Vancouver, British Columbia

Vancouver, British Columbia
frank.devine@gmail.com

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Amber’s Nails Are So Long She Can Barely Type, and Does Anyone Want to Mail Us a Starbucks Latte? Make it Extra Hot!

(Frank) Ahhh…the power. Well, last week as we tried to upload pictures to our blog, the power would go out just as they were about to finish uploading. We were on the computer for over an hour, with only 25 minutes of actual internet, broken into 5-10 minute increments. Thankfully, the people didn’t charge us. The power this week was off more than it has been on. On a couple of occasions, we were sitting in the dark at night and the lights would come back on and one of us would say “Now lets just hope they stay on” and not five seconds later, they would go back off. So needless to say, we have been going to bed really really early, as doing anything by kerosene lamp is really hard. The one thing I have been able to do is play guitar, as they had one in Makhai which needed to be repaired. They said that if I would repair it, I could use it, which I was very grateful for, as it now gives me something to do in the evenings.

Well, school is underway, which is great for the children, but not for people trying to catch taxis in the evening as we found out on Thursday. We waited for about an hour at our turn off. Every taxi that went by was full, and in Africa, full means having 20+ people plus their groceries (which often includes live chickens), and anything else they have with them packed into a little van similar to the old Volkswagen vans (it’s quite cozy!!). Amber and I wanted to phone a private taxi from Mbale to come and get us, but our friends said no. One of them had a motorbike so he drove us individually about 5 kilometers away, where we could catch a taxi. Thankfully we caught a car (private car wanting to make some extra money….I think?) that drove us in. Our friends told us that one night they had waited until 9pm to get a taxi and then ended up phoning a private taxi to pick them up. A private taxi costs about 1/5 of their monthly pay.

This week of work though was quite fun. We are finally getting used to how things operate here so we are now starting to find ways our skills can be useful. This week Amber observed some school classes in both of the communities we work in (Makhai and Bufukhula). She met with the head teachers of both schools and next week will be teaching classes in both schools. The schools are very short on teachers and classrooms, making class sizes really large (120+ in some) and so Amber helping in this was welcomed.

(Amber) Wow! Classrooms here are very different! Frank told me that they purposely build the classrooms so that the windows are high enough that the students can’t see outside. I observed 5 different teachers this week in various subject areas, and the methods that they use all seem to be the same. It is a lecture style with note-taking and a bit of student interaction. However, I must say that for 80-120 students in the classroom, it sure does seem quiet! Much quieter than my 18 students J Next week I’ll be teaching English and Math lessons to some grade 5 and 6 classes; the grade 1-3 students are taught in Lugisu, and the head teachers were afraid that the grade 4 students wouldn’t be able to understand my accent. (I’m also afraid that I won’t be able to understand theirs.)

In Uganda, primary education (K-7) is free. However, senior school costs money and many parents can’t afford it. That means that many students drop out, or some go back to repeat grade 7 just so that they can stay in school. It is a huge struggle for many of the parents here to make enough money to send their children to secondary school.

(Frank) I have found ways to help this week by doing some construction estimating. There are a few structures which are being built in the communities (2 classroom blocks for the school, a kitchen for the Makhai school, and teacher’s quarters) at various levels of completion. Last week I spent some time with the FH engineer/builder learning how things are built in Uganda, and this week I was sent to do quantity estimation for the remaining work. I also spent a day changing some former sleeping quarters into a school library, as the Makhai school has received a few books from the UK ( I mean a few….man do they need more!). On Friday I spent the day doing some computer training in the Mbale office. The whole staff spent the day there and I started by teaching typing skills. Some of them were sitting and practicing all day on paper keyboards I made, and others on keyboards not attached to anything. It was so awesome to see how excited they are to learn computer skills as currently they write EVERYTHING by hand, even the lists of one thousand children they have in the program (multiple times a year for different charts). This requires days, if not weeks to do every year, so they are very eager to learn computer skills. It was decided that I will be doing computer training every Friday, and Amber will be planning her lessons for the following week. Also, construction on the new buildings should resume soon, so I will be assisting with that.

Friday night as we were kicking a soccer ball in the yard, some kids came running in with their dog. We knew them from before so Frank asked what they were doing. They said that they were scared of another dog, which at that moment came running into the yard. We’ve been quite concerned about animals here, because we weren’t immunized against rabies and the nearest center for the rabies injection is about 5 hours away. Amber was near the office door so she ran inside, but the kids and I ran to a big tree in the middle of the yard and began to climb it. Unfortunately, the crazy dog attacked their dog. Its owner eventually came and called it away. It was pretty scary and the kids’ dog had some deep teeth marks in it.

On Saturday we were invited to the home of one of the FH staff named Paul. Him and his family (wife and one year old daughter) are about our age (a little older, but close enough), and are great people who made us feel at home as soon as we got there. We spent the day visiting and getting to know each other, eating lots of great Ugandan food and playing games. Since this is what we love to do in Canada with our friends, it really felt like home here for almost the first time, like we were just hanging out with our friends on a Saturday. Their daughter named Lynn Angel is 14 months old, and weighs almost 40lbs! She is the biggest baby I have ever seen in my life, and was joking around that she could have a bright future in the WWF. I think I pulled my back out when I lifted her the first time. She kept going around and picking up children, who were much older than her, and carrying them around calling them “baby.” It was so funny!

Oh ya, they do have coffee here. It’s the stuff we would put in our coffee percolators, but since most people here don’t have electricity, they just put it in their cups and let it sit for a few minutes before they drink it. The grounds settle to the bottom…but it’s just not the same. And we use powdered milk.

We are thankful:
· For our health.
· That we have finally found useful ways to contribute our skills to the work here.
· That the bites on Amber’s leg seemed to be swollen mosquito bites and are okay.
· That we were protected from the crazy dog Friday night.
· That we have began developing friendships with the people here and are beginning to feel at home.

Please pray for:
· Continued good health
· Amber’s teaching.
· That our work here would have a positive impact and initiate lasting change.
· The parents here that need to find money for school fees.

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