Molly in Africa

Monday, October 30, 2006

CRO- Child Restoration Outreach

When I went to CRO last Tuesday for my meeting at 10, I started working there that very day. I will be here until the end of November-ish…the ending date is not for sure set. Originally I was thinking Thanksgiving (the other students in my SIT program and I are all going to celebrate together in Kampala), but now I think I will want to return to Mbale after Thanksgiving for the remaining week of practicum time. We’ll see about that though.
At CRO on Tuesday, I was received warmly and Christine, the national coordinator, was excited about my interests that I had expressed in my email to her. I explained my psychology studies, my soccer (football here) experience, my experience with children and my love of music. She said that I could help with the sports program here- football, volleyball, table tennis and netball. Since then, I’ve talked to Moses, the project manager for Mbale and he thinks that I might be able to help with the girls’ football team. I’m excited about that because I think that I would be a good female role model for them in the sense that I am already someone they look up to (just by nature of my skin color), but my interest in football for girls is huge and I think rare here. I met one of the girls last week and she was really excited about what skills I can teach them. I’m a bit nervous about this expectation and told her that (she’s in secondary school) and she laughed and agreed that they would teach me anything I didn’t know as well as me teaching them anything they don’t know. I played football on Saturday morning with the CRO staff against one of the CRO boys teams- Under 16 and I did not do so well, so we’ll see if Moses still wants me to help with the girls team. I’m just really out of shape, so I’m going to start running in the mornings (before it gets too hot) and hopefully that will help.
For music, I have been asked to teach the kids some easy songs. They just hired a new music teacher this week, so that’s good because it means that I won’t be pushed into the classroom just yet. I have thought of some songs and my pops sent an email with lots of suggestions, but if any of you have any great ideas of easy songs- I’m trying to go for not cheesy, but still simple- please feel free to email me. Also, it’d be good if drums could be played along with it because that’s how most of their music goes so I think they’ll like that better.
For psychology, I will be working with the social workers very closely for about half the day each day. Every morning, two social workers walk the streets of Mbale and talk to any kids on the street. The social workers do this everyday because they see this as the only way to keep kids off the street. I’ve gone three times (last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and each time we saw at least one new kid that the social worker had never talked to before. There are a group of street boys who do not want to be part of CRO and there are a number of other street children who aren’t interested either. Mostly it is because they can make a little money on the streets and they need that money to buy some little food for their family. I also helped with the intake for two of the new kids on Wednesday (with the help of another social worker who translated for me) and that was really interesting- asking about what brought them to the streets and then what their plans are for the future. It also seems that I will have the chance to ask those same intake questions to older kids (who speak English better)- I’ve done it so far with one girl and that went well.
In the down time, which I know you can’t believe exists since that sounds pretty hectic, I get to play with the kids. On the first day I played volleyball with some of the older boys (approx. ages 14 – 24) and that was really fun. Since then I have played cards (although I don’t really understand the rules), a game like sharks and minnows, cats cradle, and have had some fun singing and dancing time with the kids too. It’s fun because now they are getting more used to me and I’m opening up (in my silliness) to them so that’s good.
