Celine Dion, Country Ballads, and Spiderman

The past few days of school have been nice, as I’ve done a lot of observing and a little teaching. It’s kind of boring to sit for 80 minutes and watch my partner teacher Odongo Vasco Bath lecture on speed and velocity. One day I had to keep standing up in the back of the room to stay awake. I honestly don’t know how the students stay awake the whole time. I think part of it is that in America we are so use to being engaged in some way, whether it’s on a computer, watching flashy tv shows, or just living real busy lives. Vasco teaches really different from Komakech in some really great ways. He is pretty encouraging to students, and even jokes around with them at times. I’m amazed at his attitude towards the students actually because he is probably over 50 years old, and often in Uganda the older the teacher, the more rigid and strict they are. In fact, he even rebuked a class for making fun of a student who tried a problem on the board and got it wrong. He did it in a great way by explaining that the student was courageous for trying, and should not be ridiculed for his courage.
One of my favorite moments so far with Vasco was when he asked me about Spiderman. We were talking about pictures that students had drawn on their notebooks. He knew that Spiderman was tied to the US, but he seemed to be unsure if he was a real man. And he also didn’t understand why he was a spider. It was interesting trying to explain that he is a character who was bit by a radioactive spider. I’m not so sure he understood but I tried.
As for Celine Dion, all of the three nights we were at Pabo different people wanted to take us around town and show us different parts of the town. One of the nights we walked down to the ‘mission’ hospital which is apart of the larger Lacor (la-chore) hospital right in Gulu. We met a doctor who works and lives right on the compound. He invited us into his house, which was real nice and actually had a television. So I guess I should take back the comment about electricity. I guess it does exist, just not very common. Anyway he was playing a Celine Dion music video DVD on his TV, except he had it on repeat, so we listened to “Cause I’m your lady…..and you are my man…” about 5 times in a row. Danielle and I decided that we’ve had our Celine fill for the rest of the trip, maybe even the rest of the year.
And the other highlight of the week was that many teachers at Pabo SS listen to the radio while sitting in the teacher room between classes. On Tuesday there was about 30 minutes of straight country ballads. First Trisha and Garth Brooks, then Tim and Faith, then The Warren Brothers…and on and on. I actually find it pretty funny that people here really like American country music, but I’m not complaining about it!

I am now back in Gulu for the weekend, and excited to not be at Pabo for a few days. It’s been good to see the other teachers who are staying here and spend some time talking to other Americans besides Danielle and Matt.
Hope you all are doing well. I miss you all.