Day 15 Thursday July 20

Having gotten less than three hours of sleep the night before, I was not impressed at the 7am wake up call. We had to get up early because Lech and Chelsie wanted to go visit some of the villages outside of Karisosi and they were supposed to be there by 9am. So we sucked it up and got on the bus after a quick breakfast. I literally rolled out of bed onto the bus and promptly went back to sleep for the ride.

We got to Karisosi, had some tea and met the Matrix brotha who took Lech and Chelsie out. We also ran into three Notre Dame students who had been teaching in Jinja but were on their way to Kampala and back to the states. They were very nice but not all of us were up for early morning conversation.

Since we really didn’t have anything to do until the afternoon, we asked if we could take part in English class and help the students practice the language. The brotha took us to the classroom and we went through introductions. He said “this is a school for dropouts” and then he turned to the kids and said “sorry, it is the truth.” The kids chuckled, and Sara told them she knew it must have been hard for them to leave and come back to school and that we were very proud of them. We quickly learned they weren’t “bad kids,” they just weren’t able to stay in school for a number of reasons – money, family responsibilities and the many struggles which face countless African children. The class was divided up into two groups and each of us were assigned to talk with three students for about an hour. We were still very tired and not really prepared for this challenge, but in the end it was good for us and the children as well.

I chatted with only two students – a bright young girl and an uber shy boy. The girl answered most of the questions because she understood English fairly well, but the boy only responded when he understood what the girl was saying. The students had never had visitors before from outside the community, so it was as scary to them as it was to us. We asked the most simple questions possible – who is in your family, what do you want to do with your studies, do you have animals, do you cook, do you farm, do you have to do chores, etc.

The question, “what do you want to be when you grow up” does not apply in Africa. These kids are already grown up. They all have very large families and because they are in school, learning vocational skills and English, they are often times the primary caretakers of their brothers and sisters, as well as their mothers, fathers and grandparents, especially when the family is torn apart by HIV/AIDS. Most of the stories were similar – they all had very large families and even greater responsibilities. The boy had 10 brothers and 5 sisters, and I think the girl had about 10 people in her family including her grandmother. They all walked to school, beginning at about 6am to get to class at 9am, and enjoyed school very much. The boys take carpentry, brick laying and other instructions in the shop, and the girls take sewing and garment making in home economics. It reminded me of my junior high and high school, except the boys and the girls took both. The girls sell the garments out of their homes and whatever market they can find, and use the money to pay their own school fees and take care of their families.

There was a lull in the conversation and the girl got tired and told me I asked “too many questions” so I asked the principal if we could walk around. He thought it would be a good to show the students’ other classrooms and work, and that proved to be a great idea. We went to the girls’ room and saw how they learn the garment making. They start with paper sacks that are cut into the shape of dresses, and they do the measurements and stitching on the paper sacks before using cloth. Their first project was making table cloths, and each had simple, yet very beautiful cloths to show us, white mixed in with their favorite color. The principal suggested we purchase some of them if we wanted to, and all of a sudden the classroom transformed into the market. “Sente Zinga?” I asked – “how much?” The principal, the teacher and the girls laughed and started talking in Rootoro to decide how much they should charge. I hadn’t gotten money exchanged yesterday so I was broke, and so I went and told Sara what was up. She said she had a lot of money (as always) to buy from the local people and that we would purchase some after our instruction.

So then we proceeded to the boys’ shop, and inside found a few boys doing woodworking. They were making chairs, tables and even bunk-beds. One young man was concentrating very hard with the saw, and the principal said that he was a graduate who had been recently employed by the school. Apparently the school takes orders from other schools and the community, so the kids have both a market, a job and an income to use their skills immediately after school, but it was only limited to a few students. I was amazed – here were students as young as 12 learning vocational work that we learned in high school and entering the business world before the age of 18. It was confusing, devastating and inspiring all at the same time.

We had about 20 minutes left, so we decided to break out the Frisbees. Sara demonstrated by throwing it to Whitney, who caught it and held her hands up as if to cheer that this was success. Rachael and I took the girls out to the open field and began throwing the Frisbee around, and one girl ran up to me and asked, in impeccable English English, “Excuse me sir, I do not understand the point of this game, the girl who caught it seemed to be the winner.” I told her Whitney was just happy that she caught it and that there was no real winner. They loved it. It didn’t take them long to figure out how to throw it, and they would even correct one another if they weren’t throwing it the right way. They also cheered and clapped when one would catch it from another. They never seemed to get tired of the simple game and so we played as long as we could.

