Jambo! I’ve been MIA
from the blogging world lately because I spent the first month of my summer
living in Bujagali Falls, Uganda. Africa has always been in my heart and
living, learning and teaching there has been a shared dream of mine and my
sister’s. This summer we traveled together
to Uganda to volunteer with the SOUL Foundation. We were
so very blessed to spend a month living with a host family in the most
welcoming and amazing community imaginable.
When I returned, I had to pretty quickly jump back into school mode to
attend my district’s Summer Academy professional development. While catching up with my principal on the
phone, she remarked about what an amazing opportunity I had to live and teach
in Africa and that I surely will bring so much back to share with our students
this school year. It got me thinking… What
will I share? What impact did Africa
have on me that I will bring to my school?
What lessons did I learn during my time in Uganda? So, I did some reflecting and lots of looking
through my pictures to come up with the following list of my own lessons learned. I am sure there will continue to be other
lessons that pop up and different ways that I realize I have been changed from
this experience, but for now, here are some things I’d like to share about my
journey.
Lesson one: When
you’re a fish in the water, make the first move.
It’s not comfortable or fun to be the fish out of
water. If I’m being honest with myself,
I am rarely out of my comfort zone at home.
I spend my time doing what I love and am good at surround by people that
know and understand me. In Africa, I
frequently felt like a fish out of water.
I didn’t look, speak or act like the people I was living among, and there
were vast cultural differences that challenged me daily. What made me feel better adjusted and more
comfortable were the interactions with the community when people from the
village made the first move. That is,
they made the first move (despite the language barrier) to greet us, welcome us and try to understand us. The more difficult times came when we felt
disconnected and out of place because no one was interacting with us or
acknowledging our presence or trying to understand our cultural
differences. Thankfully, those times
were few and far between (as I said, we were in the most welcoming
community). I think sometimes we tend get
so caught up in our own comfortableness that we don’t realize how uncomfortable
and out of place others around us may feel. This is certainly often the case
with parents and school-- and especially so with parents that are not from the
US themselves. My school population is
around 60% Hispanic and growing, and I thought a lot about that while I was in
Africa. Like those welcoming people in
the village, am I making the first move to ensure that they feel comfortable,
appreciated and accepted within the school building? I am definitely a fish in the water back home
and at school, and I want to be ever so conscious of doing what I can to make
the first move in welcoming and accepting all.
Lesson two: Children
are much more resilient than we give them credit for.
The afternoon before we were getting ready to leave,
Elizabeth and I went to sit by the Nile together one last time. We quickly found ourselves surrounded by 8 or
so children all under the age of six running, screaming, crying, laughing and
playing with no adult supervision. One
second they were mean to each other by hitting, hurting and teasing, and the
next they were laughing and playing again without any adult intervention. The same truth could be said about the
students we were teaching at preprimary. It often went against my nature to allow
children to just freely roam and interact with each other anywhere and
everywhere by themselves, but it is such a cultural norm that I had to just get
over and accept it. And you know
what? It turns out that children are
much more resilient than we give them credit for. They look out for each other and very quickly
get over it when they get hurt. They
don’t hold grudges or create drama with their friends. If someone hits them, they may cry for about
30 seconds or they may just turn around and hit that person back who will then
shrug and move on with life. The next
thing you know, they are back to playing and having fun. Children as young as three are responsible
for getting to and from school by themselves and sometimes have to do so by
walking very long distances. It is
amazing (and through a Western lens, often terrifying) that they are able to
handle and do so much by their own little selves. It makes me think that in America we are
often guilty of going overboard on coddling our children and not expecting as
much out of them as they are capable of.
I want my kids at school to know how much I love them, and I am sure as
a result of that, I too often give in to the drama and allow them to become
dependent on my help. I plan to very
consciously take a step back this year and instead of coddling, empower
students to accept their feelings and problems solve on their own. Trust me, they are more than capable of doing
so.
