A Normal Day

I find it ironic that I write about a “normal” day at my school, though I haven’t had such a day for about a week and a half. This is because this last week has been exams week. (I am writing this on Saturday July 21.) It’ll be the same with next week, and then the school closes in August. What that means is that I haven’t really been doing any actual work for the last few weeks and won’t until September. Great time to catch up with my HNGR assignments! Well sort of, that would be easier to do if all the teachers weren’t a little bored/restless and constantly socializing. Anyways, the following is a normal day. I wake up around 7-8, which is late for most here. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I often go to the school’s Fellowship (i.e. chapel) if I am up on time. Afterwards, when I don’t hav to teach immediately afterwards, I usually hang in the staff room with the other teachers who aren’t teaching, doing a mix of reading and socializing. Most days I’d end up teaching one or two two-hour classes. They are slowly increasing the number of classes I am teaching, which took a little halt because of the exams. In the afternoons, I often receive a Luganda lesson (the local language) by one of the maids here. She wants to learn English better, and I think she uses the lessons to learn more English as well. At around 4, I go to my ethnography (usually on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays). The ethnography’s a HNGR assignment and involves observing a cultural space. I am doing it at a local grocery shop. There I help the other worker sell stuff, a daunting task when it’s realized that most customers and I don’t speak the same language or at least are not used to my accent. It’s a good place to practice my Luganda, although that’s a more interesting feature in of itself. As I get better in Luganda, they speak it more, and let’s just say I get completely lost. I usually leave around 6ish. I go back to my homestay and chill. This usually involves a mix of reading and socializing as people are usually in and out the whole night. Sometimes visitors read sometimes they socialize. Of late the former is more common because my host-brother (what I am calling the person I am staying with because he’s single and has no family) has some newspapers, which attracts teachers. I usually eat dinner around 9ish, the common mealtime here, and often as late as 10. Around 10 to 11ish I go to bed.