Simulation

Day 64. 30 days left and counting. Can’t believe how fast this is going, one of my classes ends next week (Giants, which is sad) and the other two end the week after that. It’s crunch time.
This week has been good; Rachel and I had the best class we’ve ever had on Tuesday. It was at Giants (no surprise there). We’d just gone over Habit 6 from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is synergy, so we wanted to create a situation where they could experience some. This called for my favorite thing in the whole wide world (or one of them): a simulation. We walked into class Tuesday looking somber. We engaged in a little small talk before we started, but we remained reserved. Some of the members were late, but instead of starting I said, “Let’s wait. There’s something important I need to talk with you about, and I want everyone to be here.” When they’d arrived, I started. “I don’t know how to really say this,” I began, “But the administration wants to shut us down. They don’t feel like these classes are beneficial to you as teachers; basically they think you’re wasting you’re time here. They’ve given us one chance. If we can write a mission statement (they’d all had practice writing personal mission statements from Habit 2) for this class that explains the purpose of this class and why it’s beneficial to you I think they’ll let us keep going. But the catch is that Rachel and I can’t help, they want to know what you think, not what we think.” I let that sink in for a minute. They all looked stunned, like I’d slapped them across the face. Robert shook his head and said, “It’s simple; we can do it.” But he looked like he’d just been hit by a truck. Sambuze looked like he was about to cry. Godfrey was the first to recover, he busted out is notebook and started asking specifically what was needed in the mission statement and writing notes, getting organized. That sparked Sambuze out of his daze and he said, “Ok, we need to appoint a secretary.” I was so proud of them. But I wasn’t done. “Everyone take a deep breath. This is a simulation.” Up to that point the tension in the room was palpable. When I said that though, they all smiled and started laughing with relief. But I got back on them, “Take what you felt when you thought this was real, and use it, cause this is real. You have an hour. We’ll be outside. Godfrey, you’re chairman.” They had an hour (an hour and ten minutes actually, they asked for an extension and I decided to give it to them [hint-hint, Mr. Jensen, stop ending simulations early!]), and they did it. There was something of each of them in it, and they’d come together on all of it; not a single word did any of them feel unsure about. They were-and are-all behind it. I wanted so bad to be in there, to experience it with them, but I know my presence would be a distraction; this was something they had do on their own. The debrief was awesome, I wish I had enough time to describe it all to you. Just briefly, they talked about how at first, everyone wanted their own ideas, their own words, basically their own document. But they knew they needed one, so they pulled together, looking at their differences of opinions as opportunities rather than problems, and slowly, steadily, they forged together. They listened; they understood; they thought; they grew. I was so proud of them. The highlight came from Godfrey. “When you put me in charge, I didn’t think I could do it. But I can. I can.”

You want a title? Fine, here's a title.

It’s been a little bit since I wrote last, I’ll do my best to catch you all up. You remember the Kianna kid? Well, I keep running into him everywhere. Walking along the main road here I hear “Ben! Magala Ben! How are you?” I turn around, and it’s Kianna. Seen him several times, he seems to be everywhere. And apparently he’s been talking about me, cause everywhere I go, small children know my name. Everywhere, and I don’t even know them. What’s really funny is now I have adults coming up to me who know my name, and I have no clue who they are. I’m the most popular Mzungu on the block, and it’s pretty sweet. The kids are great. The other day during my daily trip down to the well, I taught a bunch of kids how to play tag. Little difficult when none of them spoke English, but they were smart kids and they caught on quick. Another group of kids walks Rachel and I to our Giants class; it started with two, and then today about 8-10 trekked along with us. But along with the innocent side of African life, there’s the not so innocent. Walking along with the kids and us there was a creepy old guy intent on being Rachel’s boyfriend. After hearing him declare that he “wanted and really liked” Rachel, I engaged him in a conversation about the weather, which was basically a nice way of telling him to get lost, which he got. That would have been a gloomy note to end the day on, but fortunately we still had Giants. After class our students told us how much the class had meant to them, how it had changed them. Robert told how he had used what he’d learned to repair a relationship with his boss; Godfrey has started paying so much attention to his kids that his wife has asked, “Why have the children stopped coming to me with questions and they now go to you?” Debra swears that she is in serious danger of “loving her students too much.” It’s such a blessing for Rachel and I to hear that what we’re doing is making a difference. People like this can change this country for better; to paraphrase Sambuze, they just need persistence. And Sambuze’s the most persistent guy I know.
The ultimate goal of LEU (Leadership Education Uganda, the organization I’m here with) was to get the teachers we’ve taught to start teaching the classes we’ve taught them to others. That began this week as Robert and Sambuze started a new TJEd class at Premier academy, a class that Sambuze set up. I’ve been attending just to observe and help in any way I can, and I’ve never been more inspired. Their class went superbly, far better than the same class had gone when I’d been the one teaching. Pretty soon, they won’t even need me any more, which is the point. Ha ha (victorious laugh) I love it. It’s awesome.

