Our first event!

Friday, April 18^th:
Jason’s birthday!

Today was a bit stressful, which isn’t surprising considering the massive event we’re throwing tomorrow. Lucy and I had to go in to the office to register online with our embassies in the morning, so I met with the Fathers about cooking arrangements and Teddy about borrowing school plates and saucepans before we split. We had to wait quite a while for a matatu.

We walked from town to the office, but the internet cable had been cut in half, so the embassy registration was off. There was supposed to be someone coming in to fix it at 11, which meant it may or may not happen today. I picked up my passport with plans to register at the internet café. Upon leaving the office, Lucy and I ran into other volunteers and were asked a question that made it seem like there is more gossip floating around about our placement, which has been a major problem for us at home. That was upsetting, although hopefully not a big deal.

We used the internet briefly (it was slow, so I’ll register another time), ate lunch, and tried to figure out what to do about the certificates I’d intended to print for the schools participating in the AIDS day tomorrow. They have to be on nice paper, and there were too many decisions to be made… white paper? Colored paper? Color printing? Black and white printing? Cardstock? Normal paper? We finally decided which paper to buy, but by that time the power had gone out in Jinja so there was no way to print anything. While we were in the stationery shop, we were drawn outside by lots of shouting and saw a man getting walked down the street with his pants halfway down. Another mob justice incident in the making? Who knows.

At the taxi park, the matatu slated for Buwenge was a complete rust-bucket. We opted to sit in an empty one and wait for it to fill up instead. It did fill eventually, but the driver kept driving to different spots in the taxi park and getting out an in instead of actually leaving. He finally did make some headway toward the gate, where a matatu had broken down directly in the single-lane exit. We waited for the people in the van to get out and push it out of the way.

We got home fine and the conductor didn’t give us a massively inflated fare, which was a bonus, but we hit a little goat on the way which made me sad.

Sometimes I want to say, Africa, COME ON.

We arrived home at the same time Peter got back from wherever-he’s-been-for-the-last-three-days, and it was crunch time. Peter and I tried (unsuccessfully) to borrow plates from the sub-county and from St. Gonzaga, then Peter and Wilber left for Buwenge to sort out the PA system, truck, and buy the food. Lucy and I rounded up some school kids to clean out the hall, then helped Dennis make banners for the march. The cook, plates, chairs, sodas and firewood need to happen in the morning. Here we go.

Sunday, April 20^th:
AIDS day was a success!

Ugandan events seem to be an odd mix of things totally falling through and magically coming together at the same time. This was no exception. Despite half of our schools not showing up and nearly not having a chief guest, it all seemed to work out and was well-received by the community.

We were all up by seven to begin preparations. There were chairs to be moved, a truck to track down, sodas and meat to buy, programs to print, and speaking arrangements to be made. The first schools to show up (right on time!) for the march were Mutai and Buweera, which are our two furthest schools. When a series of phone calls confirmed that the other outreach schools weren’t coming, we rounded up a bunch of kids from Kagoma and St. Gonzaga (which are within sight of our house) and lined them up to march. Peter and Wilber had already turned up on the field with the PA system in the bed of a pickup.

One particularly obnoxious teacher from St. Gonzaga complained that we didn’t have a policeman with us, so there was a long delay as Peter tried to round up an officer from the police headquarters. We never did find one but we managed to start marching anyway about an hour and a half after we had told the kids to show up. Off we went.

The truck played some lively youth-affirming pop tunes while Wilber prattled on in Lusoga over the mic, hopefully saying things had something to do with HIV/AIDS and young people. We marched up the paved road to Buwenge, through town, and then back down to the parish. It was a little hot, but thankfully not raining. The march lasted about an hour I think, but I was too busy running up and down the line trying to keep kids off the road and holding up their banners to notice the time really.

By the time we got back, the kids were in a good mood but complaining that they were tired and hungry. “There will be food!” I assured them.

After some waiting around while the PA system and generator were moved from the truck to inside, the kids, teachers, and invited guests assembled in the church hall to begin the festivities. Students led the national anthem and an opening prayer, and our LCI chairperson gave a brief, smiling welcome. Then it was on to the presentations prepared by the kids. This part was amazing! There was singing, dancing, skits, poetry, drumming, and speeches. I have no idea how the school kids pulled it all together so quickly and so well, but it was really adorable and informative too. Kagoma had the most students present and the effect of 80 or so primary kids singing their hearts out and dancing to some very enthusiastic drummers (the cheeky boys) was just… awesome. It was one of those “only in Africa” moments.

When the students finished up, we had a pleasant, if somewhat long, address by the in-charge at our health center about the AIDS-related services they provide. Then the TASO drama group got onstage and worked their magic. There was a long, extremely well-received drama (in Lusoga) that dealt with a few scenarios of HIV transmission (I think). They concluded with a song, and managed to captivate several hundred hot and hungry school kids, which is pretty impressive. Finally, Teddy thanked everyone for coming and emphasized the importance of the subject matter, and introduced our chief guest. Simon, the project coordinator from TASO, agreed to be our chief guest a week or so ago, but had forgotten the date of the event until Dennis called him during the ceremony. He made it in time and gave an excellent speech. He spoke about growing up right there at Kagoma Primary and covered a lot of material and statistics having to do with AIDS in a very reasonable time. He had to split immediately afterwards but I’m so glad he made it – I was really impressed with his talk.

