Working with Literacy in Uganda

So, the impression given off by my last few posts might have made it seem that all we are doing here is gaming and running away from safari ants. The reality is that those moments are few and far between. We are currently in “teacher boot camp.” In the morning, Kris heads to the local primary teacher’s college and I head to the local primary school to give lessons, co-teach with Ugandans, and observe both our fellow trainees and counterparts. In the afternoon, we attend sessions aimed towards improving our teaching, promoting literacy, implementing positive behavior systems in local schools, and various health/cultural/safety issues. The evening is mostly devoted to planning for the next day, although there is generally also a yoga/Catan/Dominion/Frisbee/netball game happening among this super-active group. Finally, we all crash for the night in our 8-person dorm rooms. It’s exhausting, but keeping in mind what we hope to do here makes it worth it.

Uganda has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. Along with USAID, Peace Corps is trying to hit the target of improving the reading skills of 1.5 million children in Uganda by 2015. This is an extremely tough task as at this time in Uganda, there is actually no economic benefit for completing primary or secondary school. Additionally, there is only a small benefit for completing college. While 400,000 students a year receive their Bachelor’s degree, there are generally only 9,000 jobs available for that entire population. Another staggering statistic currently affecting Uganda is that 78% of the country is under thirty years of age, and 54% is under the age of fifteen.

A huge part of our jobs here will be reaching that youth by working with both teachers and students in primary schools and primary teacher’s colleges. While the above facts make our work here an incredibly daunting task, it helps to reflect upon the importance of that task. Studies have proven that a 1% growth in the literacy rate of a country leads to a permanent 1.5% growth in GDP annually. Being a part of that, however small, would certainly be amazing. 

"It's not what's going to come at you. It's your reaction to those things." - Paul, Assistant Country Director

A Taste of Training

While I can, here are some snapshots from life here. 

The organic farm we stayed at for the first two weeks.

 Learning how to bucket bathe!

 First time doing laundry by hand - and in style!

 Greeting at a primary school we visited.

 Sleep while you can! (Kris is the one in the middle). 

 The sorting hat decided our site placements!

Our beautiful Thanksgiving view.

 An awesome newsletter in our very first mail delivery!

Ending on some wise words from a wise woman.

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer

Even in Uganda, it follows us wherever we go...

Antsy Pants

I had ants in my pants today. Literally. No really, literally. Kris and I were taking a walk around the farm after a delicious Thanksgiving dinner when suddenly my legs starting stinging. I pulled up the cuff of my jeans and tore a safari ant out of my calf. Realizing that there were more up there, I ran back to my room, ripped off my pants, threw on my towel and headed to wash off. Stephanie, a fellow Peace Corps trainee, happened to come by just at that moment and caught Kris rather awkwardly standing outside the room holding my pants while I stood there in just a towel. While the “I had ants in my pants” line wouldn’t really fly back in the U.S., here in Africa, it works.

Internets!

It’s real! Kris and I met the rest of our volunteer group in Philadelphia, bussed up to New York City, and said goodbye to the U.S… We took up a large chunk of the plane on the way to Brussels, and stopped for one last good beer. Now, we’re in Uganda! It has been a long…however many days since we landed in Entebbe at two in the morning after a couple days of travel. Despite the time, we were still warmly greeted by Peace Corps staff, including the Country Director. A few vans and one very large truck took us 44 volunteers and our luggage to a beautiful organic farm that will be our home for two and a half weeks.


The very next morning training started and since then our days have been filled from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. with Peace Corps acronyms, medical and safety lectures, cross-cultural sessions, volunteer panels, and hard wooden chairs. It has all been fascinating and exciting, although exhausting. We have learned how best to prevent malaria, speak Uganglish, and support our fellow volunteers. We were even instructed by some helpful and bemused Ugandans on how to light a chaco stove, use a pit latrine, wash our laundry by hand, and take a bucket bath. The upcoming week is full of more training sessions, a church visit, a site visit, and our bid submissions.

Bid submissions are what everyone is talking about right now. Peace Corps Uganda has instituted a new system of placing volunteers throughout the country called Advertize and Bid. We are the second group of volunteers to go through this system. Normally, volunteers have no say in where they are placed. However, Peace Corps Uganda is trying to give us more “ownership” over our sites. We are given a list of 50+ sites which includes information about the schools, the skills they are requesting, the area, and the living situation. We then get to pick our top 3 and bottom 3 sites. That pick is due November 20th, and we are all anxiously trying to figure out where we want to go. The current volunteers are patiently answering all of our questions about the sites, even questions about where the nearest game park is and how many drunk elephants are around. The volunteers have rightfully pointed out, however, that our experience here doesn’t necessarily depend on our site but rather on us and our attitudes – we make our service what it is.

