Sunday, 23rd September - All is calm

Sunday, 23 September

The State of the Nation

It’s 11:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. The Friday panic has died down, and the streets have resumed their normalcy. Frankly, by all reports, the news of impending riots appears to have been blown completely out of proportion. According to the news, there were no incidents whatsoever. But, who is to know?

Yesterday, I took a boda-boda to the well-known Owino market. I got myself a pair of second-hand Italian wellies…not quite designer, but getting there! Bright yellow, cut slightly above the ankle…well, considerably below the knee. George, the boda-boda driver was concerned about the safety of his motorcycle, so I did not dither. While there, I got a call from the bank to say that my cheque book and bank card were ready, so I left the bustling crowds of the African market, stopped by the bank downtown, and then headed back home. The exhaust fumes are still a force to be reckoned with and I was exhausted and out and of breath. Sybil, the drama teacher, decided to stop by for a visit, so we had a late lunch together. I threw together a concoction of the fresh veggies I had purchased from a vendor who passed by early in the morning, wagon loaded with produce of the day. For about seven dollars, give or take, I picked up a pumpkin, red spinach, sweet potatoes, peppers, a pineapple, cassava –which I tried cooking for the first time, egg plant, and carrots.

This morning, I am experimenting with sausage rolls, and a cream of wild mushroom/sweet potato soup. The soup is delish…the pastry for the rolls is not quite right. Can’t get used to the butter…it has a high water content. Think I might stick to the Norwegian butter which is more expensive, but more reliable.

Got a call to join a singing rehearsal for the Christmas pantomime, so I will head there this afternoon. I have joined KADS (Kampala Amateur Dramatic Society) – and I have been cast to play in a murder mystery at the end of next month. We had out first rehearsal last Thursday evening. It was good to get away from the school routine and I enjoyed meeting a whole new set of people. I will say more about the murder mystery in another blog. Should be fun! It is mostly improvised, in the context of a fashion show.

Didn’t really get a chance to tell about the experience in south western Uganda and the outdoor education trip. As expected from the pictures I had seen, and accounts I had heard, it is a spectacular place. Of course, some of the snotty rich students – who are only used to 5-star hotels…found it a bit to rudimentary! The air was clean, the views out of this world…birds galore…crawfish in the lake, a visit to a traditional medicine healer, canoeing, rope swinging into the lake, canoeing and hiking to another island which housed a school, using the premises of a former leper colony and hospital set up my British missionaries in the late 1800’s…and into the early 1900’s. So, history, tradition, culture galore. We got a little rained out on one of the days, but the reward was a view of a volcano in the distance which marks the border with Rwanda. The long bus trip was hard to take – 10 hours on return…with a 5 a.m. rising! Still, well worth it!

I am told that the rainy season has begun. Still wish I had some duckies….but my designer boots will do. Last week, a storm broke just 10 minutes before I was about to head out the door to school. I ended up wearing my crocs…and didn’t give a damn about the look. My feet were red from the mud, and I had to navigate through veritable torrents along the roads. A sight to behold, and a new experience. I now understand what a tropical downpour means!

Anyway, enough for today. I shall try one of the sausage rolls…maybe two…and then get ready for the rehearsal this afternoon.  But, let me upload this first!

School closed due to impending riots

Oh boy. We have just sent all the kids home...in anticipation of riots after noon-day prayers at the mosque.
The protests and riots around the world have finally reached Kampala. I will keep you informed of things. Fortunately, the Islamic community is small in Uganda...but one never knows with these things.
I have one student in class, with her little three-year-old sister, awaiting news from her mother who works at the US embassy. I need to wait until she leaves before I can leave. A bunch of teachers are getting together to huddle and deal with things.

