Its official. The WAG‘s are now legit Ugandan teachers at the Oasis of Love school in Kisoga, Uganda. What’s funny is that we don’t have a teaching certificate….what’s awesome is that here, you don’t need one…especially if your white. The school is run by the church we are working with, Oasis of Love Church. It is a primary school but it only goes to P5(usually here it goes to P7). It has what they call baby class which is like nursery, pre-k and kindergarten, then they have P1. P2, P3. P4, and P5 class which is just like elementary school.
Day 1: Okay well our first day was interesting. At first I was really intimidated because we still didn’t know what classes we were going to teach and well none of us have ever done anything like this before so we didn’t know what to expect. The first few hours were spent delegating who would take what subjects. Besides us there are two other teachers for P1-P5.…we don’t teach the baby classes. I think its safe to say that none of us felt comfortable teaching science, agriculture, social studies, or Luganda…so those were given to the other teachers. That left Marlee with -P1 reading, P2 English, P3 Math, P4 English, and P5 English., TJ with - P1 English, P2 Math, P3 English, and P4 reading, and myself with- P1 Math, P2 reading, P3 reading, P4 Math, and P5 Math. We also help with music class and P.E. After that we went around to the classes and introduced ourselves ….it was an interesting experience because at that time we didn’t have interpreters…and well small children who don’t know English paired with three white girls who don’t know Luganda is kind of an amusing scene.
Day 2-Day 5: We are supposed to have a time table with a schedule to know when we teach…you know its that thing called organization….well according to one of the teachers “we just make the time table to show the government we are a serious school but we don’t really go by it.” I guess for some people its not a big deal but for me its super aggravating. I wouldn’t mind so much if the kids weren’t getting gypped but they are. Some times because there aren’t enough teachers and because we don’t have an actual schedule classes are just left without any supervision or teaching. They also don’t end up getting all of their classes like P.E. or music. Thankfully as time went on I realized I couldn’t control that and decided to just make the best of my time with the kids in class. Three grades (P3, P4, and P5) are taught in a one room church, and the other two (P1 and P2) are taught in another one room building. At first I thought that it would get really hard teaching with another class so close by but then we found that the Ugandan teachers don’t really teach, They kind of just write stuff on the blackboard and tell the kids to copy it down. Everything here is taught by memorization which is rather unfortunate because 1) the kids arent actually learning and 2) they don’t learn how to think for themselves the rational way. This in turn causes problems when they grow up because then they are stuck in one way of thinking which usually doesn’t make sense.
The second week was a lot better. After a few classes with each grade we were able to see where the kids were in learning that specific subject and what methods were more effective than others in communicating with them. We also have two awesome translators, Isaac and Florence. Isaac has taken it upon himself to teach us some Luganda which I love and Florence has become our new house lady (Lydia took a different teaching job in Mukono and so she couldn’t help us anymore). (they both gave us a dancing lesson the other day. I just want to say that TJ is the queen of Kalipso). We are getting to know the kids and all their little quirks which is fun, a few of them have even earned themselves a nick name.
There is G.I. Joe - this kid is in baby class and he wears the same outfit everyday. Whats funny is that he looks like he belongs in the army. He also really really likes porridge. After he eats his he goes around to all the other kids and gives them the most intensely sad looking face until one poor sap feels sorry for him and gives him their porridge….then G.I. Joe gets a huge grin on his face and goes on his way.
There is also this kid names Joseph….A.K.A creeper Joseph (hes not really creepy just a creeper). He is in P1 and is kind of TJ’s stalker. A few days ago he walked with us home and then waited outside by the pit latrines until our neighbors told him to leave. The next morning he was waiting for us to walk with us to school…hes quite the gentleman because he holds TJ’s bag sometimes…real cute.