“It will change you tremendously and beautifully, but you have to let it.” - Loucine Hayes, Peace Corps Uganda Country Director






Update: This is the first time that I have been able to access the Internet, so this blog is a little old and unfortunately sans pictures. Since I first wrote this, we have gotten our placements! Kris and I have been placed in the Southwest, which we are very excited about. We are currently celebrating Thanksgiving with our training group and some staff and other PCVs. Next week we leave our training site to head to a Primary Teacher's College and Demonstration Primary School to practice our teaching skills on some real live Ugandan students. We've been working literally night and day to prepare materials and lessons - it should be exciting! I will hopefully be able to update again soon with something a little more in-depth. Until then!

Packed and Kind of Ready!

It's finally here, although it certainly doesn't seem like it. Tomorrow morning at the ridiculous hour of 4:30 a.m. we will be waking up to catch a plane to Philadelphia, where we will have one day of staging. Then Tuesday morning we will be bussing up to JFK and flying out Tuesday evening. We will stop at Brussels and Burundi along the way and then finally reach Uganda at 11 p.m. Ugandan time.

We are packed (see below), remarkably under the weight requirements, and still have a few more goodbyes to go, undoubtedly much harder than packing ever was. Here, however, is our address during training, which I am using as a shameless plug for people to send us letters or packages while we are gone! It should be good for the first month and a half, and after that we will have our permanent address. And yes, if you are reading this, we want to hear from you. :-)

Heidi Bryson/Kristopher Bryson, PCT

P.O. Box 29348

Kampala, Uganda

The Beginning(ish)

I just got off the phone from my first-ever conference call! Yes, I am oddly excited by that. I was ushered into this stage of adulthood by my future trainers in Kampala, Uganda who very kindly answered the frantic last-minute questions of 40-some volunteers. Uganda is where I and my husband, Kris, will be serving for the next 27 months as teacher trainers in the Peace Corps. I will be serving as part of the Master’s International Program at St. Michael’s College, which means that after three semesters in Vermont, a little over two years in the Peace Corps, and a rather lengthy capstone paper, I will receive my Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. 

The next step in that program, my Peace Corps experience, is growing more real as we move out of our apartment, sell our stuff, buy what feels like even more stuff, and start saying goodbye to loved ones.  But it still doesn't feel that real, especially when the past year of our lives has been consumed by applications, interviews, essays, doctor’s appointments, and paperwork leading up to one specific, now bordering on epic, date – November 11^th. The day we begin a move of 11,382 miles. 

 Kris and I have been trying our best to have as few expectations and preconceived notions about our experience as we can, but it's hard to stop dreaming about it. We have also been informed by the Peace Corps, gently and kindly, that 90% of what we think we know about Uganda and our experience there will be wrong. So despite that, just for fun, let me throw my hopes, goals, and expectations for our time in the Peace Corps out there so that two-years-in-the-future me can have a good laugh when she rereads this.

·         Keep up with this blog.

·         Stay in shape.

·         Make a difference. There are specific differences that I want to make, especially in the field of education, but really, I will probably take any positive difference.

·         Become proficient in the language of the area that Kris and I will be living in.

·         Become proficient in the culture of the area that Kris and I will be living in.

·         Help promote cross-cultural awareness both in Uganda and in the U.S.

·         Promote literacy among the boys and girls of Uganda.

·         Stay in touch with my friends and family.

·         Be able to better identify with and educate my future English Language Learners (ELLs).

·         Make good friends, possibly even life-long friends, both with fellow volunteers and locals.

·         Write a supremely awesome capstone.

·         Become good at haggling.

·         Learn and grow as an educator.

·         Learn and grow as a person.

·         Integrate successfully into my community and have it really feel like home.

·         Have our marriage grow and deepen.

·         Use the language we learn as “code” between Kris and me whenever we don’t want people to know what we are saying once we get back to the States.

·         Grow my own garden.

·         Travel a lot.

·         Have adventures.

·         Oh yeah, and getting a dog would be cool.

          Most of all, I want us to complete our entire service and of course, fulfill the three fundamental goals of the Peace Corps:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

                                                                 Here we go!