In the last two days we have been busy preparing for the workshops. On Wednesday our journey to Kampala for workshop supplies was delayed because of protests and the resulting closing of stores. Instead, we spent the morning brainstorming ideas on how to best present the material for the workshop. The workshop will teach teachers about environmental issues and about methods on how to most effectively deliver environmental education in their classrooms (moving from a lecture-based approach to a cooperative and interactive group learning method). We came up with lots of fun ways to run the workshop and I was really impressed on how creative our teacher group is.
In the afternoon we got the go ahead for our supply run in Kampala. Kampala is like so many over-populated 3rd world cities--hot, busy, traffic jams at every hour, people everywhere, and the continuous fragrance of diesel fuel. The presence of army and police was very prevalent and we saw huge army tank-like trucks and armed police in riot gear. We got the binders we needed for the workshop, made a visit to a mostly closed craft market and headed back. Kampala traffic is snail-like (stop and go pretty much everywhere) and many touts weave among the cars at red lights wanting to sell you phone cards, sunglasses, or food (yeah like anyone would eat food that been covered in a day's worth of sun and traffic smog). The best part of our visit to Kampala was that we had a tout trying to sell us maps of Africa at the car window while we were waiting for a red light. This tout was funny because Shannon agreed to buy a map, which he handed over, but then the car took off before she could pay! So we had this skinny tout wearing 80's fluorescent pink sunglasses chasing the car, as he held up a pack of maps that billowed behind him as he ran to catch up with the car. He got his money but he really had to work for his $2.
That evening we went to a nearby resturant where I had pad thai (yes, pad thai in Africa) and a peanut butter-banana shake with ice cream that reminded me of home. Earlier that day we had chapatis --a tasty naan-like flat bread -- that unlike my previous experience with chapti was not made by a warrior. By the time we got home the power in Entebbe had died again, so our group lit candles, joked around, and listen to a bird that definately sounded like a donkey.
Yesterday we prepared our workshop handouts and were so efficient that we were done by lunch-time. We had planned for a quick visit to pay for the visit to the Chimp Sanctuary (re: an island full of orphaned chimps) that we will be doing next week. However, it took nearly 4 hours to get the credit card payment machine figured out and working (gawd!). Getting used to "Africa time" has been one of the things I've had to adjust to the most. In the month leading up to the trip Africa I was working 12-16hr days (plus weekends) with everyday feeling like a race against time to meet deadlines and to get a fraction of the heaps of experiments I had to do. So the adjustment to the slow pace of Africa (from the shower that only trickles water (think Chinese water torture) to the daily power outages), well it's time to extend the 'best before' date on my patience and reiterate "pole pole" (swahili for slowly slowly, a common slong here).
Today we doing a review of our workshop material and some of our group is leaving for a canoe adventure in south-western Uganda --time has gone by so quickly! Also today Shannon and I will be going to the Entebbe zoo. Tommorrow we leave for Kasese, the location in western Uganda of our education extravaganza.
Viv and Shannon
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