Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Tuesday, July 1



Agandi!
Yesterday and today we followed our regular schedule at the Bishop’s High School preparing for Thursday’s festival through four two-hour long sessions of MDD (Music, Dance, Drama) with Ronald, arts and crafts with Margaret and Christina, games and sports with Randi, and science with Mr. Reed. In addition, we also started painting a classroom along with some of the Bishop’s students. For MDD, we practiced a traditional Ugandan wedding dance, two Ugandan songs (“True Love” and “Jungle”), and some of our own dances. For arts and crafts, we made posters and drawings advertising the festival. For example, yesterday we drew our own houses while the Bishop’s students drew theirs, here in Rukungiri. We also made paper snowflakes which were new to the students here because most of them had never seen snow before. For the next session, we introduced various little games to them such as Duck Duck Goose, Push Catch, and roofball. It was interesting to see how even though there was a language barrier, most kids enjoyed running around and playing competitive games. For sports yesterday, Ronald taught our group netball, which is a combination of basketball and handball. Because netball is a girls-only sport, I stayed back with Mr. Reed to help out with the science club. We constructed batteries out of aluminum foil and charcoal. The S4 students were amazed when we finally got the battery to work which spun a motor.
            After school, we each went back with our homestay buddies to their homes. I decided to play soccer with some of the local kids and my homestay buddy, Levi, and his brother, Nicholas. Every afternoon, there are pickup soccer games at the field where anyone is welcome to join. When it got dark at around 7, Levi, Nicholas, and I went to a local bar where there was a TV to watch the France vs. Nigeria World Cup game. All the benches were packed with people, and they were all cheering for Nigeria, while I had my Paris Saint Germain jacket on (not a good idea!). After the game ended, we went back to Levi’s house where his uncle was making us dinner. Levi’s uncle is a chef at a local restaurant so his food was not much different to JB’s dishes back at Jim’s house. We had fresh chicken stew, potatoes, millet bread, matoke (mashed bananas), rice, and fruits. After dinner, I requested for a bath so they gave me a bucket of warm water. The “bathroom” is a very small room with a drain where you pretty much just bathe by pouring water on yourself from the bucket. It was very strange and awkward for me, and I had difficulties rinsing my hair because of this.
            Since most people don’t have power here, at night it gets very dark. Without a torch, it was hard to tell whether I had my eyes open or closed. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but they didn’t. But because of this, I could see all the stars and constellations in the night sky which doesn’t usually happen back home.
Orarigye! (Goodnight)
Written by Chris



1 comment:

  1. Chris,

    What a wonderful day!
    I learnt that MDD means Music, Dance and Drama. So far, MDD means to me as Missile Defense Department!
    Every morning, the first thing for me to do is to visit this blog and to read articles.
    I hope allo of you, Grotonians, stay healthy and learn a lot from this very rare experiences.

    Kap-soo

    ReplyDelete