Some of this blog is not appropriate for young children so please screen it before you let your kids read it. But some of it is very good for young children so make sure they see the good parts. J
So I had a wonderful night and wanted to share it with people that read my blog. It began with a ride to town (in the school truck) where I got a dinner of yogurt!! (I have only had this once since I got here so needless to say I pigged out on it!) Then I met up with the local chairman who is a wonderful old woman that has agreed to teach me how to weave a mukeka (a straw mat). So we sat on her porch for a good hour and she had me weave banana leaves to practice. She walked me halfway home as the sun was going down and on the way I ran into 2 of the students from the deaf school near my house. I have been studying Ugandan Sign-language so I was able to ask them how their night was going. In which they replied that it was fine (two thumbs up shaking). Now that’s what I call a good night. J
Even though I would normally say that sending aid abroad is a positive thing for people to do, after being in this country for a while I have begun to question just how helpful it really is. Here are some examples:
1. There is a primary school about 2K away from my house that just got donated computers! Only problem is…. they don’t have electricity and it costs millions of shilling to get electricity installed.
2. Another primary school that I work with got a huge shipment of books and even a T.V. over a year ago. They aren’t being used because there is no where “safe enough” to keep them on the school compound.
3. I work at a school that was built with donations from USAID. It was installed with 30 flushing toilets… but the school keeps the restrooms locked from all students and faculty because if they use running water it will drive their finances into the ground. (This is the same school whose latrine is full and they can’t find money to replace it. Why exactly didn’t USAID just build more pit latrines? No one knows.)
So I am not saying “don’t donate money abroad”, but please be sure that what you are donating too is legitimate and something that is somewhat sustainable. It’s just so frustrating to see that people want to do good things but there are more problems here than just not having “stuff”. There is an entire web of things that hinder this country from development.
Our school had “Sports Day” last weekend and I was commissioned as photographer. This is probably due to the fact that most Ugandans struggle with framing an entire body in a picture and most often get only the neck and shoulders. Ha. The students had a great time and I loved watching it. It was basically a track and field meet with everything from sprints to javelin (yes we have a javelin. I almost got speared the other day while playing Frisbee because I didn’t realize what they were doing.) Anyways both boys and girls competed and they did so accordingly to their “house” (which is designated by the college). None of the students have tennis shoes so they all competed barefoot which was amazing to watch. Those kids are fast. And the high jump obviously didn’t have a mat so they jumped over a piece of bamboo and attempted to land on their feet (I swear some kids are capable of jumping over my head). It was hilarious to see all of the different rituals they have and think are making them faster. Girls competed in a 5K with handkerchiefs in their mouths (They seriously believe that this makes them run faster, though I can’t see how blocking your airflow could do anything but the opposite. But I must admit the two girls that came in 1st and 2nd both had handkerchiefs dangling from their lips.) After they run they all look like they have just been hit by a truck and would run to the “water station” which didn’t have water but did have powdered glucose (which is what we call pure sugar). They would each grab a handful to replenish all of the energy they had lost during their 100 meter sprint. It was incredibly entertaining. We were supposed to have staff relays but that fell through… can’t say I was disappointed because I think they have a skewed idea of just how fit I am. The day ended with a goat being awarded to the winning team. No clue what a team of 65 Ugandan kids are going to do with a single goat but they spent the afternoon walking the goat around the compound and cheering. Hilarious.
So I was sitting in the staff room at Ssaza primary school the other day when a “salesman” walked in. All the teachers looked skeptical and therefore I looked even more skeptical. The man was selling beauty products as well as home cleaning products, and it seemed that they were two separate items. This seemed somewhat legit to me, but I was soon to discover otherwise. The first product he brought out was LCD, which sounded a bit to much like LSD, but anyways. He first introduced it as a product that could “clean hard to get stains off of floors, walls, etc.” (wow, I thought, this sounds great). Next he claimed this same product could also preserve not only meat but also milk! (At this point I was thinking… who would want to put something on their meat that also strips stains off of floors). And finally the kicker, Mr. Salesman promised that LCD worked great as toothpaste. Wait what?!!? You mean to tell me that not only does it clean your floors/walls and preserve flesh, but it is also great against plaque!! What a deal. I was busting up laughing at this point trying not to think of the lethal concoctions that innocent Ugandans who just wanted pearly whites were going to put in their mouths. The other teachers seemed to have the same idea and none of them bought the two-in-one beauty products/cleaning products.
Next, Mr. Salesman brought out a product that was supposed to help out with homeostasis within the body. I had just finished a conversation with one of the teachers and she explained to me that she was too skinny and wanted to know how to get fat. She lives deep in the village and the larger you are the more respect you get from people. At the time of the conversation she had a huge plate of posho, as well as ½ a loaf of bread, and a plate full of beans. I am pretty sure she was well on her way to being fat, but she was unconvinced. So when the Salesman brought out these pills she thought they might help her get fat and showed extra interest. After about 5 minutes of his ridiculous sales pitch, I leaned over to her and told her that they were diet pills and she would become very skinny if she took them. She took one last look at the bottle, shrugged in disgust, and handed them back to the salesman saying, “I don’t want to be skinny!” Needless to say he was angry with me, but I spent a good 3 minutes trying to stifle my laughter because I felt like I was in backwards world with someone refusing a pill that would make them thinner. God I love this country.
So Autumn came to my college last week to go to a PIASCY (Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy for Communicating to Young People) workshop with me and all of the tutors. It was the best workshop I have been to in-country and we finally had some very interesting and pertinent discussions about HIV/AIDS. One thing that we debated was whether to tell the primary school students that HIV and STI’s are passed on through sexual intercourse or sexual acts. Autumn and I were adamant about saying sexual acts not intercourse because we thought that primary students are much more likely to be doing sexual acts (oral, petting, etc.) than actual intercourse. Well, for some reason the tutors could not understand the idea of sexual acts and they thought we were talking about sharing needles or something to that extent. (Let me include in this story that sex is not talked about at ALL in this country, it is a huge taboo) So Autumn took it upon herself to give an example. I thought that she would give a random, vague example about someone else that still made the point, but no siree, she went straight to the point by saying, “So lets say I have oral sex with someone who has Syphilis and then have oral sex with someone else…”. I just about choked on my spit and I truthfully think that about everyone in the room stopped breathing. She continued with her scenario and then sat down. Everyone was a bit stunned and didn’t really know what to say, but after that point they all agree on sexual acts. Point proven… thanks Autumn, way to take one for the team.
Also during the meeting the tutors were discussing how to approach the topic of sex in general and at what age. It was interesting to listen to their different ideas, but the most interesting part was that they used the verb “play” when referring to sex. They would say things like, “When kids play sex they can get HIV.” (They also use this verb when speaking about adults, not only children). This struck me as strange and so I raised my hand to ask why they were using that verb (even though that is the ONLY verb I have heard used with the act of sex in Uganda). They couldn’t really explain why they used it and I suggested that they use the verb “have” instead. The woman from the ministry of education asked me why and I explained that when you use the word “play” it implies that it is a game or something of little importance and that is not necessarily the outlook we want to give our children. In fact, we want to let the children know that it is nothing like a game and that only adults should have consensual sex. She agreed that they had not really thought of that and recommended that we use the verb have throughout the rest of the workshop. Then she thought for a second and informed me that all of the printed material for this PIASCY initiative uses the verb “play” when referring to sex. ARGH!! But atleast we are getting somewhere through discussion.
