Saturday, December 14, 2013

            School Based Training has ended! It was a long, but also really great two weeks.  The first lesson was rough, but by the end I got better with lesson plans and gained confidence being in front of the classroom. I got to co-teach with a Ugandan teacher as well as Peace Corps volunteers and also did many solo lessons. I learned a lot about what it’s like to teach in Uganda and how to be a better educator. The group of twenty-something primary school volunteers were split up among the different class levels; it turned out to be about three volunteers for each grade. The first week I taught some P6 and P7 classes and the second week I was teaching in P4. At the beginning of each week we signed up for the classes we wanted to teach and then had to make a lesson plan for each, following the Ugandan curriculum. Since I’ve never really, legitimately taught before, it was a little scary and nerve-wrecking at first, but being at the school and interacting with all the kids made me even more confident about my choice of being in the Peace Corps, not that I ever had a doubt. Sometimes they had trouble understanding me because of my accent; they prefer the Brits because it’s closer to how they sound so we’re supposed to work on our Uganglish/accent, which I’ll most definitely have to do before term one starts. Anyway, it was a great two weeks of practice!

            My favorite lesson by far would have to be the lesson I co-taught with Cody on continents in P7. We had to teach the seven continents and their order from largest to smallest. So what did we do? Made up a song, obvi. We went through the necessary info and then taught them a song that named the seven continents as well as had correlating hand motions to where each one is located. This one we learned from another volunteer, but for the next part, arranging largest to smallest, we made up our own little song, and they freakin loved it. We wrote out all the lyrics so it would be easier for them to follow along, and then threw in some claps and dance/swag. They loved it and, honestly, we loved it. The song is still stuck in my head.

            For the last day (which was yesterday) we had a day of games and reading. Some of the students from the PTC joined us as teachers and helped supervise the games as well as read the students stories. The students were split up and rotated between the different games and stories. The morning was cold and a little rainy, but by the end of the day it warmed up and was nice out. Before leaving we took pictures with the students and they couldn’t get enough of it. Most of them have never seen themselves through a mirror, let alone through a camera. They kept asking us to take pictures; they didn’t want us to stop. Eventually, though, we had to leave. They were so happy to have us there that they didn’t want to see us leave. And it was pretty sad for us leaving them. It’s crazy how attached you can get in just two weeks.

            Later that day we celebrated with a few beers at our little local bar. The usual kids showed up, wanting to hang out with us. There’s one little girl who’s especially sassy; she speaks no English, but she doesn’t need to in order to get her point and attitude across. She’s pretty funny actually. She’ll sit with us on the bench at the table or pull on our clothes if she wants to play. The kids love to be picked up and spun around; they think it’s so much fun. There are also a couple nuggets that I want to just pick up and take with me, per usual. I’m really happy the kids come around every time we’ve been there – it gives us a little entertainment! After dinner it was time for C.H.A.K.P.E. What’s that, you ask? Christmas Hanukkah Atheist Kwanza Party for Everyone. And it was great. Come a few days, we’re going to be split up for little over a month while we do language training. Since we’ll miss Christmas together, we decided to celebrate together before being separated. Stephanie put together C.H.A.K.P.E. where we did a white elephant gift exchange and the floor was open to anyone to sing, dance, do a skit, whatever. So after every few numbers someone would come up and perform something – we’ve got some talent in our group! I was a Maccabee in the telling of the story of Hanukkah (which was told by Rachel, so it was hilarious) and then Cody and I did an awesome rap about Christmas. I think if all else fails post Peace Corps that Cody and I have a rap career to fall back on.

the bar! ain't it cute?

She wouldn't smile for me.

           Today was our first day of language training. The morning was rough due to the aforementioned celebration. At least at home we’ve got air conditioning, dark spaces, and greasy food. Here you’ve got matooke and a million degrees of African equator heat. Anyway, I’m in the Luganda language group. Luganda is spoken in the central region of Uganda. There are twelve of us in our Luganda group (making us the biggest language group) and it’s probably the best group of twelve you could have. We’re already a hot mess and it was the first day. I can’t even begin to describe this language; I have a feeling I’m going to have some trouble. I took French in high school, which was helpful learning Spanish in college – you learn one romantic language, it’s pretty easy to learn the others since they’re similar. Unfortunately, Luganda has nothing in common with any other language I’ve learnt or even heard. But hey, it’s all part of the experience! Right? Good news is, we have two really fantastic language trainers, Dan and Herbert. Although the language might be tough to learn, there’s nothing I want more than to be able to talk to the people, especially the kids, so I’m genuinely really excited!