"You like a monkey!"

Super embarrassing moment today in Uganda. The twins and I were hanging out outside of my husband's shop waiting for him when of course they draw a crowd of people wanting to talk to them. Now the back story is that they get super dirty here really fast because only a few things are paved and ground cover is not a necessity. Whenever they get really dirty, my husband gets upset and exclaims to them, "Look at yourselves! You are all messed up. You look like a monkey." So this older gentleman is talking to them and asking questions, trying to say hi and engage them. They look at him in his garden boots with mud on them and soil on his pants. And they say, "You like a monkey!" And yes he understood what they said to him. I just wanted to die--most Ugandan kids are meek and mild and barely say a peep to adults.

Starting Nursery School

Since everyone is sharing their kids’ first day of school stories, I figured our story might be interesting. 

Back in August I visited the director of an organization 1 km down the road, seeking a volunteer position. It is run by a European Lady called Mama Maria and has a Nursery School, Primary and Vocational School. The assistant director has been looking for a way to solve an over-all educational outcome problem, here in Uganda, where students don’t seem to graduate with critical thinking and problem solving skills. She has assigned me to look into the matter, observe classrooms, come up with some proposals as I assist in classrooms as a volunteer. Last week I started in the Nursery school ages 3-6. I also bring my 3.5 year old twins, which is a trial to overcome. The first week was great because the kids just play and the teachers prepare their classrooms and register students. The twins played great and I thought we had it down because they seemed to be working the crowd like rock-stars.

But this past Monday was when the classroom time started. And that was also when the problems started to crop up. Big assembly with 300 kids usually consisted of one teacher trying to keep the attention of all students, while I slowly became the side-show. My girls clung to me as half the assembly of kids slowly by slowly encircled us, watched us and then began touching the three of us. At least 10 little hands in my hair, grabbing my hands arms and just as many on my twins’. I can deal with it but my twins went insane. Mommy, there’s too many people! Stop touching me! After which it escalated into inconsolable screaming and kicking a biting as the Ugandan children laughed with glee. This happened several times during assembly and playground time, once another teacher had to rescue us by running at the kids with a raised stick, scolding loudly in Lluganda. (Yes, they do get beatings at home and the raised stick is a threat they listen to.) I told my husband that this is just the kid version of what happens to muzungo adults. The good thing is that this scenario only happens when I am with the twins. When they navigate the playground themselves, the kids who want to help them and be friendly to them will fight off the kids that touch them to antagonize them.

Being that this was a European funded organization, I had expected that these kids would be accustomed to white people. But I’ve asked and discovered that they have never had any white students in this school. On my first day there, the students were given a lecture on how to treat the new teacher and the two new girls. Some of it I didn’t quite understand. Then I saw the founder come to visit the school during playground time and I understood a bit where this behavior comes from. All 300 kids went screaming and running toward this woman, seeking a touch from her. She got completely mobbed. Hopefully, these kids get used to the feel of our hair and skin soon and we will no longer be such a target of curiosity.

Glory is absolutely ready to learn. She understood what letters she was supposed to write in her class of 60+ 3 yr olds. That evening she talked about how she was writing letters in school. Gracie was a bit more of a mess that day. She hadn’t gotten enough sleep and everything was upsetting to her. We actually had to escape early on the first day of classes. The girls were having an absolute meltdown on the playground when we tried to passively escape the mob of 100 kids who were chasing after us on the playground.

I’m excited for my new task here. I would love to develop a science and discovery type curriculum for this school. I’m just not sure where I will be taking my twins to nursery school though.

The maid that won’t leave.

So, when I got here, my husband had hired a maid to stay with us and help us out with daily tasks. This was in Kampala. For numerous reasons, one being that we could no longer afford a maid and two being that she assisted in disappearing a good number of things we brought from the U.S. and third that she was a teenager like teens everywhere who think that food, electricity and water come in endless free supply, we discontinued her services.

