Tonight, more than ever, I am reminded of an old song I used to love. I can't find the lyrics anywhere, but it's about a woman who moves to the countryside (I think the outbacks of Australia since the singer is Rolf Harris), far away from her friends, her family, and the city life that she loves. She's writing a letter to her old school friend, Narelle. The tone of the verses is brave but sad, but my favourite bit is the ends of the choruses where the music rises...
But oh! Dear Narelle, I wish you could be here
When the rain finally falls, and the country turns green
And the wind moves the hills in an ocean of grasses
And the gulleys sing loud with the song of the stream.
And oh! Dear Narelle, you should be here at sundown
When the easterly breeze hunts the heat from the day
And the stars shine like diamonds in a sky of black velvet
And I'm glad that my city life's far far away...
And the moon shines as softly as a far away bushfire
And I'm glad that my city life's far far away
I'm glad that my city life's far far away.
Monday 22 August 2011
Tuesday 16 August 2011
Ask and you shall receive
"But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today." - Deuteronomy 8:18
There's not a whole lot to write about at the moment. The students are still on school holiday, which I wasn't expecting. A slight miscommunication meant that I thought they started lessons again on the 12th August, but actually they won't be here until 5th September! So I'm finding other ways to fill my time.
David and I are working at the school in Kyazanga to paint a world map on the wall outside. We were supposed to go last week, but the school's director, Bannet, needed to get the wall plastered first. Sadly his mother had a heart attack at the start of the week so understandably the plastering wasn't his highest priority. She is now recovering well, so we headed there yesterday to do the first lot of painting. Of course, more miscommunications meant they'd plastered a slightly different area of wall to what we expected so David spent most of the day plastering the rest of it while I did some painting. Hopefully the plaster will be dry by tomorrow so we can paint paint paint. Also, hopefully tomorrow it won't rain quite as much as it did yesterday! We were working underneath the overhang of the roof but we still got rather wet and even cold! Bannet kept asking me if I was too cold, since I was only in t-shirt and shorts, but I was very happy and told him that it's frequently much, much colder in the UK. He thought that was funny.
I've been spending quite a lot of time composing e-mails to various people asking them to donate money towards Hope Academy's laboratory. I calculated that it will cost about $1500 to put in all the work benches, water and gas pipes, equipment, chemicals and so on. I don't expect to raise all that while I'm here, but so far two people have donated a total of $350 which is a really good start, and someone else has pledged to donate more when they return to the UK. It's quite overwhelming having the responsibility of using the money carefully and wisely, especially when I know that many retailers here are only too happy to charge 'mzungu prices' if I'm not careful! But I'm working with the headmaster and some of the teachers, so hopefully we can do the best job possible. Today I was sizing up the lab to decide the best way of arranging furniture in there. It's only about 5m x 6m but it needs to hold a class of about 40 students! I think it's possible, so long as we make creative use of storage spaces. All those days of reading Ikea catalogues with their interesting arrangements of furniture are coming in useful. I even suggested putting in a mezzanine level since the ceiling is quite high, but it would be rather expensive... and I'm not sure I'd want someone using acid on a cheaply constructed platform above my head!
Another thing I've been doing is researching an idea I've had for a longer-term project for the future. While I'm really excited about furnishing the lab here, and I hope it will have a really positive effect on the education of these students, it's clearly not feasible to install good science facilities in every school in the area. However it would be possible to have a 'mobile lab' in a van that could visit schools, to run experiments that fit in with the national syllabus. Projects like the Book Bus do this successfully with a library but so far I can't find anyone doing it with science equipment. Obviously it would be more difficult financially (books are harder to 'use up' than chemicals, and easier for normal people to donate) but with some good sponsors (individuals, schools, universities, scientific companies etc) it should be possible. I've started discussing it with teachers and the response has been very positive. Next week, or maybe later this week, Bannet is going to take me round the other secondary schools in Kyazanga so I can talk to their science teachers too. I think the biggest challenge in this project would be convincing my mother that it's a good idea for me to move back to Uganda for a longer period of time...