Also in my down time, if the kids are in class, I’ll go in and help them with their lesson. Sometimes this means that I go from table to table and help with math (which I really enjoy) and other times I’m thrown into the classroom and asked to teach. I’m not as big of a fan of this because I have no idea where they are at in their lessons, how much they know, how they are learning or what aspect of English they are learning. The other day I had to fake an English lesson for five minutes until someone else came in and saved me. On Friday, I just stood in front of the class and read from their book and they repeated what I said. It’ll be interesting how much more of this I am expected to do.
Some exciting news: I’ve made some friends here!!! First, there are two Norwegian boys who are working at CRO for the next 6.5 months (they’ve already been here for two weeks) and they are nice. One is 20 and one is 22 and while we don’t know each other that well, it is nice to be in a similar situation with them and to have each other as allies. I think that the 20 year old and I could be good friends but he’s been kind of quiet with me so far, so hopefully with some more time we’ll get to know each other a bit more. My closest friend here in Mbale is Charles. He’s 23- a former CRO kid who did really well for himself and is a great testament to the effectiveness of this program. He went to a specialized secondary school for catering and then went to one of the Ugandan universities and got a degree in catering. He used to work for the American Embassy and has an interview tomorrow morning with a local hotel so hopefully that goes well. Another friendship I’ve formed is with Mike- I think he’s 24. He was in the original class of CRO kids back in ’92. He now helps with sports here and is very nice. Mike and Charles are going to help me learn some of the languages spoken here- yes that’s right- Languages plural. They speak Ki-swahili, Lugisu and Luteso, along with English and some Luganda. I have gotten to practice my Luganda some as we’ve traveled through the community a bit and that’s been really rewarding because people are always so flattered and happy when you are putting forth the effort to try to communicate with them.
After spending my first three nights at a guest house, I moved into Esther’s house on Thursday. Esther is a woman I met when my SIT group came through the Mbale area and she was really fun and confident at the meeting we had with her. So, I am now living with her here in Namatala (which is the local slum area, but I’m in the outskirts- in a safe area where people have slightly more money). I live in a brick house with screens in my window!!! Screens are something which I have not seen in Uganda at all and yet, it would make a lot of sense for screens to be a hit in Uganda with all the mosquitoes etc. I lock the door to my room each day and therefore my belongings (including my laptop) are completely safe. Esther is so funny- she is CONSTANTLY feeding me which is hard because my appetite has not been huge the past few days and I have to keep trying to tell her to make less food. She is very outspoken (which I like about her since I am too and it’s a very very rare quality to see in Ugandan women). However, I’ve been a little embarrassed by her outspoken nature a little already. On Saturday night, she took me out dancing and would bring people over to me and say to them “dance with her” and then walk away, which put me in the slightly awkward situation of having to dance with complete strangers and it made me feel like I could never sit down. I know she’s just doing this so that I can experience Mbale to the fullest and it is helpful because I made two friends on Saturday night- with a doctor and a radiologist- so we’ll see if I stay in contact with them. They drove us home afterwards and showed me their offices on the way home so I may just go and visit them. They were very nice though (even though the doctor was one of the funniest dancers I’ve ever seen- haah). Yesterday, Esther took me to a wedding reception and when there wasn’t a chair for me, I was completely happy standing (at the event that made perfect sense) but she insisted on finding me a chair and talked to lots of people about how I needed one and so another girl gave up her chair for me. Again, her reasoning was nice, but I was embarrassed and wished that I could have just stood in the back and not made someone give up their chair.