Then it was finally lunchtime, which meant the invited guests got rice, meat, cabbage, potatoes and soda, the kids got fried rice, and the volunteers ran around a lot trying to get drinks and find bottle openers and make sure everyone got food. Thankfully, a few hundred plastic bowls had turned up from somewhere, so we were able to get the kids fed without a catastrophe. The women cooking did an excellent job and we had enough to go around, but none left over. I’m not quite sure what we would have done if the other four schools had shown up.

So in, the end, everyone was happy (except Mr. Kabi, who was freaking out that we didn’t have the sub-county chief speak, but whatever), Dennis and Peter did a great job introducing everyone, and all the necessary pieces managed to fall together. Georgia and Ian, SPW volunteers from other placements, came for the day and were a big help. We thanked everyone for coming, then Georgia and Lucy rushed off to the rafting campsite while the rest of us got kids to help move chairs, clean up, and return various borrowed items. Peter, Dennis and I came home, debriefed, and collapsed.

It’s hard to know the community impact of something like this; since it has to do with behavior change, we can’t really see any results right away. While we were marching, I was thinking, “Is seeing a bunch of kids with banners really going to convince people to get tested? Or be faithful? Or use condoms?” Who knows. But I do think that acting out a song or writing a poem about HIV brings it home for the kids in a much bigger way than teaching them about it in school can. It was great to hear so many of the topics we cover in our lessons – transmission, symptoms, VCT, prevention, etc. – coming back to us in the performances. It was great to see the kids teaching each other, and getting so many people in the area interested in what was happening.

I felt like we really bonded with the community too, through the planning and the event. So many people expressed their support and gratitude, and we certainly made a lot of connections through the whole thing. I think a lot more people realized who we were and what we’re here to do, and that’s a big step for us.

Now that the term’s finished and the event’s over, we have a couple weeks of slow time ahead of us. At the moment I feel pretty wiped out, but I’m hoping to find some projects to work on while we’re not teaching. I think we’ll start planning some more events for next term – but likely smaller ones!

Tuesday, April 22^nd
Today was the Ugandan Dance4Life Tour Team’s very first school visit, at our own Pilkington College Muguluka. And man, was it a long day.

Dance4Life started in 2004, and it happens in about 30 countries now (mostly in Europe and Africa). It’s a series of dance routines that go along with the D4L theme song, which is a peppy techno monstrosity. The tour teams travel to secondary schools to teach the dance and share information and personal stories about HIV, and every year before World AIDS Day (Dec 1^st) there’s a massive worldwide event, with people doing the dance together via satellite. Kind of a cool idea. It also provides about a quarter of SPW’s funding.

So Dennis and I have been teaching the Dance4Life moves at our various schools, and this was the first time since training we’d had a full-on session with the music and everything. The tour team was scheduled to start their 90-minute program at 11am, but this being Africa, they showed up at 12:35. They then spent about an hour setting up speakers and sound equipment and taping a banner to a chalkboard. This made for awkward timing, since the kids usually eat at 1pm, and had to wait for lunch until after the program.

This being their first time, the tour team was pretty choppy, and managed to teach the drill, the “freeze” portion, and then teach the drill again as it if had never happened. Weird. It was also kind of a train wreck because most of the team members clearly didn’t know the dance steps very well. Lucy, Dennis and I do, since we spent a lot of time practicing during training when our facilitators didn’t show up. Even though it went more or less okay, it was pretty frustrating to mime along while they taught the moves backward and put things on the wrong counts.

In the end, the kids had a lot of fun, and the discussion parts went pretty well. They got some pretty good video footage as the kids piped up with cheesy answers about what they had learned like, “I have learned that AIDS is a killer disease. And I have chosen to abstain [thunderous applause].”

The 90-minute program ended up taking until almost 4pm, and since cooking at home takes a good couple of hours, the three of us (Peter’s at a conference) caught a taxi to Buwenge and ate at Green Valley. They had fresh half-cakes, which are like deep-fried cornbread. Ahh.

Almost forgot! While I’m talking about food… Lucy got home from rafting yesterday afternoon (she had a blast) and we had a mini birthday celebration. I made a box of mac n’ cheese that Tom sent that was like heaven, and then Lucy opened her birthday packages from home INCLUDING a really incredible fruit cake from her Grandma. Man, was it good. It was moist and raisiny and had brandy in it and delicious marzipan icing. I have to get that recipe for when I get home.

Teddy came home as we were celebrating on the porch and gave Lucy a painting that she’d had her son do for Lucy’s birthday. It’s really nicely done, and has a bunch of abstract images in shades of gray and blue. I thought that was such a thoughtful gift, and a really cool souvenir of Africa to take home.

Speaking of home, Tom found us a house for next year that sounds perfect and adorable. It’s a two-bedroom cottage in a great neighborhood, and I’m really excited about it. I haven’t gotten any info from UNC about next year yet, but it looks like August will involve grad school orientation, a trip to Seattle, hopefully some time at the beach, and moving house. I can already tell that it’s going to be really hard for me to readjust to being back in the States, but I’m looking forward to all of those things.