There's not a whole lot to write about at the moment. The students are still on school holiday, which I wasn't expecting. A slight miscommunication meant that I thought they started lessons again on the 12th August, but actually they won't be here until 5th September! So I'm finding other ways to fill my time.
David and I are working at the school in Kyazanga to paint a world map on the wall outside. We were supposed to go last week, but the school's director, Bannet, needed to get the wall plastered first. Sadly his mother had a heart attack at the start of the week so understandably the plastering wasn't his highest priority. She is now recovering well, so we headed there yesterday to do the first lot of painting. Of course, more miscommunications meant they'd plastered a slightly different area of wall to what we expected so David spent most of the day plastering the rest of it while I did some painting. Hopefully the plaster will be dry by tomorrow so we can paint paint paint. Also, hopefully tomorrow it won't rain quite as much as it did yesterday! We were working underneath the overhang of the roof but we still got rather wet and even cold! Bannet kept asking me if I was too cold, since I was only in t-shirt and shorts, but I was very happy and told him that it's frequently much, much colder in the UK. He thought that was funny.
I've been spending quite a lot of time composing e-mails to various people asking them to donate money towards Hope Academy's laboratory. I calculated that it will cost about $1500 to put in all the work benches, water and gas pipes, equipment, chemicals and so on. I don't expect to raise all that while I'm here, but so far two people have donated a total of $350 which is a really good start, and someone else has pledged to donate more when they return to the UK. It's quite overwhelming having the responsibility of using the money carefully and wisely, especially when I know that many retailers here are only too happy to charge 'mzungu prices' if I'm not careful! But I'm working with the headmaster and some of the teachers, so hopefully we can do the best job possible. Today I was sizing up the lab to decide the best way of arranging furniture in there. It's only about 5m x 6m but it needs to hold a class of about 40 students! I think it's possible, so long as we make creative use of storage spaces. All those days of reading Ikea catalogues with their interesting arrangements of furniture are coming in useful. I even suggested putting in a mezzanine level since the ceiling is quite high, but it would be rather expensive... and I'm not sure I'd want someone using acid on a cheaply constructed platform above my head!
Another thing I've been doing is researching an idea I've had for a longer-term project for the future. While I'm really excited about furnishing the lab here, and I hope it will have a really positive effect on the education of these students, it's clearly not feasible to install good science facilities in every school in the area. However it would be possible to have a 'mobile lab' in a van that could visit schools, to run experiments that fit in with the national syllabus. Projects like the Book Bus do this successfully with a library but so far I can't find anyone doing it with science equipment. Obviously it would be more difficult financially (books are harder to 'use up' than chemicals, and easier for normal people to donate) but with some good sponsors (individuals, schools, universities, scientific companies etc) it should be possible. I've started discussing it with teachers and the response has been very positive. Next week, or maybe later this week, Bannet is going to take me round the other secondary schools in Kyazanga so I can talk to their science teachers too. I think the biggest challenge in this project would be convincing my mother that it's a good idea for me to move back to Uganda for a longer period of time...
Sunday 7 August 2011
So, thanks to problems with internet, electricity and laziness, it's been two weeks since I last posted. Many many things to write about!
Teaching has been going well, though for the last week or so the students have been having exams. I've done several experiments with them, with varying degrees of success. I have to remember that the students just aren't used to doing things for themselves, so even though they've written out the method for an experiment (1. Label two test tubes "A" and "B"; 2. Put a clean nail and some water in test tube A; 3. Put some boiled water in test tube B and add a layer of oil; 4. Leave for one week) they have no idea what to do when presented with test tubes, nails, water and oil. I finally empathised with an old teacher of mine, who used to say very frequently "It's like trying to get blood out of a stone!"
We tried to do some chromatography with S1, to separate different pigments in leaves. It would have worked fine apart from the ethanol, well, wasn't ethanol. There were several unmarked water bottles containing clear liquids in the lab, so the teacher went through and sniffed them all until he decided that one was more likely to be ethanol than any of the others. To be fair, it probably once did contain ethanol, but since it's been left open in the lab it's now very dilute. I think the students still enjoyed doing the practical stuff though.