We purchased a few table cloths and made our way out of the school, but before we could do that they had to sing for us, of course. The “school choir” gathered in the tiny room and lined up proudly to sing at the drop of the hat. They sang their school motto about loving Uganda and loving school, and how proud they were to be able to “move forward” as most of the songs say. Hopefully when we come back next week we can get the video, because the words and the beautiful acapella singing really touched our hearts.

We drove up to Kirinda and had lunch in the staff room, followed by a group nap on the bus. We needed our energy for St. Joseph’s.

As 2pm rolled around we made it up the hill for our final day of class workshops. I helped Lech again with photography which I enjoyed very much. We were still a bit unorganized and the students were itching to use the cameras (many of them asked to have their own personal camera, but we explained to them that we only brought enough to share and that everyone had to be equal). They divided themselves into groups of 6 and we showed them how to take the pictures, and that each student got to take 4 of whatever they wanted. I don’t think they really got the idea, because they just kept trading back and forth shot by shot. I was amazed that each and every group immediately went to some aspect of the environment for a background, whether it was the trees, the bushes or the grass. The group of girls even picked flowers and put them behind their ears to look extra sexy. We hadn’t given them any suggestions or instructions. It’s amazing to see what people will do if you just give them a tool and a free chance to unleash their creativity on their own.

As the students ran out of pictures they became frustrated, and there began a discussion for the rest of the class about a few things. Many of them thought we were going to take the cameras and photos for ourselves. “How do you benefit from these photos? Do you make money? Who do you show them to?” We explained over and over again that we would take the cameras to the store in Ft. Portal, have them developed and return the pictures to them. “That will make us very happy,” they said. “But what happens to the camera?” We tried to explain how they were “disposable cameras” – “when we have the pictures, the cameras are out of film and they are useless, so we throw them away.” The concept of disposable was completely foreign to them. In Uganda, everything is reused – I don’t think I’ve found one trash can in the entire country. “Why do you not give them back to us?” they asked. Lech tried to explain that the store in Ft. Portal sends the cameras away and puts more film on them, and then sells them again, but they still didn’t get the idea. And they sure as hell didn’t believe that the only benefit we received from this project was allowing them to take and keep their own photos. “And where are our stories and pictures?” We had taken up their drawings in art class and stories they did in the English workshop, and we told them we were going to put them together to hang on the school walls and that they would eventually get them back. Again, “that will make us very happy” they said.

We had about 20 minutes left with nothing to do, and so we just began an impromptu cross-cultural communications class on the grass. Most of the students were teenage boys, and since the girls were both mean and shy, the boys looked up to us and asked us many questions. The first question was about my ONE campaign bracelet. “Why do you where this – what does that mean, ‘one’?” one boy asked. I stumbled upon an explanation about connecting America and Africa, and they boy quickly cut me off. “I get it – we are all one.” Again, the cleverness and intelligence of the students came out in this exchange. “What are you going to do with your studies?” they asked me, “do you want to become a priest?” I was a little taken aback by this question, and told them I was not interested in becoming a priest. “So you like to have relationships, and to love women?” they asked. Okay, now I understood what was going on. When I told them yes I do (and that is one of the reasons I don’t want to become a priest), they smiled and gave me a few knuckle handshakes. And there the sex education lesson began.

The boys were very curious. One student asked me if it was okay to have more than one wife. I told him that I didn’t think it was, and he was confused. I tried to explain to him that it was good for the man but bad for the women. “What happens if you get one of them pregnant and have children – what happens to the other one – they will be jealous – they are two women, but you are only one man.” The boy thought that interesting. “Do you use condoms in America?” they asked. “YES,” I said, “everyone in America uses condoms.” “I was told that you can only use a condom three times and then you have to throw it away.” “NO,” I said, “you have to use a condom each time you have sex.” (Now that I think about it, this plays into the reusable nature of the African people in general). “Do you have any condoms to give to us?” they asked. Oh boy. I told them no, and they asked why some people give them out and some people don’t. I tried as diplomatically as I could to explain the fight between the public and the church about condom distribution, waiting to have sex before marriage, etc., but clearly these kids were not buying it. One boy said, “we have to use condoms because we have this thing called HIV. Do you have it in America?” “Yes, we do.” “What do you do for it?” they asked, “do you have the medicines in America?” “Yes,” I said, “we have ARVs (which they had heard about).” “Do you know how to get the medicine? Will you bring them to us?” they asked. “They are very very expensive,” I said. “Even in America? You are rich.” “No, we are not all rich, and yes, they are still expensive.” “But people can take them and get cured?” they asked. “NO,” I said, “the medicines are only to make people be less sick, but you can still die from it. There is no cure for HIV/AIDS.” The boys looked down. Silence. They had no more questions about this, and I had no more explanations. “That is why I am here, and that is why I wear this bracelet – so that we in America can work together with you in Uganda to find a cure for HIV/AIDS and help each other.”

