Gotcha, Teach!

Well folks, I am switching gears. Last week was my first week at Kagando. I spent it in half culture shock hermit mode and half hanging out in the fistula ward. I heard the stories of a few women there, and Lisa and I had the opportunity to buy soap and sugar for the women there. We bought enough soap for a week for twenty women and about eight pounds of sugar. It cost us about thirty dollars. That's only the tip of the iceberg.

So, the US dollar here is worth about 2200 Uganda shillings. A soda is 1000. When you bring the glass bottle back to the shop, they give you 300 back, making it 700 shillings for a soda. A house maid here makes 20000 shillings a month if she is lucky. Thats ten dollars folks.

So I started teaching english at the primary school today......I just sort of waltzed over and the headmaster said...oh great you're here! The teacher for the P4 class is sick today! So there I was, standing in front of 54 children expected to teach them something about english. I must admit, I panicked for a moment until I remembered that.........I speak English.

ohthankgod

so am is are was were adjectives and nouns all day today and it was great! I taught about 150 Ugandan children at about age 11 or so, all about the USA and the state I am from.

I think the best moment of the day was when a boy asked me what tribe I was from. I just sort of stuttered all flustered......um well, how do I explain this.......Thompson?
I never thought of my dad as a macho tribal leader but.....it's what he is. the patriarchal society here is really growing on me. Suddenly I feel a new affection for the men in my life as protectors and providers because that's what they are here. I think it gives Ugandans a special perspective on having a heavenly Father.

It was also great when I was explaining about animals. When I told the children that there aren't just animals running around willy nilly in the States, one boy looked puzzled and asked.....how do you eat?

Good question, kid. That is more profound than you know.

I was talking to one of the other teachers today and he was asking about the cost of living in the States and we did some math. Turns out my monthly pay as a nanny of sorts is about three times as much as some state workers get paid here. And as most of you reading this know....I am not rich.

It was a sobering moment as I thought about the implications of that......people in the states can do so much here because their money is worth so much, but does that mean we should all drain our bank accounts and buy a goat for every Ugandan? Again, God has a way of defeating my ideas about poverty and wealth and giving. The conclusions I keep coming to are.....if only there were some non subjective judge of who gets what and that judge were to deal out stuff according to how he sees fit and.......wait a minute!

anyway......I have much more to say, but no time to say it. I can only say that I am happy to see that people are reading the blog and I hope that I can be so spoiled as I have been the past two days to write so often!

PS- I still have not witnessed a birth.