Hello Everyone,
Instead of going back and recounting every last detail of my trip, I will simply go over some of the highlights, so that I can talk about more current things.
On Tuesday I returned to the Children's Village, where I observed a Primary grade 6 (P6) English lesson. I also did some work for a new project idea that YOFAFO has had: starting a Facebook page which not only advertises their organization, but also tries to find sponsors for school children. For this project, I interviewed (with the help of the head master Benon) five students who are already sponsored to find out about how they are doing in school, about their family, and how their sponsor is helping them and I also took their pictures. Then I asked for Benon to select a student still in need of a sponsor that I could also interview and take his picture. On the Facebook page we plan to do something like show the pictures of the five students who are already sponsored and tell a bit about them and then show the picture of the student in need and show his picture. Once we find a sponsor for that student, we will move his picture and story to the sponsored group and find a new student to take his place. One highlight of my day was befriending a teacher named JoAnn. It is often difficult to make friends with the teachers, but JoAnn and I walked together after school to catch a bus home and she was very kind and talkative.
On Wednesday, I got to go back to the village of Bulamagi where YOFAFO runs a micro-finance program. I was so thrilled to see that it is still going strong with community members taking out small loans to invest in an income-generating activity, repaying loans with interest, and setting money aside in a savings account. Some people have even repaid their first and even second loans and have moved on to a second or third loan. It is so inspiring to see villagers come each week, with their maybe 1,500 Ugandan shillings (roughly equal to 70 US cents) and put it into a savings account. With such modest savings for such simple goals, like sending their children to school, it really gives you some prespective on life.
At the end of the week I went to Nkokonjeru village to Buwele Memorial High School. This is the school where Robbie volunteered a teacher in 2008 for six months. This is a very isolated village, but the 45 minute boda-boda (motorcycle) ride there is stunning and completely worth it because you get to drive through sugar cane plantations and then through thick forests, small trading posts, and very rural villages! There is another way to get there, by public bus, but it takes more than double the time and maybe only saves a US 50 cents or even less. I was welcomed very warmly and I was fed in one day what I would normally eat in two days. I had five meals in 24 hours! This is the school where I will be doing my research. I will be developing a lending library there and trying to measure the impact that it has on the school.
On Friday afternoon, after I was finished with the part of my research that could be done, the head master at Buwele, Moses, invited me to visit the cocoa plantation that his family owns. It was very interesting to see the trees, taste the seeds of the cocoa plant (not at all like chocolate! They have a hard center covered by a gooey white membrane and you can suck on the sweet membrane like candy and spit out the pit), see how they ferment the seeds and then leave them in the sun to dry. They are then shipped to other countries that use the dried seeds to make chocolate. Some of the family land is also used by the school to teach agriculture. Crops that are grown are used to provide food to the students, especially the boarding students.
We walked up to a large group of people sitting around, the men seperated from the women, and I just assumed that they were the plantation workers taking a break. After doing the customary Luganda greetings, one woman continued to speak to me in Luganda, but I could not understand, so I asked Moses what I should say back to her. He told me and I said it and then I asked what it meant. He said it means, "I am sorry for your loss." Little did I know that a big reason for going to the plantation that day was to go to a funeral. The woman pointed behind me and I turned to discover that the blanket on the ground behind me had the shape of a man's body beneath it. A plantation worker had died the day before and it is custom that everyone in the village, whether you know the deceased or not, goes to the funeral and burial to pay their respects. Because this man was poor and did not have any family he was buried on the plantation and the funeral process was simplified and did not include any of the traditional wailing that the wife, mother and daughters normally do. We just simply walked out into the bush and it was mainly the saying of a few prayers and singing. One tradition that was carried on was the waiting. It is very normal that any major Ugandan function, whether it be a funeral, marriage, village meeting, etc. start late, very late, sometime even hours late, from the scheduled time. Overall, I felt very out of place, being the only white person and having everyone staring at me, especially children who said the normal "Bye muzungu. How are you?". Muzungu means foreigner and instead of hi they always say bye. I just tried to stay as far in the back as possible. But, as I learned, funerals are so common place, that besides the immediate family and friends, they tend to be very informal. There were babies crying, children laughing, adults whispering, and even mobile phones ringing. Leslie told me that it doesn't matter if I had some peoples' attention, the important part is that I went and participated with the rest of the village. As we left, a local fish seller on his bicycle stopped and honked his strange sounding, clown-like horn to notify the villagers that he was there with his fish to sell. Life had already moved on.
Courtney
"For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity." -William Penn
Instead of going back and recounting every last detail of my trip, I will simply go over some of the highlights, so that I can talk about more current things.
