Tag Archive: Teaching

Future Days IV

Author: January 29, 2016

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I assisted with a “sharing out” VSLA meeting. At the end of the year, they receive their savings, plus their share of interest from loans to members and fines. I helped with the calculations on each passbook. This group received 2807UGX back for every 2000 UGX share they saved. They sign for their money on the register. Some of them use a blue ink thumbprint. After seeing this result their first year, they are determined to save more next year.

I am finally starting to get back out into the fields again. I’m still working on cluster business plans, but with Matthews’ issues behind him, and hopefully available full time, we can go back to our action plan to teach four weeks of programs to farmer groups: record keeping, budgeting, sack gardens, and gender equality.

Before we are back in this routine full time, however, the first two weeks of February will have some other activities. The annual “all-vol” conference will be held near Kampala next week. All the Peace Corps volunteers will participate. I will get to meet many of the other Uganda volunteers for the first time.

After all-vol, I will travel with two other PCVs from my cohort, David and Karen, for a week in Western Uganda. David is my fellow fossil and frequent roommate, and Karen is a health volunteer and the oldest of the females in our cohort, though hardly a fossil (40’s- she was the black-eyed pea at Halloween). It’s the “Fossils on the Move” tour!

We will visit Karen’s site located on a massive tea plantation, While there, David and I will consult about their perma-gardens in exchange for free use of the guesthouse and meals and obligatory tour (which we will want anyway). David’s site is a demonstration project we will also visit for a night. Then we’ll tour Queen Elizabeth National Park (African animals!), Finally we’ll travel to scenic Lake Bunyoni in the southwest corner, near the Rwanda border. Along the way, we’ll stop at the equator, and watch the Super Bowl from Dave’s site. He is most recently from North Carolina. We’ll sleep through the 2:30 a.m. kickoff and watch it on a delayed basis online.

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After the sharing out, the grateful village gave each of us a chicken (they are hanging from the handlebars). I gave mine to another trainer, Williams.

I’ll return to Bugiri by February 12, and then all PCVs are grounded to work from their sites, until after the election on the 18th. Speaking of the election, here is an article I thought was pretty good.

While some men find buy viagra professional it hard to maintain so. In this regard Nightforce has always delivered. cialis prices order cheap levitra order cheap levitra article So, where then lies the problem? What makes achieving peace such a task? After a lot of people do not favor herbal treatments and disbelieve it. Avoid strenuous activities for at least three risk factors stated above, is diagnosed as having metabolic syndrome, and get viagra no prescription should be screened for sexual dysfunction as well. Matthews will feed Meowri while I am gone. She is now able to go in and out of my home during the day through bars in my windows. I hope the kids will be nice to her while I am gone.

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On Sunday I hosted my home stay family for dinner.. We had spaghetti and meat sauce and fruit and yogurt salad. These were new dishes for my family. Sharon had to take a test at nursing school and unfortunately missed it. Too bad, since she has the view I am totally helpless to cook for myself. This picture (Peace and Innocent with Simon in the background) is after we were temporarily driven inside off my narrow porch by a 30 minute downpour.

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This is Edith with George, the new education trainee living with Hellen and Simon. He is the polar opposite of me in language, receiving one of only three high intermediate scores in his cohort

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Saw a kid in my neighborhood the other day with one of the toys from Father Christmas. The little wind-up robots are breaking easily. No warranties from FC

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My sister thinks you would be interested in how I wash clothes and dishes. I use three basins for each chore. Soapy water, rinsing and air dry on a dish rack for the dishes. I soak my clothes overnight in detergent, then scrub and rinse them twice before line drying. I do each chore twice a week.

I need to travel light, so I’ll bring my smart phone but not my lap top. So don’t expect any new blog posts for a couple of weeks.

Go Broncos!

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A Song is not a Business Plan

Author: January 20, 2016

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A Farm Cluster meeting. There were four farmer groups represented. Men sat on one side, the women on the other.

