Challenges

Dateline: Friday, June 28, 2012 It has been quite a while since my last post. Life in Uganda has a much slower pace and thus I have fallen into a more relaxed mode. After I left Katwe I went back to life in the village and the school. The second term had started and there was much turmoil at the school. We discovered that our Director of Studies had been stealing money from parents who had paid him their school fees. He had decided to keep the money instead of turning it into the office. Not only had he been stealing money, but he had also helped himself to school furniture, aluminum sheeting, sports equipment, etc. Well, needless to say we fired him and made him pay the money back and return all the other stuff he felt he was entitled to. After he left we had yet another meeting with the remaining teachers to RE-inform them that we were paying them to teach which meant that they had to be in their classrooms teaching or we would dock their pay. Well, this proved to be too restrictive for some teachers and they chose to leave. Honestly, I don't know where they will find a job where their employer says, "go ahead do what you want and I will still pay you, even if you aren't here at workget to ." This left us with 5 less teachers, so I hadd to hire more. The process of hiring someone here is a bit different than in the USA. When you advertise for a job people show up and may or may not be qualified for the position. This does not seem to matter here because people obviously are hired to teach who have absolutely no experience and may not have even gone to university. In Uganda you are eligible to teach primary school as soon as you finish high school. I'm thinking this is why there is such a problem with education here. After many interviews I was able to find find 5 new teachers who started immediately. Fourof them were just out of high school but from northern Uganda and appear to be hardworking. So, I'm praying for the best results, here. Another equally frustrating issue has been the use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary action. Here in Uganda, children are caned not only by their parents but by the teachers at school. A student can be caned for any reason such as having dirty fingernails. At our school it has been a policy that we DO NOT use caning as a form of punishment or discipline at all. However, most of the teachers have still continued to cane the students in spite of having Re-informed the teachers of the no caning policy many tìmes since I have been here. This all came to a head when the school took its mid-term exams. One evening after exams one fo the teachers who boards at the school as well, decided to cane the boarding students one lash for every blank answer on their exam. When she began to cane one of the boys who had 28 blanks on his exam, the girl boards ran away from the school (in the middle of the night) and came to the house where I live in the village crying and screaming that the teacher was caning everyone. Thus, I had to go back into the school and handle the conflict. The following day, I had the older sister of one of one of the boarders in my office angry because her sister had called her and said she was being caned. Handling angry parents, when they speak a different language, is a delicate skill and requires a good translator or at least one that will honestly translate what the other person has said. After an hour or so I was able to smooth things out with this person and she left. I then called a meeting with all my teachers and really came down hard on them. I reminded them that we do not cane at this school and that if they caned a student for any reason they would be fired immediately without question. I also reminded them that if they weren't in their classrooms when they were supposed to be teaching, they would also be fired without question. This is a hard line to take in a country that has a policy in their ministry of education that says a teacher can can a student up to 5 lashes as a measure of discipline, and also an area where they don't really believe they should have to work hard to be paid. Needless to say, it was a frustrating meeting trying to get them to understand that the policies the director had put into place when he opened the school were going to be enforced whether they liked it or not. Well, I have only three more weeks here at the school with this NGO and I'm pretty confident that things will go back to the way they were before I came. It's frustrating to know that all the positive things I've worked so hard on all these months will be forgotten when I'm gone and are really for nothing. On a positive note, the director (who became a Christian after hearing my testimony) has begun having Bible study and prayer at the school with the boarders. The kids have really enjoyed it and even non-boarding students have heard about it, as well as our new teachers and have all asked to attend too. The director has even started a Sunday worship service at the school which has become very popular with both the day and boarding students. So, there are positive things happening here, too. Other than school conflicts, I have been enjoying my host family very much. It will be very hard to say goodbye to them when I leave. They have asked me to stay with them forever. I really love them they are such a great family and we have become very close. I know that I will always have this adopted family here in Sitabaale, Uganda. Well, what next? I have exciting opportunities coming up. I have met a great group of expats here when I am in Entebbe on the weekends. We have been germinating some ideas which I will share in a future post when I have more concrete plans. In the meantime I will finish up my work here at the school then do some traveling and planning for the next steps here in Uganda. Much love to all from The Pearl.