The Fourth

And so another week has come and gone. Crazy wierd! Time's flying so fast, I can hardly believe it. If it keeps up like this I'll be home before I know it.
We get our water from the rain here; it collects on the roof and runs into a big huge storage tank. So when it's rainy, we have water; when it's dry, like it has been recently, we have to walk down the hill to get water at the well. It's become kind of a daily occurance, either in the morning or evening we all trek down with our jerry cans (5 or 6 gallon jugs, kind of like giant gas jugs) and fill up. During the course of this I've had several interesting encounters. Walked down one time with a small boy (maybe 8 or 9) named Timothy who spoke probably the best english I've heard here. He found it amusing that he spoke my language while I did not speak his. So I asked him to teach me. "I cannot teach you," he said, "for even if I taught you 100 words a day, you would forget them all!" I finally prevailed upon him to teach me one word, entay, which means cow. After I had mastered this word, he told me, "You know mzungu, I think I could teach you my language if you came and lived with me, but unfortunately you cannot." I don't know many 9 year old Americans who can use words like unfortunately, so hearing him pull it out and use it correctly threw me. Smart little guy, unfortunately, I haven't seen him since.
Another time I met a high school age guy who began by asking me about American politics. But it wasn't long before he got to what he really wanted to know. "Tell me, do you know Arnold Shwartznigger (spelling? I have no idea) or Van Damme?" Boys will be boys, whether in Africa or America.
Couple days ago I raced a kid named Kianna down to the well. Next day he showed up again, him and about twenty of his friends. As I waited my turn for the well, we started talking. Before it was over, we'd swapped songs (my country music for their Luganda songs), dances (I taught them some swing, but had to use a guy to demonstrate, the girls were too shy), they taught me some football (soccer) using a discarded margarine tub and I taught them some wrestling, using Kianna. All in all I learned alot, and even got invited back to their school to practise more football.
But I haven't just been making friends with the kids. Sambuze, one of the guys from our Giants class, is fast becoming my African brother. He even adopted me into his clan and gave me a name: Magala Ben of the Lugave clan. It's awesome. He's one of our best students, so excited and passionate and so dedicated to helping his students learn. Which includes me, he's been coming over every Sunday and teaching me Luganda, using notes he writes up and a Luganda Bible I found in one of the stores. It's great. By the time I come back I might actually know something.
All in all, it's not so much different from home. Poorer in some ways, richer in others, greener and definitely more humid, but the people are just people. There's some good, some bad. Selfishness, and then outstanding examples of self-sacrifice. Are there problems, course there are! Problems are a necessary ingredient of the human condition. And there's some people who look away and try to pretend problems don't exist, and some who roll up their sleeves and tackle them. Granted we could use some more of the latter here, just like we could in the States. But I look in the eyes of my students when they say things like "Yeah, we can change. And it starts with us." and I can't help but have hope. As long as there's people like that, there's always hope for a better future. We can change. But only when we decide to. It starts with us. Happy Fourth of July!