UNEB

Between November 12^th and 28^th, the students at my school have been taking their UNEB exams. UNEB stands for Uganda National Examination Board, so it’s technically only the body that releases the exams not the exams themselves. But I will follow normal practice and simply call them UNEB. For those in senior six (the last year of secondary, like the U.S. 12^th grade, see the previous blog where I compare the two education systems), this was the climax of their secondary educations. Universities will use this as the primary (almost exclusive with the exception of sports and disabilities scholarships) qualification for admissions. Term grades do not really exist in most secondary schools, meaning that these exams are the only real (academic) indicator by which universities will judge the students. They function as a cumulative final exam for the last two years at secondary (called Advanced-level or simply A-level) instead of an aptitude indicator like the SATs or ACTs in the United States and thus are the way in which universities measure whether the students have in fact learned or merely slept through the last two years of classes. There are in fact exams multiple times a year in each grade, but these are more like pre-tests to practice for the UNEB exams – along with being used by the school internally to monitor whether the student should advance to the next grade. These are never really important for the universities.

            There were two exams a day – one in the morning, the other the afternoon – over that three week period. Not all the students took each exam, but only those that they were taking classes for (following a national exam schedule which must include every class offered in the country, even those that my school doesn’t offer). Classes for S6 (senior six) ended three weeks before this day, in order to give them sufficient time to prepare. This meant that half the school – remember that my school has two grades, S5 and S6, so one grade is half the school – was closed for the better part of a month and a half.

            I won’t go into the details of the exam style here but suffice to say that most exams are a series of essays for which the students have 3 hours to complete. In math and physics, these are problems, and in subjects like history, they’re essays. They are graded by teachers around the country based on a points system. In a history essay about the French Revolution, for example, they may be expected to make certain points, each of which they receive a point for. These then determine their score. This system sometimes leads to more memorization-oriented learning where they are told to make certain points on a given topic. This contrasts with say the SAT writing style, which gives an unknown, sometimes more philosophical topic (I believe for me, the topic was something about beauty) on which the student can say whatever, and how the students say it– the writing style, organization, etc. matter. Or with AP tests – say history AP tests given that they are closes direct parallel to the history UNEB exam in the sense of a national exam to determine proficiency in the topic of history – where in the essay portion, they ask very similar questions about a historical event, but for which the emphasis is on making a good argument, not certain points. In math, I do not find much of a difference given that math problems by their very nature require a certain degree of analysis.

             

            The exams for S4 – to determine whether to students will go onto the second part of secondary and for those about to finish primary schooling – are each earlier, but as they weren’t at my school, I won’t talk about them here.

Anyone who looks at the calendar will quickly realize that UNEB is over. As a matter of fact, both the school is closed and the holiday has started (it’ll be a funny thing to call it Winter Break given that December through February is the dry season and the warmest time of year in Uganda). I wanted to keep people updated about what life was like here. I was going to write this blog before during the actual exams but was too busy.

The S6s have graduated from secondary, with the ceremony for my school on Nov 24^th. I’ll post pictures of it later. At the same time, the S5s became S6s, which here happens in the few weeks before vacation, not immediately upon coming back like in the U.S. Once their exam scores come back, S6s will apply for universities, which start in August. This gives graduates – or any university-bound graduates – an eight-month break. This is really a product of the transition of calendars. Ugandan universities put their largest holiday, like schools in the United States, between May and August; whereas, for primary and secondary schools, the major holiday is between November and February. When going between the two like for graduates of secondary going to university, five months or so sort of fall through the cracks. Otherwise, the S5s like any other grade in primary and secondary have gone home and will come back in February to complete the next grade. 

Food 2

In my first month or so, I posted about food here in Uganda. At the time I was living in Kampala, the capital city, and I realized that since my time in the rural areas, it could use a revision.

            All right, so this is my meal everyday

            Breakfast: Well technically I skip it as the breakfast, but at around 10:30ish, is tea. There we drink tea (shocking I know) and roasted g-nuts – i.e. peanuts. I usually eat a lot of g-nuts because they taste amazing, and this functions as our breakfast. Every once in a while we’ll also have escort – bread or some sort of bakery item that’s called escort because it’s supposed to help the tea down our throats. Although tea is not breakfast, this informally serves as my breakfast.