This is a really long post so I’ll stop there, but I feel like I could probably write this much each day that I am here because I am just constantly learning new things and experiencing new things that I want to tell all of you about.

Oh, and to answer some people’s questions:
- If you’re sending mail or packages, I will still receive them if you send them to the address I gave before because anytime any of my friends come to visit me from Kampala they can bring it with them and when I go back to Kampala during this time I can pick it up.
- Homesickness: while I still miss people from home, I am REALLY enjoying my experiences here and am not experiencing homesickness any more. That’s been true for a while now (at least the last month) so yeah, that’s been really good.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

CRO- Child Restoration Outreach

When I went to CRO on Tuesday for my meeting at 10, I started working there that very day. I will be here until the end of November-ish…the ending date is not for sure set. Originally I was thinking Thanksgiving (the other students in my SIT program and I are all going to celebrate together in Kampala), but now I think I will want to return to Mbale after Thanksgiving for the remaining week of practicum time. We’ll see about that though.
At CRO on Tuesday, I was received warmly and Christine, the national coordinator, was excited about my interests that I had expressed in my email to her. I explained my psychology studies, my soccer (football here) experience- including assistant coaching, my experience with children and my love of music. She said that I could help with the sports program here- football, volleyball, table tennis and netball. Since then, I’ve talked to Moses, the project manager for Mbale and he thinks that I might be able to help with the girls’ football team. I’m excited about that because I think that I would be a good female role model for them in the sense that I am already someone they look up to (just by nature of my skin color), but my interest in football for girls is huge and I think rare here. I met one of the girls yesterday and she was really excited about what skills I can teach them. I’m a bit nervous about this expectation and told her that (she’s in secondary school) and she laughed and agreed that they would teach me anything I didn’t know as well as me teaching them anything they don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.
For music, I have been asked to teach the kids some easy songs. They just hired a new music teacher this week, so that’s good because it means that I won’t be pushed into the classroom just yet. I have thought of some songs and my pops sent an email with lots of suggestions, but if any of you have any great ideas of easy songs- I’m trying to go for not so cheesy- please feel free to email me. Also, it’d be good if drums could be played along with it because that’s how most of their music goes so I think they’ll like that better.
For psychology, I will be working with the social workers very closely for about half the day each day. Every morning, two social workers walk the streets of Mbale and talk to any kids on the street. The social workers do this everyday because they see this as the only way to keep kids off the street. I’ve gone three times this week (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and each time we’ve seen at least on new kid that the social worker had never talked to before. There are a group of street boys who do not want to be part of CRO and there are a number of other street children who aren’t interested either. Mostly it is because they can make a little money on the streets and they need that money to buy some little food for their family. I also helped with the intake for two of the new kids on Wednesday (with the help of another social worker who translated for me) and that was really interesting- asking about what brought them to the streets and then what their plans are for the future. It also seems that I will have the chance to ask those same intake questions to older kids (who speak English better)- I’ve done it so far with one girl and that went well.
In the down time, which I know you can’t believe exists since that sounds pretty hectic, I get to play with the kids. On the first day I played volleyball with some of the older boys (approx. ages 14 – 24) and that was really fun. Since then I have played cards (although I don’t really understand the rules), a game like sharks and minnows, cats cradle, and have had some fun singing and dancing time with the kids too. It’s fun because now they are getting more used to me and I’m opening up (in my silliness) to them so that’s good.
Also in my down time, if the kids are in class, I’ll go in and help them with their lesson. Sometimes this means that I go from table to table and help with math (which I really enjoy) and other times I’m thrown into the classroom and asked to teach. I’m not as big of a fan of this because I have no idea where they are at in their lessons, how much they know, how they are learning or what aspect of English they are learning. The other day I had to fake an English lesson for five minutes until someone else came in and saved me. Today I just stood in front of the class and read from their book and they repeated what I said. It’ll be interesting how much more of this I am expected to do.
Some exciting news: I’ve made some friends here!!! First, there are two Norwegian boys who are working at CRO for the next 6.5 months (they’ve already been here for two weeks) and they are nice. One is 20 and one is 22 and while we don’t know each other that well, it is nice to be in a similar situation with them and to have each other as allies. I think that the 20 year old and I could be good friends but he’s been kind of quiet with me so far, so hopefully with some more time he’ll open up a bit more. My closest friend here in Mbale is Charles. He’s 23- a former CRO kid who did really well for himself and is a great testament to the effectiveness of this program. He went to a specialized secondary school for catering and then went to one of the Ugandan universities and got a degree in catering. He used to work for the American Embassy and had an interview this morning with a local hotel so hopefully that went well. Another friendship I’ve formed is with Mike- I think he’s 24. He was in the original class of CRO kids back in ’92. He now helps with sports here and is very nice. Mike and Charles are going to help me learn some of the languages spoken here- yes that’s right- Languages plural. They speak Ki-swahili, Lugisu and Luteso, along with English and some Luganda. I have gotten to practice my Luganda some as we’ve traveled through the community a bit and that’s been really rewarding because people are always so flattered and happy when you are putting forth the effort to try to communicate with them.
After spending my first three nights at a guest house, I moved into Esther’s house on Thursday. Esther is a woman I met when my SIT group came through the Mbale area and she was really fun and confident at the meeting we had with her. So, I am now living with her here in Namatala (which is the local slum area, but I’m in the outskirts- in the nicest area of the slum as far as I can tell). I live in a brick house with screens in my window!!! Screens are something which I have not seen in Uganda at all and yet, it would make a lot of sense for screens to be a hit in Uganda with all the mosquitoes etc. I lock the door to my room each day and therefore my belongings (including my laptop) are completely safe. Since I’ve only been here two days I do not know that much about Esther yet, but I’ll let you know more about her next time.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Part Two: Eastern Excursion and this past week in Kampala