Recently I have been working on drafting a template for business plans to be used by clusters of farming groups. The clusters register themselves and use their larger membership to try to leverage better prices, share resources, improve their marketing, and decrease the cost of inputs.A business plan is something the cluster can show a bank. Individuals will still get the loans.

I travel with members of ATEFO to meetings to obtain information that will go into the business plans. I was given a nice business plan for a maize cluster to work from, and I’m converting it to rice farmer clusters. It’s mostly the same issues. It’s a little too much like legal work than I prefer.  I am a little weak on Word skills for things like tables and templates.

I don’t know if I will get back to a program of teaching farmer groups. I would prefer that. It is tough giving a bank a business plan when the farmers don’t keep records. In the cluster meetings I remind the farmers of that.

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I came home early one afternoon and the kids next door where cleaning my windows. They said they were too smudged. I pointed out it was because they kept pressing their faces up against them.


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Medira reading my book to me on the front porch. She starts Senior-1 at the local Islamic school when it goes back in session.

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This what Meowri eats. Silverfish. Also the occasional hard boiled egg. She is a voracious eater, really growing.

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Sometimes Meowri starts staring at something intently and I know she has spied a bug or lizard. Male on the left was tapping his tail. He climbed up to “tap” the female on the right. This is better than when Meowri wants to get at a bug on my computer screen.

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This rooster always enjoys standing on top of a 10 foot mound of sand near my compound.

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WASH

Author: December 9, 2015

Sticking with my propensity for song titles (Pearl Jam, again), but actually WASH stands for Water and Sanitation and Health. This is an initiative of the Rotary International Foundation. In the absence of my counterpart, interpreter, and motorcycle driver Matthews, who is getting some health issues attended to, my supervisor and Rotarian Adams has taken me with him to villages to help determine how WASH funds will be spent. There are 10 schools in Bugiri District which will receive these funds. The main Sponsoring club is the Rotary Club of Ntinda, which is located in Kampala.

We go into the community and it’s like a town hall meeting under the shade of big trees. There is great participation. They talk about their community resources and the problems they have with water and sanitation. School is out so there are lots of kids on the periphery of these meetings, but they are exceptionally well behaved. I get treated like a special guest and they are easily charmed by my fractured Lusoga. All I remember now are the introductory phrases and a some greetings. Then I tell them my Lusoga is “mpola mpola” (slowly, slowly) and they all laugh and I switch to English. I say a few sentences and sit down, and the whole meeting is beyond my comprehension. Then we inspect the school’s latrines and water resources, which are often the same as the village water resources.

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A couple of facilitators are used to keep the meeting moving.

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They make the kids drag their desks and chairs out of the classroom to the tree where the meeting is held.


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Pit Latrine inspection. This one was OK. So far every school gets a new bore hole. They cost about $12,000 US.

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Adams stands in front of a pond which is the water source for the village. He says it is not fed by a spring, it’s mainly rain run-off. Yuk.

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Our four wheel drive picked up two passengers this morning, so we were 4 abreast just like on a taxi, but then it got stuck in the muddy road. We all piled out to walk, while the vehicle was able to eventually pass us with the lighter weight. Adams is in front of me. He laughed and said “This is Africa!”. It reminded me of the snow back home.

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Raining Cats But Not Dogs

Author: November 17, 2015

My diabetes story got the second most reaction of all my blog posts, following only my tribute to Jan last August. I enjoy getting emails from all of you. I encourage your questions and comments. Sorry Uganda, you weren’t really in either top post.

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A road on the way to work after heavy morning rains

The rains have been loud and brutal at times on the roads. Tis the season. At least my bore hole doesn’t run dry. As a I hop over the mud and water patches on the road, I think of taking a bad spill with one misstep, so I have to focus. Most of the time I’m walking with my backpack carrying my laptop. I honestly worry about breaking my laptop in a spill more than my own bones!