Im not sure if it was said in the last blog but we weren’t supposed to go to this village. Until we actually met up with the McKenzie’s we thought we were still going to the Bakka village. Things didn’t work out there but they had another opportunity for us here. Whats amazing is being able to see how this was Gods plan for us all along. We were talking to Pastor Emma…hes the guy in charge of the school and the pastor of the sister church of House of Love in another village…and he was telling us that because they don’t charge the kids who go to the school a lot for school fees they aren’t able to pay the teachers a very good salary. As a result teachers are hard to come by…especially good ones. Before he knew we would be coming to teach he said he had no idea how they were going to make ends meet but he continued to pray and trust that God would provide. He said it was a miracle that we came.
Our house is finally starting to look like a home and each day we are becoming more and more familiar with the village and the people living in it. We have our place where we buy our bread, another where we buy our eggs, and so forth. We have heard missionaries say that it takes seven years for the community to finally accept you …but we are trusting and believing that with God by the end of three months we will leave Kisoga not only feeling like we belong but also for having the nationals feel the same.
We are approaching the three month mark in a few days and in all honesty im freaking out. I love it here and the thought of being half way through is a little much to take in. Because we all three have been thinking about that we were really moved to remember our mission in Uganda. God has called us half way around the world to serve Him in some mighty ways. The more we seek His face the more He reveals His plans for us. We have not come to just teach English…that’s a by-product of our love for the Lord. We have come to worship our God and to share in that worship with others. Please join us in our prayer that God would change the hearts of the people of Kisoga through His Spirit of Truth and that lives would be transformed. Be encouraged the Lords hand is at work and we are so grateful to be a part of it and so thankful for all of you who made I possible through prayer and financial support. Thank you thank you thank you! We continue to pray for you all back home and miss you a lot. I think it would be good if you all just came for a visit ;)
I think I will end on something funny. Because we are always around each other we have to be creative in our conversations because we have covered all the normal stuff. Im not sure how the conversation exactly started but somehow we came to the conclusion that our neighbors and probably half the people in town are aliens. Ill give you the facts and let you decide on your own.
1) our neighbors laugh at us every time we walk by. Its not normal laughing…its super intense super annoying laughs that never cease. we can also hear them say “muzungu blah blah blah” then “hahahahahahaha” even when we arent around them.. at first we weren’t bothered by it….but it hasn’t stopped. We don’t even want to go to the bathroom anymore because we know we have to pass by them to get to the latrines and we know they will laugh at us. Something has to be wrong with these people….we arent that funny.
2) one of their children doesn’t crawl normal….she sticks her butt up in the air and walks on her hands and feet. (we also hear the children telling their parents “they are leaving” or “they have come back” every time we leave or come back to our house.
3) one night the loud stadium speakers outside of our house started making strange noises. Im talking like legit alien noises like you hear in the movie Signs *come to think of it I think this event was how our theory was formed. I think we heard the noise and then connected all the dots.
4) I don’t know why but for some strange reason people here…especially men who you don’t know love to say “hello muzungu, how are you” in a really high pitched girly voice. At first we thought it was some strange quirky thing some people did but then we realized that the amount of people all over Uganda who do it cant just be a coincidence.
5) there is this really pretty hill that you can see from the school we teach at and until Thursday we didn’t realize the three huge metal towers on top of it. Either a) they weren’t there before because there was an invisible shield over it or b) we are really oblivious and cant see worth anything. We are pretty sure the rods are used for transporting the aliens.
6)Okay the last piece of evidence. one day when Marlee was done teaching P4 they all turned around to say goodbye but instead of waving they all put their hands above their ears and started moving their index finger back and forth like they were sending messages home to their mother ship. Strange I know.

