Installment #10--It's Raining! (and we have to drive to Gulu in it!)

The next morning, I awoke to thunder, lightening, and pouring rain. If I were thinking, I would have jumped outside and taken a shower, but I didn’t. It took a while for the rain to stop, and it delayed our morning routine, so we got to school a little bit later (the bike ride took a bit longer too). I got to school (after a protein bar and some oatmeal—yeah variety!), and Charles asked me how pool was. I guess word gets around quickly in Pabo. In Gulu, it is not too unusual for for there to be a munu or two walking around town as there are so many NGO’s, but in Pabo, there are very few. Today I introduced a reading with one class of S2, and Charles finished “being phrases” with the other group. Class went all right. There was not major excitement, except lunch. Today was meat day at school, so I thought that I would be able to say no thanks and have a protein bar (or two) instead. Unfortnately, the people at Pabo already know I am a vegetarian, so they also brought a bowl of beans just for me (teachers get meat, but the students still get beans) so that I could eat lunch at school. Oh well. I am getting used to it.

Trisha and Danielle left early on Thursday because Trisha was feeling sick, but I stayd through the end of class. The IC car came by the school a little before 3:30 to pick us up so that we could go back to Gulu for the teaching and learning conference. The rain had started up again before we made it home, so the twenty mile drive on the fantastic roads took a little over an hour and a half. We got back to the house in time for dinner—Doreen’s food is great—and it is not Posho and Beans. We ate dinner, and John, Jon, Josh, and I played hearts and had some fantastic beers. After two games, several beers, and some pretty poor (I still laughed) Magee jokes, people started heading to bed. I went outside and talked with Geoffrey, the IC guard at night, until about 2:00 in the morning. He was a child soldier for 10 years and has some stories to share. We mostly talked about the current situation though, and about the government and the rebels and who was right and wrong. Geoffrey also talked a bit about his family. He has a wife and three kids, and struggles to make the money to send his kids to school. IC pays him a very good salary by Gulu standards, but it still is not enough. After talking with Geoffrey for a while, I went to bed.

On Friday, much of the day was spent at the teaching and learning conference in Gulu. All of the U.S. teachers met with their Acholi counterparts to discuss challenges of education in Uganda, participatory learning strategies, meaningful assessment, and other educational ideas. We made it home a little after 5:00 and had a discussion group about one of the education/colonialism/Africa assigned readings, and then had another fantastic Doreen dinner. After dinner, we talked for a little while, and then Josh, Jen, David, John and I went to a place in Gulu called Da Pub to celebrate the fourth of July. We had several Nile Specials, very good, and even did a little bit of dancing. At one point I was actually doing the electric slide to Britney Spears.

Saturday was a nice break as well. We called it our American Day. We had the learning conference until about noon, had lunch as a group, and then went back to the IC house to play several intense games of volleyball, eat a fantastic Mexican feast prepared by Doreen, and play some more volleyball. I ended up going to bed (very content) at about 9:30.

Best,
Matt