I'm a Believer

Welp, as predicted, this week has been an eventful one. It was our last full week at Rwentutu with the kiddos, the Canadians arrived and implemented an incredible community-based football tournament, and we were able to make another couple of home visits.

Let’s begin, though, in the classroom. After finding some serious success in the conclusion of our time telling unit, I was excited to moved into a new topic of study—measuring.

To begin our unit, I decided to utilize one of P2's favorite lesson structures called 'rotation stations'. First, I set up the class to contain eight different stations, each with a task for students to complete. Once groups are situated at their initial location, we begin. Students must be mindful of time and work efficiently because after 6 minutes, I hit play on my preselected song (in this instance, "I'm a Believer") and groups must move on to the next station. 

Measuring the length of the classroom in steps for one station.

Station 4: Measure a teacher's arm using handspan.

The engagement in this lesson was energizing.

In a later lesson, I grouped P2 into teams of three and sent them on a measuring spree. Their job was to brainstorm a list of items shorter than 1 meter and longer than 1 meter and then test their inferences by making the measurements.

Biira Jane shows us how it's done.

After collecting their data, groups congregated back in the classroom to compare notes and make one larger class chart on the board. Their interest was definitely sparked and their success set a confident tone for the lessons to follow.

In English, we finally completed our 2014 calendars! 

They were certainly proud of their hard work.

My aim with this project was to give students a tangible goal—complete all 12 months of a calendar—and to develop a useable finished product. Having work to bring home seemed like an unfamiliar but thrilling event for these kids, making the unit all the more fulfilling in my eyes.

Speaking of home, Angela and I were invited for lunch at the home of two of our students this week—Keneth (a P2 student in my class) and Beneth (a P6 student with Angela). They don't live far from the school, so on Thursday we decided to make the trip.

Their beautiful family (plus Samson) outside their home.

We had no idea that in traveling to their home, we'd also be able to see the place where Samson was raised. It turns out that Keneth and Beneth's father is a good friend of Samson's 'tata,' and that their homes are separated by only a couple of kilometers. 

So, after lunch, and a few more snaps...

Keneth spying from his bedroom window.

we were on our way to Sam Bam's home. Angela and I were both interested to hear how infrequently Samson is able to see his father, even though his work with us brings him so close to home every day.

Their reunion was heartwarming.

To no one's surprise at this point, our visit also yielded us a chicken, who we quickly named Benson (Samson's alias). 

**Compound update: Feathers have been flying as Benson and Frank seem to be mortal enemies, each determined to obtain full rule of the land. Frank seems to have the immediate advantage, but we'll have to wait and see how this all plays out. (In my opinion, they're both just a little cocky...)

Jokes aside, it's moments like these, outside of our everyday routine, that really hit home and deliver a sense of purpose to our trip; it's these personal connections that will no doubt bring each of us back here someday; and, it's these stories of humility and graciousness in the face of poverty that we will use to challenge the complacency of the American ideal in our everyday lives.

To close out the week, Rwentutu held its first annual football tournament, sponsored by the African Canadian Soccer & Cultural Association and organized by freekicks.org. Freekicks is a non-profit organization founded by our Canadian friend, Adam Aziz, aiming to bring the game of soccer to communities all over the world. 

The man. The myth. The legend.

Through independent fundraising and passionate determination, Adam's team was able to donate brand new jerseys, cleats, balls, and cones to Rwentutu Christian School's football team. They have also spent a good amount of time this week coaching each of the participating teams and have been working with a group of welders in Kasese to create brand new goals for the field. To reach out and impact the community on another level, freekicks also organized free HIV screening for anyone in attendance at Friday's tournament. The unabashed participation was remarkable, from both parents and students. 

As their time in Uganda continues, they do plan to excavate the field and renovate the uneven obstacle course that our students have been playing on. Their work is inspiring, not only to me, but to the communities surrounding our school. While I wish that I could stay the duration of their project, I am already looking forward to tracking their progress from back in the states.

As the tournament began, four local teams took the day off from school and traveled to Rwentutu to compete in a five-team tournament for the ACSCA cup.

That's some serious hardware.

The competition was stiff and the crowd enthralled. 

Seriously, look at that turnout!

Rwentutu in red, ready for action.

Justus and Greg coaching from the sidelines.

Balloon celebration after a Rwentutu goal. 

Rwentutu won its first match in dramatic fashion and ended up advancing all the way to the championship game. Unfortunately, their luck ran out in the final game, where they were outscored two nil.

Regardless of the outcome, the day was an undeniable success. 

As our time here comes to an end, events like this bring me hope and encouragement that once we're gone, Rwentutu will continue to grow and our students will continue to be blessed with good fortune. Every day brings new hardships, but the positivity of these kids sure does lighten the load.

Until next time!

Hodge Podge

As anticipated, our school-free Tuesday was mostly spent doing laundry, lesson planning, and scrolling through iPhoto, reliving the memories from the trip thus far. We were, however, also graciously invited to the home of Rwentutu’s Headmaster, Wilson, where we met his beautiful family and enjoyed a lavish meal prepared by his wife.

His family was recently forced to relocate in effect of the Kilembe floods. 

After the holiday, the week continued accordingly.