On the farm however, Stephen had hired a neighbor lady for the past 2 years to come and help with the cooking, cleaning and gardening since I was not here. Since I’ve come, Stephen has told her that her duties will be limited to the garden. He has told her several times and yesterday he told her again. Yet she has continued to show up and wash dishes and tried to cook with me but mostly she follows me around and watches me. I’m usually all about working with people and love having the company, however, maids are a huge security risk. This is what everyone has said. They steal things from you and also “sell” information about you to the armed robbers. After we were robbed the police cautioned us against having a maid.

One day after a sleepless night in Kampala, filled with footsteps outside and signs of people trying to break in, we arrived at the farmhouse in order to begin work on renovations. Suddenly, we had 3 people and their entourages all up in our house: the maid and 3 of her kids, a young man who Stephen had hired and also a third man who was beginning work on the concrete. They were in and out of every room. My purse with cash was there. I was bone tired. The kids were dragging off hammers and other implements which are extremely hard to buy in good quality here. I was ready to explode, so I took a walk to cool off. When I came back the situation had gotten even more out of control. The maid was painting the wall with her 3 yr old and also my 3 yr old twins. Each one had a brush full of paint. The paint was everywhere--all over the kids’ bodies and hair. And the kids who were trying to access their potty in the back of the car got the paint all over the car. My husband was running back and forth with a wild look in his eyes, trying to manage the situation. I exploded. “You need to get these people out of here,” I cried, tears of fatigue and frustration running down my face. "Get them out or I'm going to beat them away with a stick!"

And that is sort of how I have felt about the situation since. I do not want to have this maid around. She has a reputation in the neighborhood for theft. She has been caught a number of times. She has harvested and sold our matoke and told us that it was stolen. Once we were looking for a knife to use to cut up vegetables for lunch. We knew it was in the kitchen but we could not find it. At the time one of her kids was hanging out in the yard, so my husband told the kid to get his mom. She comes he asks her what has happened to this only knife we had to chop up food. She doesn’t respond. She pretends to look through the kitchen in search of it. After she thinks we are no longer looking, she walks back to her house and returns with it. This is an every week story—whether it is food that is missing or dishes or harvest, your hairbrush or your computer. And it is pretty “normal”. People tell me that this is how maids behave.

Yet here we have a maid, because we must have a maid. That is our lot in life. Even though she will not get paid—but likely she will collect her payment—she keeps coming back to sweep the porch and do anything householdish that she can get her hands on. It’s such an awkward situation.

Repairing and moving.

On the 1^st of the month we moved out to the “farm” about 2 acres, where we will now live rent free. We are between Mukono and Kalagi. The process for getting here was a feat in endurance and it cost us over $1000 to get the house to where we don’t have to go out at night to go to the bathroom or where we can shower behind a locked door at night. But we needed to do it to conserve our income and insulate ourselves from being a small target in a big city of strangers, Kampala. Certainly, others who are white/American live in Kampala, however, they often live in gated communities with on duty security guards and such. We are pretty far below that level of income.

The house was in horrible condition when we started. Dust an inch thick. Lizard poop, hornets and ants everywhere. We still have to replace the front door as someone could just bust it down with little effort. My biggest concern is the layout of the place. After dark you cannot just shut the front door and continue your business inside. The sitting room, a bedroom and a bare floor bathroom are behind the far door. This consists of our living space. The kitchen is behind another doorway. Behind the near door is a third room where a 3^rd person often lives but it is vacant now. The bathroom is out back. After dark, often we sit on the lit patio eating or bathing the girls. It’s a fish bowl in the neighborhood. It reminds me of the scene in the movie Frozen where the family is in the woods and all they see in a perimeter around them is the whites of a hundred watching eyes.

We’ve since worked on the floor—replaced the crumbling concrete. I laid tiles till my fingers bled and my muscles ached—they still ache. We painted the walls. Shhh! Please don’t tell the neighbors because painted walls and tiles and a ceiling are signs that we are uber rich—and the minivan sitting outside. I was reluctant to get a vehicle but after considering what was most safe, we broke down and got one.

We are now moved in. The bathroom has yet to be completed and our clothes are in one big pile on the floor.