Holiday time

The second term of the school year (and my first full term as a teacher in Africa) has come to a close. I spent last Thursday and Friday grading exams for my S2 physics class...all 142 of them. The kids did fairly well, but need a lot of improvement, especially in the laboratory - something I intend to work on over the next year and a half. I did however have some standouts among the crowd of 142, so that gives me something to build on next term. We will be on holiday until Sept 15th (i know, seems like we are always on holiday here). The S4's will remain at school and prepare for their UNEB exams in November, so I will prob have a couple of classes with them during the break. And hopefully will be able to get them their calculators before the next term starts. I'll also be in Kampala for about a week towards the end of this month for a technical training, and a chance for the 58 or so volunteers in our group to get back together after 4 mos and share stories and ideas from our sites.

The primary school at the parish is hosting the district music and dance competition this week, so i'll try to get some video or at least pictures of the kids from our school's performance. I've been watching them practicing the past few weeks and they are really impressive. They will do a traditional dance complete with drums, grass skirts, bells tied around their ankles, and other string instruments. In the meantime i've added this picture of me and one of the neighbor boys that come over to play football in the evenings with me (the real football, not pigskin). Kato (pronounced Kuh-toh) was showing me his skills on my djembe drum while his brothers danced off to the left of the picture.
*a sidenote: His name is Kato because he is the second born of twins. If they are boys they are named Tsingoma (sin-goh-mah) and Kato, girls are Nyangoma (nee-yahn-goma) and Nyakato (nee-yah-kah-toh). Just in case you're interested.


That's it for me for now. I'll try to put up much more and lots of pictures when im in Kampala in a couple weeks. We've had some progress on the projects for the school so far, so i'll update those of the other blog then as well. Thanks to Kevin Hetman we soon hope to have a website up to replace the blog where you all can do a little more exploring of the school and donate via paypal to projects. I'll wet your appetite on a couple of the projects i'm hoping to add to the (endless) list - a basketball court and getting the kids who board at the school (about 60 of them) mosquito nets for their dorm bunks (something that goes a long way to helping stop malaria, one of the biggest killers in Africa).

**Also, please keep my brother in your thoughts as starts a long recovery from surgery on his femur bone. Love you J.

Love and miss you all,
Eric