06/05/2014

I want to roar!

The following blog post (click link below) is a couple of years old, but I read it for the first time a few nights ago, when a friend posted it on Facebook:

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/07/the-1-thing-you-really-have-to-know-about-your-family/

Tears welled in my eyes when I read it the first time. And when Dan asked me to read it to him later, I choked a few times.

Why? I also want to roar! For similar and different reasons:

I want to roar because…. I know there are many sponsored children in third world countries who are failing school and can finish primary school without being able to read (I know this because I have met some). The reasons for this are very complicated… another post, another day.

I want to roar because… just being ‘in’ education doesn’t mean you are ‘being’ educated.

I want to roar because… this season of my life is ending soon and I am worried that I will slip back into my comfortable western life.

I want to roar because… possibly God is preparing me for another journey, another challenge that I can’t understand right now but that I may well feel is too big for me!

I want to roar because… I sure am glad that I wasn’t born in a place like this…

A missionary friend recently said to me during Bible study something alone the lines of: ‘to much is given, much is expected’. And directed it specifically to me, that since I have two teaching degrees God is certainly expecting more of me than possibly I can imagine right now. (Luke 12:48:… Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required…) Her husband later reminded me of a brilliant Brooke Fraser song: Albertine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXApy0IegKs)… One of our favourite songs:

‘Now that I have seen I am responsible. Faith without deeds is dead’.

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25/04/2014

Fat, fatter, fattest

I have become quite accustomed to locals regularly commenting on my weight and that of others. It is actually more of a compliment on this side of the world, to say to someone: ‘you’re growing fat’ means you are healthy, a good size and your spouse is looking after you well. The word ‘fat’ is just like any other adjective here in Uganda, like tall, short, young, old. However what I witnessed in P7 (year 6) this week was a teaching explanation I will never forget.

Scene: I am team-teaching with a very good colleague of mine. My colleague is going over exam corrections and wants to explain the comparatives and superlatives: fatter and fattest. After a brief explanation she then proceeds to ask three specific children to stand up, let me call them Brenda, David and Sam (real identities disclosed). The teaching went something like this: Who is fatter, Brenda or Sam? (pupils respond). That’s right, Brenda is fatter than Sam. We are comparing two. What about David or Sam, who is fatter? Yes, David is fatter. What about between the three? Who is the fattest? David, Sam or Brenda? David is the fattest. This was reiterated quite a few times – yep, I think the pupils have got it!

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15/04/2014

Exam time… Clean the saucepans!

110 children in class waiting for their teacher. Teacher arrives late:

It’s exams today and my saucepans were dirty. So I cleaned them before coming.

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23/03/2014

Man U v Liverpool… in Sth Sudan

It doesn’t matter where you are in the world – sport brings people together! This ‘football viewing’ grass-thatched hall was in the centre of a small
village in Southern Sudan. There’s no electricity but all the male fans pay a small admission fee to watch the game on tv with a generator.

20140323-161852.jpg

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16/03/2014

Bitter-sweet timing…

On a two-day journey north to run four days of workshops with primary and nursery teachers. These teachers have never been to teacher’s college and finished school at Senior 4 (year 10). A friend of mine has taken a couple of months to organise this training. About 80% of adults cannot read and write in this area so education is a big need. Ironically, the government has decided to pay these teachers on Monday, the first day of the workshop. These government teachers have not been paid for over a year – so I think I come a second place on Monday. Pushing the workshops back a day to allow teachers time to collect pay. Praise God that they are finally getting paid! Please pray that the ‘pay process’ is smooth and they can return for Tuesday.

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08/03/2014

A hospital visit turns into reality check!

I wanted to write a factual blog post, comparing the health systems of UK and Australia to Uganda. I tried to look up percentages of complaints in UK and Australia but I was directed to procedures on how to make a complaint. I then went to search on death rates in hospitals but I immediately became sceptical about the Ugandan statistic since it was a government website. My laptop battery is low and my little solar unit’s light is flashing (currently in a blackout) so let me just write about what I have seen…

Yesterday I went to visit Dorcus, a Ugandan mother of two (pregnant with her third) who is in the maternity unit of the local government-run hospital. Dorcus, like many other Ugandan women, has HIV and is very ill at the moment. For two days she has been unconscious in hospital. Yesterday was the first day she could actually take water. Dorcus is a student at the TEAMS tailoring school. An English friend of mine currently staying with me (who heads up the project) had advised that I also visit her. My friend used up the majority of my boiled drinking water to fill up empty bottles for me to take to the hospital. To be honest, I felt a pang of annoyance that there wasn’t much drinking water left in our house and I would have to boil a lot more and drink warm water.

When I walked inside the maternity unit I was struck with a crowded ward of local women, their children and their friends/relatives. There was no medical staff to be seen. There are bars on the windows (didn’t see any screens) and no mosquito nets. In an area rife with malaria, it is difficult to understand how a hospital can have no nets! I was met by a friend of mine, Naomi, a truly strong woman who was caring for Dorcus, along with her sisters; her husband was sitting on the floor nearby. No government hospitals have nurses; you have to bring your own carers with you. There is no ‘clean’ water in the hospital, which means there is only a town ‘mains’ water connection but a high chance you will get typhoid if you drink it. There is no bore-hole in the vicinity – quite unfathomable when you think of the amount of non-government organisations that have come in and out of this area over the past 15 years.