Marking the exam papers has been amusing and frustrating in equal measure. Some of the answers to the questions have made me giggle:
Q - why do we study biology? A - to acquire skin.
Q - list five ways of separating mixtures. A - magnesium, by burning paper into ash, by buring bush into ash, by burning clothes into ash, by burning firewood into ash, soil and water, dies in ink, water and athonal, filitration.
Q - how can you separate a mixture of oil and water? A - We first make the apparatuse very well and then we have expand them well organised. We put their Beaker, a filter paper and filter funnel the we should start mixing oil with water the we mixing them in the time then it gives the the truth what we have to do at the last moment. And we have to check them at one second. and we should live them whe one second is already left we should remove them in the apparatus awe should see oil heavey than water what is it when we have finished to see the heaviest when it is water or oil we shall no the truth.
(And the truth will set us free?)
In the past couple of weeks I've visited two other secondary schools, Mbiriizi Modern Secondary and another school in Kyazanga whose name I've forgotten. MMS was very nice - it's about ten years old compared to three years for Hope so it runs much more smoothly. They have dormitories for both boys and girls, a large assembly hall, and even two science labs! The labs aren't much better equipped than the one at Hope, but they're considerably more spacious and there are enough benches for a whole class of students to work in there. As a result, all the classes of students there do an average of one practical per week, according to one of the teachers. The school in Kyazanga, on the other hand, is even poorer than Hope. They don't even pretend to have any scientific facilities. David and I are going back there on Wednesday to paint a world map on one of the walls outside the school, and maybe fill up some of the other blank wall space as well. Maybe I should draw out the periodic table?
Last Wednesday I went to a local market with Clare and Tammy. All the taxis and cars going in that direction were already full (and "full" in Ugandan terms means at least 12 people in a 5-seater car) so we walked for an hour or so to get there. It's not a touristy market at all so it was very interesting, though we were stared at and shouted at a lot. The market is loosely organised into zones... after our first walkabout we learned not to spend too long in the fish section! They sell these tiny dried fish, which I tried once the last time I was in Uganda. They're not too bad, but when you have piles of them at least a metre high the smell is overpowering. A much better area of the market was the part where they sold banana pancakes. These are about 7-8cm diameter, made from flour, water and banana and deep fried. When they're hot they are incredibly tasty, and at USh100 for 3 (=3p!) we can afford to indulge in them. Mmmm. I tried to buy a children's book in English and Luganda (Akatabo Kange Akasooka Mu Luzungu n'Oluganda) but the guy wanted USh6000 for it which I thought was a little unreasonable. I later found the same book in Masaka for USh3500 and another good one for the same price... and later the same day I saw them in another shop for USh2000 each. Hmph.
A weird thing happened in Masaka the other day. I found some science posters in a bookshop and decided to buy them for Hope. They were just the right kind of level and presented the information nicely. The students have no textbooks, just the notes they take down from their teachers, and posters could be a good way of getting more information across to them without having to buy a textbook for each student. Anyway, I asked for the price and the woman in the shop said 10,000 each. I offered 20,000 for three and she said yes. I chose three and paid. We were just about to leave the shop when a man who also worked there grabbed the posters from my hand and said they're 12,000 each. I explained that I'd already made the deal and paid, but he wouldn't let go of them! After arguing with him for a few minutes I picked up my money off the counter and walked out of the shop. I'm pretty sure in the UK what he did would be illegal but TIA and I couldn't be bothered to carry on arguing. Similarly, in Kyazanga we tried to buy some chapati. The guy said they were 500 each, which is expensive but they were pretty big. I paid 3000 and asked him for six but they gave us three and then said they're 1000 each! Ridiculous. I know we're richer and all that, and I'm used to them trying to charge us slightly more than they would charge each other, but changing the price after the money has been exchanged? Really? It's hardly going to make us want to go back to that trader.
