in to my power; I could care less that they do.  In fact I was happy that they could do that and not be in any sort of trouble.  ZOOM TO 3 DAYS LATER…Arriving home from a weekend away, as I am checking the outside of my house for any abnormalities, my neighbor (the one tapping in to my power) approaches me and begins to lecture me about leaving the lights on in the house.  Not only is it a waste and a potential fire hazard, but with the power on there is more potential that future-burglars could look in to my house for items to take, etc.  I proceed to explain in my slow-transformed Ugandan English that the reason the lights were on was due to the fact that when the power was out, there was confusion in to which direction some of the switches should be to determine power on/off, since some of switches are reversed.  Also I pleaded to her the fact that she was tapping in to my power and she was the one who accidentally separated my power wires, that in reality it was partially the fault of her own because while power was everywhere else, it was not at my home.  Again a lecture to me after I spill my case and one more time I explain myself to avoid defeat.  To no avail I lost the Battle of Englishes (American West Coast English vs. Ugandan English) as neighbor (still friendly…she could never hate me!) left her post to take care of matters at home.  The feeling of defeat in a position when the fault was lesser my own than neighbor’s was frustrating, but the post-thoughts on the evolution of language create all the more appealing feeling of a future post…

 

To all of you back home I hope that things are well, and hopefully going as well as things are for me, but until then Peace and Love. 

Hello!

And I am well!

Corrupt

So the past couple of weeks I have been proctoring exams at the college. So for either 4, or 8 hours a day, 6 days a week for the past 2 weeks I have been meandering around a classroom, ensuring students finish their exams appropriately. Most interesting thing in regards to proctoring (besides the fact that rather than "proctor" they call it "invigilation") was seeing some of the exam questions. From Biology, to Chemistry practicals, to History, Geography and Development Studies, I was their to see them all. In Geography exam, the students were required to create a map of North America, outline the Cotton Belt, and explain the Cotton Belt's origins in regards to the slave trade and how things have changed since. In the Chemistry practicals, well let us just say wearing open-toed shoes and using one's mouth to pipette liquids is a common and recommended practice, because there are no other means to do certain experiments because of the lack of equipment and proper facilities. I felt as though my mind was wandering to an imaginary place as I was breathing in so many toxic fumes. Rat dissection in Biology Practical. Very interesting experience, and beneficial to see how exams were administered-in a very formal British-style (hmm...the educational foundation of Uganda is from who? the Brits). Anyways, sadly enough the students have all left now for School Practice-in essence student teaching-therefore the campus will be very quiet for quite some time. Typically the lecturers would all go out to a different distrcit and observe the students, and give them marks, but since I have a mandatory training for Peace Corps in the middle of July, this would cut in to my observing, therefore I will be given, or rather find my own work at the college over the next couple months. Fortunately there are a number of projects I can focus my efforts on. Still we are working with proposals to get internet at the college. The college has 10 relatively new Dell machines (though which is not nearly enough for the amount of students) but 99.9% of the staff and students lack proper instruction or knowledge in computers, therefore that is where I come in to develop a program. But in regards to internet we are working to get it but the school being so strapped for cash and in terrible debt, the money is not there therefore outside funding is key, but is very difficult to come by. Having internet would assist students in not only introducing the world wide web in general computer usage, but allowing students to search for modern information, etc. Also we are starting a Guidance and Counseling sector at the college, emphasising AIDS information and outreach, as werll as personal guidance. The school has never had any sort of sector, so myself as well as two of the other lecturers are developing this program, so I feel that within the next couple of months I will have many good opportunities to get this program rolling so by the time the students return in September or October, we can introduce it properly. Still of course looking to get newer books, etc over here and also, assuming that books will come some time, I will eventually begin looking for funding to renovate the library. One day I will get pictures for you all so that you can see the state and conditions of the college. In a nutshell, besides the whole of Uganda struggling in the education sector, this college specifically, NTC Kaliro is worse off than most. The Principal who currently is seated at the college has only been there for about 2 years, and the Principal prior was apparently one of the most corrupt people one could imagine (in regards to educational administrators in Uganda). During his decades of being Principal, he personally took many allocated funds to the college (helped by an insider high up in the Ministry of Education) and with that money built multiple houses and his own private secondary school in the city of Jinja, causing the school to fall in to the catastrophic state it currently sits in. From Academic factilities to the student/staff housing to the Admin Offices, these were all clearly top of the line facilities when they were constructed in the early 1970s by missionaries, but currently struggle to remain standing in a state reminiscent to a still-frame of a Hollywood-esque internment camp bmomb explosion. I hope that you can get the picture. Broken-glass scattered over walking paths and and plants growing out of cracks in the cement on the ceiling is not proper, nor is the economical battle that faces the whole of the Education sector here in Uganda.

Just for a taste of the lack of rationale in this country. Students every day get pousha (excuse my spelling, but essentially rather than mashed potatoes, dried and cooked corn flour in this state) and some beans for lunch and dinner, they also get tea during the day. Well due to the international food crisis the prices of foods have risen dramatically, especially for many of those living in the village, or those severely struggling to survive. The students at the college were told one day that their last weeks of classes/exams there would be no more sugar (for porridge and tea) and that the Ministry of Education has actually cut funding, therefore seeking added funding for food was necessary. HONESTLY?!@?!?! What is the sense, where there is already a food crisis, to LOWER funding?!!!! I just get speechless at the thought, and tehre is no rhyme or reason to act in this way...but it happens this way, and people live, and die this way, and I don't know. I don't know what is wrong. Why, on many other instances or occasions do the actions of others fall in such an analogous way to be so indecent to the rest of societies and others.