Three Months of August

I am going to write about the weather. I realize that, when it comes to topics of conversation, weather has the reputation of being uninteresting, the sort of topic to which one resorts when one has nothing else to talk about, phatic (that's my new favorite word! Definition included at the end for your convenience).  There is a quote from the Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility that runs something like, "If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your comments to the weather." However, I must ask you to give the topic of weather the benefit of the doubt in this case. Lately, the weather has been quite interesting.

For the first week or so after I and my compatriots arrived in Karamoja, the weather behaved in a normal, fairly predictable way for September. During the mornings, it was sunny and warm with highs in the 90s; in the afternoons, it often rained for a breif period; and then the evenings were clear and a little cooler. And then the rain stopped. 

Karamoja has two season: wet and dry. Normally, from what I gather, January and February are the peak of the dry season. Between the temperatures, which frequently reaching into the 100s, and the hot, dry winds, it sounds a little like living inside a convection oven to me. Come April and May, temperatures fall to the 80s, humidity rises, and the rains start. Some years, it rains consistently in the afternoon; sometimes it pours all-day-'ery-day for days at a time. The wet season typically lasts into September with October starting to dry out. Or so I have been told. 

When, in September, we had multiple days in a row with no rain. One of the missionaries explained that we were experiencing weather more typical of December than September. By the beginning of October, the river/culvert we cross on our way to the Preschool was completely dry. It seemed that dry season had arrived unseasonably early. Fortunately, as most of the harvesting was already complete, the weather did not seem to  be an immediate problem. There was some concern about the possibility of this turning into an eight-month dry season. On the positive side, the drought made for good road conditions, which, what with all the coming and going from the mission compound, we were grateful for.

Then, about a week and a half ago, it started to rain again. Not just the pleasant afternoon thunder showers that cool things down and make one scamper to retrieve one's formerly forgotten laundry from the line. Oh no, we actually had rain over night! [Insert gasp of surprise here.] Even more surprising, we had rain before noon last Sunday. Unheard of! Well, maybe not completely unheard of, but certainly uncommon. It is muddier now than it was when we first arrived two months ago, during what was supposed to be the wet season. For the past week, I have tried to gage before leaaving the compound for school if I can get away with wearing sandals or if I would be better off with rainboots. 

Having lived in Western PA for 11 years, I am not a stranger to rain. It is interesting to see, though, how rain effects daily life here. Rain turns the road from Mbale (the closest city, about a two-hour drive in good conditions) into mud. Rain makes "footing" from place to place a bit more of an adventure. Rain sometimes prevents people from coming to work entirely. Fore example, Lokeris wisely chose not to try swimming the swollen river just to come to work. Cloudy days affects our solar power, which in turn affects the water pumps. Ironically, the water supply at the clinic is more consistent during the dry season than during the wet because of the solar system that it runs on. 

Any yet, I don't hear anyone complain about the weather. I hear speculation and bewilderment because the weather patterns are all discombobulated and discombobulating. (Personally, I still feel like it's August.) I hear concern about traveling plans and prayers that the roads will be ok. But the weather isn't something to complain about. In all fairness, maybe no one complains because we still get our daily dose of vitamin D and sunshine despite the rain. At least for me though, there is a different attitude towards the weather. 

In the states, I would almost always check the weather for the next day. During this past summer at camp, I checked the radar usually multiple if not dozens of times in a day. During the winter, I checked the temperature to try to gauge how many layers I should wear. Here, I can't even find a weather forcast for Nakaale. My "weather forcast" consists of deducing from the rain on my roof at 2:00 am that the walk to school will probably be muddy. I think my own attitude toward the weather has become much more laid back and much less concerned with what is not immediately happening. The weather will be what the weather will be, and we'll roll with it. We don't control it; we don't even understand it. But we know the One who does.

* denoting or relating to language used for general purposes of social interaction, rather than to convey information or ask questions. E.g. "Hello," "How are you?" and "Nice morning, isn't it?"

Primary School

In my last post, I tried to provide a glimpse into KEO's preschool program. In this post, I would like to share a bit about KEO's work with the local public primary schools. 

It is only within the past two or three weeks that I have started to get a feel for this work, the challenges and opportunities it presents.  In part, the reason for this is that, when we first arrived, the public schools were in between terms. Then it took about three weeks for the new term to truly get underway. Sadly, there is a self-perpetuating cyle in the local schools: the teachers do not always come in the first few weeks because they say the children will not come; and the children do not come because the teachers are not there. Reportedly, attendance at school is consistently inconsistent throughout the whole term, but for those first three weeks it is particularly poor. To quote many of the KEO teachers in reference to the public schools, "They are still organizing."

Nakaale Primary School

My first visit to Nakaale Primary School was highly educational--for me, at least. A few days before, there were some kind of local elections. Based on my conversation with Koryang, one of the KEO teachers, I think that the elections were for an office like parish (think county) judge. Evidently, there had been "corruption" of some kind with the Nakaale voting process, so they were holding the elections again. When we arrived at the Nakaale Primary school, there was a small canopy set up as a voting booth and a growing group of people waiting for the voting to begin. As a result of the elections, there were also no classes at the school that day. We still taught the weekly Bible story to a group of children and intrigued bystanders, but it was not the typical primary school experience. If there is such a thing as a "typical experience" working with KEO.