            Lunch: The lunch break starts at around 1:15. We eat posho, rice, and a bean sauce. Sometimes there are eggplants in the bean sauce. I explained what posho is in my last food blog, but here’s a quick summary. To make posho, you mix corn-flour mixed with water over a fire until it forms a solid mixture. It is white and largely flavorless, usually eaten with a sauce. It is extremely hardy. I mean this literally: a little bit of posho lands in your stomach like a rock. I’m saying this as someone who is almost never full, but it can fill you in a matter of seconds. When there are guests visiting the school, they’ll often cook chips (chopped up potatoes, not exactly in the shape of fries, less long and skinny more short and clumpy) and a beef sauce. This is partially to give the guests a treat, and I think also is a good way to increase the quantity of food: without adding the rice, posho, and bean sauce is not enough for both the teachers and the guests.

            Dinner: I eat dinner at home with my home-stay. We usually start around 9ish. I say this pretty loosely though: dinner’s often eaten anywhere from 8 to 10. Yes, Ugandans eat dinner later than most Americans and usually go straight to bed afterwards. There isn’t a strong emphasis on eating together. More or less, the food is left on the counter with a lid over it to keep it warm, and you come get some whenever you want. You also eat in the sitting room, just sitting on a couch or any other seat (living room) not at a table. Anyways, what we normally have is sweet potatoes (not the same as the sweet potatoes in the U.S., whiter and a different shape) and a sauce. The sauce is either a bean sauce – gotten from the school and the same as that in lunch – a g-nut sauce, or a beef sauce. The last two are my favorite, and we have them with decent frequency. Now I said above sweet potatoes with sauce, which is to some extent wrong. It’ll be more accurate to say some starch is served on which you put one of the sauces. Sweet potatoes are the most common, although there are other options: rice, Irish (i.e. regular) potatoes, cassava (a starch kind of like potatoes), etc. At the school, they always eat rice and beans for dinner.

            Then there are also pineapples. Compared to the ones here, the pineapples in the U.S. are not even worthy of the name. They’re imported from a far, and in order to make them last, they’re plucked before ripe and frozen. Here the pineapples are GOOD. They grow them here. Imagine so much juice that they explode as you bite them (not joking), and more flavor than like 3 pineapples combined in the U.S.  Also they’re dirt cheap. One can buy a pineapple that is twice as big as on the ones in the U.S., say from the hand to the elbow in length, for about 60 cents. And these are the expensive ones! Normal sized ones sell for 40 and 20 if you buy them directly from the farmers. I used to think of a pineapple as a treat to be eaten maybe once a twice a year because of their price in the U.S.

            All right so that summarizes the foods for now. The focus was on everyday food. Here the food we eat is pretty routine, eating the same basic foods every day. I also added that bit on pineapples, because the pineapples are awesome here.  I’ve been told by some “experts” that Ugandan pineapples – really central Ugandan as this is where they are grown the most – have been considered the best in the world, although I have no way to check this and am told this by clearly biased Ugandans. I have reason to doubt it though.

Picture Post Take 2

So a long time ago I said I’d make another blog with pictures. I know that other HNGR blogs have included more pictures, and that mine is lacking. I have been wanting to for a while, but slow internet speeds have prevented me. Hopefully, this will partially make up. I feel bad that I am forced to separate the pictures from the previous posts – i.e. some of these pictures are months old. I was just unable to post them. Anyways, enjoy!

The first three are from Dr Lovett’s faculty visit. One day we went to a nearby rhino sanctuary where several wild rhinos live. We were pretty close to the rhinos, within about 15 feet. This was until one of males told us to back up a little. The first gives a sense of proximity as I am in the picture, although it was taken before we got a little closer. I went a few feet in front of the tree.

In this last one, Dr. Lovett and I are with Kenneth – the administrator at the school and the person with whom I stay – to the left, and the physics/computers teacher to the right. Behind us is the school.

