The Day is Here: Post #3: Back to School

Hello!

My second week here has been going well! I’m still adjusting to life in Bulenga. It sure is different, but the less I compare it to the culture I’m used to, the easier it is for me to accept and embrace the “new norm”! I’m meeting more people, getting to know my way around the village, and even learning a little bit of Luganda!

The last stop for my orientation rounds was to the two school/orphanages that KACCAD sponsors. Education isn’t a public good in Uganda. Parents need to pay tuition for their child to attend school starting with Primary 1 [equivalent to 1^st grade in America]. Most parents want their children to receive an education but as you can imagine, this becomes quite difficult when money is tight and many families have multiple children! As a result, a large number of kids in Uganda grow up without receiving an education.

For a child who is orphaned, getting an education is usually out of the question. In the Wakiso district alone, over 20,000 children have lost both parents. When a child is orphaned, they may go to live with grandparents, neighbors, and relatives. The household they join won’t receive any type of compensation for caring for an extra child, so in most cases, the new guardians of this orphan cannot afford to send him or her to school.

KACCAD started two school/orphanages, Good Hope and Faith Children’s Foundation, to ensure that this population that is usually overlooked had the ability to receive a primary education.

Good Hope and Faith are schools during the day. Students spend most of their days in classrooms learning Science, English, Mathematics, Literature, and Social Studies. Children don’t need to pay tuition for this education. The schools lack many resources as a result of limited funding. The first day I walked into a classroom at Faith, I felt like I was back in elementary school participating in a “One Room Schoolhouse” simulation of what school was like for kids a couple hundred years ago. There are no books, worksheets, posters, or reference guides. The classroom I’ve been working in contains a chalkboard, benches that wobble between holes in the ground, slightly taller benches that act as tables, a notebook for each student, a box of pencils for the class, and a box of chalk fragments.

While resources as severely lacking, the fact that these schools provide primary education to kids who would not otherwise have the opportunity to learn is very valuable. Many of the kids live full time at Good Hope and Faith. They sleep in dormitories right across from the classrooms and help out with daily chores & activities.

Right now, students across Uganda are on “holiday”. Instead of a big “summer vacation” every year, students have a few weeks off after every 3 months of school.

I’ve been to Faith nearly every day since my arrival! The dormitories are closed for the holiday to allow the caretakers to take a break. Most of the kids are staying with relatives but there are a handful of kids who don’t have relatives to stay with. Those kids are staying with an incredible woman named Teacher Betty who lives down the road from Faith. Her “house” is tiny but her heart is huge. The kids that don’t have anywhere to go for the holiday are living in there with her right now. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

The kids that are staying with Teacher Betty as well as some kids that live close by still come to the “class” every morning. Not only does coming to school give them something to do, but it also gives them a chance to “keep their minds sharp” while reviewing material they learned in the previous term!

Despite my lack of teaching certification and experience as an educator, I’ve been leading “class” for the past week! Usually about fifteen kids show up for class, so we’re all together in one classroom even though the ages range from 4 to 13. I’ve been separating the group by age/grade level and assigning a few different levels of work (Math and English). Since it’s a small group, I’ve gotten to hop around and watch the kids work through certain problems. This has been a great opportunity to get to know them each individually, learn a little bit about how they think, and figure out what some of their difficulties are with the material they’ve learned.

After a couple of hours of work, the kids get to go outside. I’ve loved joining them for this part! I’ve taught them several group games & songs, and they’ve taught me some games & songs. One day, I brought a storybook version of “The Lion King” with me to read to them while we took a break in the shade. When I pulled it out of my bag, it was as if I’d just pulled out a special-edition-never-before-seen Harry Potter Book. They were amazed and loved every morsel of what I considered a “standard story”. While earlier that day it had been difficult to find activities engage all ages, that picture book united everyone seemingly magically.

While the teaching has been a little informal, I’m so grateful I’ve had this opportunity to get to know this smaller group from Faith before over 100 other students come to join us on the 19^th! It’s been really nice to get to know each kid at least a little bit one-on-one. It’s also been a chance for me to review some of the things I’ll be teaching in the weeks to come!

I’ve only spent a few days at Good Hope so far. They have a class of Primary 7 [7^th grade in American] students who ranked highly last term and are staying for some pre-Secondary School “booster classes”! I got to teach them math the other day and was blown away by this group! They were so excited about learning and had such an evident thirst for knowledge. I moved quickly with them through some intermediate algebra problems and even gave them a difficult bonus problem that nearly all of them attempted!

There are also some kids who are living at Good Hope during the holiday that just kind of hang out in the schoolyard for most of the day. I’ve gotten to spend time with them when I’m not teaching and they are a wonderful group. I’ve enjoyed playing games with them and getting to know them. I look forward to having some of them as students when class is back in session and will continue to enjoy our time together becoming friends in the mean time.

While I’m starting to do some teaching, I’m still taking every opportunity I can to learn everything I can about life in Bulenga. I think I’ve been asking an average of 150 questions a day. I don’t think I can be an effective teacher unless I understand where my students are coming from.

Although this post was mainly logistics & details, I promise posts to come will be more reflective! In the meantime, enjoy the photos below! Most of them were taken by kids at Faith or Good Hope- definitely some future photographers in the group ;)

I’m having a hard time getting the “subscribe” feature to work on this blog :/ You may have signed up but for some reason the “new post!” email notifications aren’t sending. I will continue to look into the problem but in the meantime, you can expect another post by next Saturday!

Thank you all for the continual support and encouragement!

Love,

Hannah