Back in Kampala, but only just

Year 8 students check out the fabulous view of the islands in Lake Bunyonyi

A local fishermen sits in his lonely dug-out canoe on Lake Bunyonyi

I'll keep this brief for several reasons. I have three weeks of blogging to play catch-up. Damn.
My computer died three weeks ago. Anna Hecker, the food-tech teacher, has lent me her spare laptop...a teeny-weeny guy and my fingers are having a hard time navigating the keyboard. I also have three weeks worth of photographs from the Asciot Goat Races, my weekend away at Banana Village Resort  and the Botanical Gardens in Entebbe, and the week away in south-western Uganda, on Bushara Island, one of the 28 islands in Lake Bunyonyi.
On Tueday night, I was kept awake, not by noisy students, but a toothache! I went into denial for a day...because the offending tooth is the anchor on one of the bridges. Well, by Friday, I knew that I would have no choice but to visit a dentist once back in Kampala. So, I am back, and I spent the afternoon with Dr Tom at a dental clinic downtown. I got a long lecture on the reasons I need to floss...and that I would probably not have this problem if I had been diligent! Oh boy - I hung my head in shame, took it calmly, settled for Plan A... in the hope of solving the problem. But, no, I am still in pain from the exposed nerve and my only consolation is that it is stopping me from eating or drinking anything! I guess I will have to go back to the clinic during the week to settle for Plan B...drilling into the anchor tooth and getting a root canal treatment. That, my friends, is the state of the nation and it is clouding everything else.
I have looked through the 500 photos from the trip, and I need to do something with them, but my activities are being curtailed by the head sloping to one side, and my right hand glued to the cheek to dampen the pain.
Still, I had a great time with the students at Lake Bunyonyi and I will try to upload a few pics just to give you an idea of the place. It was hard to come to polluted Kampala, where poverty assaults every sense!
As for school tomorrow, that's another story. The week away has put me into a totally different rhythm. Yikes.

Lake Bunyonyi

http://bunyonyi.blogspot.com/2010/08/bunyonyi-deepest-attractive-lake.html

Lake Bunyonyi - This is where the Grade 8 students will be going for their 1-week Outdoor Education Experience in mid-September. I am one of the chaperones!

Week 4 in Kampala

Kampala, Week 4: Sunday Evening

I was forced out of my Sunday routine...it doesn’t take long. I had a great plan to spend it at school in order to catch up on paperwork at school. Instead, I rolled out of bed a little later than usual. Mornings can be on the chilly side...imagine that...so I snuggled under the duvet for a few minutes longer than usual. I needed to do a little errand and called Sybil (drama teacher and new friend) to get some information about distances and expected rates on a boda-boda. Then she decided she’d join me on the errand, but we ended up going with her Jeep. Instead of returning home, we trundled off to a pottery school which I understood to be around the corner. But Sybil has turned African in the sense of the concept of distances and directions! The place was a 40-minute drive outside of Kampala...on the way to Jinja, the source of the Nile. The pottery was quite spectacular, but the prices were European. The place is run by Swiss missionaries. Amazingly, I purchased nothing. But maybe that’s really because I only get my first pay cheque at the end of this month! On the way back into Kampala, I decided to show Sybil my apartment...and we ended up whiling the entire afternoon away on stories. I whipped up a yummy pumpkin soup, blended some cocktails with passionfruit, banana,  and rum.

The first week at school unfolded without too many glitches. I find the school day tiresome because we have no breaks between lessons. Monday to Wednesday are packed full, but things ease up on Thursday and Friday.  And we can leave at 3:15 on a Friday. Always welcome. The last two lessons on Friday – in my free time – we had a visit from three actors and the director of a controversial play, “The River and the Mountain” which has been running in Kampala for the past few weeks. The IB students all attended. We drummed up enough support to arrange a school bus to take 12 students to the show on Saturday evening. The show was held at “Mish-Mash” – a funky restaurant, gallery, and performance space run by an Australian couple. The place was buzzing. A beer company was shooting a commercial at the same time...so it was quite an evening out. The performance was pretty good, and some of the actors are very talented. The themes explored in the play should hold the students in good stead when they write some of their papers.  So, all-in-all, it’s been a pretty jam-packed week.  Wish I had spent a little more time on getting the paperwork done...but, what the hell!  Sybil was good company, and she knows lots of people in this city because she has been here for four full years. She is planning bi-weekly Thai cooking lessons with the husband of one of the primary teachers. I am in...so that should be a blast! That’s it for the week.

The students listen attentively to the words of the actors. It was a pretty inspiring session.

IB student, Winnie, shows off the two tickets she won after a quiz about the play. Here, she is posing with three of the actors who came to meet and speak to the students.

