Greetings from the beginning of my second week in at work,
We have recently lost power and while the generator is booting up, I thought I would tell you about my last few days in Kampala. First off, though I do miss my sweaters and boots, the weather here is delightful. It gets pretty warm during the day but cools off enough at night to sleep comfortably. Rainy season is coming soon and that makes me nervous, because of course, I did not bring the right clothing. In fact, my packing job may rival 1998’s trip to Seattle as the worst packing job ever!
Tomorrow we are talking as a committee about what kind of things I will be able to do at work over the next few months that are helpful and sustainable. However, on Friday, the executive director and I took a trip to the national curriculum development center- NCDC. (I know this may be hard to believe, but Ugandans love their acronyms even more than Americans. Everything has an acronym here, and as you may be have guessed, many have the letter ‘U’ in them…) We went to meet with the curriculum specialist for special education for Uganda. That’s right, the head of special ed curriculum for the entire country. Don’t worry, I’m just kind of a big deal…After waiting for two hours- ok, maybe I’m not THAT big of a deal- she talked to us about some readers and books that are being made especially for inclusive classrooms so children with disabilities can be in general education classrooms.
It was very interesting for me to see how similar the American and Ugandan systems are. They may be a few years behind, but we still all have the same difficulties. Maybe the US has some readers already made and has teachers learning about differentiated instruction when they are still in classes as opposed to already in the classroom but the idea that some children need much more skills based learning to make sure they have some skills when they leave school has got to be universal. She started talking about how if there is not enough attention to a student and their needs, they are more likely to drop out with no skills to their name and become involved in illegal activities- umm… has she been to Washington Heights or is she just taking a wild guess? She was very knowledgeable and said she could send us the adaptable curriculum that they give to teachers who have special needs students in their class. It has only been adapted up until P-4 (around 5th grade) so they are still working on any middle or high school curriculum.
My first real weekend in Kampala was delightful and weirdly similar to what a weekend in New York might have been like except blackouts and sex-workers… Let me explain. One of my fellow AJWS volunteer is working with an NGO that is trying to network all of the sex workers in Uganda and get them rights that they do not have. She has been on many field visits but they don’t want to take her at night to places where it may be dangerous. Instead, on Saturday night, after they went to a particular area of Kampala to pass out condoms, they went to the next neighborhood over which is pretty young and invited us to come out dancing. We hung out with some ex-sex workers (NOT prostitutes) and one person who wants to start the first NGO for transgender sex-workers in Uganda, and we danced up a storm! It was a lot of fun and they even played our Lady Gaga requests and didn’t laugh too much at our Muzungo attempt to dance. Next time they said they would take us to a more traditional African dance- but this was pretty amazing! We also had brunch the next morning and I got some fish tacos. They called it ‘rolex with a twist’ but it had avocado so I called it fish tacos since I will always be in need of Mexican food. See- just a normal weekend for me!
I think it’s about that time to try to explain the transportation situation here in Kampala. For most there are 4 ways to get around- I say most because one of the ways is forbidden to AJWS volunteers- do you think you can guess which one? Ohhhhh an interactive blog… 1) you could walk. 2) You can take a special hire which is what you or I would call a taxi. You call one, they give you a price and then they just drive you and your party where they want to go. 3) You can take a matatu or what Ugandans call a taxi. This is what we would refer to as a bus since it makes several stops along a road- what road?…. That’s sometimes unclear. It drives along and when there is room in the van, the conductor, different than the driver, stops to see if a person on the road is going the same direction as they are. They then fill up the van as much as possible and are on their merry way. When you want to get off you say Masow or stage and they stop where they are, try to get you to pay more than you owe-if you are a muzungo- and then make every else get off so you can get off too. So far, I have usually paid around 1000/- (Ugandan shillings- around 40 cents each way to and from work) The system works pretty well except for the insane traffic, but nicely they don’t charge you extra for that. There are also Matatus who try to find hidden shortcuts along the way to deal with the traffic which is almost always appreciated except when you are in the front and going over some traitorous terrain- then its not so fun... The last choice is 4) a boda boda. This is a motorcycle that darts in and out of traffic and fits up to three extra people on the back of the bike. It is slightly more expensive that a matatu but generally gets you places faster since the boda bodas refuse to wait in traffic. One of these things is not like the other… can you guess which one it is????
I hope all your weekends were delightful as you prepare for the new year. I am planning on going to Nairobi for Rosh Hashana because there are actually no synagogues in Uganda. There are a few AJWS volunteers in Kenya and we will spend the Rosh together. My work has been very kind in giving me Thursday and Friday off, which is weird because this is the first time in my life where I have actually had to ask for that off! One woman at work wanted to know more about the holiday and then got super confused at how Jesus was Jewish but I did not believe all of the miracles that he had performed. “So you re Jewish” “yes” “and Jesus was Jewish” “yes” “but you don’t cross yourself” “No, that’s a Christian thing to do.” “Wait, you’re not Christian?” Delightful! Sooo excited for Yom Kippur…
Love to all and hope to write once more before the New Year!
Shira ZK
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