Oh, Beans!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Oh, that good ol’ Acholi food…

So many beans… not enough Bean-o! Hahahaha. Just needed to make an appropriate and honest fart joke at the moment. Hope this does not surprise you.

This week has been busy already! I’ve been working in the office with Danielle, Catherine, and Jennifer Labuke (a past teacher in Gulu and now a member of our team for logistics for the teacher exchange). I have been inventorying, creating posters, sending meeting minutes, and generally enjoying feeling productive (I know, so American).

Just this evening, I rode double on a boda…. and those metal bars on the back sure don’t feel so splendid on the tail-bone! We continue to have to be stern about the prices of boda rides. However, I do not blame the local people here for trying to get “muzungu” price from us. They’re just trying to make a living. If they can get away with it, why not. However, we have to do our best to maintain the correct price.

The children here are so splendid. They way and say “Hello!” or “How are you?” or “Bye!” The communal society here is phenomenal. Though they have fairly rigid conceptions of gender roles in their culture, they have little desire to compete with one another. This is apparent when calling boda drivers. When there are three boda drivers and one makes it to me before the others… none of them yell, argue, or get upset. They are so very… chill, yes, that’s the word, chill. They understand that this competition will only make enemies, and these are their friends.

Many of the teachers, upon their return today, are realizing that they cannot change their partner teacher’s outlook on interactions in the classroom in one single bound. They must learn to work within certain boundaries and to negotiate others. They must learn to make strong relationships very slowly with people that are just like any other people… you may like them, you may not. I’m enthralled to learn more through their eyes.

Today, also, I helped in a facilitation of a round circle session at Gulu High School. We sat with two pairs of teacher exchange participants (we as in Catherine, Danielle, and myself). We discussed what each participant’s individual definition of partner teaching was, what they foresaw the benefits and challenges to be, how to overcome those challenges, and the use of language in the classroom and school system.

The teachers saw that the have a partner teacher could increase the quality of education for their students, develop cross-cultural friendships, and give them personal growth in their own lives. They realized that there would be challenges in communication and views of how to teach. They determined that at every point they experienced a failure (students not learning at their best), they could use it as an opportunity to learn themselves and to develop.

The discussion about language was interesting. Apparently, I had no idea, us Americans are very loud and fast talking (wink, wink). We must learn to slow down (in almost every way) here in Acholiland. We also talked about how English came to be seen as the “correct” language (through domination of America in the economy of the world). However, I had posed this question to Catherine and Danielle a few nights ago, regarding how they felt about the use of English as the official language in Uganda. Catherine promptly responded, “Well, what do you think?” I told her that I felt that having a common language among the many tribes was useful to communication (a passion of mine). I also felt that it reduced the likelihood of tensions between the tribes if only one tribe’s language was chosen as the official language.

Interestingly, this is much the same answer that the teachers gave. Actually, exactly the same. It is also (unfortunately, yet fortunately for me), English is the lingua franca of the world… it is the language of business and when whether I like it or not, this is a global economy and global society at the moment. Everyone is trying to adjust and adapt just to keep themselves from going under.

Well, I’m going to go back to listening to the teachers in this room talk about hemorrhoids, natural birth in water with a dolphin, and the like. Yes, yes, I’m serious.

Within community,

Karen