Muzungu Night Vision

Day one at school was great! The director of the school called Leslie in the morning all excited asking if I was in Uganda and when I was coming to the school. They were very excited for my arrival. When I rounded the corner to the school my kids saw me and started to scream. What a great feeling! They were all pretty shy and didn’t know what to say, but I could tell they were very happy to have me there.

I spent the rest of the day in the office talking with Nansubuga (the school’s director) and the rest of the teachers. We had a long but very good conversation about the school and what the needs are. Nansubuga has not raised school fees in several years in fear that the student’s parents could not afford the increase and then will remove their children. Nansubuga has a heart of gold, and is willing to take in any child even if they cannot afford to come to school. She just tells the parents to pay when they can. Unfortunately this is bad for the teachers because without school fee’s they do not get paid much. Since my last trip the school has lost 3 males teachers and 1 female teacher.

I was also told that the landlord has raised the rent again, but this time just on the office space. I gavel the school money to pay for the rent for an entire year, and they were overjoyed. The rent was way past due and they were about to be evicted.

Several of my students are now missing. I knew about a few of them moving but there are more that did not return for the P6 year. One of them was my “bad kid” whom I was really looking forward to seeing again. I was told that Nalusse wanted him to repeat the P5 year and his guardian was not happy about that. They have since moved him to a new school but I am unsure how they plan to pay for it. Nalusse was letting him attend school for free because they wanted to help him become a better student. Both his parents are dead and they knew that his guardian didn’t have the money to send him to school so they let it slide. I will try to track him down at another school.

After school I went to dinner with a few of the teachers. We ordered fish, which came whole, and of course we ate it with our fingers in the dark. It was good though. By the time we left it was completely black outside. I swear Africa is the darkest place on earth at night, there seems to be no moonlight. The teachers were laughing at me because I honestly couldn’t see where I was walking and every 5 feet or so I would fall in a hole. After a lot of mocking and ridicule from them on how Muzungu’s (white people) can’t see in the dark, one of them took my arm and guided me home.

Upon my arrival home I came to find out that my house key wasn’t working so I had to sit outside for 1 ½ hours to wait for the other volunteers to come home. I’m sure the neighbours thought I was crazy.

There are 2 other Canadians (both from Toronto) staying with me in the house. This is strange because they usually don’t get too many Canadian’s coming here. There is a Belgian girl joining us this week and another Canadian next week.

At this point I have my own room and am sleeping in my old bed, which is great! I am most impressed that the latrines are in much better shape than last time. Someone has cleaned them so there are far fewer bugs in there. I even went to the bathroom last night and there wasn’t a cockroach in site. What a relief! On the other hand, I firmly believe that no one can ever get used to having a cold shower (or bucket rinse off) even if it is crazy hot outside and you’ve been sweating all day. Every time I do it I feel like by body will go into shock.

That's it for now.

Jenn