Last Saturday morning I did a homestay with one of the S2 students, Christine. She's super-lovely and very bright. I've marked the biology and chemistry exams for S2 now and she came 2nd and 4th in the class (out of 30ish), with 90% and 81% respectively, a distinction in both cases. Considering in the chemistry exam two thirds of her class failed (under 50%), her marks are very impressive. She wants to be a doctor so I hope and pray that her parents will be able to afford her education. The homestay was very relaxed since by the time I got there (at 10ish after she'd come to pick me up) she'd already done all the cleaning and digging for the morning! So we drank tea, ate chapati and banana pancakes and nuts, chatted, did some revision for the exams, played with her sister and brother, and spoke some Luganda (she taught me how to tell the time). When I left she gave me nuts, sugar cane and pineapple! It still amazes me how generous some people here can be.
In my last post I wrote about the wedding we went to. Last weekend we went to a graduation party for one of the teachers from Hope. It was much like the wedding with many many speeches. When we arrived we were fed with some of the family (though the teacher's family were fasting for Ramadan). There was rice and matoke obviously, and also chicken 'soup' (pieces of chicken in broth) cooked in banana leaf parcels. Opening the food is like opening a present because you don't know which body parts you'll get - mum, you'd hate it! Tammy got the necks (and promptly swapped parcels with someone else) but I had legs and wings which were much nicer. It was the most African meal I've had so far I think, particularly because we had to eat everything with our fingers. I challenge you to eat a plate of rice and chicken broth with your fingers without making a complete mess of everything! During the party itself there was lots of dancing but only specific groups of people are called to dance at any one time, while everybody else watches. So obviously they called up us bazungu to embarrass ourselves in front of everyone. There were also 4 other white people, from Holland, but we didn't get a chance to meet them other than raising our eyebrows at each other as we danced. There were a couple of hundred people at the party so it took a very very long time for all the 'important' groups of people to come up to the front and dance. Another very African thing about the party... the village had precisely zero toilets, so we just had to walk out through the banana plantations if we wanted to go! It felt slightly exposed, but I guess the people in the houses on the surrounding hills are quite used to the sight by now.
As a nice contrast to the slightly negative feeling of the last paragraph, I'm going to write about one of the most amazing things I've done here so far. Last Wednesday David and I went to visit a friend called John who keeps bees. He was harvesting the honey which was so interesting to watch. He had piles of dried leaves which he set on fire to smoke out the bees, then used a machete and his hands to get the honeycomb out of the hives. He got stung quite a bit and burnt too, but he kept going for about an hour. It was really stunning to watch because it was completely dark, but there were thunderstorms in the distance so there was almost constant lightning and of course the fire from the leaves. I took some photos but they really don't do it justice.
Some other fun things. We have racist turkeys here which are HUGE, like waist height! Some previous volunteers antagonised them so now they attack white people. Slightly more scary than the turkeys, Tammy and I got followed home by a crazy man who then tried to attack me. Luckily Martin grabbed him and placated him somewhat (though he was still shouting something about mzungu) though he did manage to hit me in the neck. Everyone was impressed that I stayed so calm during the whole thing, so it seems my Jitsu training is paying off :-). If he turns up again, or tries to attack us in Kyetume, I won't hesitate to defend myself properly!
Time for our daily walk to Kyetume to buy chapati and soda now :-) :-) :-). It would be really really nice to talk to people on the phone - my number is +256754168015 and if you get credit on Skype it's only about 15p per minute, and really cheap to text. I'm free most of the time and it isn't considered rude here to answer a phone call even during a meeting so anyone can call whenever. Best time is probably between 9pm and 11pm (7pm-9pm in UK).
Mbera bulungi
Teaching has been going well, though for the last week or so the students have been having exams. I've done several experiments with them, with varying degrees of success. I have to remember that the students just aren't used to doing things for themselves, so even though they've written out the method for an experiment (1. Label two test tubes "A" and "B"; 2. Put a clean nail and some water in test tube A; 3. Put some boiled water in test tube B and add a layer of oil; 4. Leave for one week) they have no idea what to do when presented with test tubes, nails, water and oil. I finally empathised with an old teacher of mine, who used to say very frequently "It's like trying to get blood out of a stone!"
