Week of June 15th-22nd

1. 45 teachers and me- This past weekend, I spent two days training 45 p1-p4 (1st-4th grade) teachers from nine area schools on how to integrate conservation education into their classroom teaching. It was the second time that I had trained this particular group of teachers and we had a fantastic time learning new activities that they could incorporate into their classes. I am always amazed at the turnout we have for these trainings as many teachers come from over an hour away. None of the teachers have cars so they either walk/bike very far distances to get here or have to hire a boda boda to carry them over bumpy poorly maintained “roads”.

One of UNITE’s goals and my personal mission’s is to teach teachers hands on ways of teaching. We want to help move teachers away from chalk and talk to more interactive ways of teaching. Even without text books or classroom resources there are many things you can do to make a lesson interactive and engaging for students. The teachers learned many new methods over the course of the weekend that they can use when teaching conservation education and other subjects.

In addition to learning new methods of teaching, we invited the Community Conservation Warden from Kibale National Park to come and talk to the teachers about the park’s school conservation programs. Saturday afternoon, we took all the teachers on a guided tour of the Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary. Only one of the teachers had even been on a tour there. They had no idea what types of primates or birds live in this area. If the teachers don’t know about their local environment than how can we expect them to teach is to their students! It was great to see their reactions to seeing baboons up close and learning about the different types of birds and trees.

2. What can you make from a handful of beans and rice? - Since schools here do not have money for teaching materials most of the classroom walls are bare. However, there are many teaching aids that can be made from locally found materials. I invited the staff from a Montessori trained school in town to come a lead a workshop during our training on making learning materials. The teachers loved it and they all got to make a learning aid to take back to their schools. I can’t wait till I can post pictures so you can see the creativity of these teachers.

Using different types of beans, rice, plywood, and glue made from cassava flour: they were able to make a diagram of the human eye so students could clearly see the pupil, iris, and other parts of the eye. A chart of the different types of soil was created from just a piece of plywood, beans for the lettering and borders, cassava flour glue, and soil. Many teachers chose to make a fish so their students could learn the different parts of the fish; it was made from just paper, beans, and cassava flour glue. My group used banana fibers (from the trunk of a banana tree) to make a large sheet of paper on which we than painted a colorful map of Uganda!
I wish I had time to more of these workshops as there are so many things that can be made for the classrooms with just a little time and creativity! Unfortunately, my time is starting to run out – I leave Bigodi one month from tomorrow. I do have one more training next week for the p5-p7 teachers that I am looking forward to.

3. I will miss…- There are many things that I will miss when I head back to the states in just about a month. I will miss kids running down their driveways to say “Mazuga, mazuga how are you?” as they see me jogging past. I will miss running into my friends in the local bar. I will miss healthy natural food prepared by someone else. I will miss working with this amazing group of teachers. I will miss seeing the beautiful Renzori Mountains from the porch of my little house. I will miss the fact that since there is “no hurry in Africa” in five months, I haven’t been late to a single function. I will miss my little village of Bigodi where it seems like almost everyone knows me. I will miss feeling like I am making at least a small difference in the world. And of course I will miss Leon.

4. New housemate- Last week we got a new housemate. Tiffany is from the UK and will be staying with us till mid July. She is an undergrad studying biology/conservation and is volunteering at KAFRED for the month. For the last five days, a University student from Canada has been staying with us as well. Jamaal is on a three month field placement in Uganda studying community development. They are both great fun and it has been a real treat for me to have English speaking company! Both even attended my training over the weekend and seem to really enjoy it.