Little Bits.........of work, fun and the tough

 Haven't been the best at keeping up on posting, so trying to post a few thoughts tonight.  Going to just do "little bits" tonight that really aren't connected in any particular way, so don't attempt to figure out the logic.  There really is none. 

Little Bit of Work

Instead of recreating the wheel, just decided to paste our weekly status report from the last week.  Not very exciting, but efficient for me not to have to repeat.  We meet every Friday morning with Pastor Ben who is the executive director of CLD from the Ugandan side.  He is a man with an amazing story of what he has overcome and accomplished at a very young age.  We go over our week with him and get some feedback to help us focus for the next week.   We have lots of "irons in the fire" and the work is so fulfilling and challenging all at the same time.  Some projects may work, some may not, but we will learn as we go and hopefully add value in at least some small way. 

The Greenwoods Status Report - Week of Sept. 17th

Accomplishments

Overall

·  Completed first Professional Development Training session with teachers at WCIA and assisting them with developing new weekly assessments for all grade levels

·  Began work with Jerry and Gladys on budget spreadsheets and record keeping processes

·  Continued work VISA process

·  Continue to learn culture and develop relationships

WCIA

·  After Ben's approval, submitted computer lab proposal to Julie and board.  Waiting for feedback from board meeting on Sept. 27th.  Will still need to discuss permanent lab location with Davis and Sherinah based on solar panel funding. 

·  Researched free software to use for teaching purposes in the lab and also worked with new batteries received for the laptops.

·  Heather conducted first day of volleyball at WCIA on Monday afternoon.  This will be taught weekly on Mondays.  Kenneth is helping progress with plans to install the poles and net. 

·  Heather began working with Gladys in the medical clinic to improve her Excel skills and help her format her budget reports.  This work will need to continue, along with the development of general record keeping procedures. 

·  Heather attended chapel on Wednesday and so enjoyed seeing the kids lead this time of praise and worship.

·  Heather worked with Sherinah to assist in creating electronic versions in Word of the new weekly assessments for each grade level.  This is a very time consuming process, but should save time in the future.  Week 2 is completed and Heather will continue to assist in each of the future weeks and hopefully begin to train teachers slowly to be able to create their own assessments on the computer.

·  Troy, Heather & Leigh brainstormed on new Student Motivation Program to implement at WCIA.  Basic concept will be presented to teachers for feedback during professional development time this Friday.

Double Portion Farm

·  Troy met with Jerry around financial reports on Monday, 9/17.  Main topic was understanding of the spreadsheet as it currently exists and Troy was going to take these notes and brainstorm some improved formatting of information to make its understanding more clear.  Tentative plan to meet again on Tuesday, 9/25.

Thread of Life

·  Troy met with Ronnie (Solomon's friend) at TOL on Thursday, 9/20 to help him with his business ideas

·  Heather is brainstorming lesson plans to begin financial management lessons with this class of women during the 3rd and 4th class weeks on Wednesday afternoons.

Next Items

·  Continue progress on installing volleyball net at WCIA

·  Obtain feedback from CLD board on computer lab proposal

·  Week 2 : WCIA professional development topic is Critical Thinking and Bloom's Taxonomy

·  Week 3:  WCIA professional development topic is Goal Setting for Critical Thinking Lesson Planning

·  Continue working on obtaining all necessary documents for work VISA

·  Continue work on development of financial literacy training materials

·  Begin implementation of Student Motivation Program at WCIA if positive feedback received from school team

·  Continue working to create electronic versions of WCIA weekly assessments by subject area and grade level

Little Bit of Fun

Yes, we are actually working, but having a lot of fun while doing so!  The people are so wonderful here, you really can't go through a day without having a little fun.  These are just some random fun things and funny observations from lately. 

1.  Differences in vocabulary:  things are often just phrased differently.  Here are a few examples:

-     You talk about what your "program" is for the day, or week, or weekend.  We would call it your plans for the day. 

-     When you are greeted, they say, "You're welcome." 

-     When you are nicely dressed, you are told you look "smart!"

-     They tell you "well done"  all the time, like we would say thank you.

-     When you are referring to a time, you subtract six hours from 7 am which is the start of the day.....or something like that.  I defer to Troy as he is the one learning this, I just follow along in confusion.

2.  Bags!  You can buy almost anything in a bag.  Oil, yogurt, passion fruit juice, etc.   We have become a bit addicted to the yogurt in a bag which you drink with a straw, and both Avery and I have had disasters trying to drink the passion fruit juice out of a plastic bag with more ending up on the ground or ourselves than in our mouth.  It is delicious though. 