After Mbale, we traveled for another hour east to Busia, which is a rural area. We were dropped off in pairs at different homestays in different villages where we would stay for three days. We had an assignment to use research methods in the villages that we’ve learned about in our lectures to learn about a topic of our choice (which we would later have to write a 10-12 page paper on). I chose to look into education, which was kind of interesting. My partner and I met the local council chairwoman, the local council secretary, interviewed a total of five teachers from primary and secondary schools in the area and were given tours of the two schools. The fascinating and amazing part about the three days was just living in the village. I stayed in a hut with a grass thatched roof which was wonderful! There was no power there and no running water so we went to the local water sources one day and saw those and we used a lantern all the time- which of course I loved. The family we stayed with was comprised on a man who we called “the old man” and then his wife who was not nearly as old as he was. Then their youngest children who are six and eight- John and Peter- lived there and then the old man’s grandchildren lived there as well (although the daughter who was the grandchildren’s mother doesn’t live there).
I was so happy to be around kids again and I got to play their funny game of dodge ball where there are three people who stand in a line about twenty feet away from each other. The person in the middle has to dodge the ball as it is being thrown at him or her. If the middle person can dodge the ball ten times in a row then they win. If they get hit then they switch places with the person who threw the ball. I think that they thought I was going to be really bad at it because I’m a girl and a muzungu, so I won four times in row and then decided to switch to give someone else a chance. The next time I went in the middle, I didn’t win so I think they learned not to go easy on me. The frustrating part about being around all these wonderful kids was that they didn’t speak English I don’t speak Kisameer (sp?).
Our host cousin, Godfrey, was 20 years old, so the old man basically told him that we were his responsibility for the next three days. Godfrey then became our live-in friend. He never let us sit in the hut alone- met us early in the morning and stayed with us until after dark. It was nice in some ways because he was our age, was great at English and was fun to talk to. It was frustrating in the obvious way of feeling like we were being babysat and also he had a full “muzungus are weak” mentality which was frustrating to us. On the last night, my homestay partner, Marcy was so fed up with Godfrey calling us weak that she went over and picked him up. It was pretty funny. Overall Godfrey was a great host though and helped us do everything we wanted to do.
When we came back to Busia after the rural homestay experience, we had one night in a hotel there and it was great to be there. It was fun to be back with the rest of the students and just hang out. I sang for a couple of them and that was the first time I had sung in front of anyone in the group (other than Krista) and so that was really nice for me. Since coming to Uganda, I ahven’t had any Molly-only-space. While at my homestay house in Kampala, I shared a room, everytime we went on trips through my study abroad program I shared a room and there are no quiet places that I could claim as my own in Kampala. So I hadn’t been doing a lot of singing and it was really nice that I got the chance to there.
When we came back from Busia we had the week from hell. I had four papers due, one large Luganda test, it was the last week with my homestay family, it was my last week in Kampala with my friends and I had to try to figure out all of the details of my practicum out. Well, as you probably noticed in my last blog update, I was a little frustrated with CRO’s lack of communication, but that’s just how it is done here. So, I am now in Mbale and I have a meeting with my CRO contact person in a little while and hopefully she’ll say good things like, “yes, I would like you to work with us and here’s what you can do…” So, I’ll update you more on that and what it’s like to be in Mbale alone in my next update which should be later this week.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Lira, Sipi Falls and Mbale

I haven’t updated in a while and I don’t have time to explain everything that has happened in the past two weeks, so I’m going to split up the time into two- Lira, Sipi Falls and Mbale and rural homestay & crazy stress week

Part One:

