One Reflective and FUN Friday!

Despite being woken up by my obnoxious 7am alarm (after going to bed around 3am) to get my laundry in, it’s a beautiful morning! I’ve devoured a deconstructed rolex (thick tortilla with egg and veggie scrambler) and fresh pineapple and finally feel capable of retelling the events that were my Friday. So, here goes.

Morning run around the house through the fog and freshly muddied ground. Only hit my head on the laundry line once and tripped on the tree roots three times. Fresh fruit from the market. Locals give us the rundown on “Living and Teaching During The Conflict”. I can only imagine what it would have felt like to live and work in the atmosphere the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) caused for this community for over 20 years. A life of fear, change, chaos, night commuting for safety, insecurity, adaptation, depression, death, trauma, instability, separation from family, minimal (if any) education, survival. When surviving and praying your family is still at the displaced home you now live in, in a camp the government has created, is your main concern of the day, education is probably the last thing on your mind. Still, during and after the war in this area, local leaders pushed for the maintenance of education. They saw the long term and did not want a short term, band-aid, solution. Rather, they strove for support and implementations that were sustainable. Programs and resources that would empower youth to rebuild the community from the bottom up. It all comes back to education, they said. Hence, we continued to reflect on our involvement here and how this context will affect our actions and roles. Also did some great brainstorming about teaching in the active classroom and got creative about how to ensure we reach all (potentially) 100+ students in our classes. Yes, I did just write 100+. Class sizes range from 60 to over 100 students. And I thought 31 was difficult. This should be interesting.

After all this deep thinking, heading to Gulu Senior School where a colleague’s students were having a huge celebration sounded like a perfect break. I had NO idea was I was about to experience. After passing through security, two friends and I meandered through the 2,000ish students to get to the middle circle where the action was happening. As soon as a Ugandan teacher saw us there, he ushered us to the head table and brought some more chairs. You can see the set up in the pics below, but you cannot hear the jovial laughter of the students, the thumping bass of the DJ playing mostly rap music, or the scent of chicken and pastes wafting through the air. The first act was the guy below did like a 15 minute comedy skit, most of which I did not understand. As you can see from his costume though, lots of physical jokes and dancing. The kids were loving it! At one point, there was an extended period of farting. Yep, farting is universally funny. A DJ was spinning the entire time to play the tracks for the acts, most of which were students lip synching to rappers from Master P to Tupac to Ludacris… the unedited versions. As they “rapped”, other students would come into the ring to dance with them and then slip money into their pockets if they liked it. Some had a huge following, others the audience was silent for. The last one we saw before we had to leave was a student that actually sang John Denver. His performance did not get the same response as Luda, Luda. The head teacher ushered us in for some of the huge feast around 3 o’ clock, but as we’d already eaten and had an afternoon meeting, we headed back.

No idea who this guy was imitating, but the crowd was loving it!

Pants sagging and rapping is a crowd pleaser at Gulu SS

Later that night, we got to meet our Ugandan co teachers! I’ll be working with two teachers; Alice, who has taught History and Geography, but this year she will only teach Geography and Geoffrey, who I was informed prior taught Language and English and Socio-Emotional classes (all of which I was PUMPED for!), but instead teaches Geography and Mathematics. I am scared ish-less of teaching Math and let him know that, in more formal language, of course. They both seem extremely kind and sweet and I can’t wait to get in the classroom with them (which will happen on Monday). Alice was quite the fluent speaker and I got to know her a bit more than the softer spoken Geoff. Geoff’s extrovert came out at the dance party that night though. Yes, dance party. Well, technically, it was an “Independence Day” Party, complete with an American flag, balloons, food, and booze, but really it was just a huge dance party with a great DJ. It wasn’t hard to convince Alice to show me how to dance in Uganda. OH, and I was inspired to learn traditional Ugandan dancing because there was an impromptu club that came and performed for a family where we were eating dinner that night! Our school apparently has a dance club, of which Jane and I intend to join, frequently:) I’m also sincerely hoping to join some other extracurricular activities, whatever they may be. Football, I mean soccer, is the most popular pastime.

Jane, Mark, Geoff, Alice and I

Unexpected traditional Acholi dancers

Baby got back!

Mating dance

Tearing it UP!

Anyway, after the DJ stopped spinning at our house, we headed to a somewhat local bar to continue mingling and dancing. Not much dancing was being done, so I went right ahead and changed that! I also got to meet and chat with the infamous Tony, the main focus of one of Invisible Children’s more recent documentaries. He was one of the three original boys in The Rough Cut, as well. Such an interesting, authentic guy. Great night full of great people and great memories. So excited to continue makin’ memories.

(pictures here)

Me and Tony - no big deal!