The next picture comes from Sheema in western Uganda. There I visited a friend’s home named Stephen – on the left. The older woman was his mother and the two children his siblings, and the one on the right his cousin at her mother’s home, the main hut for which is behind us. When looking at my appearances, it should be noted that he and I had just walked 4-5 miles to get to the house (from his home with his father’s family), and it had just stopped raining when we took it.

This next two are from a different part of Sheema. In the first we were talking to church, and in the second I was giving a talk at the church (Stephen was translating). It was hard to capture the hills of the area, but there were rather pretty. I will admit, at times I wish I was in such a hilly place. Where I am is too flat, and for the record, same with Chicago.

All right, so one day the senior fives (the equivalent to twelfth grade) decided to do a photo shoot. I managed to get myself in some of the pictures myself. The first one was of everyone (not the whole class but all those who showed up to the photo shoot, about half the class). Most of these students are the ones I teach math to. For the second one, I have no idea whether I looked good in the sunglasses, but I put them one to see whether it worked, and once I did, the students wouldn’t let me take them off. Also in the background of the second (on the right), one can see the house where I stay.

The next four are from AYLF (African Youth Leadership Forum) in Kampala, which met from the 6^th to 8^th of October in Kampala. In the first two I am with two other university students. The first is from the DRC (specifically UCBC, for those who know that school), and the second is a student in Burundi. The next two were taken from a series of skits we were supposed to perform one night featuring different Ugandan ethnic groups. The first is a dance of the Acholi in northern Uganda. My friend, a student at CLA where I teach, in the last person in the line. In the second, I am doing a Karomajong dance (from eastern Uganda). The dance effectively involved jumping up and down many times, from which I am in mid-air. I was the only male in the group willing to do it, so I wound up doing it.

The last one is of my birthday party on the 9^th of October – coincidentally also Uganda’s 50^th anniversary from Independence. This was taken in the sitting room (living room in U.S. English) of our house.

When I blew all the candles out in one breath (okay fine one and a half), everyone looked at me confused. Evidently, I was supposed to blow them out one at a time, so they relit the cake to have me do it again. This was harder to do than one might initially think: it’s hard to blow out one but not blow out others nearby.

The last two are the best photos of the school I've seen. One of the students borrowed the camera and took it, and he did a rather good job. The lighting was perfect.

Long Weekend

The following was the original opening paragraph to my blog:

"I wanted to write a blog about two weekends ago. Yes, I’m now just getting to a blog about events that are approaching two weeks ago, and yes I’ve been a little slow on the blogging."

At the time I wrote the blog around October 20th, two weeks after the events described. Now it's a full month until I have enough internet to post it. I find this somewhat interesting. 

            Starting on Saturday October 6^th, I went to the African Youth Leadership Forum (AYLF), a conference on youth leadership in East Africa, sponsored by Cornerstone, the organization that I am interning with. This was held in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, but included youth from all over East Africa: Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan, and even the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You guys may remember from a previous blog that I attended a similar AYLF conference in Nairobi in June. This is similar except a little closer to home. It featured several presentations about how to be a virtuous and effective leader, including talks by Rebecca Kadaga the current Speaker of the House in Uganda’s Parliament. The most memorable was given by Betty Bigombe who was the arbiter between the LRA and Ugandan government and has been important in the peace process in that war. It was also a place to meet new people. As I said, youth – by which I mean college-age – from many countries attended, and it was a nice way to meet peers in the area. Going to Kampala and seeing so many new faces was a nice break from life at the school, where I rarely travel more than a mile and get to meet new people. I also attended Uganda’s national prayer breakfast on Monday October 8^th.