Lira: I went to Lira with Laura and Kim to look into practicum ideas there. My goal was to talk to the Rachelle Rehabilitation Center there and see if I could work for them. Laura, Kim and I arrived at the bus park in Kampala at 7 and boarded a mostly empty bus headed to Lira. Transportation schedules are different here in Uganda than in America because you don’t leave until the vehicle is full- so there are never definite times for anything. We sat in the bus in the Kampala bus park until 8:45 before leaving. This was an experience in itself. Vendors and peddlers (which are SOOO common in Kampala) board the bus and walk up and down the aisle trying to sell you things. This means that I had various conversations with people about how “I really am happy with my watch even though it doesn’t match my skin” (which was one of the arguments they used for why I should buy their watch- haha) and other equally ridiculous things. Once we got started, it was just long hot and uncomfortable. The bus was big but we had people standing in the aisle the entire trip, the window only really gave any air to the person sitting at the window because they didn’t open the window very much. If you opened it more, that person was blasted with very dusty air which wasn’t a very pleasant experience for them. Despite the fact that we were told the trip would take 3 or 4 hours, we arrived in Lira at 2:30pm- for those of you doing the math at home that means that the trip took nearly 6 hours! With most of the day lost to traveling, Laura, Kim and I scrambled to change into our “smart” clothes and each hopped on a bicycle boda boda (a bicycle with a little cushion on the back for someone to sit on) and we each went to the different organizations we were interested in. Laura went to Unicef, Kim went to the Red Cross and I headed to the Rachelle center. When I got there I was warmly received by the staff there and one of the social workers took me to his office where we were able to talk more. He told me all about the center- they’ve helped 2,551 kids, he showed me their weekly schedules, talked about what activities they do for counseling and for education. It all sounded great until I asked about how many kids are currently there. His answer was nine, but there should be two going home next week. With eight social workers on staff, I was very aware that this was not the situation I had expected. I was still going to work with it though. The coordinator of the center wasn’t there- she was out of the country, so I was told to call her the following week. That night, it was really nice to be in Lira with Laura and Kim. First of all, Lira is a beautiful little town. I thought it was going to be bustling and filled with pollution, but in reality it was really quaint. There aren’t many cars there- everyone rides bicycles which was kinda fun and there was no pollution which meant the sky was really bright and blue which was beautiful. Also, people had that small town mentality of being really nice and when I asked how to get to the Rachelle center at the hotel, the hotel manager told me to say hi to Margaret- his wife! It was very nice there. In the hotel room, we had a movie station (which is something that is not common in Kampala…well at least at my house it’s not) and so Kim and I watched the first hour and a half of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which was awesome! Then the power went out so we went to bed, but it was really comforting to watch a familiar movie. J The next day we had another long hot dirty bus ride back to Kampala. I sat by the window and most of the time chose to just be dirty and have wind on me rather than try to remain clean while sweating to death. Oh, also, there were chickens under the seats on the bus and that surprised me when I first sat down, but then I changed seats so I was no longer bothered by their ruffling feathers. Oh how I love Uganda…

The following week (last week), we went on our eastern Uganda excursion. We spent the first two days and nights at Sipi Falls. It was gorgeous! After arriving, we went on a walk down to the falls and it was just absolutely beautiful there. I have pictures up on facebook… here’s the link- http://udayton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027826&id=21905656&l=97ee0 It was also really nice to have some bonding days with the rest of the students. After two days there where we got a chance to give our in depth study presentations (which went very well), we headed to Mbale for less than 24 hours. The first place we went upon arriving was to CRO- Child Restoration Outreach. When we arrived, we had a chance to look around the room we were meeting in and I was so excited! The organization works to get street children off the street and into the classroom. It also helps get them involved in productive activities such as music, dance, sports, vocational training, etc. The organization, which is mostly a school, uses psycho social counseling and a special rehabilitation program for the first year that the street kids are with their organization. It’s a good NGO that has been working for the past 14 years and has helped over 3,000 kids. It currently is helping over 400 kids and it is more the type of organization I want to be working for. When our vans pulled into the cement courtyard, kids swarmed the vans. I made friends with a girl named Ismaya (sp?) who came over and shook my hand and spoke to me in both English and Luganda. I just felt very positive about this organization and I turned to Dan, the program director and whispered, “I may want to do my practicum here.” At the time he just kinda nodded and laughed, but after the presentation when I was still interested, he had me talk to the woman who gave the presentation. She encouraged me to call the national coordinator that night, which I did and she was very positive about the prospect of me working there. I have since emailed her and will hopefully know more about what I am getting myself into by the end of the day. While I am disappointed that I won’t be working with children in the north and that I won’t be living with my friends, I am very excited about learning about the rehabilitation process of these street kids, work with them, learn from them and really get a lot out of my practicum experience.

I’ll give more information later when I know more about what exactly I will be able to do with their organization!

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Pictures!

I don't have enough time to write a post, even though this week has been incredible and filled with stories that I would love to share- site visits in slums to have focus group discussions about gender and a trip to Lira in an attempt to set up a practicum... but I will have to share more about that later. :)

I just wanted to share two links to pictures since I haven't been able to load pictures onto my blog...

my pictures so far:
http://udayton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026322&id=21905656&l=b6f21

pictures that my buddy Krista took that I thought you'd all enjoy (especially from the safari because my camera wasn't working then):
http://udayton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027051&id=21905656&l=3ecf

hope you enjoy them!