value(pictures) > value(words) RIGHT?

Hey everyone,

First please be advised that my pushing back of my arrival date does not mean I don't want to come home -- quite the contrary. This is officially my last night in Africa, although being at a backpackers with free internet is blowing my mind and really doesn't feel like Africa anyway. We (Kendra and I) are currently in Jo-burg, South Africa and there is no need to worry for our safety in a notoriously crimey city because we've taken every precaution and we are staying in our hostel until the shuttle takes us to the airport tomorrow, and the plane will take us on to Thailand! (by way of Abu Dhabi, UAE)

Anyway, not much time now, here are a few pictures from our last leg in Africa. Thank you to Kendra for being a good photographer (I never takes pictures unless I see a cool bug or a cool cloud):
* The sun sets beautifully off of Chizumulu Island, Malawi. (we got "stuck" there for longer than we expected--hard not to really)
* We spent two nights at the luxurious Nkwichi lodge on the Mozambique side of the Lake Malawi (a.k.a. Niassa). It was expensive for the delicious food, but worth it to pamper ourselves.
* Another picture of the white sand at Nkwichi, which means "It squeaks" in the local language, because that's exactly what the sand does when you walk across it.
* The coolest most disturbingly majestic trees I've ever seen, Baobabs are everywhere. The reason is that their wood is porous so bad for firewood and making things so local peoples haven't chopped them down yet. (Fun cartoon trivia for 10 pts: which movie trapped the villain in a baobab?)
* Me and Kendra enjoying yet another beach.
* A picture of me sneaking around the corner of the fort on Ilha de Mozambique. There was a gorgeous church on the point that you had to climb a bit to get to.
* A cool picture of Tofo/Tofinho in Mozambique. This is where we planned to surf and dive. Unfortunately I got sick so all I could do was a silly Ocean Safari where I went snorkeling with 20 foot Whale Sharks (the biggest fish in the world) and manta rays? I know, big deal right?

Loves and misses you all, will be home before too long.

A few pictures to tide you over

God Pose on the top of Mount Hanang, Tanzania's 4th highest peak. It was a lot of fun to visit Tara in her village, pick up a few words in Swahili and also have her accompany us on our ascent.

A wide angle view of beautiful snorkeling off of Pemba, Zanzibar Archipelago's northern island.

Nungwi beach on "Zanzibar" island. A little touristy, but an amazing place to relax and spend a few days being a beach bum.

Happily wiling away the hours on the beach with $5 of collective sunglassware.


Tropical sunset from Pemba.

Also check out, Kendra's Blog (link is fixed now, ha ha). She's better at writing stuff than me.

> Farwell Jones >> Farwell Kayonza

I don't have a lot of time to write now (I'm hoping to write some new posts on the long bus rides we're expecting on our way South), so here's just a few pictures to tide you over until then.

In the last week before leaving my site I had two major parties. One was a bit more formal and put together by the teachers, PTA, and SMC (School Management Committee). With a number of speeches, some music, and a feast afterwards I felt very filled up by all of the wonderful thanks that I had received.

Official Farwell Party

This looks like the more serious section of my speech which Yeko was nice enough to help me translate.


Arthur (my official counterpart), myself, and student-teacher Everlyne looking smart.


This is me being congratulated by Madame Nampa (the new "principal" at my school). As a going away gift they had bought me a very nice suit and were overjoyed to see me "put on" and looking so smart. As you may notice from mine and a few other suits, Ugandans tend to prefer oversized suits, don't worry that I've gotten smaller over here.

On my very last night in Kayonza I decided to make a smaller, informal party featuring Hamburgers and a big gift exchange. Both were thoroughly enjoyed by myself and Ugandans. It turned out to be an excellent way to distribute the miscellanea of my taken-apart household and also send one last big thank you to a community that has welcomed and "kept" me so well over these last two years.

Informal Going Away/Hamburger/Give Away Everything in Ryan's House Party

Here (right to left) Maama¹ Gobi, Maama Joann, Betty, and Annet bite down and enjoy the all-american, hand-held icon of deliciousness that is the hamburger (or as is often echoed "hamburg"). I was really glad I could cook for these ladies, because the two on the right served me quick, cheap, and delicious meals on about every other day at the local restaurant in town. Betty was a similarly amazing (although somewhat procrastinative) tailor who helped me make my two Halloween costumes as well as adjustments and what what.


Wasswa showing off his haul of jerry cans, cups, and bath towel. Afterwards, Yeko and Wasswa said that they enjoyed the idea of a gift exchange so much that they would try to do it again at the end of the year party.


All the smiling children's faces who I'll miss seeing every day.













Hope you are all well and looking forward to seeing you soon. I'll be off on my travelling adventure soon, and with luck will keep you all updated.

Stay Well,
Jones (or Ryan, but sadly no longer Migadde)

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1 - An interesting albeit difficult-to-understand-by-Americans custom is that mothers are very often called by their children's names with the prefix of Maama. To translate, you would see my mom on the street and try to get here attention with "Oh, Momma Ryan! Momma Ryan!" Wasswa has even told me a story where he called a parent by her name and she said he had bad manners. When he asked what she would like to be called she responded with "Maama Rechel." People are proud of parenthood, and it's quite the truth that I don't know these ladies' real names. I find that sad, but I don't think they do.

PICTURES!!! - Computer Lab - Woot!

Below are some long awaited pictures of the computer lab in place and being used:

Madame Quilina (pr. "Kee-lee-nah") reviews parts of a computer with P1 (Kindergarten) students.

This is ideally what a computer lesson looks like.

But it more often than not it looks like this.













(For any teachers out there, we have a number of pretty big classes - how would you like ~150 3rd graders?)

Or this.














(Painted walls = fun physicalish work for me, I also painted the shutters and Mr. Onyango complimented me, saying, "Jones, did you train for that work?" I guess it's just in my blood, right Grandpa Dick?)

Yeko, teaching some P7s (6th graders) where to put your hands for touch typing. (We hope to have a competition with prizes for the fastest, most-accurate typer in the near future.)

Madame Negesa helps a student who's learning to use the mouse.

This isn't really related to the computer lab at all, it was just unbearably cute to pass the store room and see this kid curled up, deep asleep, in a wheel barrow.








So, as you may be able to see, things are going pretty well. Classes are coming in regularly to use the computers to practice math and other subjects. I'm working to make sure the computers have lots of content for teaching, are working, and are locked down (which is more important than it sounds).

Plans are in the works to have a Computer Lab Opening Day sometime soonish. It should be quite the celebration with the hopeful guest of a Member of Parliament (Congress-person), a band, a choir, and presentations by all the classes. I'm planning to record as much of it as possible to share back at home.

That's all for now, Peace.

Random Pictures & Busy with Projects

It's been a while. To reward all you diligent checkers of my blog, here's some pictures (there's some cool bugs too):

Introduction Ceremony

I managed to invite myself to an introduction ceremony¹, which was pretty cool, although mostly what I'd expected from other volunteers' descriptions.

• The spoils of having a daughter (and these are just the stocking stuffers):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Wasswa² (left, spitting out chicken bone --flattering, no?) and me feasting with nature's fork:
  
  

Visiting Joe and Bird "Watching"³



• left to right: Rustum (finished and soon to be heading back to grad school is physics, there's more nerds out here than you think), Joe (crossword guru who just put up a basketball hoop at his site in the middle of nowhere, and general cool guy), Jenna (behind, short-term volunteer, who may have mentioned that Peace Corps Costa Rica is way better), Rishi with the "isn't that the rare ___?" look (the bird "watching" organizer and source/go-to-man for many fun events -- check out his blog), and a Ugandan man nice enough to put up with us and paddle us around the lake.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Rustum and I chilling on the very top of a big rock outcrop that we camped on.
  
  

Bugs

Dedicated to Amy G. & Tara (now in PC Madagascar!), ladies of biology.
These first two beetles were about the size of a chapstick tube and each one managed to make enough noise in my room to wake me up. You could hear the jaws of the second one clack, it could probably take a finger off. This spider could win a staring contest with two people.

What I'm doin'...

I've finally gotten busy and feel like I have enough (not yet too much) work to do. I know, it took a year?! What have I been up to this whole time? Well let's just say I was doing good things at times, but now I'm doing good things that 1) I care about and motivate me and 2) others care about and motivate them:

1. Co-teaching P7 (6th grade) math at my school. This can be both a lot of fun (like starting a group clap for an impromptu music lesson) and frustrating (to mark pupil's work who have trouble adding when they're supposed to know some algebra). Because of the latter aspect I've mostly become the "remedial" math teacher, going over topics that they should know already. This last week we covered the multiplication table, with an emphasis on having it memorized⁴ and receiving a sweetie (candy) for reward.
   
2. Teaching the "Computa" to Teachers at my school. With a "theory" lesson every week on word processing and spreadsheet programs⁵, a recent typing test, and continuing practice sessions 3X per day on my laptop, the teachers at my school are slowly becoming a bit more conversant with the digital world. It's heartening. It's also painfully slow, but teaching anyone to use the computer from scratch when you've been using one since 3rd grade could cause a little frustration.
   
3. Starting a Village Savings and Loan group among my teachers. This is a cool program created by a group called VSL Associates which allows people to create their own savings group with minimal materials (basically a metal box with three locks). To illustrate why this is valuable it takes me about $7 and a whole day to get to a bank where I can withdraw money. So, my teachers can get together every few weeks, put money in a box, then after a couple meetings start giving loans to themselves (and thus sharing the interest at the end rather than losing it to a bank). That all makes it sound easy-as-pie and informal, but there's quite a bit of detail including writing a Constitution and stuff. We've done two of the nine 2-hour sessions and it seems like it's going well. If this works out I might try to start some more outside my school⁵
   
4. (Computer Lab). Made a budget for this, but it's on the backburner until VSLA is mostly done. + other little projects.
   

Well, that's all I have time/energy to write today. Know that I miss you all.

Loves,

Ryan

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Footnotes

1 An Introduction Ceremony is an important aspect of marriage here, it's more important than the actual wedding. The idea of it is that the family of the bride and the family of the groom get together and have a big conversation about these two people getting married and then the groom's family brings a whole bunch of presents on top of which they give the dowry, which is usually something like a few cows and can be refused by the bride's family. I've been told that "Here in Uganda it's the man that marries, and the woman that is married." Hmmm.

2 Wasswa is the teacher that I'm co-teaching P7 math with. He usually dresses very "smart" and will often be wearing a tie just for fun. He's also one of the teachers I'm giving extra computer training to, so that they can run the computer lab (whenever that gets moving).

3 "Looking for" may have been more appropriate because we were canoeing on this lake to find the elusive (and frankly quite ugly) shoebill. However, few birds were seen, but much fun was had.

4 One thing I've discovered here in Uganda is that my memory sucks. It's probably partly the Emerson aspect that if a man gets a watch he loses the ability to tell time by the sun--so I've lived in America where reminders abound and have lost the ability to remember :). The value of memorizing important or often-used things has also come up quite a bit. Memorizing names, or memorizing basic concepts saves so much time in the end. Memorization is also a big part of the VSL&A system which makes it transparent. Then again, memorization can be overdone at the expense of understanding, and sometimes there's just too much crap to remember--I still suck at crosswords and may never know who "Poet St. Vincent Millay" is.

5 I didn't say "Word" and "Excel", because we're running Ubuntu-Linux here. None of that Microsoft junk, only Abiword and Gnumeric, and Open Office, yo. Actually, beyond that nerdly fervor, I would suggest that people check out Open Office. It works on pretty much all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, etc.), is free, and does pretty much everything that Microsoft Office does, and probably more.

6 VSL&A is designed for the poorest of people, many of whom may be illiterate. Although my teachers should benefit from it, they are better off than many of the completely subsistence farmers in the area. That's one thing that's a bit sad about doing work here: you can see a lot of people that need help, but it's also very difficult for you to go out and help them if you feel so much like an outsider. This is the main reason why pretty much all my work has been at my school. I feel like I belong here and am accepted and don't have to worry about being called "muzungu" or constantly asked inane questions about Barack Obama or whatever. I've also travelled to some places that could really use a Peace Corps volunteer (or just some dedicated teachers), but they're so "deep" that no one wants to live there--no electricity, small dirt road impassable most of the year, and practically no goods available. Then again, I know some volunteers in "deep" places like that, who are struggling to find ways they can help. < /random_musings_on_development>

Still Alive & Taking Pictures

Hey all, just a quick post here to assure you all that I'm alive and well despite the relative silence on the blog.

Letters Received

• Lizzy: Turns out that my friend who I used to share a P.O. Box accidentally lost this amid some papers so this I just got this letter from September.


• Tara: From Madagascar - Rock on fellow PCV!

Now that the term is out until next month I should have some extra time to write back to those above, and those who wrote before.

Beyond that, below are some lovely (altho sadly a bit pixellated) images from a nice corner of Uganda.

Pictures: Bugs, Brakes, and Ball (Football, a.k.a. soccer)

WARNING: There are large pictures of insects below - the squimish take note.

BUGS

* Here’s a cool red moth I found.

* So this one’s a bit gross, but it instills an intense feeling of pride in me like a hunting trophy. Last night there was no power, so it was by the dim orange glow of a single candle that I noticed a significant dark spot on the wall near one of the more familiar holes. Upon closer inspection I noticed that it was one of the larger cockroaches I’ve seen here. So, I diligently went to the other room to select my weapon of choice – a broom (which is really more like a bundle of straw, almost no brooms have the long handle, so when you sweep you actually have to bend almost all the way to the ground – as Lizzy let me know in India they also have short brooms, but they squat down to sweep).
Returning to my quarry, I leapt into the air and hurtled with deadly accuracy a blow to destroy any foe. In the chaotic aftermath I saw the shadow whiz into the darkness by the door. Thinking I must have dealt a mortal wound, but not satisfied to have the creature still lurking, I picked up my candle and carefully searched in cracks and within the towel hanging from the door. It’s amazing how difficult it is to shed light on something with a candle. The brightness of the candle blinds you in the dim light it sheds. Anyway, I couldn’t find the bastard.
But, that didn’t stop him from finding me with a daring fly-in-attack to my shoulder. A “Gad!” and a lightning brush reflex sent him spiraling over near my bed. Now it was serious. Time to pull out the big guns. I got out my lantern (can’t hit what you can’t see), and the ultimate weapon - a flip flop of raging doom. Thusly armed to the teeth, I set out with a red hunting diode (the small light on my watch – my flashlight has gone missing). Bathed in a blood red glow, my quarry cowered behind my bedframe, and scurried away after another blow – yes, direct hit number two and it kept going. For some reason the pictures I took don’t seem to do it justice. Maybe it’s because of the sound it made when walking, like a crab, loud clicking and scratching.
Jumping out of the way of the charging insect, I then chased it out from under my bookcase and dealt another blow flipping over and immobilizing the then powerless invertebrate. Finally after taking some trophy shots, I dealt a final smack and called it a night, battle-weary.


BRAKES

These are for Biff Dad so he can send me stuff (others take note : ). Here's two pictures of my brake pads:

* I think I was wrong that they're Shimano, but I’m pretty sure it’s a common type (as that’s what the ones on my bike in Seattle look like). Here’s what should be on the post of the brake pad: a bullet shaped top nut, a washer, and then 4 thick washers (two with bowl depressions and two that fit into these).

*My electric plug to help you find the correct one for a battery charger.

* P.S. A headlamp would be really nice too ; ).

BALL (football)

These are three good action shots from a sports day at Kayonza (hope you like them Larry Dad and Uncle Ken). It turned out that I was signed up to play as well. Didn't do that well, but had fun. As a side note, there was a deaf teacher from the visiting school that spent most of the day teaching me sign language, which was awesome! Sign language is so much easier to learn than spoken - it's so visual and "words" make sense.

A few Pictures

Captions:











* This one's for Arya - and everybody else out there that like Apocalypse. This is the most post-apocalyptic motorcycle I've ever seen in reality, enjoy.

* This is my room - The main sitting room that I'm currently sleeping in because it is the only one that has an electric light (I know! ELECTRICITY!). Supposedly an electrician will come to put in a security light out in the back and fix the light in the bedroom. The bed is mine, but the rest of the furniture is on loan from my counterpart, John

* This is my ride - I bartered for it in Kampala, had it strapped to the back of a mini-bus to get it home and am currently fiddling wit the back gears and the chain length. Next big project is mudguards.

* This is my faucet - I get water from the borehole, which is a big metal pump that's not too far away. Shoulders are going to be awesome when I come back from carrying these jerry cans across the soccer field. BTW: That bucket looks all dirty because I'm still washing my walls (haven't got to the one behind these yet), and a lot of the water-based paint comes off when I do it. Another BTW: Anybody have some creative ideas for what I can put on my walls, I'm thinking of painting in installments and doing cool things like quotes and stuff and maybe some drawings (and definitely pictures that I get sent from home!).

Even More Pictures & a little update

I finally have a decently fast connection (~DSL), so I'm taking this opportunity to upload some pictures - still surprised that most computers here don't have Cd burners though. Pictures of my new abode soon to come, although it still needs a $h!t-ton of work.

Captions
(note: HSTY = Home Stay Thank You)
* Another real old picture of the inside of my homestay family's house.
* An older picture that I'm just getting up of a cool cactus thing at Nakaseke College.
* A picture of just about everybody reading a magazine from America on mail-day. A recentish (i.e. less than a month old) is like gold here.
* Me and my homestay parents in our finest at the HSTY
* (from left to right) Megan, Natalie, Cecily, Olivia, and Andrew (trainer) cutting some traditional rug at the HSTY.
* Rick & Rishi with an awesome Uganda-American medley (it was like 10 minutes long) and one of the highlights of the HSTY
* (from left to right) Aggie (trainer), TJ, Amy, Kinsey, Megan, and Katherine doing a dance at the HSTY
* Me giving my speech in Luganda at the HSTY

Hey all,
Things are going pretty well. Yesterday was my first full day at my new home in Kayonza and it went well. My major success was being able to boil some water so I'm on my way to being able to live there. I don't quite have a bed yet, so I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor (but I'm pretty used to that kind of thing). I spent nearly the whole day yesterday cleaning the walls of what will soon be my bedroom, they were amazingly filthy and I figured they should be cleaned before painted so the paint sticks better.

I was also very lucky to have a ride from Kampala and the Swearing In Ceremony to my site in my supervisor's truck. It would have been pretty much impossible to take all of my things by public transport (they gave us a lot of books and other bulky things; lantern, bucket; during training) and I have one of the lighter luggage loads among the PCV's.

Today I'm in Kampala mostly to buy a mountain bike - Anybody have any tips for maintainance? I'm thinking that I'll want to find a cheap and decent substitute for chain oil (i.e. cooking oil?) and I'm not sure about patch kits and things, maybe I can find some. I'm also going to buy a little electric stove because the electricity has been pretty decent lately and it would be a lot easier than using my kerosene stove. I also have a plan for getting rid of the massive amounts of bats in my roof - mothballs, who would've thought.

Well, this is kind of boring and I need to go get things done, so I'll leave it here. Peace out from the Peace Corps.

-Ryan