Time is Winding Down in Ndejje...Environmental Awareness/Trash Clean up Parade, Crater Lakes, Chimpanzee Trekking, Swamp Walk, and a Microfinance Loan!

Here are some photos throughout the last few weeks....

 

After English class, a student of mine brought me to her house to "bless" her baby. When I arrived the child
was playing with a machete and cane sugar. I tried to capture her holding them but she had set them down to cry.

P5 students practicing for the talent show.

All of P5 with me and some of the SWB volunteers!

More talent show preparation.

Cattle on the roads is very normal. And hazardous....

I only had TWO Environmental Education classes left for each grade because I chose the top students who were going to go to Jinja. I decided to spend one class focusing on how you can reuse things like plastic bottles, plastic bags, etc and the last class would be a final exam. I went all around town trying to find supplies so that we could do small arts and crafts with recycled/reusable things. Even finding the most basic things like scissors and glue were nearly impossible! For EE class that week, P5, P6 and P7 made things such as: lava lamps (with food coloring, water, cooking oil and cut up tinsel [there was no glitter]); bracelets (cut up plastic bottles and glued fabric around it); piggy banks; weights (filled the bottles with cement); and bowling pins! I knew that the kids would be more rowdy than usual since we were doing some fun activities, so to keep them organized and on track I brought them pens, pencils and candy. They stayed motivated and listening very well that day. (Thanks Dad for the candy and pencils!!)

Since my teaching time was cut so drastically and there wasn’t that much time left for earning points or showing the students more environmentally friendly actions, I decided to hold a Trash Clean Up/Environmental Awareness/Activity day on Saturday (7/23). We made posters that stated “HOPE Primary School in the fight against littering in our beloved community” and “HOPE Primary School in the promotion of environmental awareness in out beloved Ndejje community.” While a couple of students worked on the posters I made the students a simple lunch (bread and jelly sandwiches). Then we walked around the village for 4 hours picking up trash and brining it back to the school. Since there is no waste management system in place here, the only thing to do with the garbage was burn it.  Unfortunately that is what EVERYone does with their garbage here (unless they just dump it somewhere to smell and rot). In 4 hours we only went a very very small distance because of the insane amount of trash that littered the streets. We filled up between 15 and 20 garbage bins full of trash and had to make countless trips back to the school to empty the bins. It was amazing to see the students wanting to keep their community clean and looking smart even while the local adults laughed at us for picking up the garbage all over the roads. You could see the feelings of pride and accomplishment all over their faces. Afterwards we all met back at the school to partake in some more “reusing” activities like we had done in class earlier than week. Overall, this event was very successful and very enjoyable for the kids and myself.

P5-P7 students who participated in the parade.

The following week I had prepared a 25-30 question exam, which was different for all three classes. On Tuesday (7/26) I gave the exam to P6 students and on Wednesday (7/27) I gave the exam to P7 and P5. Some students from P6 had informed me that a couple of their classmates had given the questions/answers to the other classes for my exam. I was not very happy to hear that, but thankfully they all had different questions. I announced to all of the classes that I would be choosing the winners for the trip after correcting the exam and reveal the names on the last day of classes: August 5^th – they were all verrrrry excited. I planned to spend the weekend traveling and then return to Ndejje mid week to correct the exams and choose the Jinja trip winners.

For English class, I carried on teaching as normal having lessons which focused on possessive pronouns, sentence building and more repetition of vocabulary. For the last day of class I wanted to do something special and fun for the students so I decided to play English Bingo! It was both fun and educational because I gave out prizes for whoever had “bingo” but also taught them new vocabulary words for all of the prizes handed out (mango, banana, rice, sugar, pineapple, beans, passion fruit, kilo, etc). It was hard to leave on the last day- Gracien, (a student who works at the school as a night guard and does miscellaneous errands) who I think has improved the most throughout my teaching said to me, “Another teacher coming?” It broke my heart to tell him “No I do not thing there is another teacher coming. Ask Jacques and Annet.” Jacques is the Director of the school and Annet is the headmistress both of whom I have been working with since I arrived. I’m sure I helped here, but its hard to believe I really made a difference in only 10 weeks – these people need programs that will last for years.

Although I am happy to be done teaching, I know I am going to miss all of the students and adults that are involved with HOPE Primary School. Ndejje Village has been increasingly difficult to live in, especially in the last few weeks, for a number of different reasons. As I’ve mentioned I am living alone – as much as I love personal space and alone time… its not that fun to have no one to talk to and no one around. I was becoming very lonely staying in Ndejje. Although I had some local friends, I didn’t feel comfortable going out somewhere with them alone. When I did go out and have a drink with one friend, he ended up telling me that he was in love with me and that he asked God for water and He gave him me and all this other stuff. It made me very uncomfortable so I decided to simply not put myself in that situation anymore therefore I sat home every night. Also, the men in the village were becoming gradually more aggressive towards me, physically and verbally. Even walking to school in broad daylight I was feeling very attached and uncomfortable walking alone. I made sure to always wear appropriate clothing that covered much of my skin, but that seemed to do nothing. Because I did not want to stay surrounded by these negative vibes in Ndejje and also because I wanted to see more of Uganda, I took a 5 day trip to Southwestern Uganda to visit Fort Portal, Crater Lakes, Kibale Forest National Park and Bigodi Wetland Reserve.