Week 3 in Uganda

Tomorrow, the students arrive for their first day of school. Despite my years of experience in teaching, the day always comes with some trepidation. As always, some things are in place, and some things aren’t. Administrators NEVER provide teachers with enough planning time. The week was filled with meetings. One entire day was devoted to First Aid training, from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. All important, without a doubt, but I found myself having to bring home tons of schoolwork. Things like this happen in every school. Vlad, my neighbor, will be teaching P.E. so he is laughing all the way to the local watering holes. Last night, he joined his confrere at Bubbles O’Leary, the bar of choice for a lot of expatriates, while I stayed home to read Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and work my way through the yearly plans for the different levels that I will be teaching.  I am still waiting for my classroom to be adequately equipped with the technical stuff needed. The computer has no speakers, the printer cable only arrived on Friday, and I am waiting for the projector to materialize. I am told that, in Africa, it is each ‘man’ for himself! I see that in the way that driver’s drive. The traffic congestion is beyond belief, and the diesel fumes too much for my little lungs. Yesterday, I took a boda (motorcycle) to “The Surgery”, the clinic of choice for most teachers at the school. There, I picked up some surgical masks to wear when riding in traffic. At the market, the vendors were disconcerted by the mask. “You scared of Ebola?” “Just the pollution,” said I, and casually picked up some spices – nutmeg, ‘fresh’ vanilla bean, coriander, some curry powders, sea salt from Mombasa, Kenya. Was a little adventurous yesterday, and made myself a rice pudding with brown rice. Yummy, I might say, because everything tastes quite different – the milk is different, the eggs, and the spices seemed more flavourful. I also made my first pot of lentils, and reserved the beans for another day. I have used up every container in the kitchen (they can be counted on one hand!) and my fruit salad will have to wait a day or two! Last night, the rain arrived. Then, in the early hours of morning, more rain. Galoshes! Darn – why didn’t I pack any?! I haven’t ventured out, yet, but those muddy roads are certainly not inviting. The gym will have to wait until I pluck up the courage…and give in to the fact that my runners will be caked with fresh red mud. I am sure the cleaners at the gym are not going to be too pleased. Maybe I will carry a clean pair of runners for the treadmill. Looked into the cost of sending a parcel from Canada. A joke! I will have to pick up some cheap willies from the market, made in China, of course, and cut them down to serve as galoshes. They are somewhat affordable, but dreadfully uggle!  Our first holiday comes in October – 19-26^th, I believe – and I have been looking into some options. I would like to escape to a place that has cleaner air – nothing to discuss on that one. Since I have tons of work to wade through, today’s blog is deliberately short. The pic for today is taken from my spare bedroom/office window. In the distance, you can see the Bahai Temple which sits on the neighbouring hill. The temple was build in the 1960’s – and I am told it has beautiful gardens and is a lovely serene place to visit. Shall do that one of these days. It’s a 40-minute walk from my apartment. Maybe next weekend.

A view of the Bahia Temple, taken this morning  from my back window

Saturday Morning in Kampala, Week 2

Saturday Morning in Kampala (Week 2)

Since this is not an extended holiday, I had to come to terms with the mandatory school induction meetings. As always, this is not devoid of trepidation. With the apartment suitably organized and cozy enough, it was time to cozy in to the school routine and get a chance to meet the entire staff which is impressively multicultural. Apart from the Ugandan teachers, the foreign teachers come from more than 30 different countries  - Holland, Belgium, England, Ireland, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, the Philppines, The U.S., and more.  As expected, new teachers had to stand and introduce themselves as we gathered in the large assembly theatre, a semi-enclosed theatre on the sprawling campus. After the initial meeting with the entire faculty, new teachers were given yet another tour of the campus. We were all quite amazed at the facilities and I was particularly impressed by the plant life. The plants and trees are luxuriant, some of which I have never set eyes on. The meetings went on all day and I had a chance to sneak off to the gym/club in the afternoon while the new teachers were whisked off to the furniture market downtown. Some new  teachers were still jet-lagged, having arrived only the night before.  Later on the Monday evening, all teachers were expected to gather by the school swimming pool and bar, we enjoyed a lavish bbq with free-flowing booze. To be expected, some people could not draw the line, so there were unsavoury stories to be heard on the morning after. Enough said. The week was filled with meetings – as is expected. The school is fairly organized, but I did get somewhat distressed to discover that the tech had not been installed in my classroom. Several new teachers are awaiting their smartboards/projectors to propel us into the 21^st century. Naturally, older teachers are all smugly established, carefully guarding what they have, with little intention of sharing. Nothing changes. Schools are the same around the world. I have my time-table with a full workload. I have been relieved of homeroom duties because I have 32 lessons a week, teaching grades 7, 8, 10 and IB1 (Grade11). I am also one of the teachers responsible for chaperoning the Grade 8 students on their outdoor education excursion two weeks after the students arrive. They are scheduled to visit Lake Bunyoni (spelling?) in south western Uganda, about three hours from Kampala. I am told that it is somewhat like Canada – green, clean, cool. Speaking of which, I am constantly amazed at the weather/climate. The temperature does indeed range from 18-30 every day – the only changes are determined by the rain. The little rain that has fallen since I have arrived serves to hold down the dust – not a bad thing at all! But, I am kicking myself for not packing some galoshes! The streets –how could they be so named?! – turn into fast-flowing rivulets, and the terracotta mud makes for treacherous navigation. Fortunately, my apartment is a ten minute walk to school – if that.

