We arrived at the school and problems began. Kids had heard about the distribution (how they hear about it when Lacey doesn't even tell Frank, the driver where we are going until we leave, I have NO idea!) and ran to the school. The real problem stems from the fact that the teachers put these kids on the list who don't go to the school, and then when we get there they say "oh they are late" or "they are carrying matoke to the market" - this is a very popular excuse. Basically they are just trying to sneak shoes to kids who don't actually go to school. The whole point of the TOMS program, other than physically distributing the shoes, is to increase school attendance. We also do health education lessons for the classes while we give the shoes.
Anyway, this school was just a boatload of problems. However, despite having to boot out about 35 kids from P1 who were actually from a neighboring school (I was thinking that you'd think they'd be smart enough not to wear another school's uniform to Bumasata!, but no!) the distribution went pretty quickly and we were done by a little after noon.
We went back to Zone 7 for a soda and chapatti (courtesy of Lacey via AAH's outreach fund) and then I went up to the Arlington Junior School (AAH's school) with Cait. I got to meet all the teachers and have lunch with them, and then Cait and I went to the library to choose a book for me to read to the P6 class. We chose "The Princess and the Pea" - but a version with an African twist where they also taught you to say hello in Swahili and 2 other languages (I forget the names of them, but they are the Ethiopian and Somalian languages). It was pretty fun, and I think the kids really enjoyed it.
That's (obviously) me reading to the kids. The Arlington school is super impressive - they have ALL of their P7 kids get Division I or II (and more in Division I than II, and I is the top ranking!) when they complete their PLE exams. Most other schools are lucky to get a few in DI or II and are mostly in III or IV. Also, the kids all wear uniforms and SHOES (not TOMS, they are required to wear like black lace up leather shoes), since its a scholarship school. They can only apply to start in P1, and after that they don't accept new students. When you enter a classroom all of the kids stand up and greet you in unison. It was obvious that they were actually doing WORK too - they didn't have overcrowded rooms, and they all had paper and pens and pencils out and were writing when we came in. Its very well run, even by US standards.
After the school visit, I went to the FIMRC clinic (literally right next to the school) and showed the infant care clinician videos to their staff. There are 10 videos (we did this at our clinic, but in two sessions), and then after each I took notes on our "focus group" discussion. I was just pleased that the videos worked, everyone came together and watched it, they had some good comments about the videos and seemed to enjoy it moderately. It was really good to have it completed since Lisa needs to send the data back to the states by the end of March!
Tuesday was another school visit - this one was Buyobo Primary School. It was out in Sironco, which is pretty far from Bududa district. Lacey and I got up around 6 and tracked down the 3 kids from Bududa and we all took a matatu into Mbale. We met up with the others there, who were already waiting with the truck, and then we drove about an hour to get to the school, so our trek in total was about 3 hours! The school was HUGE. They had over 700 kids so it was by far my biggest distribution yet. But our team worked REALLY well together, and even though we didn't start giving out shoes until almost 12, we were done by about 4:30.
They had a whole building they weren't using, that had been built in 1954. They've had newer buildings built since then, including the P6, P7, and library building that was just built last year. They had snuck in SOME kids (at every school this inevitably happens at least a little bit), but on the whole was much better than most, especially Bumasata. This was surprising (that they had snuck in so few) because this school had known well in advance the exact date we were coming since they have a link with the microfinance women's group in Bududa.
This is me, Lacey, and Solomon in the truck in the morning en route to the school.
Fitting kids for sheos - its what I do best! The real problem here was that we were out of sizes 31, 32.5, and 34, so if kids didn't fit in a 30, we had to push them to a 35 or not give them shoes. Ultimately, what we did was try to save 35's and push kids who were a 35 to a 36, so that those inbetween kids could have the 35. But it was really tough turning them away and saying that they might not get a pair (all of those in-betweeners eventually got a pair). The rationale here was that it is better to give out pairs that fit to one kid and not any to another, than to give both kids shoes that don't fit. Its just tough. Lacey said that for next year, we'll be able to give TOMS a list of sizes. Whoever gave us the shoes must not have thought about the fact that there are a lot more kids in P1, P2, and P3 than in P4-P7. We had too many of the big/huge sizes (like 46.5 and 48) and not enough small ones!