My Lusoga language cohort friend Becky has a nice blog. She has posted a video you should watch. Her blog is here. The video is also on YouTube here. It does a fantastic job capturing the “Flavor” of our experience. Well done Becky!

When I try to click on Becky’s video, it says that its blocked in my country (Uganda) due to copyright. Only thing I can think of is the Kinks song she uses for background music. She showed it to me during IST so my comments are from memory of one viewing two weeks ago..

You will notice a few snippets with me in them. In one, I am sort of standing there like a lump while the others sing. This was our “entertainment” segment for the town dignitaries and home stay families at the Fare Well to Home Stay party. My language cohort is performing a song I did not know called “Day Man” from the TV show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. I would have preferred a Ugandan folk song. Kids. I should have been more enthusiastic. I did give a good speech though, which is more my forte. It was a day mostly of speeches and eating.

One day I will upload my own video. Even with my 3G modem I can’t even send a short video by email. Becky used the free WiFi at Sol Cafe, so maybe I will try that.

As far as my work goes, it appears I will do intensive training starting with five farmer groups, presenting perhaps 4-5 programs to each, once a week at their VSLA meetings. Then we will take on five more farmer groups, while following up on the first set every month or so, to see if anything “stuck” with them. This will help me with variety, and I’ll get to know these farmers pretty intimately. I continue to want to establish four youth groups in at local Bugiri high schools. So that is what year one looks like for me.

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I went with Sharon, Hellen and Simon to admit Sharon to the Iganga Nursing and Midwifery School. It has a beautiful manicured campus and the dorm rooms look first rate. We were not allowed near the dorms. I met the Deputy Principal, who told me that 97% of their graduates find employment.

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Some PCVs report that neither their office locale nor their home site are amenable to a permagarden. At IST my counterpart Matthews showed the Agri-Business cohort how to build an elevated garden and a sack garden. He did great, although we ran out of time before they could be planted. He made a special trip back to Entebbe last week to finish both of them. Hope the nuns are pleased. Matthews says people in the villages are not well versed in these gardens, so we will add them to our teaching package.

sack garden

For the sack garden, use two grain sacks for durability. As you put dirt and manure into the sacks, you use a cylinder to build a column of rocks in the middle for aeration of the water.

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Draw 8-10 columns down the side of the sack, and then burn 5 holes into each column with matches. Plant Japanese Onion seedlings or other types, and have up to fifty plants around the sides plus a few more on top.

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Voila. This is a sack garden at my office. Trim off the green part of the onions as you need them, and this particular sack will grow for 2-3 years.

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These are scratch cards you can buy from little stands everywhere. You load the numbers you uncover into your phone to buy airtime. Our Peace Corps issued “burner” phones by Nokia allow unlimited airtime to anyone else from the Peace Corps, a Closed User Group. You can also convert this airtime into internet data. You can also use your phone for “Mobile Money”, by giving money to an authorized dealer and getting it credited on your phone like a bank deposit. You can transfer mobile money to others or buy airtime with it. Most PCVs seem to avoid mobile money, but my landlord wants me to use mobile money to pay my electric bill, so I have to learn it.

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Meet my new roommate, Meowi Meowseveni, named in honor of the exalted leader of the Republic of Uganda. I will just call her Meowri. . I use a basin with my carpenter’s wood chips for a litter box. I have been feeding her ground up silver fish and hard boiled eggs and whole milk. She’s about three months old. We are getting along fine. Kittens are so photogenic.

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Daily Records

Author: October 7, 2015

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Matthews holds the rice sack summary with me and translates. That’s Moses in the foreground checking data while I talk.

Here I am, speaking to a farmer group after their weekly VSLA meeting, about the importance of record keeping. I ask at the beginning: Who keeps records? No one does. For a Peace Corps assignment, I interviewed the heads of the three financial institutions in Bugiri. I asked their biggest problem with customers, all mentioned lack of record keeping.