            The 9^th, the following day, in addition to being my birthday, was Uganda’s 50^th anniversary of independence. This was a big deal, especially when I was in Kampala on the days before. There was a large ceremony in Kampala, inviting leaders from all over the world, for which I could see preparations the day before. At the school, we watched the events unfolding throughout most of the day. The fact that they turned on the TV is more significant when realized that the only other time they watch the TV is for soccer games (and only important ones at that) because the electricity is bad and reception as well. They also made a special lunch as part of the festivities. This was chicken and millet bread. The latter is a type of grain that is the main food in some parts of Uganda. I don’t know how to describe it, but the bread has the feel of bread dough (no it’s not raw despite my comparison to a raw dough), in that it is very together One rips it apart with your hands. At first I didn’t like it that much – the only Ugandan food that I didn’t – but I have grown to love it. It is a very common, everyday food in many parts of Uganda (including the West and I believe the North or at least parts of the North), but is not common here in Central Uganda, making it rare. This makes it a real treat, especially for students that come from areas where they eat it daily. Anyways, this is also the first time chicken has been served here at least in quite a while in as long as I can be here (occasionally beef is served, but chicken is exceedingly rare). It’s a nice contrast between the rice, beans, and posho that we eat everyday here.

            That day was also my birthday, which meant that multiple people kept dumping water on me – commonly done on birthdays here. That night, we had a small party at my house, which involved what may have been the best cake I ever had (I’m not exaggerating). I wish I could describe it in more detail, but I have no idea what it was made out of. I have been trying to convince its cook to give me its recipe, but I think its ingredients are a secret. I could tell was that it was part-chocolate and part some sort of red fruit that I’ve never had before. It was also like ten times as rich and dense as normal cakes. Cakes normally have air holes in them, but this one seemed to be solid cake, making it extraordinarily filling.

They did in fact light candles and put them on a cake, which I am unsure how Ugandan that is – I believe my homestay asked an American how people did birthday parties in the U.S. as he hinted at that later. Two interesting differences were that we had the cake before we ate. The idea of desert being after dinner – or eating anything after dinner for that matter – is not done here, partially I think because Ugandans eat dinner very late and usually right before bed not in the evenings. They were also surprised when I intentionally blew out all the candles at once. We did it again, and this time I was supposed t blow out each candle one at a time. I found this to be surprisingly difficult. When I’d blow out one candle, I would often blow out the one next to or behind it as well by accident. It was hard to only one. We then ate dinner which included chapattis and beef – both rare delicacies here, particularly the first one as this is only the second time I’ve eaten chapattis for dinner here on the Ranch.

After this, we socialized and played cards. This was because we didn’t have any music – all Ugandan parties involve playing music as loud as possible and dancing. Here a party without music/dancing is like a party without people – it just isn’t actually a party. I played music initially from my computer and danced for a few minutes, but because there’s no power at the house, so once my computer died, which it did pretty quickly trying to blast music, we had nothing else to play music from. We then wound up playing cards instead.

Overall it was a nice, long weekend, packed with a lot of stuff. I have pictures, and I’ll put them up in a picture blog that I have already written. I just need to get enough internet connection to post it.

As a random side, I am writing this on October 18^th, and on yesterday I officially have two months left in Uganda, until I leave on December 17^th! Time has really flown.  

Hospitality

In this blog post, I’ll describe what happens when you go to someone’s house here in Central Uganda. (Being Central Uganda as opposed to another region is important as the customs are different in different places.) I’m doing this because hospitality is very important for the culture here.

            When you go to someone’s house, they’re obligated to give you food – usually a meal if you arrive at mealtime or a meal-like equivalent. One difference I noted between U.S. culture and Ugandan culture is that in the U.S. spending time with guests is more important than feeding them. Here it is normal to just let the guest sit there for 30 minutes or so by himself or herself while one makes the food; whereas in the U.S. leaving the guest alone would signify that they are not wanted to be there. Some of the first times I’ve been at someone’s house, I interpreted to being left alone as a sign that I should leave and tried to find a polite way to excuse myself, but this often confused and offended my hosts who were shocked that I would leave without taking food. It is improper to show the guest the food or kitchen (or area in which the cooking occurs), which is often either in a different hut than the living area or divided by a curtain. This prevents any social interaction while cooking, because while cooking, one is hidden.

