It's a wonderful life! And it's not even Xmas time..

We can’t believe its June! The weather must be getting so beautiful back in the states. It continues to be an even 75 every day, and the fact that it is now June seems to only be amazing to us. We’re back in the full swing of school and both enjoying teaching more than last term. There was so much to figure out the first months we were trying to learn as much the kids we were teaching, but this time around, both of us have a far clearer understanding on Ugandan culture, learning patterns and work habits so the teaching is easier. And added to this, is the reward to see definite improvement in work, reading and writing in the students. Some of our younger boys we began teaching to read last term are getting more confident in their abilities and we help them less in stories. Math is still a little slow for some of Kami’s students. The first term she spent the entire time trying to correct some of the learning habits her kids had picked up. (Counting on toes for example when they ran out of fingers for adding and subtracting…gets very confusing and only works when their not wearing their school shoes.) She still finds herself having to go back and teach things some of the kids already know, but on the day they do get the concepts, she comes home beaming. She also has started teaching a music class, which she was born to do. Sometimes I look into her classroom and I have no idea who is having more fun, her, or the kids watching with open mouths.

At the secondary school, we have moved from the necessary, but monotonous rules of English writing to applying them in story telling. This is enjoyable for several reasons. First, the unfortunate, but undeniable truth about Ugandan curriculum is that there is very little room for imagination. No matter what subject is being taught, the formula is the same: The teacher gives the kids information, they write it down, memorize it and expel it back on the exam or when called upon in class. The kids don’t grow up here like first and second world children. They have almost no exposure to the world and with such limited resources, have barely even seen pictures of things like creatures in the ocean or thought of other worlds. They know all about Uganda, about digging, the animal life here, the fruits and trees and bore-holes and football. When given an assignment in writing, these are the things they call upon. But, I’m asking them to go past this now and some of them are really responding. I tell them that in every class, their asked to give the correct answers, but in mine, although we learn about proper story formula, characters, plot development etc. the story can be completely made up; a new world created by them. To learn to be more descriptive they learn 6 new adjectives each day to take the place of ordinary words and then write them in sentences. So instead of just saying the “big” tree they use words like “massive,” “enormous,” or “expansive.” They couple this with similes and metaphors and although it started out very slow, some of them have been turning in some excellent stories with beautiful descriptions. One boy who was writing about visiting a big city said he “heard the cars rushing past, sounding like babies crying,” and another one wrote about walking under a tree describing the branches as “bare arms against a blue sky.” (I almost wept, and am personally going to try and support this kid through college…he wrote that as a freshman in high school and came from a village in the furthest corner of Uganda. He has yet to get less than a perfect score on one of my exams.)

We miss showers, refrigerators, sleeping without a mosquito net, varieties in food and friends and family, but wouldn’t trade this for anything. It’s a wonderful life.