In math, our focused remained on the passage of time, so to help exemplify the processes that occur over time, I brought in The Very Hungry Caterpillar for a lesson. We first read the book together to find some fluency in the plot. Then, I rewrote the story in hopes that my students would find some relevance in the fact that our caterpillar is more interested in mandazi and chapatti than strawberries and cupcakes.

After the class reorganized the events of the story based on chronologic labels, each student chose a piece of the story to illustrate, until together we had created Rwentutu’s Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

We read our remix aloud and then hung it up in the 

P2 Learner’s Corner that I finally finished this week.

They can’t get enough of that book!

Speaking of very hungry, at long last and no doubt a great deal of audience anticipation, we have finally completed our first and only slaughter. 

We killed our chicken and ate it, too. 

Understandably, the process was gruesome, so I’ll keep it short.

Because we were gifted another, fatter chicken on our scheduled slaughter day, famous Frank has been spared once more. Bwambale, however, did not fare so well. After a lot of screaming, one blunt knife, and a good amount of feather debris, I have a whole new appreciation for the tolerance of a butcher. (An important side note for those who’ve been asking, it would have definitely run around with its head cut off, had Juliet not been standing on top of its feet and wings.)

Anyways, back to school.

The big event of the week was the teachers versus students soccer game.

Wilson stood guard of the net and probably saved about 25 goals throughout the match.

Baby Evans was named mascot of the year, too.

I know you’re not really interested in the logistics of all that “winning” and “losing” stuff, so we’ll just say that everybody had a great time and that there are some sneaking suspicions that those kids might’ve had a few FUFA players on their team.

We rounded out the week with a trip to the rain forest for chimp tracking today.

Ready for the wild.

The foliage was incredible.

Most of the chimps that we saw were hunting, so they were constantly swinging through the trees and roaming the forest floor.

After many failed attempts, we finally got some evidence of our sightings.

The chimp whisperers 10 miles later.

And to top off our already eventful day, we met four more elephants on our way back to Kasese.

These two… 

were definitely… 

the coolest.

With another big week ahead, I’ll sign off now. We have a group of Canadian soccer coaches coming tomorrow, so there will be a lot of excitement at the school this week for sure. 

Kasese’s Better Half

 The city that we live in is an interesting mix between natural, geographic beauty and polluted, metropolitan mess.

This juxtaposition obviously has its drawbacks, but yesterday did well to illuminate the high points of Kasese living.

After what felt like decades away from Enoch, we were finally able to reconnect for a hike in the hills yesterday afternoon. His friend Louise, a retired parliament member, joined us enthusiastically.

I mean come on; the woman turns 61 on Wednesday. 

She’s incredible.

The views from the top were to die for.

The top of this particular hill is the future home of the region’s king.

Before heading home, we stopped for some tea and enjoyed each other’s company a little longer.

Believe me, the fresh air was just what the doctor ordered, but it certainly tuckered us out.

This morning, as we made our way to school, I’ll admit, I got a bit sentimental. Every day that goes by makes it more and more difficult to accept the inevitable end that this adventure is nearing.

When I leave, I can just take them all with me right?

Anyways, slowly but surely the school has begun to regain its usual activity. At the end of last week, I was teaching to a class of only 16 students, and today I was happy to see that all but two of my P2’s had returned.

For the past week or so I have been teaching about different measures of time. In English we’ve begun a project on 2014 calendar development and in math have focused on telling time. When I first began the education program at the UW, I was working with a class of 2^nd and 3^rd graders to whom I was responsible for teaching time; so, when I saw the theme of this unit I was convinced that my experience would carry me through no problem.

No.

While relishing in my own confidence, I had failed to recognize that some of my students here had literally never used a clock before or even been exposed to the 24 hour schedule that we follow. (In Uganda, the day begins at 6:00PM, not the 12:00AM time that we’re used to.) Here in lies the major problem with my preliminary assessment requesting that students create individual daily schedules. P2 is a class of hard workers, so it was no surprise that they finished the task I’d given them regardless of their confusion.

After reviewing their work however, I began to notice a trend. My students were pretty consistently writing that they woke up somewhere around 1:00AM. I immediately found myself questioning their understanding, for obvious reasons. But, after a little digging, I was able to discover the major difference in the Ugandan time scale, adjusted my instruction accordingly, and finally began to see some progress.

To help familiarize my students with this new order of thing, I made a daily schedule for the time that we spend at school each day. My kids have promised to maintain this routine after I leave, but even so I’m hoping that a little exposure is better than nothing. Fingers crossed!

I will say that this activity went surprisingly well.

Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve also spent quite a bit of time assessing my students’ reading abilities. I had recently discovered a series of texts perfect for small group reading and organized them by levels. Once I’d completed my makeshift version of a running record for each student, they were relatively neatly separated into groups.

The process was tedious but certainly worth it.

Today was my first day implementing reading groups during library time, and I’d say there’s still some work to be done. The process of participating in reading groups requires that students be willing to share their opinions, and with this group of learners operating in their second language, that’s not always a cakewalk.

I was glad to have been scheduled for library on back-to-back days of the week, figuring that the repetition of reading groups would help the confidence of my class, but unfortunately we were informed rather abruptly at the end of the day today that the radio has deemed tomorrow a public holiday, which of course means…no school…again.

At this point all I can do is appreciate the fact that now I get to catch up on my laundry.

**Sigh** someday we’ll have an uninterrupted week of school with these kiddos.