Tuesday morning I woke up and graded 80 midterms for one class in one sitting, more than I've ever been able to focus on before. Up until this trip I was not only a huge procrastinator, but I could never do anything in one sitting, I would always have to come back to my work. When I go home I'm sure the procrastination will continue, but I've been proud of myself for being able to push through my work here and get it done. I spent about 2 hours grading papers and listening to my ipod, and if slamming my head through a wooden table would have been possible after I was finished I think I would have, almost every student failed. I didn't make the test, and I have to admit I don't think the test was the best it could have been at all. For example, the students were asked to put the correct tense of a verb in a given sentence, past simple, past perfect or past continuous, but the sentences were so silly. In the states we learn that students work should be directly related to their lives as possible so they can easily make a connection. The sentences the student were asked to answer on this test were so unrelated to their lives. Some of the sentences were even American proverbs that I myself hadn't heard in ages. There were 27 questions on the test, and the average grade was 11 out of 27, which would have been failing at home. However, according to the grading system here, 15 would have been a good passing grade. I still don't really get it. Is it lowered standards or something else that I don't know?
I had an appointment at 2pm that day to meet with an Invisible Children mentor so I could shadow her for a day and watch what she does. Her name is Marilyn, and she took me to one of the IDP camps in Gulu municipality. What's ironic is that even though the people are displaced and living in huts, they're not considered displaced people because they're still in the municipality. Marilyn is responsible for checking up on the parents of scholarship recipients through the program, making sure they're being supported at home and doing well in school. At the first hut we walked up to, there was a wooden box of a room in front of it where about 20 local women were sitting on the ground having a meeting. When we went behind to meet with the first mother, she explained to us that the meeting was about finances for local school kids. Since the insurgency many women have been left alone, so they created a support system that was almost like a savings bank so they could put aside money for their kid's educations. Paying for everything at once is often impossible, so the "bank" they created for each other lets them put their money away slowly to provide opportunities for their kids. I was so impressed by this, at the willingness and independence of the women to come together to support each other. In Uganda, women's rights are a touchy subject. Alice was explaining to me that women work in their homes up until the minute they give birth and directly after. Most men will not cook or clean for themselves, and have no sympathy for a woman who is 9 months pregnant. She said some men were understanding, but it was rare, it's just the way things are here.
The second hut we went to was harder for me to handle. The child is at boarding school so we spoke to her grandmother. Her father and 2 uncles were murdered either in the war or in Gulu, so her grandmother is forced to raise the children that were left behind. Her mother has AIDS and is too weak to move, but it was heartbreaking watching the grandmother take care of 3 children under the age of 3, she just has no choice. She was also worried about Kevin, her granddaughter at school because at Gulu SS there have been serious problems in the dorms where girls are being raped by local boys. There isn't security and the buildings are flimsy, so the girls are subjected to horrible nights where they have to fight off sexual violence.
The positive message in all of this is that despite the hardships, both girls are doing well in school. The one little girl is 11 years old and she's a freshman in high school, proof that a human being can overcome anything.
Wednesday at school I was observed by Amy, and I think the first two lessons we did were amazing. We did ABC races with the kids and jeopardy games, had class discussions and assessed the kids using the thumbs up method. Amy observed a particularly successful class, so I was glad that she was able to see how well me and Alice work together. However, like I'm learning more and more, for every glorious experience there can be a horrible one, and my Senior class at the end of the day proved that. We have been having a hard time with senior attendance, and apathy runs deep in that classroom. They don't see a value in education if they're not going to college, especially with English. I did start off the day with a false sense of hope though because Matt told me he had a full class for Geography in the morning. When it came time for English though, there were only 6 in the room. It's not even like the kids totally skipped either, most of them were in the courtyard, lounging in the sun because they just don't care. I took it so personally at first, and although it took me a good 24 hours, I have finally accepted it. There's definitely more to the story, too, but at this point I'm just done talking about it.
I had some joy last night though. Wendy took a lot of us over to her teachers house to eat dinner and his wife is a caterer. I had the best dinner of the trip there, and we ate avocados, chipati, bananas, pineapple, beef and veggie samosas, potatoes and mandazi. She even squeezed fresh fruit juice for us, it was awesome.
I was supposed to teach four classes today, and was looking forward at my last chance to motivate my seniors. Unfortunately though, after I waited outside for Alice for about a half hour she called and said Sister sent her to a conference this morning instead, and covered her classes with student teachers. Instead of going with Alice to school then, I hopped on a boda in the compound and made my way into town, and that's where I'm at now. I think I'm going to try and upload some pictures and then make my way over to Mac foods to get some lunch. Maybe I'll even splurge and buy some nutella, my Ugandan crack. Nothing is better than Chipati with nutella and sliced bananas, delicious.
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