Personal and Cultural Development
Now that I am really settling into the Ugandan way of life, the chilled and relaxed method of living is having its effect on me. I have time to read; time to go for coffee and time to just generally think about things. On Monday evening, I went to a local café for coffee with a friend and before we knew it we had been chatting for two hours. On the way to the café, a herd of goats ran past us down the street. For anyone who knows me at all, you will instantly recognise that animals freely walking around would be my worst nightmare. Unfortunately this is a regular occurrence in Kampala so I have to get used to it and try to act sensibly when they are nearby. I’m conquering my fear.
On Tuesday, I had made plans to meet some girls that friends from home had put me in touch with. As Ugandans are ALWAYS late, it did not surprise me that one of the girls was an hour late, but I was a little shocked that the other one was nearly five hours late. It was really nice to meet more Ugandans, especially ones who knew some of my friends from home. I had letter s to give them from people at home which they seemed to really love. They were also trying to teach my some Luganda. Hopefully by the time I leave Uganda I will be able to speak a little of the language. It will be particularly helpful when I start in the school as some of the children will probably speak very little English.
Visitors to our room are getting more and more frequent as we make more friends in our hostel but some of them do not understand the idea of a day off. On Friday morning we have no class (hopefully be starting to teach on Fridays soon) so we planned to have a little lie in as we have 8am classes most other days. Someone decided to knock on our door at 8am in the morning and all they wanted was to hang out with us for fifteen minutes before they went to class! I like my sleep so you can imagine how pleased I was at this.
On Friday afternoon, our friend Rachel took us to a local shopping centre to get our nails down. Ugandans tend to take real pride in their appearance no matter how rich or poor they are so we thought that we would too. It took roughly an hour and a half for the man to do my nails but they look amazing. They are really hard to describe but they are natural looking with pink/purple tips. He also drew a funky design on top of the colour in white and finished it off with a little glitter. I am not very good at describing them but they are not tacky at all, they are gorgeous!
Friday also consisted of the funniest taxi journey ever. There is no rule in Uganda for how many passengers a car can carry (or if there is, none of them follow it.) We had the smallest taxi ever with five of us in the back and three in the front. When we all got dropped off at our destination (Chicken Ghetto), the people standing outside could not believe how many of us piled out of the taxi. There are some funny photographs from this journey but unfortunately I can’t get them uploaded.
Saturday consisted of our first clothes shopping experience in Uganda. I was beginning to get withdrawal symptoms as I have been here a month and not been clothes shopping. Rachel took us to her friend Gift’s shop to have a look and she had some beautiful garments. I purchased a few which made my purse a little lighter but they were still very cheap compared to prices at home. Gift was so thankful to us for spending money in her shop as it is what she counts on as a living.
Saturday night consisted of our first trip to the Ugandan National Theatre to see a performance entitled ‘Breakdance’. The two Swedish girls from our hostel invited us to go with them to see it but I was unsure what exactly I was going to see. It included roughly twelve dance acts doing a piece each, including contemporary dance, hip-hop and traditional Ugandan dance. Some of the acts were more enjoyable than others and I’m not sure that I would go to see it again but overall it was fine.
On Sunday afternoon, I went to a neighbouring hostel to visit my friend Line and have a girly catch up chat. We decided just to have some tea at her hostel and whilst I was there the women who worked there decided to give me a Ugandan name. They could not understand why I did not already have one so they named me Tendo which apparently means ‘gift’. Now that I have the name to match, I feel like I truly belong in Uganda.
Professional Development
On Monday morning, Rachel’s leg had become really infected where her blister had burst so she decided not to go to class to avoid further infection but that left me to attend class on my own again. Except this time there was another challenge as it was RAINING! The rain here is never really a drizzle, when it rains it pours. So I made my way to class and was soaked by the time I got there as I didn’t have an umbrella.
Class itself was about a subject-centred curriculum and the criticisms of it. It was quite interesting to see the Ugandan perspective on this as their curriculum is still very much subject centred. They are very aware that children learn better holistically but all of their teachers are trained in specific subjects and usually only teaches that subject so it is very difficult for them to progress away from the subject-centred approach. I was asked which subject I taught at home and when I replied that I had to teach all subjects in the primary school, the rest of the class looked pretty shocked.
Wednesday morning’s class was with Mark again and it was a continuation of Monday’s class on the subject-centred curriculum and we also progressed onto the child-centred approach. When we studied this approach, the class seemed to just be absorbing facts and information dictated by the lecturer as it is an approach that they are unfamiliar with but it was beneficial for me to be familiar with this method as it allowed me to make a contribution to the discussion in class. I think this class was the first lesson when I realised quite how different Ugandan education was even though it has many similarities with the system in Northern Ireland.
On Thursday morning we attended our first two hour lecture with Gillian. It was all about Bloom’s Taxonomy and it was shocking how little I remembered, so when I returned from class I hunted out my old notes on it from last year and revised the topic. It soon all came flooding back to me but there are some differences between the Bloom’s Taxonomy that we study in Stranmillis and the one that we are focusing on in Makerere. In Makerere, they still look at the original version whereas we are encouraged to focus on the revised version. They are both similar so I think that this aspect of my course will still be beneficial even if it is a little out-dated.
We tried to find out some more information on starting our schools again this week but this was unsuccessful. We will continue to ask more questions and try to get some answers this comig week as I would really love to get started and begin my experience. I drove past my school on a boda the other day so now that I know where it is, I cannot wait!
I apologise that my blog seems to be getting shorter as the weeks go on but I do not want to bore you all with every little tiny detail of my week, especially since I have explained the main cultural shocks and experiences before. I am hoping to head away this weekend to Banda island (www.traveluganda.co.ug/banda-island if you want to have a look) and start school soon and then I shall have more experiences to tell you about.
Hope all is well with everyone
Natalie
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