My new home in Ndejje, Uganda.

My first week in Ndejje has been scary, wonderful, stressful, and rewarding. The small village is located between 6-10km South West of Kampala and is considered a suburb of the capital. The drive was much faster than I expected, once we got out of Kampala traffic it was only about 20min or so. My first impression of Jacques, my director, was great! He is a very friendly and intelligent Congolese man. We first went to his home in Ndejje were I met his wife Sarah, his two daughter Daniella (14yrs) and Naomi (2yrs) and his two sons on that is about 10yrs (I forget his name) and Steven (1yr). His family was very warm and welcoming. The place that we had originally planned on me renting was occupied so Jacques spent some of the afternoon searching for another place.

This is Ndejje from a distance.

I stayed at their house the first night. I watched two mice run under their couch and minuets later Sarah and Daniella killed a cockroach in the kitchen. I thought to myself “wonderful.” J Jacques had a few visitors that nights, all of them were Congolese and spoke French! Amongst them was Joseph, who said he would help me with my French. I was very tired and went to sleep fairly early that night.

The next day Jacques and I went to the bank to get rent money and then to my new house! We had bota-botas bring my bags down the hill from Jacques house to mine (only about a 10min walk. I live in a small “apartment complex” with 4 other tenets. I am Room 5 and am in the corner of the complex. My new house has 2 rooms, and INDOOR bathroom (very excited and surprised) and a small kitchen outside that really resembles a closet. I have 1 door and 2 windows. I get my water from the tap outside but to drink it I need to filter it or boil it for 9min. Shortly after I arrived and set up a few things at my new house, Jacques sent some of the kids from HOPE school over to help me clean. They were climbing all over the windows and walls wiping things and splashing water everywhere – African cleaning is much different than American cleaning I will say that much.

The weekend (4-5) was nice, although a bit lonely. Jacques took me to a market in Kampala where we got a mattress for my house and a couple of other things for cooking and cleaning. Ashal (a boy from HOPE in P-4 [like grade 4]) came to my house and helped me cook some rice and brought me to a few local shops to get some more things needed for cooking.

I went to a place called “The Country Club” to watch the Uganda vs. Guinea Bissau football (soccer) match and get dinner. It wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. Sunday I began preparing my lesson plans the Environmental Education class that I will be teaching to P5-P7. Ashal and his little sister Abigail took me to a house of volunteers working with “Soccer Without Boarders” (SWB). They have a very nice set up and many many things. There were 4 volunteers, but 3 of them have already left, and another is coming at the end of June/beginning of July. I am fairly sure they are they only other white people in the community. White person = MUZUNGU. Its Swahili for “white” but it is not an offensive term. Everyone, from little toddlers that can barely talk to grey haired adults will call me muzungu. Many of the children even have a little tune they sing when I walk by.

HOPE school!

HOPE school!

Some children on break at HOPE

Monday (6) was my first day at the school. HOPE Primary School is mostly comprised of refugees from Congo, Sudan, Rwanda, and Burundi. I was taken around by Jacques and shown the “center” where kids did their activities outside of the classroom (mostly with SWB). I met Annette who is the headmistress of the school. The three of us sat down in the center for quire sometime to discuss what I would be doing at the school, what my schedule would be like, lesson plans, etc. Everything was pretty much up to me. I could do whatever I wanted and there was little guidance on lesson plans or what I should be doing.

Monday – Thursday 2-5pm I am teaching English at 2 different levels (so 2 classes). I have had 3 classes so far and things are going better than I expected. The group isn’t large enough to split up yet, so we have only been doing 1 1/2hr lessons. Being my first time teaching, I was feeling very frustrated and helpless trying to figure out how I was going to teach people another language when we (students and teacher) do NOT speak a common language. It makes it even more difficult when one student doesn’t know the entire English alphabet and another can form basic short sentences.

The outside of my classroom.

Chalkboard for my English Class

Inside of my English classroom

Three days a week, I am hoping Tuesday – Thursday I will be teaching 1 “Environmental Education” Class a day to P5, P6, and P7 students. I have chosen about 20 vocabulary words to introduce to the students such as: sustainability, degradation, litter (they don’t even have that in their vocab, that’s how “normal” littering is here…its just what you do!), and many others. I also have the Waste Management System which shows 1) reducing consumption, 2) reusing things, 3) recycling & compost as the top three things to do that will help us better manage our waste. The last two on the list are 4) burning garbage and finally 5) littering. I have a long list of activities I am going to do with the children to show then how they can reuse and recycle things. We are going to make things from paper to footballs (soccer), to jewelry, to pillows, to building blocks, to candle holders! I purchased some trashcans for the school, one for paper, plastics, and trash. I also want to have a section on “Pollution” and another on “Climate Change”. I think in September at the end of the class Paul and I are going to take the top 20 students rafting or tubing in Bujagali. I think students work harder when there is an incentive.

Jacques wants to take this class and make it bigger and spread these ideas to the community. He has many good ideas and has offered to devote a lot of his time to raising awareness of environmental degradation and the immediate need for change. At the end of each English class he wants me to educate the adults (through a translator) briefly on the topic. Then have them as door-to-door advocates to educate others about the things they can do with their garbage. Jacques wants the school to be the towns place to collect plastics and paper which can possibly turn into an income generating activity that could employ some of the parents of the students and the school and raise more money for HOPE so that they can finish the classrooms (some have no roof/windows/doors). Many many good ideas are brewing here in Ndejje. 

They mentioned me teaching French, and I had really considered it...but with the coursework that I have already signed up for, I don’t think it would be physically or mentally possibly for me to be teaching 3 classes – it would just be far too much work. Plus, I am supposed to be working on MY French here…which I have been! I study everything and review French verbs and vocabulary and there are also a many Congolese families in the area who help me when we are together.

Thursday (9) was a public holiday – Hero Day from what I was told and I spent the day working on my lesson plans and posters for my classes. I also did my first bucket of laundry! Hand washed and line dried. Things move at a much much slower pace here…things take a very long time to do without “technology” but I knew that before coming here and is one of the reasons why I enjoy Africa so much. In the West I feel like people are somewhat removed from the most basic things like preparing food and cleaning your house because they have many luxuries that aid in the process. I am going to use this weekend to also prepare more for my classes and possibly clean my house.

Paul is coming to visit on Monday – I cannot wait to see him and show him around my new home. I hope that he wants to help on this environmental education for the community project – I think he could do some wonderful things here if he wanted to. I am meeting him in Kampala where I have to purchase many things for the activities I want to do with the kids.

Things are going great!!

My kitchen and first meal!

My and some boys from school. 

All security guards here have huge AK-47s or just huge guns.
Very intimidating.