            Anyways often when you’re at the house, you are taken to the sitting room/area (living room). You are always given a good seat. While one waits, usually the head male of the house will keep you company and talk to you while you wait. This is complicated by the fact that for many families here, the husband lives far away to work. Surprisingly often I visit houses in which there are no adult men there and only maybe a little boy. This means that this is often replaced by an equivalent head female (either a mother or eldest sibling). In some cases with me, the person who does this is really the one who knows English, particularly when the parents don’t but the teenagers do. I sometimes refer to this person as the company, because this person’s job seems to be to keep the guest company. Sometimes as described above, there is no such person or the work of cooking gets too much and that person is demanded part way through – the last one being one of the stories I described above – but these seem to be adaptions of the ideal.

            When the food is ready, this person eats with me as well, but often no one else in the family does. From what I can figure out, they will eat either later or in secret, in a different hut/room or behind a curtain. (Okay so keep in mind that when people are living in huts, each hut is usually one room, but a family often has multiple huts or at least two, one for the kitchen and the other for living. In some cases changing huts would be like the U.S. equivalent to rooms in our one-building homes. Huts and one-roomed houses are also usually divided with curtains, say between the sitting room and the beds.) People here consider the idea of having guests eat with the family (and even the idea of the family eating at together at the same time) strange. When I have been at people’s houses more often and seen them relax their formalities a little more, I’ve been around the children when they eat, but then usually it’s somewhat hushed.

Often the cook will present the food kneeling and then will sit on the ground with her (and less the cook has always been female) legs tucked under her kneels while you eat. In some cases, she was eating as well, and sometimes she isn’t. At first I thought the cook was kneeling because all the seats were taken – it’s not uncommon for there to be only two or three chairs, which are then taken by me, the company, and any other guests. The cook still usually opts to kneel on the ground, though, even when there’s an available seat. This is because kneeling in that situation is considered respectful. It is also similar to the fact that women and children will often greet men (especially men older than themselves) by kneeling. (This is the formal greeting at least and isn’t practiced in every case, but that’s a different topic). From what I can figure out, for example, wives rarely eat on equal footing with their husbands. At the same time though, I’ve never seen women in their 40s or 50s kneeling while they eat, partially I think because their knees won’t allow it. Often the husband is not around – in homes I visit remember the husband works and lives far away. In one case, I’ve visited a middle-aged woman with her husband frequently, in which case I notice that she is usually not around while the husband eats, but when then come and sit with him after he eats or as he finishes. But even she (or one of the daughters) will kneel while giving him his food, even if briefly. There is something unique about food and eating that requires women to kneel in front of men, even if not always followed at other times.

When I visit a house, I usually also bring some food myself, usually something snack-like or something quick to cook. If a woman does eat food both in my presence and not kneeling, it is most likely to be the food I bring. I have noticed with homes that I’ve visited more often, that the first few times I bring food, they don’t eat it in my presence and give me the first dibs, telling me to eat as much as I want, and then dividing the rest up evenly with the whole family, although they try to hide this second part from me. After visiting more times, they will eventually divide the food evenly among the whole family (with myself being another person in the distribution) and eat it in my presence.

All right, so I’ll sort of conclude by noting a few things. One I’m describing primarily formal hospitality, with a little brief descriptions of informal like in this last paragraph. The rules are clearly more lax for the latter. Second, even though I haven’t had the depth or details of experience in other parts of Uganda, I can tell that these hospitality practices are unique to rural central Uganda. Other regions of Uganda and even urban central Uganda are different (although not without their strands of similarities). Now many of the people I visit are Banyarwanda (Rwandan migrants, usually either from the 60s or mid-90s), who have different practices then the Baganda (the main ethnic group in the area). I am still trying to figure out to what extent the hospitality customs is based on practices in the area or practices taken from Rwanda. For example, I have noticed a slight more relaxed attitude towards women kneeling while eating among the Banyarwandans, although usually not the first time one visits a house.

Last one significant difference I’ve noticed between the hospitality here than in the U.S. is that U.S. hospitality is designed to integrate; whereas, Ugandan is designed to elevate. One can see this is the difference between eating with the family in the U.S. – a way of making the guest a part of the family – and the custom of making sure the guest eats separate and first – a way to honor the guest by elevating. This is reflective of an overall difference in culture that would take me well beyond the scope of this blog post to explain, but suffice to say that for now that this relates to the fact that Ugandan culture is far more hierarchy-orientated. Also, in the U.S. respect is usually expressed through integrating or becoming equal with the person; whereas, here respect is given by honoring or elevating. It took me a while to get used to this, and until then I never really understood their hospitality. 