3.  We have designated Fridays fun days as we walk up the hill to get a little ice cream treat with the kids in the late afternoon and then have movie night at the house watching DVD's that you can get in a neighborhood fairly close by for $1 - almost anything you can think of, that has been out for about 3 months at least.  People at the house have been watching the seasons of The Mentalist, so Troy and I just started watching them this weekend and are getting hooked already. 

4.  The kids are picking up some rhythm and love of singing from the kids at school.  They're developing their favorite English and Lugandan Christian songs and singing them from their hearts.  Will try to upload a few short video clips soon of chapel at school this past Wednesday.  There is a drum and guitar in the house and Avery loves pretending she can play both!

5.  The kids at school are determined to teach Avery and Henry Lugandan and they've figured out that they have to go very slow, syllable by syllable or we can't even understand what they're saying.  In the meantime, they've given them both Lugandan names and Avery is Namatay Eva (Namatay means milk referencing their white color) and Henry is Samatay Adam (masculine milk and Adam obviously an important boy from the bible).  Henry is protesting his though as it was given to him by older girls Avery's age. 

6.  I'm starting to get jealous of all these amazing trees that are just "normal" here everywhere you look - banana, jack fruit, mango, avocado - doesn't get much better than that.  And who knew that it takes a year to grow a pineapple when you see trucks and bikes overflowing with them all over as they're in season right now.  You can get one for 1000 shs  (less than 50 cents!) and you will never taste anything better!

7.  We're on a church tour - on our four weekends here we've been to four different churches.  All very different, but all great experiences.  Had to laugh when Henry commented after this weekend's 1 1/2 hour service - Wow, that was so short!  Life is relative when you've been to a 3 1/2 hour service!

Just a little bit of the fun we're having!

Little Bit of Tough

Lots I could write here, but will be fairly brief as these are the things that we will continue to process and are hard to explain.  Will start with the easier one.

1.  Have realized how I would much prefer to live without electricity than water.  Our water tanks ran empty this past weekend as the city water was off for about four days.  Beginning Friday, the main house water wasn't working, but we still had a toilet and shower we could use in the back quarters, so just a bit inconvenient, but workable.  Then, Sunday morning, the water in the back quarters ran dry.  So, had to use the latrines and carry some water in jerry cans in the house for hand washing, teeth brushing, etc.  I was getting a bit on edge as I am a bit of a clean freak as you all know.  I would rather live in the dark than smell.  So, God definitely answered a prayer this morning when it was back on! 

2.  Sickness and death.  It's such a part of normal, everyday life here and that is a hard thing to wrap our minds around.  And then when it hits your own family it sinks in even more.  We had our first bouts with sickness beginning about two weeks ago.  Henry went down first, but recovered in a couple of days.  Then I was feeling a bit under the weather for a day or so, nothing major.  But, Troy is still struggling with we're not sure what.  Tested negative for malaria, but has symptoms have come back. That is the hard part - you just don't know what you might be dealing with here - malaria, worms, etc.  And you are surrounded by sickness.  The same week we were getting sick, there were sick teachers at school, sick children, children dying that people knew, a death in the family that lives right outside the school gates......It is just always around.......And at our first parent meeting at the school yesterday, when the principal was reviewing successes from the past term, the first one he listed was that there was no loss of life.  Hits you.........and then when fielding questions about HIV positive students attending the school he references a statistic that 50% of the country is HIV positive.  Still have to research that statistic myself to wrap my mind around that.....

3.  Just trying to decide if you should adjust to what culture is here or try to encourage change.  People don't "keep time" here for the most part.  Life is at a different pace.  You can appreciate that when we often move so fast in America, but sometimes you still like to have people be on time so you can accomplish things and not spend half of your day waiting.  When people are not concerned with trash piles, should you learn more about the benefits of a rubbish pile, or work with them on educating what is "useful" rubbish and what is not and better ways of disposing of things.  These seem like kind of lame examples as I write this, but the overall question of adjusting versus changing is one we are challenged with almost every day. 

Think that's all I have the energy for right now.  My posts always seem to end up like a rambling novel.  Thanks for your patience (even you made it this even!) 

All our love.  Please keep sending us updates on your lives as well - we so enjoy them! 

Heather

A School Day

6:00 am rise and shine and eat some breakfast. Breakfast is typically bread with butter and bananas. One day a week we have pancakes. This was a pancake day. A great start!

7:10 head for the school taxi/bus. Check out the school uniforms.

Our short walk to school.

7:15 arrive at bus stop with our fellow WCIA classmates.

7:20 to 7:45 Bus arrives

Taxi/bus has 20+ in it, meant for 14 (Americans would think 14 was tight)

Wow and that is just getting the kids to school. It is hard to explain all the differences from America but safe to say it is all different for us. You know they will be fine, but you still say a small or long prayer depending on your day that your kids will be ok and wave goodbye.

