Being a teacher anywhere in the world is noble in my opinion, by being a teacher in Uganda/East Africa is especially noble. The daily challenges that teachers here face is astounding and quite frankly staggering for me, a young, white, female from the land of plenty where it’s outrageous to have a class of 35 students. The class size in both primary and secondary schools can range anywhere from 65-102 in on classroom (60 per teacher is the ideal class size here). Don’t even get me started on the grading the teachers do daily (imagine grading a daily exercise in a class of over 100…oh and you’re teaching three of those classes!). Both of these challenges pale when compared to staff meetings though.
The staff meetings happen 2-4 times a term depending on their necessity and they are painful to sit through. So painful, in fact, that during the primary school’s 1st staff meeting I actually had to stand up after having sat for 7 hours! A staff meeting will be called a day before it is to take place. All staff will be strongly encouraged to be timely so we can start the meeting as scheduled. If the start time is set for 9am you can safely assume that people will begin rolling in around 9:30 or 10:00 and we will get started around 10:30 or 11:00. The first order of business is to sit quietly and not speak too loud for fear of the head teacher “barking” at you. You’ll probably receive a cup of African tea and 2 pieces of bread with margarine just barely holding them together. This is breakfast and is supposed to motivate teachers to show up on time. The only problem is they don’t begin serving until everyone is there anyway.
As people begin eating, the meeting will be formally called to order by the chairperson, aka the head teacher. An agenda will be given verbally or in writing and we proceed to talk about what we’re going to talk about. Only when we, the members, have all agreed that the agenda is okay will we proceed. Next we all quietly sip on over-sugared tea while the secretary reads the previous minutes (which, by the way, we all have in front of us). After a somewhat painful reading of the minutes we move to new business.
Usually the new business consists of reports from various departments (or not if no one bothered to prepare) and/or the chairperson. After each report there is a time for reactions and decision making if need be. Usually 3 or 4 people will say the same thing (almost word for word) during any given reaction time. Because of the formality with which we carry out staff meetings, each person speaking begins, “Thank you madam chairperson, deputy head teachers, and my fellow teaching staff…” This continual thanking of everyone in the room contributes enormously to the long meetings.
After all is said and reacted on and decisions are all made, we break for lunch (at 3:00), during which many teachers discuss new decisions and how they don’t think any of them will be implemented soon. Such is the nature of a Ugandan staff meeting: something I won’t miss upon my return to the U.S.
Peace,
eh

Seriously, travelling in Uganda should be considered a job and every traveller should get paid for the inconvenience. When you take public transportation you never know who you'll end up sitting next to or what you'll be holding on your lap by the end of the journey. You cold be sitting between two people: one, a woman who is sweating profusely, smells strongly of BO and refuses to open the window because of the dust. Oh and did I mention she has her arm nearest you draped across the back of her seat, giving you a full and uninterrupted whif of her "aroma" everytime you breath in. Oh, and she's wiping that very pit with the hanky that she's also using for her face...
On the other side you have another woman (or maybe a fat man) but she has 3 kids, 2 chickens and a pineapple with her. While one child sits in the aisle, and one on her lap, you're asked to hold the third. No problem. As the trip continues you hear the squawk of the 2 chickens under the seat and feel the pineapple rolling around at your feet. Just as you're getting "comfortable" you feel your lap get uncommonly warm...the child on your lap looks sheepishly at you as the mother scholds him for peeing on a white person (at the same time trying to tell you that it's considered a blessing here when someone urinates on you). Now you're hot, wet, smell like urine, and your lungs are still being filled to the bring with some lady's pit odor. Could it get any worse?
Up ahead is a particularly bumpy part of the road and as the driver is bearing down on it you begin to pray that you'll make it home alive and in one piece. As the bus hits the rough patch of road you realize why no one else sat in this seat: there is some sort of spring crashing into your tail bone at every bump. Just as you begin to thank your lucky stars that you made it over that section of the road you hear a very distinct "bang" and the bus slows to a stop at the side of the road. You roll your eyes at the chances of having a flat tire to top of this wild ride and as you look around you notice that no one else really cares about this change of events. After some minutes of tinking around, the bus driver gets back on the bus and informs everyone that we were driving on a spare tire and don't have another so we'll have to put people in the taxis that are passing. Because you're white you get squashed in to the first taxi that comes along and is willing to add another couple people. Now you are sitting between a very sick man and the stick shift of the taxi. You begin to feel a little violated everytime the driver shifts but it really can't be helped. As you go on your way you glance at the speedometer of the car, curious to see how many kilometers per hour your taxi is cruising. You aren't that surprised to find that the needle is dancing between 20 and 60kph. Oh well, you think, we're probably going about 40.
9 hours after you loaded the bus in Kampala you coast into the bus park in kitgum (coasting because the brakes are out and any acceleration could be fatal at this point). As you get out of the taxi you bend to the dirty earth of the bus park and are tempted to kiss it but knowing your luck you'd probably get Hepatitis E (common in Northern Uganda) so you think better of kissing the ground.
Peace,
eh
*Disclaimer: While this particular story is not at all true, there are bits and pieces that are true and just combined together into one delightful (and not at all far-fetched) story.

It’s hard to believe that some 5 and ½ months have elapsed and there are only that many left for me here. There are days where I wonder, “where has the time gone?” But most of the time I just feel like a delicious piece of meat, marinating up here in Kitgum. This feeling could be due, in part, to the fact that I’m almost continuously sweating, but I think there is another reason.
Imagine a wonderful chunk or chunks of boneless, skinless chicken (not available in stores near me). Imagine this meat in a tantalizing marinade made from some kind of vinagrette and pepper or maybe something subtly garlic. The longer that piece of chicken sits in the marinade before being grilled, the more it soaks up the delicious flavor of the marinade. Now imagine that I’m the hunk of chicken and Uganda is the marinade. I’m here soaking up all that I can of Ugandan culture and by the time I hop on that plane to return to the U.S. I’ll be so chalk full of flavor and culture that I’ll be oozing it from my pores.
The one thing about meat in marinade is that it isn’t actually doing anything. The thing about being a non-aggressive white guest in a culture where guests are shown excessive amounts of respect means that I, too, don’t actually do anything. Of course I teach and do my own laundry but for the purpose of this analogy I don’t do any cooking. I’m constantly chased from the kitchen. It’s like I’m ruminating until July. I’m suspending my cooking for one year. It works out because, incidentally, I don’t like cooking that much.
Peace,
eh