Doctor Toni, Dancing in the Name of CAKE, Ugandan Conspiracies and My 1st Exam!

Before leaving on Sunday (26), Paul went to Dr. Debbie one more time to have his leg “packed” with gauze soaked in hydrogen peroxide. He described the feeling as a sharp pointy lighter burning the inside of your leg….sounds fun. Dr. Debbie said that I would have to repack it the next few days until he returned to Jinja J So far, Africa has made me Teacher Toni and Doctor Toni…have I mentioned that I love it here?

The ride from Jinja to Kampala and then from Kampala to Ndejje was more difficult that usual considering I had a giant box which contained a delicious smelling chocolate cake that read “Happy Birthday Toni!” Luckily I discovered my mistake of what matutu (shared taxi) to choose when going to and from Jinja. You must be INSIDE the taxi park to find the direct taxis. We arrived to my house just in time to take a nap and head up to Perrine’s house to get ready for the birthday party. They were all dressed very smart and I was wearing my new dress that Jacqueline had made for me!

cool dude

Soon the house began to fill with more and more children. There were two of them I didn’t even recognize…but the more the merrier!! The power had been out all day, so we partied African style. Jacques and his family couldn’t make it to the party, so after Paul and I left we stopped at his house to share the cake with his family.

Me and Paul excited for cake... (at least I was!)

Cutting the cake....

Waiting patiently for the goodies :)

Me, Paul, Peireen and Fabrice

Jullien and Eddy

Gradie (spelling?)

They made party hats :)

Gradie's party hat says "NOUS T'AIMONS TRES FORT" 

which in english means - We love you very strongly.

Here is a video that I edited which sums up my birthday celebration:

 

Monday (27), my real birth date, was amazing as well. I taught English as usual and then Paul and I headed to Kampala to eat at Lotus Mexicana Restaurant. We read about it in a Jinja/Kampala travel magazine and we couldn’t resist the temptation of margaritas. The passion fruit margarita was hands down the best drink I have ever had. (They used REAL fruit!!)

Enjoying an amazing drink with an
amazing man

Paul was having a great time too....

We took a boda back to Ndejje (we didn’t want to deal with the shared taxi) and the boda man clearly didn’t know where he was going and then he tried to over charge us – not going to happen. One thing that gets really old here is the consistency of people trying to rip you off and trying to get more money from you. One woman says 5,000ugx for a pineapple when I got one in Kampala last week for 900ugx!! They think white people are dumb and rich.

Tuesday (28) Paul came to school with me so Jacque and him could work on H.E.A.L – Uganda (the environmental organization they are trying to implement in Ndejje). I taught my two environmental classes and headed home at lunch because there was a huge storm that was about to hit. Jacques recommended that I cancel English class (no one would have came in the rain anyways) so Paul and I spent the afternoon with no power hanging out in the house. When it stopped raining Espoire and Shandraki came over to my house. Paul and I escorted them home when it got to be dark and their mother Jackie was home. She only speaks Swahili and Luganda, so we have to communicate through the boys. They all taught me how to make chapattis! It was fun. Chapattis are my favorite - they are a type of flat bread... between naan and a tortilla. They are good with EVERYthing.

Paul left Wednesday morning and since I had no classes in the morning I saw him off in Kampala. Wednesday-Friday the students at HOPE had their mid-term exams. I can’t believe how hard those things are! I didn’t even know some of the answers. The kids were telling me that all of the things that are asked on the exam aren’t always taught in class. Since there were exams, I only taught my English class to the adults, so now the P5 students are behind with the lesson. I had two new English students on Wednesday which was very refreshing. One of them finished school up to Senior-3 (which is probably similar to about 10th grade in the states). I think I will have to begin a separate class for this boy because he knows a lot of English and he can hold a conversation with me no problem. I told him that I wanted him to write me the story of his life, not so I could get to know him better, but so I could see where his weaknesses were in the English language and then we could go from there with our lessons.

This new student, Patrick, also told me some very interesting gossip about Uganda and Central Africa. He was explaining to me that Museveni (the current Uganda President) is half brothers with Paul Kagami (the current President of Rwanda) and that together they are becoming extremely rich and powerful because they are pretty much raping the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of its mineral wealth (diamonds, gold, etc). The Lords Resistance Army (LRA) has been committing numerous crimes against humanity throughout Central Africa for nearly 2 decades and the leader of the LRA is supposedly a man name Joseph Kony. Patrick was telling me that there really is no more Joseph Kony anymore...he was around at some point - but he is non-existent now. He was telling me that the work of the LRA is actually the work of Museveni. I know that the government is corrupt, but I just am not sure how corrupt. He was telling me stories of Museveni cutting off the noses of people who are not in support of him.

Uganda held elections in January and the opposing candidate was a man named Kizza Besigye. Apparently Museveni and Besigye used to be very good friends - but then something went wrong and ended their friendship. Some say that Besigye was the true winner of the elections and that Museveni took the Presidency by force - other say it was a fair election. Either way, Besigye has been a major leader and contributor to the popular "walk to work" protests. A few months earlier he was tear gasses and had rubber bullets shot at him.

Not sure what to believe, I think this news can be compared with saying that Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years and he wasn't behind 9/11. It is quite an interesting story though. There is some saying like...every lie begins with a kernel of truth. So you never know!

The weekend (1-3) went wonderful. We had power for almost half of the weekend!! I completed my English Exam that I planned to give out this week. It was very sunny too, so I laid in the sun and spent a lot of time with the kids from school. I also took my braids out... I started to do it by myself, but it was taking too long, so I went to a salon (there are probably 30 in Ndejje) and they only charged me 3000ugx ($1.25) to take them out. It took about 2hours and I lost about 1/4 of my hair, but I survived!

Shandraki having fun with my camera.

Ester and her sister visiting!

On Monday I had planned to give the English Exam, but I think the students were scared because only 3 showed up - so instead I just reviewed everything I was going to test them on. The Soccer Without Boarders (SWB) volunteers got a third volunteer named Cory. Since it was our countries independence day...we decided to get together and celebrate!! It was the third time any of us had attempted to cook African style...but it turned out amazing!! We had corn on the cob (bought that on the street), I brought over fruit salad (passion fruit, pineapple, mango, and banana) with strawberry and vanilla yogurt, I also brought over some potatoes so we could make french friends. Sarah was the queen of the pasta salad and then we had cooked cabbage as well. I was extremely impressed with out fourth of July meal. The only down side...we couldn't find fire works ANYWHERE!!! The walk home at 10pm was not fun though. They live about 2km away and was pretty much running. Don't want to do that again.

Yesterday (5) I had my two Environmental Education classes and I introduced my reward system chart that would help me determine which students were the top students that would be coming to Jinja at the end of term! You earn points by completing homework, participating in class, volunteering to be "on duty" during lunch/break time to make sure no one is littering and you can lose points is you are caught littering, if you are being disruptive in class, etc. They seem very very excited about this :) I also handed out the English exam. It isn't going as well as I hoped. In class they seem to know everything, but when it is on paper...they move much much slower. In 2 hours, only 1 woman had completed the test. So I excused her and told the others that they could go home and study and that they would complete it today. We shall see how that goes today...