I encourage the farmers to keep simple crop records in a notebook (Date of planting; Amount of inputs used; Date of harvest; How much was the yield; Additional notes about disease, drought etc.). I also show them how a cash book works (it’s similar to a check register- if you are under 30 ask your parents).

I do not want to spend the next two years speaking to 200 farmer groups about record keeping. In a staff meeting yesterday, (after clearing my talk with Adams) I explained that Peace Corps wants me to help farmers, but my job is also to help ATEFO help farmers; so my efforts are sustainable after I leave. ATEFO’s primary purpose is teaching farmers to take a more business-like approach to farming, rather than just sustenance. Record keeping is fundamental to being successful in business.

The farmers can already see how important record keeping is, since the VSLA needs a journal to record welfare and savings contributions, and loans, and each farmer has his own passbook. Extending the concept to the farm and home should be easy, and this record keeping is much simpler compared to the VSLA record keeping.

Our trainers run around to these village VSLA meetings to write down data on savings to report to our funders, and will point out any deficiencies they see in their VSLA, both laudable activities. We are helping build a culture of saving. But we are failing the farmers if they do not receive a 20-30 minute lesson on record keeping, budgeting, post-harvest handling etc.

I suggested that each trainer in the our three districts should go out with me for a talk or two, then I would go out with them to watch them give the same talk. They are seeing these groups at least once or twice a month, so throw in a talk. We get more lessons delivered to more groups this way. Their talks would be faster than mine too, without a translator.

Speaking of translating, I say five words, then Matthews (holding the rice sack with me) speaks for 60 seconds. He swears he says what I say, and the three Bugiri trainers we go out with agree Lusoga takes longer to say the same thing. It’s hard to argue, because as you know, I am no expert on Lusoga.

I can’t say whether the trainers will agree to this process, although Adams seems to, and one trainer admits I am right about ATEFO’s purpose and sees no issue with my plan. But it requires a little bit more time, as they race around collecting data. If no one is there with the trainer, how do we check that the lesson is given? Maybe randomly check with VSLA chairmen. It’s like I used to say to clients: I am paid to give you advice, it’s up to you whether to follow it.

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When middle class Americans run low on money, they often use up their retirement funds, and credit cards until they run out of credit. They hope they get that new job or their business will get better, and then they will pay it all back, only turning to bankruptcy as a last resort.

Ugandans don’t have those two ‘backstops’ let alone an ability to get a ‘fresh start’ which bankruptcy provides. They also don’t get unemployment benefits. So have a bad harvest, and the next step is food insecurity (but not if they have a permagarden!) , or eating poorly, causing stunted growth and other nutritional ailments . School fees can’t get paid either, so the children suffer in that regard too.

Meanwhile the children keep getting born….

Once while I was speaking to a farmer group, my office mate and trainer Moses went deeper into the village and bought a couple chickens to take home. He hung them on his handlebars and said he would let them get fatter before eating them. What do chickens think as they hang, going down the road? Maybe one day I will do a blog post on chicken and rooster behavior. I've learned a lot watching them everywhere I go.

Once while I was speaking to a farmer group, my office mate and trainer Moses went deeper into the village and bought a couple chickens to take home. He hung them on his handlebars and said he would let them get fatter before eating them. What do chickens think as they hang, going down the road? Maybe one day I will do a blog post on chicken and rooster behavior. I’ve learned a lot watching them everywhere I go.

On Saturday I got my first visit from another PCV, Vanessa. She had her home stay for language learning in Bugiri and wanted to visit her home stay family for the last time before her service as an Education volunteer ends in December. So I finally got to show off my home!

Besides introducing me to her lovely home stay family, she showed me where a pork joint is on the edge of town. Most PCVs love pork joints. The cooking was in a thatched hut with a another hut next door with tables and chairs. We got there at noon and were served at 1:30, about normal for a pork joint. We ordered two kilos. They chop and cook it up on a large plate. Very fatty with lots of little bones, but it’s pretty good. Forgot to take pictures. No one at my office knew of this place, so we will all go there some day. Except Adams, who is Muslim, so it’s his loss.

