Pabbo, Here I Come!!!

One visit to the travel clinic down (ouch-those shots hurt) and one to go! Uganda, here I come!

Pabbo Internally Displaced Persons Camp--The largest IDP in Uganda
(Photo borrowed from Jon & Mel Kots' Flickr photostream under Creative Commons License)

I have received my official school placement (pending any last minute changes), and am very excited about what this summer holds for me. I will be working at Pabbo Secondary School in Uganda. Pabbo is not in Gulu (where I had previously planned on staying), but is actually about 40 km outside of Gulu. Invisible Children's Schools 4 Schools Program serves 10 schools in Uganda, and about a month ago, the decision was made to extend the teacher exchange program to all of the partner schools (last year, the teacher exchange program worked only with the schools located in Gulu). Most of the schools are located in or very near Gulu, but I, along with the two other teachers at Pabbo, will be in a much more remote (read very cool cultural experience) area of the country (don't worry mom and dad, IC is still providing a guard for our residence in Pabbo).

Here are some of the groovy details:

We will be staying at the IC compound Friday night through Monday morning (I will be able to get into town to post updates then--look for some fantastic photos and crazy stories).
Monday through Friday I will be staying in Pabbo (IC will drop us off on Monday morning and be back around Friday afternoon to take us back to Gulu).

There is no running water or consistent source of electricity (though there are pump showers and a generator that can supply power to one room of the residence).
I will have to doody in a bore hole toilet!
(Overall, not to much different (save the electricity part) than my stay in Alaska)

Children in the Pabbo IDP Camp--Look at those smiles!
(Photo borrowed from Jon and Mel Kots' Flickr photostream under Creative Commons License)

The following information comes from the Pabbo School page of the Schools 4 Schools website:

Pabbo Secondary School is a government run school that was displace in 1996 due to the war. Two years later, teachers and students returned to the original site even though abductions were still occurring in the area. Prior to the war, Pabbo was a boarding school, but because of the lack of security, students are no longer able to live in on-campus dormitories and must walk up to two miles every day to attend classes.
Right now the average class size is 65, yet the existing classrooms can only comfortably hold 44 students. One building holds all of Pabbo’s seven classrooms, and the school has only one latrine for girls and two for boys. There are 561 students enrolled at Pabbo. The student to teacher ratio is 65:1. Many of the students are orphans, child mothers, or former child soldiers.

There is also a YouTube video from one of the student winners of the Schools 4 Schools that shows a visit to Pabbo Secondary School. Check it out here.