personal day

July 1st 1:35pm

This morning I slept in a little it, and woke up around 7:45. It’s hard here to sleep any later than that because everyone is up and getting ready for school in the morning. I felt super relaxed because I didn’t have school today, and the thought of going out and exploring town was pretty awesome.

Matt and I grabbed some boda’s outside of the compound and headed to Caltex this morning so Matt could break some change, then we headed over to Ma computers (where I’m at right now). It was nice to be able to sit down relaxed and type up some lesson plans. Tomorrow I have S1, S2 and S4, so I wanted to type up the plans Alice and I discussed yesterday. At the end of my stay in Gulu I’m going to give Alice a portfolio of all of the work we did together so she’ll have a reference to work with while I’m home.

S1 is learning reading comprehension right now, but they’re also identifying pronouns, infinitives and verbs in sentences. It’s kind of crazy for me to be teaching high school English, and not elementary, because I had to give myself a crash course on grammar this morning. It’s funny, because when I was learning French in school I had a very difficult time with all of the technical terms, but could speak great because we spoke French at home. I’d like to explain to the students that 90% of Americans have no idea what an infinitive is anyway, but I don’t know how well that would go over.

I’m stoked because in senior English we’re discussing the importance of honest, non-biased journalism, so I’ll have a chance to break out my time magazine and talk about the US elections and also about Mugabe in Zimbabwe. There’s one student, Steven, in that class, and he definitely runs the show. He literally answered 97% of the questions in class yesterday, something that would never be allowed in the US, or at least shouldn’t be. I’m looking forward to picking his brain, but also trying to draw some of the other students into the conversations as well.
After Ma computers Matt and I parted ways because he had class, so I walked around town alone for a little bit. I wasn’t sure where I was going or what I was looking for, so I wandered around with my Ipod on and checked out the sites. I found a post office, so all I need to do now is find a postcard place and I’ll be set to send some home.

I ran into Sarah and Kyle while I was wandering around (my saviors), and we headed over to the Mac Café for some lunch. I’ve been eating avocados over here like I drink redbull in the states, and today was no different. I had the avocado vinaigrette salad and it was delicious. I’m back at Ma computers now because I headed over with Kyle and Sarah, but they have school after this so I’ll be on my own again. I want to go to the market to get some fresh fruit and avocados that I can eat at home. The market is a little intimidating though, I have to admit. My knowledge of the language is very limited, so like always I try my best and hope it works out.

After today I don’t think I’ll be able to get to a computer until the weekend, so if you’re reading and if you aren’t bored to tears, I’ll have a bundle of blogs next time I log on.