Paul came to visit me on Tuesday because he knew I wasn’t having the best time staying alone in the village. He had a few days off of work and decided to join me on the first part of my short holiday in the Fort Portal area. The drive was simultaneously the most difficult and longest bus ride with some of the most beautiful and pictuours scenery I’ve seen in Uganda thus far. The bus ride was supposed to be 4-5 hours from Kamapal to Fort Portal. We got on the bus a little after 10am on Thursday (7/28) but didn’t leave until close to 1:30! After listening to some man preach/lecture (in Luganda) about herbal medicine for 30min Paul and I offered him 5,000/= (2$) to stop talking. It didn’t work but luckily after a 5min prayer he got off the bus and left us in peace and quiet. 

The drive was very green.

Small town we passed through...

We made it to Fort Portal where it was pouring rain a bit before 6pm. We had a driver from Crater Lake Nkuruba Community Campsite pick us up and bring us to where we had planned on staying for the night. We arrived and it stopped raining J. The place was absolutely beautiful and filled with wildlife. We had an amazing dinner of vegetable curry and rice and got some good rest for our long hike to Mahoma Waterfall in the morning.

Black and white colobus monkeys!

The first thing we saw when Paul and I arrived
to Lake Nkuruba Community Campsite.

Hiking around the campsite...

The hike to Mahoma Waterfall on Friday (7/29) was absolutely amazing. 15km-20km (so the guide said) and about 5 hours of hiking. Here are some pictures from the hike...

A neat house along the hike

One of the many crater lakes.

Paul and I at Mahoma Waterfall

Paul went for a swim at Mahoma.

 Paul headed back to Jinja after the hike and I stayed at Lake Nkuruba another night. I met a girl about my age from Denmark named Blika who was also traveling solo so we teamed up and made some plans for the following days. I spent part of Friday and Saturday hiking around more crater lakes and then headed to stay at the Chimps Nest and visit Kibale Forest National Park with Blika. 

Lake Nkuruba

Baboons filled the sides of the road on the
drive from Lake Nkuruba to Kibale Forest.

At Kibale Forest National Park I deicded to partake in the Chimpanzee Trekking (much much cheaper than gorilla trekking) and Blika joined me for a Night Walk in the forest. Here are various pictures from the chimp trekking:

Hanging in the trees...

Posing for us...

 

Here is a great video of the Chimps when it began to rain:

My friend Blika left on Sunday and I moved to a place called Kibale Safari Hotel which was amazing and very peaceful. On Sunday I relaxed a lot and also went to visit the Bigodi Wetland Reserve and did a swamp walk with a local guide. I saw 5 out of the 8 kinds of primates in the area on this hike. Red tailed, black and white colobus, red colobus, grey cheeked, and l’hoest monkey. We saw tons of different birds including the great blue turacos and also found a tree which was used to help people suffering from malaria as well as a tree which made the monkeys who ate its leaves drunk. A very fun day followed by an amazing dinner of matoke, grand nut sauce, vegetables, chips (fries) and chapattis!

I had the place to myself at Kibale Safari Hotel.

Swamp walk/Bigodi Wetland Reserve

Grey cheeked monkey.

Two HUGE snails on the path.

Hiking in Bigodi

Black and white colobus monkey...he looks like a little man!

On Monday I was going to head up North to meet some friends in Murchinson Falls National Park but unfortunately when I got to Fort Portal to catch the bus I had lost my cell phone somewhere on the bumpy bodaboda ride. I was upset at first but realized I couldn’t do anything about it and headed to Jinja because I wasn’t ready to go back to Ndejje yet.

A couple of weeks ago I had agreed to give a small microfinance loan to my friend Prossy who lives near Paul in Bujagli Falls so that she could start her own small business. She is a widowed mother of two beautiful and bright boys names Innocent and Jordan whom I have mentioned in previous posts. She is a very hard worker and has many different skills which I believe can become a small income generating business. There are many tourist who stay in Bujagali Falls and there are many services that are demanded and not supplied. Prossy had a friend come to visit her and teach her how to do manicures and pedicures. She is also an amazing tailor who can make anything (purses, skirts, shirts, pants, headbands, etc) you want. Prossy can also do hair (into braids and twists), she cooks amazing food, and doing laundry by hand is usually very difficult for tourists. We decided to take all of these different skills and start a small business called “Prossy’s Services” I spent those days in Jinja working on a poster to advertise locally in Bujugali and got them printed and laminated for her.

I returned to Ndejje on Thursday (8/4) and spent the night grading papers. On Friday I went to HOPE expecting to find all of the students in exams. I was wrong, the only students there were P7 because all other students had finished exams and were on break. As I have mentioned, things never work out here… you can never expect anything because you are always wrong, you can never rely on anything/anyone because nothing is reliable. So I handed out the permission slips for the field trip to the winning P7 students, dropped a few off at the houses of the students which I knew well, and left the rest of them in the office for the students to pick up.

I am back in Jinja now working on things for university and finalizing the field trip plans. Prossy has already had phone calls about sewing things for people who are visiting as well as 3 pedicure customers. It was her birthday yesterday and we celebrated with tons of food and chocolate cake. I am very proud of her hard work and I think that this small business is going to be very successful. She will now be able to afford to send her students to a great school outside of Kampala where they will receive a much better education than the small public schools in Bujagali. She is thrilled and very very happy about this new business..so am I J

I will be going back to Ndejje towards the end of the week so that I can pack up everything in my house and tie up all loose ends there. I will be taking the kids to Jinja on August 15^th (next Monday) and later that night Paul and I will get on an overnight bus headed to Nairobi, Kenya. Then we will get on another bus which will bring us to Arusha, Tanzania. We will spend a few days here, hopefully visiting a couple of my old friends I met during my mission trip in 2007 and then we will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro for 6 days! After Kili we are heading to the East coast of Kenya followed by a safari in Western Kenya. I have been planning this holiday for nearly a year now…looking forward to this time exploring new landscapes, cultures and traditions.