Anyway, once we got shoes for everyone, and did our count (this consists of re-making pairs of shoes of ones that got separated, emptying each bag of shoes, and making sure its all the same sizes and left and right together (held together with a rubber band) and then counting each bag. Once a bag gets to 40 you start a new grain sack of that size, then you report ALL of the number of that size to the person with the master list. It does get confusing with everyone counting and yelling out numbers!) then they had made LUNCH for us. It was awesome! Rice, really good matoke, chicken AND meat, and COLD water. What a day. Lunch was a big highlight, even if it was at about 5 PM.
Then we rode back to Mbale in the truck. I was in the back, with Lacey, Alex, Solomon, Judith, Rachel, and Barbra, and we had QUITE a conversation about boys and girls. Alex (who I imagine is kind of a ladies' man, he's quite cute, and I'm pretty sure he knows it!) was the main one talking, we kept asking him what he finds attractive in a girl, and why he wants multiple girlfriends (really common amongst the men here). It was just a hilarious conversation, mostly with Alex fighting with the three girls - about staying faithful, multiple girls, and when/if she should "say yes", and what happens if she says no (Alex says they usually wait and them come back later and say yes!).
From Mbale, Alex, Solomon, Barbra, Lacey and I took a matatu back to the guesthouse, where Jennifer (their housemom) had prepared a great dinner of eggplant (stewed with other veggies, and something that tasted curry-ish), matoke, salad (a rarety - raw cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers, with salt pepper and vinegar to make a sort of dressing), and fruit (pineapples and mangos, YUM!). Before dinner I had had a (very) hot bucket bath - I kind of got the proportions wrong with the water, but it ended up being very nice. I also got to meet Alex, the other guy (british) staying at the guesthouse. Kind of a character, but a nice guy. Cait was looking up movie quotes online and asking everyone what they were, she found some online game you could play with it, which was kind of fun.
Today, Wednesday, was my last day over in Bududa. I got to sleep late (about 8:20) and then Mike (the same guy who had taken me and the girls around Mbale, and who took me and Peter on the waterfall hike) came over to take me on my "coffee experience". We walked to his house (kind of past where the FIMRC guesthouse is) and he had the coffee beans there (usually you get to go pick them yourself, too, but since its still dry season (everyone is just WAITING for the rain, especially in Bududa where everyone is on a water shortage, its truly a drought, not just like a "don't water your lawn drought") there's not coffee yet. He said the best time is the rainy season in October/November. So the coffee was there, and we first had to husk it. So you put the coffee beans in this deep wooden bowl, and grind at it with a big stick (sort of like a huge mortar and pestle). Once that was done, we had to separate out the husks from the beans. Mike's wife, Lydia, did this by putting it in a big flat kind of metal bowl, and just shaking it around. The husks flew out, leaving the beans behind. This is the sort of thing I could never do on my own. Next was roasting the coffee - just talking about a coffee roastery put me back in senior year of high school - mmm roastery. Anyway, she just put the beans in a pot over a VERY hot fire with dry firewood for about 15 minutes. It started to smell just INCREDIBLE and when she took them off, they were black and looked just like coffee beans you'd get at any grocery store or gourmet shop at home. We spread them in the flat metal bowl to cool the beans, kind of stirring them around with a big stick:
So M&D, this one's for you! 1 kilo of Ugandan coffee, husked and roasted by yours truly!
After Mike packed up the coffee for me, we went into Kikholo and I bought us a soda. Mmmmm fanta. Its really my favorite here because when soda isn't carbonated so much (as happens out here), coke gets kind of gross, warm sprite sucks, but warm fanta is like orange Hi-C. Heck yes.
Then I went back to the guesthouse, and Jennifer was waiting for a matatu with me, but we gave up and I took a boda to Bunamubi and caught the matatu there, took that to Bubulo, and then took a boda up to Matuwa, where I spent the afternoon working on my Menstrual Cycle grainsack diagrams for Girls' Group and also packing for Kenya! I leave tomorrow.... getting excited. Now just ate dinner, and Lisa just got back from Bududa as well (she was at the board meeting over there) and we're going to watch a movie. I'll be in Mbale during the day tomorrow if anyone wants to FaceTime or Skype around 8 or 9 AM EST! Holler.
PS Hollis is dumb. You won't get drafted. Stay in school!!!
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