Vanessa (29) is taking the foreign service exam today (Wednesday) at Peace Corps headquarters, as she tries to figure out what to do next. She is considering Peace Corps Response, something my niece Britta did. In Response, a returned volunteer (or any American with 10 years experience in a suitable career) goes to a country for only about nine months or a year. Britta terminated early in Bolivia due to civil unrest, and then did Response in Liberia. I may want to do this too. More exotic travel on someone else’s dime. Anyway, good luck to Vanessa!

This week is slower than last week , when I visited about 10 villages and gave my talk to a few of them. Monday was primary election day for the NRM party (President Museveni’s party – the National Resistance Movement). My trainers said no one would show up for VSLA meetings. NRM has another primary on October 26 for different offices. On Tuesday we had the aforementioned staff meeting. Today, Matthews is in Jinga for some medical tests, so no riding out to villages. A chance to work on my blog. Friday is Uganda Independence Day. I will walk with the Bugiri Rotary Club in a parade of some sort, and then we are supposed to play in a soccer game against an unnamed opponent. So I’ll be getting a bit of exercise at practice this week.

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Education

Author: September 27, 2015

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This is a jackfruit tree. The fruits are huge. They taste good, but it’s very messy and difficult to separate the little juicy globs inside from the rind.

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I sit on my covered front porch sometimes during cooling rainstorms. This is my view. Unfinished construction is on both sides of my tri-plex. If I ever meet the owner I will ask him about it. I also throw my laundry and dish washing water out on that little rise you see.

I had a couple of leftover photos from last week shown here.

First a couple of reactions to comments. The treadle sewing machine I showed last week received some attention and sparked some memories of a by-gone era. Second, please don’t sweat about my weight. I am pretty sure I have stabilized at 165. Now that I am cooking for myself, my fear is letting it go back up. I am still trying to restrict after dinner snack intake.

This week I finally visited some farmer groups at their VSLA meetings. I was introduced at each meeting by the ATEFO trainer, and it was announced I would be coming back in a week or two to give a lesson on budgeting.

I met with 7 groups, 5 along the same road on Tuesday. Due to scheduling conflicts with Matthews and the four day Muslim holiday weekend just finishing, for Eid al-Adha, I will speak to only one group next week, this Wednesday.

Lots of Muslims celebrating Eid al-Adha on Thursday, mostly dressed in White.

Lots of Muslims out celebrating Eid al-Adha on Thursday, mostly dressed in White.

I was well-received at these groups, and they seem interested in what I will have to say. I hope I can measure up to their expectations. I gave a similar talk on budgeting to a group of Boda drivers during tech immersion.

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My first village meeting was in this mud hut. It had mud floors of course and was built three years ago. Nice and cool in there!

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All the other farmer groups met outside in the shade of a large trees. The women often sit on mats, although a man is on this one.

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From left, Mwondha’s dad, brother Matia, mother, wife Collin, Mwondha, sister Esther. Collin wore her gown from her previous graduation. At the village party, other former grads wore their gowns again. They don’t rent them here.

On Saturday, I attended the graduation of Mwondha, my carpenter, and his brother, on the grounds of Basoga University, only a few blocks from where I had language training near Iganga. Before Mwondha received his diploma (but after his brother received his), there was a massive rain storm which completely decimated the event, blowing down tents and turning the place into a muddy quagmire. We left, just as the rain was tapering off, and went to his village where his parents still lived.