8:00 school starts. Their subjects include Math, Science, Social Studies, Bible, Literacy, Language and Soccer.

9:30 snack of tea (which our kids are starting to like) and either bread, fruit or porridge.

Here is Henry's in his class. He has 12 students, that is his teacher in the front.

Here is Avery's class she has 8 in her class and she made the girl count 2. The other girl Sharon just right of Avery was very excited.

1:00 lunch of rice and beans or posho and beans. Special occasions include cabbage. Posho is a cornmeal like starch. No forks or napkins, so you eat with your fingers. Our kids seem to like this, we asked and they said they would do what all the other kids do. Not sure I would be so brave.

Here is the bathroom, don't forget to ask the teacher for toilet paper before you go.

4:15 bus arrives unless it rains and then it can be later like after 5.

5:00 arrive back at bus stop. 5 minutes later arrive home. Time to wash and polish shoes, mom cleans off uniforms and socks (they only have one uniform). Kids shower and get pajamas on.

7:00 Dinner, kids work on their homework and we recap our days.

8:30 Bed. End of a great day and wonder why you worried in the first place.

 

Uganda Pictures

 

Here is a link to our album of all our best pictures from our time in Uganda. Click here to check it out.

Note: if you click on a picture you will see a comment of what it is. This is denoted by a comment box or number on the picture.

We will keep adding pictures.


Enjoy!

 

A New Lens

When I sat down to write some thoughts for this week, it took me awhile to decide what to focus on.  Our move here still being so new, there are still thousands of experiences and thoughts to process each day it seems.  It is difficult to know what to share and how to share it.  But, I felt that my personal focus this week was one of trying to look at things differently that I did initially upon our arrival.  I was moving past the shock of all things different, to a new place that opened me to seeing the beauty and simplicity of life here; that while there is a ruggedness to existence, there is so much routine, love and just being real.  

These are just a few examples that I hope might make sense about how my mind is re-orienting to the world we live in now:

-instead of meeting kids and focusing on how their clothes might look a bit dirty and mismatched, like boys wearing girls shoes, etc. to just look into their beautiful eyes and see the joy and love they have in their hearts and how when the kids you don't even know get the biggest smiles when you drive or walk by and they call out Mzungu and wave like crazy and say, "I see you!"

-when Troy and I were taking the time to worry about what Avery and Henry would do at lunch at school when we found out the kids don't get any silverware to eat their posho and beans with, we were reminded by Avery that they didn't want to bring a fork along, they just wanted to be like everyone else.  

-instead of feeling intimidated to buy something from the local stands right on our road, Avery and I now look forward to visiting our new favorite stand that has a young girl working that has such a beautiful smile, and you tell her that pineapples are our favorite and we'll buy some if she gets some.  And instead of worrying about the quality of the food, you notice how good and fresh it tastes.  And if you end up getting a lime or an orange when you thought it was a lemon, oh well, you use the lemon. 

-at first I wondered how long it would take to make new friends in a place so different and far away, and then every single person you meet makes you instantly feel like you are part of their family and that you belong here.  You have great conversations shelling g-nuts or riding in the back of the truck.  You see your kids laughing at stories they tell.  I was told at church today by more than one person that I was just meeting for the first time that we are so loved.  

-instead of seeing the kids' church Fruit of Repentance that we attended today for the first time as just a small shed made of tin and sticks, that you see the beautiful flowers surrounding it as you walk up the path and that you feel the love of God just pouring out of everyone's hearts during worship.

-and instead of wondering what we have gotten ourselves into, you start to see a vision developing of how you can be integrated into the great work taking place here.

There are still so many adjustments to be made, but I think my heart is opening more and more each day to the fact that these changes and my reactions to them are greatly impacted by the lens through which I choose to view them.  And yes.....sometimes I still just really need that little piece of normal at the right moment, like that little Snickers bar  or an email from someone at home.  :)  

Now I'll end by completely switching gears and just jot down a few things that are "normal" in our new routine.