--------there you have it…the hard evidence that Kisoga is the Roswell of Africa.

hey. you want to know whats kind of disappointing? i had this really awesome blog to post and i had it all ready to go on the flash drive but for some reason this computer isnt reading it so i wont be able to post the actual written blog today. i do however, have some pictures of our time at CRO,our house in kisoga and the school we are teaching at. i hope you enjoy!
CRO

Omulett - really cute but really stinky.

Fighting is normal...


Moving all of our stuff from Jinja to Kampala.










P4 Class
P3 Class
P5 Class
Baby Class
P2 Class
P1 Class

ok so it's been a while...

Hey everyone!! Long time no talk. We realize this blog is approx. three weeks overdue. Good news is we’re established in our home, a village called Kisoga, for the remainder of this trip. Small recap:
Last time you heard we were able to spend some time working with CRO. Hands down, one of the neatest things we’ve ever been apart of. Lots of street kids yields lots of love and patience. Dorothy, the lady in charge of classes and such, was amazing at keeping things running as smoothly as possible. She had such a deep love for those kids and they in turn respected her. We played our guitars and sang for the kids, played with the kids, and broke up a couple fights…so all in all it was a blast. But it was unfortunately short lived.

The reason why is we got sick. It went like this. One night Marlee’s stomach started hurting really bad. It hurt for a couple days and then one night it got so bad she couldn’t sleep. The next day it felt better and so Camille suggested we get some antibiotics in town and it should be fine. Well we’re in town that evening and it gets bad again. We grab some meds and head back to Nakabango. We didn’t know if these prescription drugs were the best idea so I called Dr. Fleming, a doctor I know from the states, explained the situation and we started Mar on the drugs. At this point I had a headache for like two days and felt like I was running a fever. Not wanting to be dramatic I slipped out to the hall and took my temp…101.3. Great. So I shared the news and all of us felt like satan was attacking us. It was our last week and things were getting a little challenging anyways then two of us sick. So that night we went to war. We read our Bibles out loud, prayed, and declared the blood of Jesus over our room that night. As soon as possible we went to a clinic in Jinja and discovered Marlee either had: a stomach infection thing, appendicitis, or was pregnant, I had malaria for sure, and McKenzie was fine. Yay. The meds I was given made me more sick than I had been before so the next day while I stayed at home sick the other two went back to Jinja due to a change in Marlee’s condition. They came home with the news she needed to go to the hospital in Kampala that night. I insisted on going because if something was wrong I wanted to be there for Marlee so we loaded up in the truck and got delivered to the hospital. After some tests we discovered Marlee was going to make it and headed to a guest house (Christian hotel place) for the night. It was quite the adventure. What made the whole thing cooler was the fact that as soon as me and Mar started feeling better Mckenzie came down with malaria too. Haha. Good news is her medicine actually worked so by the next day she was feeling way better.

So at about this point, we had worked things out with the McKenzie’s and it was time to head to leave what had become home and head to Kampala. We rented a taxi, yes the whole huge ghetto van type of taxi, and after dropping off Tom, Michael and Linus, we got dropped with all our stuff at Garden City, the mall in Kampala. Shortly there after Jamie Mckenzie and her daughter Kaci (also 18) arrived and we loaded up and went to their home. Their house is wonderful. It was so peaceful and inviting. Kaci gave up her room so we had a place to sleep and dump all our stuff. We ate VERY well for that week between the really cook restaurants available in Kampala and Mrs. Mckenzie being such an incredible cook. We had had our reservations about the son, Jesse, but he ended up being really cool and we hung out with him some. (He’s 16.) Also we were reunited once again with the oldest girl, Makinzi, and her one year old son Weston. We had met both of them in Austin before we left. Mr. Mckenzie was still taking care of some stuff back in the states so we haven’t met him yet but the rest of the family was awesome. We loved our week of peace and relaxation and good food and movies and such. But then it was time to move once more…

Friday the 30th of January we were picked up by another taxi along with Jamie and Makinzi and went shopping for our new house. There’s a store called Game in Kampala that is like a Wal-mart only everything here is cheaper. It was awesome. So we bought stuff there and some other stores and off we went to our village, Kisoga. It was about an hour and a half drive from Kampala and pretty much in the middle of nowhere feeling. It was classic. Our “house” is like a store in the front and it has three rooms behind the front store room. There is electricity but no running water. That means to use the restroom we have to go out the back door and pass some other people’s doors and go around the corner to a little pit latrine/squatty-potty. Luckily we have a place inside we can use for bucket showers and a little tiny space in the back we can use for washing clothes and leaving our shoes. There is a lady named Lydia who will be teaching with us and also helping do our laundry, clean the floors, and some cooking. She needs the money and we sure don’t mind the help. So from now on we will be much busier than we’ve been before. We will be teaching from like 8 am till 4 pm. We will come home with Lydia and while she finishes our laundry we’ll figure out dinner. She’ll help us with stuff like rice and beans but everything else will be up to us. At school we will get some maize porridge and then for lunch we get some posho. Posho and porridge is not so good tasting and usually we get posho with beans but it’s ok because we’ll make up for it with dinner. Every other Saturday we’re going to meet together with some ladies from church and maybe from just around and have like a bible study/health/family meeting. Basically they’ll get to ask us questions about stuff and we’ll do what we can to help them out. I’m hoping this won’t give them the idea that we know a lot about this kind of thing because you never know if that’s going to mean some woman about to give birth is going to show up at our door thinking we know how to deliver babies. That could be really exciting. We’ll also be helping with the youth and speaking at the church every other Sunday. Not sure what that will entail. I know next Sunday we’re supposed to give a 20 min sermon. Oh gosh. So anyways, we’ll be really busy. The nearest internet place is a 20 min taxi drive away and with the work schedule who knows how often we’ll make it. On the every other weekends we don’t do our Saturday thing we will go to Kampala to see the Mckenzies, probably at least once go to Jinja to see our friends there and at some point go rafting maybe. All this goes on till the end of April, so three months. In May our rent will be up and they have that month off at school so we will probably split up the time between Teen Missions and the Mckenzies just finishing off our time in Africa for our last 18 days. Wow. So that’s about it. We’ll try to keep you people up to date with what’s going on and the people we’re meeting but if we don’t, just know we’re really really busy and probably need your prayers for patience, love, safety, and good teaching/understanding.
Thanks so much.
Sorry this is so overdue.
Peace.
Tamara Joy (and the other two)


ps. every night this person near our house decides to play their radio incredibly loud. it's horrible. what is worse is they repeat this at 5 am. i mean loud like you can't possibly sleep and can hardly hear some one else if they're talking to you in our house. you could pray these peoples radio dies....heh heh. kidding.