We did, thankfully, have some respite from Kampala because we were scheduled for a two-day/one-night stay at the Speke Resort – one of the plushest resorts in Kampala, sitting on the bank of Lake Victoria. It belongs to the guy who owns the school, so we used the facility to continue some of the team-building activities. Lots of laughs were had, and we had time to chill. After an extremely meat-heavy dinner on the boat (beef, lamb, chicken, fish, liver), the aisles were turned into a dancing floor, as we sailed along Lake Victoria. Of course, there was little to see, but it was ambient, nonetheless. Did it feel like Africa? Hmmm – not sure. Could have been any lake, really. As expected, there were post-cruise parties. I chose bed! Can’t keep up with the youngsters!  In the morning, I ventured to the gym at the resort. While on the treadmill, I was joined by an ‘important’ person who insisted that his treadmill be cleaned thoroughly with detergents. I couldn’t understand the fuss. Between my huffing and puffing, I heard him say to the gym attendant, “When the president was here, yesterday, he said we should have no fears about Ebola! But, I am not taking any chances!” At that point, I began to wonder if I should have had my treadmill scrubbed down!  Anyway, my point is that this is the kind of resort that has a presidential suite, and hosts the dignitaries of the region and beyond. There were all sorts of conferences going on, and the place was abuzz with people from various parts of the world. Of course, the food was spectacular and it was quite hard to stick to a sensible eating regimen. I did try, though. We left the resort on Friday afternoon and I returned to my less-stocked kitchen! This morning, it’s back to fruit salad and herbal tea.

Vlad, my neighbour, wants to go to the club at noon – in about an hour. He knocked on my door, most likely expecting looking coffee.  I’ll join him at the gym. Managed to read one of my set texts for Grade 8, and I am very aware of a huge pile of books that I have stacked on my desk at school. But, all in due course. Tonight, I’ve been invited to a party on a rooftop somewhere not too far. By the way, Kampala is a sprawling, chaotic city, spread across seven massive hills around the lake. It is nowhere near the size I had imagined. 3 million (probably more) people. It took more than an hour to get to the lake which, as the crow flies, is barely fifteen kilometres away! Traffic jams are the order of the day. Thankfully, the party is close by. A U.S. marine has a birthday party, and I’ve been invited. It will afford me a glimpse into expatriate life in Kampala and my chance to determine whether to draw closer, or retreat from the expatriate community. More to come in my next blog. In the meantime, here are some pics from the week.

Teachers gathering at the reception desk on Day 1 of the Induction Activities

We were all suitably impress by the green campus

A few of us enjoy lunch at the Kabira Country Club - where we all have free membership.

My room at the Speke Resort. Speke is the David Livingstone of Uganda, if you will.

A view from my room at the resort

Impressive palms at the resort

The swimming pool which we used for group-buildling activities and leisure time

Vladimir, my apartment neighbour, prior to boarding the boat for the cruise on Lake Victoria

Suzanne, from Tasmania  (Senior English) and Rene, from Belgium (Senior Biology)

Pria from Montreal (Grade 3), Rhoda from California (Grade 5), snug on the boat - before the drinks and meal

Sybil  from the U.S. (Senior Drama and English)

Liz from New Zealand, the IB coordinator and Business Studies teacher

Rene and Liz, prior to setting off on the cruise

A view of Lake Victoria, at dusk, as we leave the jetty