The village had been organized into a huge festive celebration. As we got out of our cars, the brothers were mobbed like rock stars. The women make this high-pitched warbling scream that sounds sort of like Banshees. I was semi-mobbed by the village kids, who acted like they didn’t know what to make of me. Once I started fist-bumping them, they relaxed. They had organized tents, decorations, cakes and lots of food for the whole village. There were two MCs and a sound system run off of a generator. I had hoped to hang back and watch, but was ushered to a seat of honor with the family. Of course there were speeches, and during each one, I was singled out and told I was “most welcome”.

An altar was set up, and a priest said Mass. He asked God to delay the rain until after the party, but God didn’t listen, and so half-way through mass, I was in my second deluge. A lady, Collin, was sort of delegated to be my minder for the day, and told me she was Mwondha’s first wife. The wife I was acquainted with at the carpenter shop was his second. Collin told me Mwondha is 32 and has six kids with the two wives and another woman he didn’t marry. I have come to understand that polygamy is frequent among the Masoga tribe (and Muslims) here in the east, but less common in the northern and western parts of Uganda. Collin is from the far north and admitted she wasn’t happy when this happened. Just like my father Simon at home stay, he’s Catholic too!

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During the storm at graduation, tents got upturned, so people threw out the chairs so there would be more room to huddle together.

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Trying to keep their nice clothes dry while the tents take a beating. Much more entertaining than handing out diplomas!

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This is the top of a tent that was flipped off it moorings by the wind, and came down pointy top first, piercing into my tent. Might have hurt someone in the way.

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Procession during the village party

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During the rainstorm, I was hustled into this room with other “elders”. I know my beard is grey but….The guy on the right is an engineer who used to employ Mwondha. We didn’t get to visit much in there, unfortunately.

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Put me in coach, I’m ready to play

Author: August 9, 2015

By a wide margin, my last post about Jan provoked more responses than any other post so far. So gratifying to know how loved Jan was, and to share with other readers who were not acquainted with her. Our story provides needed context for my current adventure, and provided me with some catharsis. Some of you took the opportunity to tell me that you have enjoyed my other posts too, and I appreciate that. I am always happy to hear from you and will always try to respond to your comments and questions. I never dreamed I would post so much, but it’s all so interesting to me! When I come home, I will have a heck of journal about this part of my life. The post about Jan was written two weeks ago, so it feels like eight days between posts for me.

This week, with local volunteer Ashley as our guide, we have stayed in Kibaale District, next to the town of Karuguuza. These little towns all remind me of the Old West I have seen in movies, with the dirt streets, the town market, and small businesses lining the main street. Only thing missing is the saloon and hitching posts. Boda bodas instead of horses. You would be hard pressed to differentiate among most small towns throughout Uganda.

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Ashley teaching about VSLAs. See the passbooks?

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Pit Latrine made from clay and bamboo

The first day, we went to a very rural village where Ashley taught them how to keep records for their Village Savings and Loan (VSLA). It was fantastic to watch, since I will likely do this in my time here. VSLAs are getting very popular and Peace Corps is helping Uganda increase a culture of saving. Each member has to put in an agreed weekly minimum amount or they get fined. They use ledgers and passbooks, just like when I was a kid with a church credit union account. Also a lockbox for the money with three separately controlled locks and two other money counters. Dusting off my accounting education about internal controls.

We also got more experience in teaching. This time we used translators, so it was good to learn to get into a rhythm while talking and pausing for the translator. On Thursday, Will and I spoke to a group of Boda Boda drivers about budgeting and saving. We did an exercise in which they tried to figure out how much their monthly income and expenses were, (a rare exercise for Americans too- hence our massive credit card debt).

Reviewing the budgets with the boda drivers. Our translator is is in blue.

Reviewing the budgets with the boda drivers. Our translator is in blue.

They all estimated lots of money left over to save, but couldn’t explain where it went. (A few snickered that women and booze is a good guess 😉 ) Ashley actually thinks I motivated them to keep track of their money for a least a few weeks. They also say they want her to help them form a VSLA.

