^Apparently that is a joke that they tell in Uganda, and I have to say that it’s true. They also say that “if you see a car swerving all of the road, you know that he is sober, but if you see him driving in a straight line he must be drunk because he will hit all of the potholes!”
Into the second week of classes! I have a feeling that this week will be one of the hardest weeks to get through, because now that we’ve already had a week of classes and I’m aware of how boring they are, there’s no longer any excitement to get me through the days. At least not until this weekend, when I have plans to bake with my little brothers on Saturday and we go to Rwanda on Sunday!
We did have the opportunity to do some cool trips last week instead of sitting in boring lectures. First we got to go to a malnutrition center for children at one of the local hospitals. It was by far the most interesting and eye opening thing that we’ve done so far. First we listened to a talk by one of the nutritionists about what the children go through upon being admitted to the center. All children admitted there are below 70% weight for height, meaning that they are seriously malnutritioned. After the talk, we walked through the wards. It was unbelievably heartbreaking. There were babies less than a year old and you could see every one of their ribs. Babies so malnutritioned that all they could do was lay there and cry. Seeing those children brought up so many questions for me – how can parents let their children get this way? Extreme poverty and not being educated about what to feed your child, I suppose. I also wonder what can be done…that I don’t really have an answer for. I’m considering doing my Practicum (research project) with a center like this one up in the North because it would be something different and I think I would learn a lot.
We also got to visit the tombs of the Buganda kingdom and Buganda Parliament. In Uganda there are like 2 ruling parties: the president and the current Buganda king. The president has more power, but the Buganda king also rules the Baganda people. It all seems very complicated and I can’t imagine how having 2 people in power would help a country. The tombs were very pretty though – they were inside a GIANT hut and they were surrounded by all of these spears that had been given to the king as a gift. It was mostly just exciting to get out of the classroom and do a little site seeing.
The other fun parts of my week were spent playing around with my brothers – playing cards, showing them my gymnasty skills, including doing back flips off of little cement ledges onto the grass and doing handstands in their basement. They want to learn things before I leave, so I guess my coaching skills will come in handy here too! I also taught my brothers how to play MASH, and they had so much fun with it! Of course my little analytical brain was thinking about all of the responses they had in comparison to what mine were – for example they wanted to only live to be in their 50s because after that you get to old and someone has to take care of you. Also, none of my brothers chose to live in Uganda – they all wanted to live in places like Spain or the UK or New York. I can see where this whole “brain drain” thing comes from, seeing as how my brothers will probably be those children that grow up to be doctors and lawyers and priests and move to America. We also had to alter the word shack to slum because they didn’t know what a shack was. They were cracking up over everyone’s futures, but it was still another one of those eye-opening experiences for me. Everything here is (except for when we sit in class, ugh.).
Not too much else to report on here. Hopefully something new and exciting will happen this week!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment