Another Week in Pabo

July 11th 2008

Officially Half-way Through! I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Last weekend I was really ready to go home, mostly because I had been sick for about 3 days. I’m still not really sure how I got sick, or what made me sick, but I do know that something made its way into my intestine and it decided to set up camp. So I took some Cipro, which basically gets rid of any bacteria in your body, good or bad. That made me pretty weak for about 2.5 days, and I really would like to never go through that again. (Probably the worst sickness ever...except for that time I was sick and alone in Edinburg).
On Monday I was not very excited to be in Pabo, especially since I couldn’t do anything fun or eat any good food while I was in Gulu the previous weekend. But as the days went on, and the week came to a close I realized that I had a really nice week. I even found myself enjoying Pabo at different times. Lets take a look back at some of the highlights:

Scrabble- I am getting really good at playing scrabble. Things here are a little different when it comes to work. The students just stay in one room basically all day, and the teachers come in and out. When the teachers are not actually teaching they just kind of hang out and do whatever they want. One of their favorite things to do is play this Crosswords game, which is basically Scrabble. They love it so so much. In fact, Danielle, Matt, Vasco, and I played two games in a row. The American teachers then had enough of Scrabble, so we quit, and I think that Vasco then played another 4 games with other Ugandan teachers. They play sooo much scrabble. But today I guess it was a little different because we were waiting for this afternoon party to start, but it took forever for the event to start. So all of the teachers were playing different games to keep themselves occupied until the party started.
We were actually picked up by an IC vehicle at 3:30pm, so we left because the event was suppose to start at 1pm, but it hadn’t even started, so we just left.

Question of the Night- In an effort to get to know one another better, each night that we are out in Pabo, we each have to think of a question that we all answer. Some questions are intense…”if you couldn’t be a teacher, what would you be?” and “ But then there are others which are pretty tame, “How many cars have you driven in your life?”. Although I do like the rule that what happens in Pabo, stays in Pabo.

Major Rain storm- On Thursday, just as lunch was starting, this huge rain storm came through, and lasted for about two hours. It rained harder than I have ever seen it rain in Gulu (although technically we weren’t in Gulu). All of the teachers at Pabo S.S. stayed inside the teacher room and we just listened to the radio and hung out. The best part was that it was very equivalent to a colder summer rain in PA. One of those rainstorms where you just cuddle up on the couch and watch your favorite movie. Unfortunately there was no couch, and no tv, and no favorite movie for me to watch. The rainstorm did make me think of all of the great times when I’ve sat in the Guard Room at Gretna Glen while it rained hard. The weather did not actually seem very cold to me, but all of the Ugandan teachers were pretty chilly. It was funny to watch them cuddle up with random scarfs and other cloths or jackets, while the three American teachers were just fine with the temperature.

Random Rodents and other creatures- There are tons of lizards at Pabo. And that is actually something that I could do without. They love to hang out in the darkness of the latrines. It then makes it real fun to open up the latrine door, and watch some sort of lizard scurry up the wall and out the back window. But as much as I don’t like the lizards, I could really do without the rats. Well, I guess it could be worse. They are really not that bad, it was just this one time when Matt left our food on the table in the dark, and when Danielle and I returned to the table there was a big old fat rat sitting on the table eating our snacks. So we of course threw the food out….no Hepatitis A for me!

We are back in Gulu for the weekend, and after a few BBQ’s, we will then return back to Pabo for the week. We are heading out to this place called Ft. Patiko, which is apparently where this guy Sir Sameul Baker stopped the Ugandan slave trade. IT should be pretty cool. Then tomorrow we are having a big American BBQ with our teachers. I can't wait for real American food. The trip has been good so far, and I’m excited for it to get even better!