Upon my return, there was only a few weeks left of classes before the end of this term. Here they have 3 terms per year with a few months between each term as holiday. So I spent the next few weeks, preparing exams, teaching, attending examination times, and finally marking. So much marking! Now I can better understand what my university profs go through marking all those dissertations, it must be really awful! …Pages and pages of reading, and sometimes about the same topic over and over again. Ahhhh. However, it has been a nice experience, and something I will continue doing, so I better just get use to it. It was a real pleasure to see how well some of the kids did on their French exams!!!! Its really touching, I felt a real sense of accomplishment. The last day of school, one of the teachers bought a sugar cane. I often see kids walking around the streets and biting into them, ripping the bark off with their teeth, to get to the sweet inside. They suck and chew on it, then spit it out onto the ground. So finally I tried some. It was the most delicious tasting sugar really. It tasted so pure. I wasn’t expecting that at all.
Late November, I received an extremely generous donation from a few friends back home. With the money I was able to buy up-to-date textbooks for each subject and for each grade, (which was absolutely necessary) a few exercise books, I spent the day with a few of my primary 6 girls and took them for ice cream, and I also had enough money left over to throw them another party with massive amounts of food for the entire school and some music and decorations. So, the last day of school was the party…We spent the morning cooking, from about 9 until 1. All the young girls, some local women, Juliet (primary 1 & 2 teacher) and I were doing all the food preparations. It was the most incredible experience. Honestly, words can’t describe what I felt that morning. There was an incredible sense of community, everyone was helping each other, and we were cooking with giant cauldron on coals and wooden sticks. I was helping with the cutting of vegetables, meat and the cleaning of. Most of the time I was sitting, mesmerized, and just watching the women as they cooked. They are so hard working, big and very beautiful. At one point, one of the women was ripping the spine off giant banana leaves, to that she can better manage them, and form a perfect steaming pot for the matoke (cooked bananas). Ah, it was incredible.
The boys were out in the next room cleaning, setting up, decorating and playing. Before eating, we had presentations and speeches. Sam and I were thanked many times for the work we’ve done for the school. They really showed a lot of appreciation for my presence at the school. The entire day I felt so happy but so incredible bummed. I felt as though I was finally really close with these kids, and now the term was over and I have to leave so soon. I will miss them very much. I am hoping to be back to see them, but I am certain I will keep on helping them even from a distance...it is impossible to forget them really. After the speeches and the delicious food, there was dancing again!!! And so much of it. Suddenly, to my surprise, the entire school had come together and bought me an authentic traditional Ugandan outfit (skirt, top and matching hat). I was overwhelmed. They made me put it on, get on stage, and dance with them! Oh my, those outfits are soooo hot, I don’t know how women can wear them all day long in that kind of heat, but they are so beautiful. It was an honour to wear one. That day was absolutely perfect. It was a really wonderful way to end the term. Just being with the kids made my day. There is something about them that makes you become so attached, maybe their smiles, maybe the way they always want to hold your hand, or carry your things, or simply stand next to you. They’re like nobody else!
The following day, Saturday, we met at the school and handed back their end of term reports. Some passed, some failed. I had arranged to spend the afternoon with one of my primary 6 girls, her name is Halima (she is Muslim, so she has not been given a Christian name like most of the kids at the school). She wanted me to see her house, meet her mom, and also wanted to show me around some markets. So we walked to her house. There I recognized her brother which also goes to Good Samaritan, as well as her two little brothers (ages 2 and 3 I think). So, with the mom they are 5 people living together. I was very curious to see how they lived. The mom does not work. Their uncle gives them a bit of money per month to help with rent and food. The room they are renting consists of one couch, one coffee table and one bed, and it is about the size of those things put together, not any bigger. It costs 3000 Ush per month (which is approx. $1 or $2) I imagine they all sleep in that one bed, I didn’t think it polite to ask. The mom seems really young to have 4 kids and is extremely beautiful. (I use to often wonder why Africans keep having children if they are so poor…but the reasons have become more and more clear. Some are just not properly educated…so even less about contraceptives. I have come across some that believe using used plastic bags they find on the street instead of condoms will prevent pregnancy, others have never heard of the pill plan or cant afford it, others are not aware that condoms can expire or easily break if stored in hot places (like in their wallet or back pocket)…which is also one of the reasons why people get HIV. They are not properly educated and they don’t understand how to prevent it and be safe. Some think you can keep yourself from being affected or get pregnant if you quickly wash with soda directly after sex. Imagine! (That was actually also a rumour when I was growing up, and I also believed it for a short while) Kids are getting their facts wrong, but have nobody to tell them otherwise. They don’t know who to turn to for advice so they believe what they hear from their friends I guess.) Halima is doing very well in school and always seems to be quite happy. We then went on to some markets. Not the kind where you would find any mzungus…they are clearly only for the local habitants of that slum area. It was unbelievable to walk through, a real delight for me. I really felt I was experiencing what it’s really like to be African…not like what happened when the queen came. The city worked so hard to make Kampala look clean, ordered and beautiful for months before her arrival. The commonwealth summit was held in the best part of town, where the prostitutes and street kids had been relocated for those few days. The queen was also taken to one of the best primary school in town for a short visit. This school has everything…materials, textbooks, windows, doors, paint, children wearing ties…strangely this school was given 2 million Ush to make it look nicer for the queen’s visit! Do they have any idea what that kind of money could have done for the school I’m teaching at…bought proper desks, chairs, chalkboards…(During exam time, the kids at Good Samaritan were so crowdedly seated, that the bench they were sitting on kept on collapsing as they were writing. It happened 4 times, really, during the English exams. How are they supposed to do well in those conditions?) How is the world supposed to understand what Africa is really like if we always hide the truth. The queen left here thinking that Ugandans don’t have it so bad, the city is nice, the kids are healthy clean and happy… what a joke.
Master Noah once said to me “if you’re a primary teacher, you die a primary teacher” and I think he’s absolutely right…there is no greater joy then to be around kids all day everyday.
The kids in Canada received the letters we sent! My sister called me to tell me. She had so many questions about some of the things the kids would talk about. It was so exciting to share all that with her. Her class read their letters out loud to each other and talked about what differences they learned and liked. Master Noah just informed me that the kids here also just received their letters but unfortunately the term in over and I want be the one handing it to them. He said a few are still around for the holidays so he was able to distribute a few of them. He mentioned he came across the one that my sister had written, saying she missed me a lot, and had included pictures of the two of us! I’m really glad this project is working out. I think it’s really important for kids that age to get a sense of what else is out there. And, sharing this with my own little sister is invaluable! Other bunch of letters for my African kids is already on their way!