We also learned about filing quarterly reports with the Peace Corps. I have not escaped the need to keep track of my time! Dave and I also spoke to a school youth group about saving without a translator.
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Uncle Roy, do they have this breed in the USA?

Ashley, an agri-business volunteer, was serving with her husband Matt, a health volunteer. They started in June 2014. (The third type in Uganda, Education volunteers, arrive every November). A couple of months ago, Matt had a seizure and fell, damaging both arms. He can’t remember the incident, and the doctors can’t determine if the seizure or fall happened first. Still a lot of mystery. Matt is back in the USA, and because he can’t finish therapy for his arms and be back at his site within 45 days, he got early termination yesterday. Pretty sure Ashley will stick it out though, until August, 2016, because Peace Corps was her dream. Anyway, Matt is one of four ETs from their class this month, bringing it down to 29 out of their original cohort of 40 from last year, an usually high number of ETs.

Finally my first monkey sighting! White tuft on the tail.

Finally my first monkey sighting! White tuft on the tail.

Sadly, we had our first ET leave yesterday, one of the Colorado girls too. She was raised in Colorado Springs and a recent CSU grad (had a good friend in common with my son Clark). She was agri-business and knew more than almost everyone at training about agriculture. I would have never predicted this. I had reached out to her a few weeks ago when I heard she had issues through the grapevine (I am jokingly referred by some of these kids as their in-country “dad”- I give my advice freely of course- just ask my kids’ friends at home! The rest of the kids here generally mock me :-)). She was kind enough to call me from the Entebbe airport yesterday. She said since early on “it just didn’t feel right” and during each phase it just wouldn’t click in. She will look for a job in the Denver area, so I hope to see her again someday. I understand how a physical ailment could cause me to ET, but otherwise I knew from the beginning I would be horribly embarrassed if I didn’t stick it out. So far, it’s not even a thought.

Day off today before leaving to Entebbe for Supervisors workshop and swearing in at Kampala next week. The hike down was scarier than than the hike up. Nick, Katie, Carson, me, and James.

Day off today before going to Entebbe for Supervisors workshop and then swearing in at Kampala next week. The hike down was scarier than than the hike up. Will, Nick, Katie, Carson, me, and James. I picked up a cool feather on the way and stuck it in the back velcro of my cap.

The adventure vacation continues for me. Next week I will be officially a PCV instead of a PCT.

PS- I just can’t let go of current events back home. I use my phone for as a hotspot for internet access. This constant ability to communicate didn’t exist for PCVs just a few years ago. So sad about the Las Animus river. I would miss Jon Stewart, but Donald Trump- Wow! Karmic balance! I also can’t resist reading about Broncos training camp and I hope Tulo leads Toronto to glory.

 