The other public school to which we go is Alamacar (pronounced Ah-lah-mah-char) Primary School. While Nakaale Primary is maybe just under half a mile from the mission compound, I estimate that Alamacar is roughly a mile and a half. Alamacar tends to be better run than Nakaale, although, again, it took them a few weeks at the start of the term to organize. On my first trip to Alamacar, there were four or five stuents in the P4 (4th grade) classroom and maybe eight or nine in the P7 classroom. We taught the weekly Bible story and gave a short health lesson. And by "we," I mean the Karimojong KEO teachers; I was still in the active observation phase.

A few words about the primary schools in Karamoja. First of all, tuition for the public schools is free. Typically, there are still some miscellaneous costs associated with attending school. For example, students must provide their own writing instruments, workbooks, and textbooks. Officially, the students are also required to buy a school uniform; however, if a student shows up wearing somthing other than the uniform--which the vast majority of them do--no one seems to care. Now, the cost of a pen and workbook (i.e. a dozen or so sheets of lined paper stapled together in booklet form) are far from prohibitive. Textbooks, certainly, are more expensive, and I have yet to see a student with a textbook. All in all, though, a student could attend Alamacar Primary School for free. The cost of school supplies (necessary or unnecessary) is more of an excuse than a reason to not attend. And, sadly, it is an excuse that is frequently used. 

General Assembly at Nakaale Primary School

Attendance, as I said, is consistently inconsistent. Often, students who are old enough to be in the primary schools show up at either the preschool or one of KEO's village outreaches. Why? I can't say exactly. Maybe because they like the variety. Maybe because they don't see the value in school. Maybe because we at least have teachers who are trying to teach. 

One day, at Kopetatum, I found myself trying to teach the letter rotation to a group children whom I'd guess were around 10-12. Because they were older and were clearly more advanced than our normal preschoolers, I tried to give them words to spell out on our slates. Imagine: a muzungu (white person) who has been exposed to the language for barely four weeks trying to remember as many Ngakarimajong nouns as possible so that a handful of eager children can try their hand at writing them out. Thank the Lord Ngakarimajong spelling is phonetic! One student was particularly quick and also knew enough English to call, "Another one!" whenver he finished and I approved or corrected his spelling. In reality, he may have been the only student in that group who actually knew how to spell; most of the others just tried to copy off of his blackboard. As I corrected a student's sideways rendition of a letter, I figured that they were at least getting practice writing. But I digress.

Over the past few weeks, I have gone to Nakaale Primary School once or twice a week. Usually, we send a team to Nakaale on Monday and Wednesday and a team to Alamacar on Tuesday and Thursday. Public schools in Uganda teach a "Religious Education" course. Purportedly, the religion taught in this class is Christianity, although the older grades are also supposed to learn about Islam. From my reading of the textbooks, though, I would say that the religion presented is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (If you are unfamiliar with that term, I highly recommend looking it up. I am too verbose as it is to include a description in this post.) At any rate, the local public schools are more than happy to allow us to come and teach Religious Education as many days a week as we are willing. 

Over the past 10-15 years, the pastors on the mission have written and translated hundreds of lessons of Bible stories from Genesis to Acts. Many of these lessons are formated into neat, 8-page booklets, complete with small pictures and a memory verse in English and Kjong. Many are not. That is one of the things that I do: I format these lessons into booklets that we can then take to the primary schools. We try to choose stories for the primary school classes that are either directly referred to in the Ugandan Religions Education textbook or coincide (to some degree) with the moral lesson presented in the unit. For the younger grades, we often bring pictures that go along with the Bible story. Since the older grades are supposed to be taught in English, we muzungus can try our hands at teaching as well. Martha thinks it is helpful for students to hear a native English-speaker read in non-Ugandan-English.

I am starting to think of P6 at Nakaale as "my classroom." I have also taught once or twice in P5, but P6 is my favorite. My first day in the classroom, there were only four students. That's the most I've ever seen in P6. The advantage of the smaller class, though, is that everyone can individually get practice reading. Oh, and it is much easier for me to learn their names and get a sense of who is is struggling. Korobe reads fairly well in both English and Ngakaramajong. Lokiru can read but only slowly. Lorot is in the middle.

The P7 Classroom

In my mind, our task in the primary schools is two-fold. First, we are simply giving the students the opportunity to read. Remember, I have yet to see a textbook in a classroom here. The booklets we use in our program are the students' to keep. They can take them home and continue to read about David and Jonathan, about the Parable of the Talents, about the Lord's Prayer. Whether they do or not is obviously not up to us, but at the very least, in those 45 minutes, they can practice. Secondly, we are trying to share the good news of Jesus Christ. In every lesson that the pastors have written, there is a point of connection to Christ. My hope and prayer is that God will use our work in the primary schools to reveal Himself to these students.