Greetings my friends and family! Uganda is still great! We just completed our second week of teaching. The classes are still going well. The students are so well-behaved. I am reminded how I need to slow down when I am talking and try not to use so many "Emily-isms." For instance, the students do not know the word "Cray Cray." They just laugh and say "Emily, you are a silly mzungu (white person)."
Wednesday was another National Holiday... Heroes Day. Similar to our Memorial Day. So we only taught 4 days this week. The primary school has 4 acres of property where they have planted cassava. The primary school has boarding students who live at the school during the school term. These students live too far from school to walk to and from school. Either that or the students are orphans and their guardians send them to stay at the school. So the headmistress of the primary school is also responsible for the boarders too. The headmistress is a Catholic nun, Sister Goretti. She wanted to plant this cassava and harvest it so as to supplement the diet of the boarders. The students helped plant the cassava and help to do the work of weeding and harvesting. Since we did not have school on Wednesday, Sister Goretti was taking the boarding students to the "garden" to work. Remember this is a 4 acre plot of cassava (a small plant with pointy leaves. You eat the roots of the plant). She invited me to come to the garden and work with the students. You do not say no to Sister Goretti so I went to the garden.
We got to the garden at 9:30am and began weeding around the cassava. The cassava is not planted in straight rows. Instead, it is planted in a scatterplot formation. All around the cassava plants have grown grass and other weeds so we needed to dig around the cassava. I took a hoe and began to dig. It was hot. It was hard work. When I got tired, I looked around and saw these students who are younger and smaller than me still working so I kept working. The students showed me how to dig/weed properly. At times I got tired of using the hoe so I would plop down in the dirt and use my hands. The students thought that was really funny. We took a break for lunch. The students picked mangoes from a tree in the field so we supplemented our lunch of rice, sweet potatoes, groundnut sauce, and greens with mangoes. The students got the mangoes out of the tree by throwing sticks and clods of dirt at the mangoes. It was fun to watch. We worked again in the afternoon until about 5pm. In the afternoon, nearby villagers were passing by the field. They stopped and stared because they had never seen a white person (mzungu) doing field work before. I waved at them. I am sure I was quite a spectical.
Now I confess, I did not hoe the entire time. I took a break in the morning and in the afternoon to play with the students who were too young to dig. Still I have not worked that hard in a really long time. We had to wait for the truck to come pick us up. We finally left the field at 6pm and we got back to the parish after 6:30pm. I was exhausted and dirty. I was covered in dirt (think red clay like in Georgia) from my head to my feet and even under my fingernails. I got a little sunburnt ... you cannot work and sweat outside for over 8 hours without getting a little sun. I did not put sunscreen on the back of my neck so I have a red or pink neck. (Insert Polk County comment here). :-)
Still I was glad that I got the experience of hoeing cassava in Uganda alongside my Ugandan friends. This work reminded me that we have it easy for the most part in the USA. We go to the store and buy the food we need. Here in Africa, the majority of the people have to grow, harvest, and gather the food they need for every meal. It has made me appreciate food in a new way. "Give us this day our daily bread" means something totally different when you have to work that hard for enough food to feed your family. I am amazed at the willingness of the students to work so hard for their school. I mean they are working to grow cassava for their own meals, but still, the work all day long without complaining. I have much to learn from these students.
Love to you all. Know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.
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