Children of God

A man was giving a talk, and he had a very interesting point that I decided to share in a blog post. He read the following three Scripture passages, and he said that these are the only three passages in all four Gospels where Jesus gives the criteria for how to be a son or daughter of God and gives a description for what such a thing would look like. Read them below:

           

Matthew 5:9 – “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Matthew 5:44-45 – “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Luke 6:35 – “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”

You can probably see a common thread between them. In all of them, the description of how to be a child of God is primarily based on how one relates to those we don’t like. In the last two this is most explicit: we are expected to love our enemies and even pray for those who wrong us. In Matthew 5:9, Jesus elevates those who build peace, which, if one thinks about it, also involves coming together with one’s enemies. This love is not just to those who are different, but specifically for those one is in conflict with.

When I’ve read these verses before, I already noticed this call to love our enemies, but the interesting insight presented to me that I felt like sharing is that such a love is the way in which Jesus described sons and daughters of God. The man who was talking said that these were the only instances in which Jesus described what the children of God would look like, and in each the main feature is how one relates to those with whom one is in conflict.

The Luke verse does mention another theme, lending, which I doubt is completely unrelated to conflict. At least some readings I was doing seem to indicate that because in Palestinian society at the time there was a big gulf between the rich and the poor with the latter indebted pretty seriously to the former,  lending is not completely separate from conflict. Also, Jesus in the Luke verse also introduces a reward, unlike the other two, which may correspond more directly with the lending. I.e. proper lending conduct may have caused a great reward primarily, and the loving one’s enemies may relate more with being a child of God. This would make sense of the obvious parallels between the second and third verse, which could suggest that they are different accounts of the same statement. If they are from the say statement, Matthew 5:44-45 removes both lending and a reward, and only includes loving enemies and being a child of God, signaling that the four ideas may be paired into these two pairs.  

Growing up my father often pointed out the elevation of the peacemakers in the Beatitudes: they are the only ones given the title son or daughter of God, which is a significant jump to the others (not to say the others are significant themselves, but to be the very child of God is a more powerful thing). As a matter of fact, peacemakers are the only ones (in Matthew’s version at least) who become something or are given a title. All others receive something in return (comfort, fulfillment, the kingdom of heaven, seeing God, etc.).

The new insight that he presented was that these are the only times when Jesus describes what a child of God would look like. I have no reason to doubt this, unless someone comes up with another verse where Jesus describes a child of God (if one finds one, be sure to reply in the comments as I would be rather interested). How one treats those one doesn’t like then is of supreme importance in determining whether one is of God or not. This reminds me of the famous hymn with the title and line: “And they will know that we are Christians by our love.” 

Can't Afford

            I know I haven’t really written any HNGRish blogs that have been on “tough” topics like poverty, justice, etc. There have been reasons for that, of which I won’t go into the details now. I decided to break that slightly in this blog to discuss something that has been frustrating me.

            The major way that I have seen “poorness” has not really been through seeing people who have been traumatized or starving or anything like that – which contrasts with other HNGR interns who are engaging with them directly. My primary experience of this sort of thing has been people unable to purchase what are for me relatively cheap things. It’s not uncommon for a $2 purchase – say for transport, food at a restaurant, etc. – to be simply out of my friends’ price range, too expensive for them to afford except infrequently. I have seen similar things for even more elaborate expenses that may cost somewhere around $8-$10. Now my friends don’t present this as a crisis or horrendous but as simply normal life. Nor is this what I am told by people who I later find out are trying to hit me up for money.

I know the cost of living is cheaper here, but this still seems to me to be a little excessive. The people I am talking about are not desperately dying or clearly living “in poverty.” They look healthy, seem to have good lives, etc. These are the everyday people and my friends. What do you do with this? Usually when I see people who can’t afford what I consider cheap purchases, I don’t know what to do.