• Laundry day is Tuesday.  They wash all our laundry by hand, except our socks and underwear, which we have to do on our own and I am behind on again.....And you pray that there is hot weather on these days as it can take things a long time to dry on the line.  We've had lots of rain this past week.
• The menu is set at the house.  It's usually bread and little bananas set out for breakfast, but we had a few surprise treats this week with pancakes one morning and little sausages another.  Dinner is at 7:00 pm and the menu for the week is Monday: Irish (potaotes with veggies in a sauce)  Tuesday:  Rice & Beans, Wed:  Local Foods (myatoki, g-nut sauce, rice)  Thurs:  mashed potatoes, meatballs and gravy - MY FAVORITE!  Friday:  Spaghetti, Saturday:  Rice with peas and carrotts  There is also often a cabbage salad of some sort and fruit for dessert (watermelon or pineapple - the pineapple here is absolutely incredible!!!)  We are on our own for lunch each day, so we usually just grab a chapati, rolex, or kikamondo at a stand or find a "restaurant" close by with local foods.  Lunch is not as predictable and is just whenever it works, usually around 1 or 2.  Sunday we are on our own for meals.  
• We have a driver that CLD hired for us for September.  We just have to pay for gas, which is an everyday thing here, as any trip is usually almost an hour.  We most often take the truck since we can fit lots of people with riding in the back.  We had 16 in there the other day.  Someone is always coming along or hitching a ride to save money on transport.  The more the merrier!  The other vehicle is the Super Custom, which is a van.  Although we haven't had any problems yet, I guess it is a bit less reliable and on the verge of a potential breakdown.  CLD also owns two taxis, one of which will take the kids to school every day.  After September, we'll be on our own with driving, so hopefully Troy who can drive a stick shift will be ready to take all our lives in his hand on these crazy roads!  The school takes about 30 minutes on average to get to, and the farm about an hour.  But, they are both easy to find as they are straight outside of Nansana on a main road.  Thread of Life is more of a mystery as it's much more challenging to get to, but probably takes about 20-30 minutes as well usually.  
• The kids school day (which starts tomorrow) will look like this.  They'll get on the taxi at the top of the hill at 7:10.  Class starts at 8:00.  They have a snack (I think either fruit or maybe a hard boiled egg) at 9:30.  They have lunch at 12:30 for an hour.  Posho and beans Tues - Thurs, and special days on Monday (rice and beans) and Fridays (eggs).  They brush their teeth after lunch.  Class is over at 4:00 and they'll get on the taxi to come home, arriving at the top of the hill about 4:45.  Friday is a half day and classes end at 1:00, and the teachers have staff development those afternoons.  Not sure how we will fit in homeschooling after these long days?  They have uniforms and all of the kids just have one set, so I guess Avery and Henry will learn to keep them clean as we can't just throw them in the washer at night!  They have soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Avery will have 6 in her class, including her and Henry I think will have 11.  They are in their last term of the year and their new school year begins in January.  They go 3 months and then have a month off, so December and April the kids will be on holiday.  

Sure there are lots of things I'm leaving out, but just wanted to give a glimpse of some daily routines.  Be sure to ask any questions that you're wondering about!  

Once again, this ended up being longer than I intended.  Thanks for reading.  Have a wonderful week!  Please keep us in your prayers as Avery and Henry begin school this week as this will be the last big transition for them.  

~Heather

Courage

Here are some thoughts from Avery and Henry today that I thought were pretty cool to share.  They were working on writing a first draft of an essay on courage since a lot of the books we are going to read in our homeschool curriculum have courage as a theme.  Touched my heart as I read them and hope you enjoy their thoughts.  

Courage - by Henry Greenwood

Some people struggle with courage.  The dictionary says that courage is the ability to do something that frightens one.

Courage is hard because you have to be brave.  I think that my family had courage because we moved to Africa for a year.

You might not think this was hard but we moved halfway across the world.  We left our dog, friends, and house.  Our family came here to help people we don't know.  It is scary to have a new house and school.

Courage is hard but I was brave and it brought me to a great place.

Courage - by Avery Greenwood

Everyone has courage, you just have to search for it!  At least one thing in your life is brave, not all things are easy for us in life.  There always has to be a challenge to do.  The dictionary has really great definitions of courage.  1.  The ability to do something that frightens one.  2.  Strength in the face of pain or grief. 

Courage is brave like doing something you might fear.  Opening your heart and doing something big.  Doing the right thing even though you don't want to.  Trustworthy listening and trusting someone who's doing something courageous.  I think courage is pretty much doing anything big, to doing something you fear, or going through something hard in life.  I thought of a person to me that is very courageous.  Her name is Kyan, my best friend.  Kyan to me is courageous.

She has broken her arm before, that would be scary.  Second, she did gymnastics, which probably I could never ever do.  Third is she moved to a different place in Colorado, which was hard but I still see her a lot.  Then, she had to go to a new school which she said she cryed a lot and had to meet new friends.  That is why I think she's courageous. 

Courage is hard to do for people and I agree it's not easy but I know you always can make it possible and I know you can!  Anything is possible in life, anything, especially COURAGE!

Safari Pictures

Here is the best of our Safari pictures.  Enjoy.  We sure did.  Safari was in Tanzania:  Lake Manyara National Park, Tangire National Park and Ngorongoro Crater

Troy