On Tuesday I returned to the Children's Village, where I observed a Primary grade 6 (P6) English lesson. I also did some work for a new project idea that YOFAFO has had: starting a Facebook page which not only advertises their organization, but also tries to find sponsors for school children. For this project, I interviewed (with the help of the head master Benon) five students who are already sponsored to find out about how they are doing in school, about their family, and how their sponsor is helping them and I also took their pictures. Then I asked for Benon to select a student still in need of a sponsor that I could also interview and take his picture. On the Facebook page we plan to do something like show the pictures of the five students who are already sponsored and tell a bit about them and then show the picture of the student in need and show his picture. Once we find a sponsor for that student, we will move his picture and story to the sponsored group and find a new student to take his place. One highlight of my day was befriending a teacher named JoAnn. It is often difficult to make friends with the teachers, but JoAnn and I walked together after school to catch a bus home and she was very kind and talkative.
On Wednesday, I got to go back to the village of Bulamagi where YOFAFO runs a micro-finance program. I was so thrilled to see that it is still going strong with community members taking out small loans to invest in an income-generating activity, repaying loans with interest, and setting money aside in a savings account. Some people have even repaid their first and even second loans and have moved on to a second or third loan. It is so inspiring to see villagers come each week, with their maybe 1,500 Ugandan shillings (roughly equal to 70 US cents) and put it into a savings account. With such modest savings for such simple goals, like sending their children to school, it really gives you some prespective on life.
At the end of the week I went to Nkokonjeru village to Buwele Memorial High School. This is the school where Robbie volunteered a teacher in 2008 for six months. This is a very isolated village, but the 45 minute boda-boda (motorcycle) ride there is stunning and completely worth it because you get to drive through sugar cane plantations and then through thick forests, small trading posts, and very rural villages! There is another way to get there, by public bus, but it takes more than double the time and maybe only saves a US 50 cents or even less. I was welcomed very warmly and I was fed in one day what I would normally eat in two days. I had five meals in 24 hours! This is the school where I will be doing my research. I will be developing a lending library there and trying to measure the impact that it has on the school.
On Friday afternoon, after I was finished with the part of my research that could be done, the head master at Buwele, Moses, invited me to visit the cocoa plantation that his family owns. It was very interesting to see the trees, taste the seeds of the cocoa plant (not at all like chocolate! They have a hard center covered by a gooey white membrane and you can suck on the sweet membrane like candy and spit out the pit), see how they ferment the seeds and then leave them in the sun to dry. They are then shipped to other countries that use the dried seeds to make chocolate. Some of the family land is also used by the school to teach agriculture. Crops that are grown are used to provide food to the students, especially the boarding students.
We walked up to a large group of people sitting around, the men seperated from the women, and I just assumed that they were the plantation workers taking a break. After doing the customary Luganda greetings, one woman continued to speak to me in Luganda, but I could not understand, so I asked Moses what I should say back to her. He told me and I said it and then I asked what it meant. He said it means, "I am sorry for your loss." Little did I know that a big reason for going to the plantation that day was to go to a funeral. The woman pointed behind me and I turned to discover that the blanket on the ground behind me had the shape of a man's body beneath it. A plantation worker had died the day before and it is custom that everyone in the village, whether you know the deceased or not, goes to the funeral and burial to pay their respects. Because this man was poor and did not have any family he was buried on the plantation and the funeral process was simplified and did not include any of the traditional wailing that the wife, mother and daughters normally do. We just simply walked out into the bush and it was mainly the saying of a few prayers and singing. One tradition that was carried on was the waiting. It is very normal that any major Ugandan function, whether it be a funeral, marriage, village meeting, etc. start late, very late, sometime even hours late, from the scheduled time. Overall, I felt very out of place, being the only white person and having everyone staring at me, especially children who said the normal "Bye muzungu. How are you?". Muzungu means foreigner and instead of hi they always say bye. I just tried to stay as far in the back as possible. But, as I learned, funerals are so common place, that besides the immediate family and friends, they tend to be very informal. There were babies crying, children laughing, adults whispering, and even mobile phones ringing. Leslie told me that it doesn't matter if I had some peoples' attention, the important part is that I went and participated with the rest of the village. As we left, a local fish seller on his bicycle stopped and honked his strange sounding, clown-like horn to notify the villagers that he was there with his fish to sell. Life had already moved on.
Courtney
"For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity." -William Penn
Courtney, go on with your good work and never get discouraged for any reason. What you are doing there is saving the world, even if it`s on a smaller scale. I am proud to call you my friend (and my hero). :)
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ReplyDeleteOh Alexandra! You are too sweet! I am just doing what I enjoy doing and I'm not trying to be a hero in any way. If you knew how much I enjoy meeting new people from other cultures and sharing ideas and traveling then you would know that for me this is play and not work.
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