The final discussion was one I was happy to have at first, because I naively though the student just wanted to know about America, but it later turned into an investigation for him to pump me for information about how he could get there. First he asked me how much it cost, and I did the conversion – about 1 million Ugandan shillings, or about $5,000. “So you are rich?” he asked. No, I said, I had to get money from a bank and when I get back to America I have to pay it back. “The bank is very rich then,” one of the boys said. “Yes,” I said, but they do not give money to everybody and it is very hard to pay it back. “You see, the people in Uganda are all poor – we do not even have money for food.” “Wait a second,” I said, “you have plenty of food – you have matoki, avocados and tomatoes, don’t you?” “Yes,” he said. “And do you have bananas?” “Yes, so many bananas that we will never run out.” “See, you are not hungry,” I said, “you have everything you need, except money to go to America – why do you want to go to America so bad?.” “First let us finish the discussion we are having,” he said.

The boy, although very smart and curious, had absolutely no idea about life on the other side. “How is the sun on the other side?” he asked. I was a bit confused. “Yes, we have the sun on the other side” I said. “No, how is it right now?” Oh. I said that right now, it is nighttime in America because the sun is out right now. Ohhhh, they said. And when it is nighttime, when you are sleeping, the people in America are awake. Ohhhhhhhhh they said. It really blew their mind.

The boy continued. He asked me how we knew Father Potus (the headmaster of the school) and I told him through the Holy Cross. Then he asked me how I physically got here, and I told him on a bus and several plane rides. “How come you don’t go by boat – by sea.” I didn’t know how to answer that question other than it was very illegal and unsafe, but I told him it would take way too long. “How long do you fly in the airplane?” I said three days and he screamed. “Even thought it is going very fast in the air?” Yes, I said, America is a long way from Ft. Portal…first you have to take a bus to Entebbe, then you have to fly to Europe, then you have to fly to America. “That is a lot,” he said. Yes it is, I thought, and I hope you don’t try and make the trip, because it’s just not worth it.

I again asked him why he wanted to go to America so bad, and he was coy again. “First let us finish our discussion.” “You have to get permission from the governments, right?” he asked. Yes, I said, but you are only allowed to stay in America for three months like we are only allowed to stay in Uganda for three months. “You would like to come to America and at least visit, wouldn’t you?” I asked. “We shall see, we shall see, in time,” he kept saying.

Time was up, and we made our escape on the bus. I had really enjoyed the discussion and I hoped that I made a difference, because they certainly held on to my every word.

We made it out of Karisoi completely and totally exhausted. It had been a 12 hour day, but we had plenty to do in town before we went home. I went down to use the Internet at a café farther down the hill while the others used the one across from Mary’s. I did my thing for a while and but then the electricity went off, and since the guy hadn’t plugged in the generator the computers went off. We got tired of waiting and went back down to Mary’s. I went into the other café with the generator and met Sara and Ian, who were still working. So I sat down to read a few more emails when all of a sudden Whitney and Rachael came in. “You missed the motorcade,” they said. Museveni (the president of Uganda!) had just rolled by on his way to do a radio interview up the street. Ohhh, I said, that sucks, but whatever, I had enjoyed the night before with the cultural kings. We sent a few more emails and came back to the bus, but had to wait a little bit more because Sara had to buy a few things at the grocery store. I sat on the bus and there went part of the motorcade flying by. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was still pretty cool. Actually it was pretty scary now that I think about it. It was truck after truck with soldiers and machine guns on the tailgates pointed in all directions. They presidential jeep/SUV or whatever wasn’t with them, and they were just going to get gas across the street, Joseph told us. Museveni was probably on the radio by now but we didn’t have a way to listen, so I was anxious to get home.

Finally we took off, got a nice greeting from Betty who thought we were lost, and ate dinner. I guess we had missed Museveni because all that was on the radio was a church service. Damn. Oh well, I bet I can find out what happened online. I’ve had enough politics for one day.