Back to School

Its sounds so strange even to us to say we are now back in school when it is the beginning of Feb. but.. we really are back in school. The first day for both of us was like the beginning of any inspirational movie in which the first day for the character is the worst experience ever. Kami and I both came home for lunch on the first day and each of us was wearing this awkward smile like "was your day as nuts as mine so far?" Let's just put it this way. In Africa, things like schedules, specific room assignments and teacher coordination aren't really priorities right away. There theory is to leave all the prep work until school actually starts and sort out as the first week goes along. I guess this is very normal. Kami showed up to the primary school, excited and ready to go only to find that half the teachers weren't there yet, parents send their kids from the villages around the time school starts, not necessarily the first day (I mean why rush it, right?) and there were no benches in the classrooms. So, she spent the first 2 hours moving desks and benches from a school near by. The headmistress had not finished the schedule yet and kept changing her mind on where she wanted Kami, and even when she did get her in the right class, kids from all other grades just start walking in and out to see her white skin. Its not easy to teach when your kids are walking in and out, and you know very limited Lugandan. Luckily she knew, "Bambi Tuula" which means "please sit down." She came home very exhausted.
I left to school with high hopes. I had prepped all weekend to teach History and honestly have been thinking about the first history class I would teach since before I entered college. The walk is beautiful, along burnt red dirt roads, and through palm tree covered paths. Its about a mile to the school and to walk it in the early morning makes you feel alive. (the temp is usually around 65 degrees as I walk in the morning.) I got to the school to find a very similar situation. The schedule was not made yet (I mean why work before you have to, right?) There was an opening assembly where they introduced the teachers (there is really 11 but only 2 beside myself made it: traveling from the city is not always easy.)
I then found out that History would not start until next week. During this time I was looking around for the teacher I was supposed to be co-teaching English with. For the first week, because he had all the books, I was going to sit in class and get a feel for Ugandan curriculum. He never made it to school though. You are in Senior 3 for the first class they told me. Have fun. If you have never stood outside of a high school classroom before with absolutely nothing prepared, two pieces of chalk in your hand, a full classroom and a language barrier, let me tell you, you need to try it sometime. It's a strange feeling. I made it somehow though. Luckily, taking Greek in College drilled the definition of verbs, nouns, direct objects and all the other basic parts of speech into my head and I just winged it. I have to talk so different here. I pronounce all my letters like they do even when I speak English so I don't recognize my own voice when I am teaching. I left the school 6 hours later with my head buzzing. I walked slowly all the way home. The kids were nice, but being in the presence of a white person, (some for the first time since they come from small villages hundereds of miles away) they were very quiet and very unresponsive. Girls are so submissive here they don't talk barely above a whisper to me in class.
I thought soccer practice would be redeeming though. It went worse than school, if that's even possible. None of the kids have had a coach before. The only soccer they know is what they have seen in snipits on TV. The only thing they all know for sure is that they are supposed to be obsessed with it. (You can't be a Ugandan and not love football, so even when people don't, they won't admit it.) They were all over an hour late, and then came out onto the field at different times. It took me over 10 min for everyone to actually gather together and be ready. I asked the kids, do you want to just play, or do you want to learn some skills and get better? They said they wanted to learn. I asked them if they wanted to win, because that would talk a lot of hard work. They said they were ready. 20 mins into the first drill they all started asking, "coach, coach, why can't we just play?" I didn't even have the energy left to refute them. They have so far to go, most of them aren't sure even about positions. But, we're going to make it work.
I came back from my first day more exhausted than all of the days we have been here.
I need to wrap this up, so let me close in saying that the second day was much better. Everything is lost in translation here so the first encounters with everything is rough at first. Classes went well today (still no English teacher but this time I was prepared.)
We had two visitors from Oregon last night. They were a couple who is going to help with some water holes in the villages in North Uganda and crashed at the home for a night. They were like angels. We have not had any contact with Americans since we got here. (You can't believe how much it means, even after 21 days out. Just to talk normally again, and to laugh about things we all got was so great. We had a great dinner at the home, went and sang and prayed with the kids outside, sent them to bed and then walked down to a small place we could sit on the deck and talk. We talked until 1 AM until they asked us to leave. We heard that Health Ledger died from them, and I feel a little embarrassed at how much it took us back. I mean there has been some serious years of movies we have shared with him. We're ok though.)
We love you all. We are going to post more pics soon. It just goes so slow here on the internet. You have to set aside a couple of hours to upload photos. We're safe, we're happy and we fall asleep every night so satisfied with the work we did in the day. It's an amazing feeling.