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