June 19 - 22 (erin)

Monday, June 19



This week, Carli and I are devoting our time to work at the vocational school for young adults with disabilities (MVRC). So we spent Monday planning our activities. It is really difficult to get the group to talk so we thought of giving them exercise books with questions in them and having them write instead. It worked so well that we wished we had thought of it earlier on in the practicum and I could have spent so much more time with them instead of torturing myself on the outreaches. This first day, we had them write facts about themselves, what makes them happy and sad, what they like about themselves, what they want to do when they graduate, what they would like to learn and what they are thankful for. Carli and I had books ourselves too and they liked that we did it with them. This first day, we didn’t ask them to share because we could tell that things they were writing were personal. When they were done we went to watch the football game (the World Cup is huge here) but some kids were watching Scorpion King. Honestly watching that movie, I was so embarrassed to be from the same part of the world in which that movie was made. So bad.



Tuesday, June 20



Today we did more planning for our group and then ventured into town after waiting some time for the monsoon to stop. For some reason we felt really drained, I think physically and emotionally, so our walk was more difficult than usual. We were really grumpy. Between Carli’s fits of rage and my telling the boda boda drivers to leave us alone, we weren’t in the mood, we probably looked a miserable pair. Plus because it had rained all morning and Carli is bad at pre-planning, she wore her flipflops which splashed red mud all up the back of her beige pants (hence the fits of rage). She also just generally had trouble walking because the dirt here becomes so slippery when wet. She almost ended up on her butt a couple of times. We decided after visiting the market that if our bag of vegetables broke which it was about to, we would just sit on the curb and cry.



Later we went up to the office to see what was happening there. Carli typed up my proposal for me and I typed up some stuff in Luganda from the parent support group meetings. At least I hope that’s what it was and not some terrorist propoganda or something. I would never have known. In the evening we went to the school and we had entered more questions in their books. How they felt about leaving the school, how to keep in contact with school friends and we had them each write something nice about each other in each other’s books (good endings counselling Bob??).



Wednesday, June 21



It rained all morning again and into the afternoon. It was also another busy day. Carli and I first went to the secondary school in Kitengeesa that we were originally going to spend time at. I decided to not go on the learning retreat with USDC next week because I thought even though it would be nice to have time away I’d probably be bored to death (and really, bad things always happen to me when I go away). I had felt bad that we had disappointed Dan and the teachers at the school so I wanted to offer to come next week by myself. We also had school supplies to deliver, sort of as a peace offering. Well the drive into Kitengeesa was fun times. We were driving on a river of chocolate milk! It reminded me of the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. We tried to convince Nasser that we didn’t think we should continue but he assured us it was okay as he held a muffin in one hand and a bag of milk in the other and the rain poured down like nothing else. Well, we thought, “What could go wrong?” Carli really thought that this would be the end of us and so we figured that at least we’d die happy in a chocolate milk river.



It’s okay, we made it to the school. The headmaster and Dan were very thrilled with the school supplies. I told Dan that my aunt was also a librarian and that she had donated it all. He says thank you Auntie Jutta! When we were sitting in the library the rain was coming down so hard we thought the place would float away. On the way home Nasser wanted us to visit his mother so that was nice. She gave us eggs.



We spent some time searching Masaka for magazines but only found one and settled for some newspapers. We then hunkered down at the Brovad on the comfy couches and cut out pictures and words for the next project at the school. We had them make collages in their books and also gave them pencil crayons to draw and colour. They seemed to really enjoy it and time flew by. That evening Nasser wanted us to visit him at his home and I thought it would be nice to see his wife and daughter…well…that’s not exactly what happened. We went to his wife’s store to say hi and pick up his brother and then we went to their “bachelor pad” to watch music videos. That was weird.



Thursday, June 22



I spent the morning preparing the journals for the school. We had taken pictures of everyone individually and as a group and pasted them in the front cover. We also put in our email and addresses for them to contact us. We gave them each a postcard from home (thanks ma), a Douglas College pen and a Canada pencil. Then we put the whole package in an envelope so it was like a present. Unfortunately when we got to the school they were in class because power had gone out earlier and now was back on. They didn’t want to lose out on computer time so we just said a quick goodbye and ran to catch Charles before he left. We then invited him and Berna to the Tropic Inn for a drink as it was Carli’s last night in Masaka.



So we set off to the Inn after dinner and had a nice time. Berna gave Carli a pretty necklace as a goodbye present. We also had our special drink, the local Waragi (gin) and sprite. Carli absolutely refused to ride Charles’ motorcycle home so we had to walk in the dark…which we had already promised not to do by ourselves again…but no phantom ghost cows followed us this time. After dropping Berna, Charles drove by to make sure we made it safely.