We tried to do some chromatography with S1, to separate different pigments in leaves. It would have worked fine apart from the ethanol, well, wasn't ethanol. There were several unmarked water bottles containing clear liquids in the lab, so the teacher went through and sniffed them all until he decided that one was more likely to be ethanol than any of the others. To be fair, it probably once did contain ethanol, but since it's been left open in the lab it's now very dilute. I think the students still enjoyed doing the practical stuff though.
Marking the exam papers has been amusing and frustrating in equal measure. Some of the answers to the questions have made me giggle:
Q - why do we study biology? A - to acquire skin.
Q - list five ways of separating mixtures. A - magnesium, by burning paper into ash, by buring bush into ash, by burning clothes into ash, by burning firewood into ash, soil and water, dies in ink, water and athonal, filitration.
Q - how can you separate a mixture of oil and water? A - We first make the apparatuse very well and then we have expand them well organised. We put their Beaker, a filter paper and filter funnel the we should start mixing oil with water the we mixing them in the time then it gives the the truth what we have to do at the last moment. And we have to check them at one second. and we should live them whe one second is already left we should remove them in the apparatus awe should see oil heavey than water what is it when we have finished to see the heaviest when it is water or oil we shall no the truth.
(And the truth will set us free?)
In the past couple of weeks I've visited two other secondary schools, Mbiriizi Modern Secondary and another school in Kyazanga whose name I've forgotten. MMS was very nice - it's about ten years old compared to three years for Hope so it runs much more smoothly. They have dormitories for both boys and girls, a large assembly hall, and even two science labs! The labs aren't much better equipped than the one at Hope, but they're considerably more spacious and there are enough benches for a whole class of students to work in there. As a result, all the classes of students there do an average of one practical per week, according to one of the teachers. The school in Kyazanga, on the other hand, is even poorer than Hope. They don't even pretend to have any scientific facilities. David and I are going back there on Wednesday to paint a world map on one of the walls outside the school, and maybe fill up some of the other blank wall space as well. Maybe I should draw out the periodic table?
Last Wednesday I went to a local market with Clare and Tammy. All the taxis and cars going in that direction were already full (and "full" in Ugandan terms means at least 12 people in a 5-seater car) so we walked for an hour or so to get there. It's not a touristy market at all so it was very interesting, though we were stared at and shouted at a lot. The market is loosely organised into zones... after our first walkabout we learned not to spend too long in the fish section! They sell these tiny dried fish, which I tried once the last time I was in Uganda. They're not too bad, but when you have piles of them at least a metre high the smell is overpowering. A much better area of the market was the part where they sold banana pancakes. These are about 7-8cm diameter, made from flour, water and banana and deep fried. When they're hot they are incredibly tasty, and at USh100 for 3 (=3p!) we can afford to indulge in them. Mmmm. I tried to buy a children's book in English and Luganda (Akatabo Kange Akasooka Mu Luzungu n'Oluganda) but the guy wanted USh6000 for it which I thought was a little unreasonable. I later found the same book in Masaka for USh3500 and another good one for the same price... and later the same day I saw them in another shop for USh2000 each. Hmph.
A weird thing happened in Masaka the other day. I found some science posters in a bookshop and decided to buy them for Hope. They were just the right kind of level and presented the information nicely. The students have no textbooks, just the notes they take down from their teachers, and posters could be a good way of getting more information across to them without having to buy a textbook for each student. Anyway, I asked for the price and the woman in the shop said 10,000 each. I offered 20,000 for three and she said yes. I chose three and paid. We were just about to leave the shop when a man who also worked there grabbed the posters from my hand and said they're 12,000 each. I explained that I'd already made the deal and paid, but he wouldn't let go of them! After arguing with him for a few minutes I picked up my money off the counter and walked out of the shop. I'm pretty sure in the UK what he did would be illegal but TIA and I couldn't be bothered to carry on arguing. Similarly, in Kyazanga we tried to buy some chapati. The guy said they were 500 each, which is expensive but they were pretty big. I paid 3000 and asked him for six but they gave us three and then said they're 1000 each! Ridiculous. I know we're richer and all that, and I'm used to them trying to charge us slightly more than they would charge each other, but changing the price after the money has been exchanged? Really? It's hardly going to make us want to go back to that trader.
