Installment #4--Oh Charles, you crazy guy you.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday contained a full compliment of classes and experiences in Gulu. We had a language workshop, Colonialism in the classroom discussion, an ESL strategies workshop, a discussion about Invisible Children programs, a lecture on Education from war to peace, a session on culture and customs, and an informational session about the different Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Uganda. We have also had a few meals out in Uganda, met our team-teaching partners, had a follow up meeting with our teachers, and gone shopping for supplies. The good news is that in all of the business, I have actually been able to get a full-night’s sleep the last several nights.

My first meeting with my cooperating teacher happened Friday night. The whole group got dressed up in slacks, shirts, ties, and dresses (boys and girls wore gender appropriate clothes goofball). We walked from the IC house over to Kope Café—a bit of an NGO hangout during the day. This night though, the café was closed to the public so that we could host a party for the cooperating teachers. Starting at about 6:00, the teachers began to slowly arrive. Over the next hour, most of the teachers showed up. My cooperating teacher, Oola Charles, arrived about a half hour into the party. We sat for a while and made small talk. I had already met his colleagues that will be teaching with Danielle and Trisha. Charles and I talked about our own lives in the states and Uganda, we talked about the differences between our school systems, and about a few other elements of Acholi and American culture. Conversation went smoothly at times, was awkward at others, and we definitely hit a few silent spots. Charles’ English skills and mine are a bit different, both based on culture and familiarity with the language, so that caused a little bit of miscommunication to happen periodically. Charles would not understand a question I asked, or vice versa. But by the end of the night, we had at least started to get to know each other.

Saturday Morning, I met up with Charles again. We went to breakfast at the Kope Café. All of the Pabo teachers decided to meet before the Geoffrey, Vasco and Charles went back to their homes for the afternoon. Geoffrey and Vasco both (Danielle and Trisha’s coordinating teachers) arrived at 9:00 for breakfast, and Charles came by at about 9:45 (not terribly unusual for Uganda). Unfortunately, we had already ordered breakfast, so Charles went inside to place his order. At about 10:30, everyone but Charles’s breakfast had arrived (as is customary—you get your food in the order that it is prepared, not all together). By 11:00, the two teachers from Pabo needed to leave. By 11:30, Danielle and Trisha needed to leave to run errands (thanks to them for picking up my slack on errands too!), and by 12:00, Charles and I had run out of things to talk about. Or conversation at breakfast went much more smoothly today, with only a few instances where we misunderstood each other, but having just met each other the night before, we had a limited number of topics that we could discuss. Charles food ended up never arriving. It turns out that the café apparently looked for him inside (we were sitting on the patio), didn’t find him, and returned his food to the kitchen. Charles ordered a Fanta pop, we sat for the next half hour watching the people on the street (Even though it is somewhat uncomfortable for me to sit for 30 or 40 minutes without talking, this too is not awkward in Acholi culture,…or at least so I am told). At about 12:30 we parted ways (from our three and a half hour breakfast), and I met up with Danielle and Trisha to help with the errands.

Today, I am going to be heading off to St. Jude’s Children’s orphanage to visit with the children there. I will be packing up for Pabo this evening, and tomorrow night I will be heading out to Pabo to start my stay there! I will continue to try to post every weekend, but there will be a weekend or two when I am traveling in Uganda and away from the internet café. I hope that all is well back in the states!

As the Acholi say, “apwoyo matek!”(Thank you very much) Thanks for reading!

Best,
Matt