With now a feeling of guilt I handed over my boiled drinking water for them and wished I had brought more – how self-righteous I had been!  It is almost at the end of the dry season and ridiculously hot! No electricity, no fans. Naomi made sure I had a section of the bed to sit on and I was comfortable before she continued to bathe down Dorcus. She could barely open her eyes and could not hold herself up. I looked around that maternity ward and silently thanked God that I wouldn’t have to be in a hospital like this; no matter which country I was in.  Fortunately, those with some money here (or health insurance) can afford a private hospital with health facilities we are more accustomed to. 

It will be an absolute miracle if Dorcus leaves hospital alive. And a double miracle if she delivers a healthy baby since she has had little fluid over the past few days. I prayed a short prayer with Naomi for Dorcus before departing, returning back to my comforts but plagued by what I had seen.

I am writing this post for two reasons. Firstly, yes, I have tried to be emotive and I hope I have possibly helped you to consider how absolutely blessed we, from western countries, are! Our public health systems may not be perfect, but they are certainly a cut above the rest!

Secondly, please pray for Dorcus. Let this be part of her testimony and may she make a full recovery!

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08/02/2014

A new door opening…

I have chatted to several missionary friends, charity volunteers and researchers here in northern Uganda about what they perceive as the biggest need currently on the ground. Almost every time the answer is the same: improve the quality of primary education, and specifically: teaching children to read and write in English with an emphasis on training teachers. I have been quite convicted and challenged after these conversations and believe God has been leading me into a slightly new direction. I have prayed about this and believe a door of opportunity is opening.

Here in the north, anyone with a good job and decent income will send their children to boarding school in Kampala, the capital. I often hear: “there’s no good schools in Gulu”. Mission organisations and charities have started up their own private schools here with some international support, which I think is brilliant and certainly a need for, however some local private schools and particularly local government schools receive very minimal, if any, assistance. In true Ugandan style, high-up government officials actually ‘assist themselves’ and ‘eat’ some of the school funding before it even gets to the schools; leaving head teachers with a shoestring budget.

Two days ago all head teachers from Gulu municipal primary schools met together. I was invited to address the teachers and put out a proposal that I would assist the schools in training infant teachers in phonics and helping to teach reading and writing if they would help to co-ordinate this. I received a very encouraging response and the head teachers plan to meet next week to try and co-ordinate this.

There are more than 50 primary schools in Gulu municipal, so this will certainly take some co-ordinating.  I will still be teaching at Layibi Techo Primary; however I will be dedicating more of my time to visiting other schools and training teachers. Well that’s the plan anyway.  Exciting times…

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22/01/2014

Multi-purpose seat belt

I have been doing some teacher training this week at a neighbouring school. When I finished the training today the head teacher offered me a lift in the ‘school mini bus’ which I gladly accepted. I was given the all important front passenger seat while the other teachers piled into the back. I turned around and felt for the seat belt to discover that it wasn’t there. The head teacher (now in the driver’s seat) noticed. “Sorry, there’s no seat belt,” he said “The van got stuck recently so we had to use the seat belt to pull the van out.”

TIA…

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05/01/2014

Elephant and the mouse…

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Elephant and Mouse were best friends. One day Elephant said, “Mouse, let’s have a party!” Animals gathered from far and near. They ate. They dr

ank. They sang. And they danced. And nobody celebrated more and danced harder than Elephant. After the party was over, Elephant exclaimed, “Mouse, did you ever go to a better party? What a blast!” But Mouse did not answer. “Mouse, where are you?” Elephant called. He looked around for his friend, and then shrank back in horror. There at Elephant’s feet lay Mouse. His little body was ground into the dirt. He had been smashed by the big feet of his exuberant friend, Elephant. “Sometimes, that is what it is like to do mission with you Americans,” the African storyteller commented. “It is like dancing with an Elephant.”

This is an extract from the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. After recently reading this book I realised that many times last year I have acted like Elephant in the story. I have hurt when I have tried to help.

This book has challenged my thinking about poverty, poverty alleviation and how to help others without hurting them, or yourself for that matter. I have learnt a lot, been challenged about a lot, and improved my understanding about these complicated issues. If you want to help anyone in any country, I implore you to read this book! Although it’s written by Americans and possibly has an American slant, anyone in any country (western and third world) could benefit greatly from it.

 Now the challenge really begins: how to put these thoughts into actions…

 

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01/01/2014

Broom-head security…

broom head_edited-2Our night security guard previously requested we buy him a bow and arrow or a gun. We said no to both of these requests. Last night (being New Year’s Eve) he said there were many people about so he was ‘tight’ on security. How did this look? He walked around our compound (in the dark) with the broom-head pretending it was a gun – he even successfully scared one of our neighbours.

So what did New Year’s Eve look (or sound) like in Gulu for us? Plenty of loud music from neighbouring houses all through the night. At midnight we could hear and get a little glimpse of fireworks in the distance. The local government allowed some hotels to have fireworks for a maximum of three minutes due to security reasons. We drank a bottle of the all-important soda with our guard and then played cards with him (in between his broom-head patrols) until 1am.

Happy New Year from the tight-security compound in Gulu ☺

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