Lesson three: Hard work
really does pay off… but it may take some time.
While we were volunteering with SOUL, we were fortunate to
visit many different women’s groups that SOUL created to empower the women and
provide sustainability within the community.
Some of the most amazing groups we visited and got to participate in were
the fish farming groups. Four years ago,
they had the idea to create a group that would fish farm to earn money for
themselves and their families. Being
from a fishing community, they were excited to take this project on; however,
they did not know about the process and chemistry of fish farming nor did they
have the ponds ready to go. They had to
start from the bottom up. Together, this
group and the SOUL staff found some land and began to hand dig the four ponds necessary to start fish farming. It is incredible to imagine what they must
have been feeling and thinking on those hot African days while digging for what
I’m sure seemed like an endless amount of time.
How were they able to keep the end in sight and understand the purpose
for all of their hard work in the beginning knowing how far away the reward
was? While we were there, the fish pond
group was gearing up to sell their biggest fish and make their first
profit. That’s right, their first
profit after 4 years of all of that hard work.
They had many struggles along the way and numerous learning experiences
to get them where they are now, but I think that the reason they will continue
to be successful is because they are now seeing how all of their hard work has
paid off. They have had ownership of the
whole project from start to finish. What
a useful example I now have to share with my students to help them keep the end
in mind while goal setting and planning for their futures. It isn’t always fun, easy or quick, but in
the end, hard work really does pay off.
Lesson four: Synergy
can turn a bite into a meal.
One of my favorite things to witness was break/lunch time at
preprimary. Firstly, the kiddos were
just adorable with their little lunch pails.
But looking past the cuteness was a raw understanding of synergy that
took place each day during this time.
The kids would take their own little pail and go sit down with a group
of friends. They would open their
lunches, grab a handful of beans or rice or whatever was packed for them that
day and put it in their friend’s pail.
Next, they would reach in and grab a bit of corn or potatoes that were
in their friend’s pail and place it in their own. They did this with no communication
whatsoever. There were no “please” and
“thank you” taking place because they had such a basic understanding of
synergy. In other words, if they go eat
by themselves then they will have a meal consisting of a few beans. However, if they grab, take and give among
their friends, their lunch will go from a few beans to beans, rice, corn,
potatoes and whatever other goodies were packed for their friends that
day. I think what was truly remarkable
to me about this is how it happened so naturally. In America, how often am I telling kids the
importance of sharing and teaching them that we can do more together than we
can alone? Kids in Africa just get it. On another note, synergy can also help raise
children, create and run a business, expedite the success of a business, foster
sustainability and over all better everyone’s livelihood.
Lesson five: It takes
a village to do just about everything.
The final lesson that I want to share from my time in Africa
is about the incredible sense community I felt and experienced. The saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child", but the truth of the matter is
that it takes a village to do just about everything. One of the most striking cultural differences
that I am struggling with as I acculturate back into Western society is the
lack of community I feel here. I've been
lucky that I had professional development this week to allow me to get out of my
house and interact with fellow school counselors. But even so, after the few hours we are
together, we all go back home, close our doors and do our own thing. That is too often life here in America. In Africa, there was no going inside and
closing the door… people were always outside so that you can see, greet and
communicate with everyone. They don’t
have the same sense of individuality that we have here. Instead, they truly live by the words “What’s mine is yours” and embody them in all that they do. The village is better off because everyone
looks out for each other and their children (who are usually just roaming
around in and out of people’s homes and getting fed and loved). People there work together to create a
community that can continue to sustain and better itself every day. How amazing would it be if our schools had
that sense of community? What if instead
of competing to have the best scores or smartest students we all worked
together in a synergistic way to share and grow education as a whole that would
benefit each and every student and family?
Thanks for reading my thoughts… Living in Africa was an amazing
and life changing experience that I will always hold in my heart. Now, with my new lessons learned, on to
planning for the 2013-14