Last Saturday morning I did a homestay with one of the S2 students, Christine. She's super-lovely and very bright. I've marked the biology and chemistry exams for S2 now and she came 2nd and 4th in the class (out of 30ish), with 90% and 81% respectively, a distinction in both cases. Considering in the chemistry exam two thirds of her class failed (under 50%), her marks are very impressive. She wants to be a doctor so I hope and pray that her parents will be able to afford her education. The homestay was very relaxed since by the time I got there (at 10ish after she'd come to pick me up) she'd already done all the cleaning and digging for the morning! So we drank tea, ate chapati and banana pancakes and nuts, chatted, did some revision for the exams, played with her sister and brother, and spoke some Luganda (she taught me how to tell the time). When I left she gave me nuts, sugar cane and pineapple! It still amazes me how generous some people here can be.
In my last post I wrote about the wedding we went to. Last weekend we went to a graduation party for one of the teachers from Hope. It was much like the wedding with many many speeches. When we arrived we were fed with some of the family (though the teacher's family were fasting for Ramadan). There was rice and matoke obviously, and also chicken 'soup' (pieces of chicken in broth) cooked in banana leaf parcels. Opening the food is like opening a present because you don't know which body parts you'll get - mum, you'd hate it! Tammy got the necks (and promptly swapped parcels with someone else) but I had legs and wings which were much nicer. It was the most African meal I've had so far I think, particularly because we had to eat everything with our fingers. I challenge you to eat a plate of rice and chicken broth with your fingers without making a complete mess of everything! During the party itself there was lots of dancing but only specific groups of people are called to dance at any one time, while everybody else watches. So obviously they called up us bazungu to embarrass ourselves in front of everyone. There were also 4 other white people, from Holland, but we didn't get a chance to meet them other than raising our eyebrows at each other as we danced. There were a couple of hundred people at the party so it took a very very long time for all the 'important' groups of people to come up to the front and dance. Another very African thing about the party... the village had precisely zero toilets, so we just had to walk out through the banana plantations if we wanted to go! It felt slightly exposed, but I guess the people in the houses on the surrounding hills are quite used to the sight by now.
As a nice contrast to the slightly negative feeling of the last paragraph, I'm going to write about one of the most amazing things I've done here so far. Last Wednesday David and I went to visit a friend called John who keeps bees. He was harvesting the honey which was so interesting to watch. He had piles of dried leaves which he set on fire to smoke out the bees, then used a machete and his hands to get the honeycomb out of the hives. He got stung quite a bit and burnt too, but he kept going for about an hour. It was really stunning to watch because it was completely dark, but there were thunderstorms in the distance so there was almost constant lightning and of course the fire from the leaves. I took some photos but they really don't do it justice.
Some other fun things. We have racist turkeys here which are HUGE, like waist height! Some previous volunteers antagonised them so now they attack white people. Slightly more scary than the turkeys, Tammy and I got followed home by a crazy man who then tried to attack me. Luckily Martin grabbed him and placated him somewhat (though he was still shouting something about mzungu) though he did manage to hit me in the neck. Everyone was impressed that I stayed so calm during the whole thing, so it seems my Jitsu training is paying off :-). If he turns up again, or tries to attack us in Kyetume, I won't hesitate to defend myself properly!
Time for our daily walk to Kyetume to buy chapati and soda now :-) :-) :-). It would be really really nice to talk to people on the phone - my number is +256754168015 and if you get credit on Skype it's only about 15p per minute, and really cheap to text. I'm free most of the time and it isn't considered rude here to answer a phone call even during a meeting so anyone can call whenever. Best time is probably between 9pm and 11pm (7pm-9pm in UK).
Mbera bulungi
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