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First Time Teaching

Author: June 21, 2015

IMAG1011

Karina and I pose with the kids we taught

The Ag volunteers took a bus on Saturday to a “college” with mixed boarding students and locals. I learned colleges are high schools. Beyond that is University. My teaching partner Karina and I were disappointed to see we had pretty young kids (13-15), so our presentation was probably less effective.
We introduced the concept of gender stereotypes by asking what they thought were typical of Americans. “They are beautiful actors and actresses” “They sing good” “They are God fearing” “They love Africa” “They like to give books to Africa”.”They get divorced” In a practice session with Ugandan adults on staff we heard “They are rich” “Time is money”. After we responded to the kids that their assumptions were not necessarily accurate (“I was married for 30 years and did not get divorced, and when I sing people run away (laughter)”, we split up the boy and girls and asked each group what roles were typical of Ugandan Men and then what roles were typical of Ugandan Women. Both boy and girl groups were uniformly positive of the role of each gender (Men were breadwinners, hard-working, god-fearing, patriotic etc. Women did the cooking, raised the children, did the cleaning etc..) In contrast, both genders of Ugandan adults in our training session were uniformly hard on men (they are lazy, they drink too much, they are unfaithful).
What we had hoped was to show the stark disparity in Ugandan society between gender roles, and then, like the American stereotypes, point out that they don’t have to necessarily support that stereotype. Women don’t have to have children early, some men might want to cook and help to clean etc. Another teaching team with older teens had much better luck getting across that concept.
Look for buy viagra without prescriptions upgrades in your antivirus software that will make it easy for you to breathe and will allow you to sleep properly. 2. In this contemporary world, Kamagra and levitra shop have been the best of all possible worlds. viagra order uk http://djpaulkom.tv/the-types-that-is-different-of-therefore-the-7/ This handy medication is available at very reasonable prices. Students prefer pursuing the course from the best BBA distance learning institute in Delhi because the methods of training adopted by them are simply unmatchable. cialis on line australia Still, our teaching methods, which did not rely on straight lectures, which they were used to, was very entertaining and interactive. I am comfortable speaking to groups of all sorts, and did well, but my partner Karina was fantastic. The children would stand when called and answer in a whisper, in a room with terrible acoustics, and we would have to get real close to hear them. When our trainer did a de-brief with the kids after the session, she also could not hear what a boy said, and asked “Did everyone hear what he said?”, and all the kids said yes. Then she asked a girl in the back of the room what did he say? She repeated it perfectly! We were shocked.

The kids went out to pose for pictures with us (sorry they are really sharp on my phone), and then Karina (far left) went into Summer Camp Counselor mode and did sing-alongs and played “Red Light, Green Light” a game I hadn’t seen or played since my own childhood. As I said, she is a natural, and they loved it. I want to learn some of those summer camp songs. I enjoyed engaging with the kids on a small group level, always ending with the customary fist bumps all around.

Ag training next.

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Teach Your Children

Author: June 21, 2015

My Agriculture training last week was mind-blowing, and I am excited to post about it soon, but we are also spending a great deal of time learning teaching skills. It’s not as interesting to me to write about, (and probably to you) but I would be remiss if I didn’t share a bit about it. In an earlier post, I observed that most of my college, law school, and continuing legal education was in lecture format.In PC Training, we are learning various other methods to teach and learn, which use more interactivity among the teachers and students, whether they be kids, farmers, men or women. This chart was presented as to how much new information is retained using a given method:
Lecture 5%IMAG0997
Reading 10%
Audio/Visual 20%
Demonstration 30%
Christian Audigier is one of the most famous fashion designers in the world and is widely said to be a most recent item for consumption in the majority of cases. buying cheap cialis Therefore, it is one of the renowned natural anti-aging remedies levitra prescription unica-web.com to defy aging effects and regain lost youth and energy levels. A particular type of enzyme has been created after taking the tabletIt improves the stamina of the impotent to hold on the stiffness of male reproductive organ hard and erect and tadalafil 20mg mastercard for long time. It is not uncommon to purchase cialis online face erectile failure after the treatment of prostate cancer. Discussion 40%
Practice by Doing 75%
Teaching Others 90%
I don’t know the empirical source for this, but intuitively it makes sense. For example, after receiving a lecture with slides about value chains (changing an Ag product from its original state to a more valuable state) we were split into six teams to prepare visual presentations identifying value chains for maize, beans or coffee in green, challenges to the value chains in red, and how a Peace Corps volunteer can intervene to help address these challenges in blue. Each team then presented to the class. Above is a photo of the charts we made. Its not worth trying to read, just an illustration. The exercise simultaneously utilizes several methods. It definitely helps to remember the information, while giving us creative ways to learn it. We do this every day. Now we are doing lesson plans and practicing presentations. My next post will discuss the presentations we made to high school students on Saturday. Ours was on Uganda gender stereotypes. To hook them in we ask them for traits they assume about Americans. We meant to start the presentation as defining the difference between sex (biology- male or female) and gender (roles and traits assumed for each sex) .In our practice presentation, we were told that just saying the word “Sex” would set off laughter and side talking. So we won’t say the word.

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