We had been given a week to prepare for the workshop, and on the last day it was ...time to go to the zoo! (well we did do a final review of material prior). At the zoo they had shoebill stork, which are massive birds that have a beak that actually looks like a shoe. They also had a lion situated in an enclosure right next to that of the hyena. The male lion and the hyena hate each other and I saw an across the fence stand-off, where the male lion was making these roaring and woofing noise --the hyena lost and sulkingly went to the side of its enclosure furthest from the lion. I also really liked the otters that swam about so playfully. With their tiny eyes and oil slicked fur they are really strange yet graceful looking creatures. They also had a large chimp enclosure with plenty of toys, trees and a moat. There was one trouble-maker chimps that seemed to bully the others and caused some major ruckus among the troop (yeah, the jerk in the family). Chimps really have a intelligent disposition --I saw one use a branch to get a rock from out of the moat and another showed concern when 2 tourists approached the baby chimps in the nursery area that was separate from their main enclosure. At the zoo there was also close to a thousand kids on school visits and with the amount of attention I got from the kids (re: they wanting pictures with me and to shake my hand), I had the feeling that I was the newest zoo exhibit. If I got a dollar every time I was called a Mzungu (it means white tourist), well, there would have been no need for me to fundraise for the Jane Goodall workshop!
The next day was the long haul to Kasese where the workshop is held. We packed the SUV with all the material for the 3 workshops and had so much stuff; information binders and notebooks for the participants, activity guides for their schools; that the SUV looked like it was on the brink of exploding --did I mention we also had 6 people traveling (Shannon and I, the driver, Aidan, her daughter and her daughter care-giver). It was a long a hot ride, but the highlight of the day happened when we stopped at the house of Aidan's cousin, Grace. She and her family of 8 had prepared a nice local-food lunch for us and her family was so welcoming! It was truely a great experience to sit and chat with them --I was really impressed with how warm and friendly they were to a stranger.
I stayed up late that night, chatting with Aidan about the corrupt politics and difficulties of life in Uganda --the most prevalent message was that getting a job and making money is really hard for Ugandans (with bias for some tribes over others), and when you do have a job, you suppport your younger siblings' education costs and support the children of friends of the family that have been orphaned because their parents have died. It seems that with all the struggling here, people still go to great lengths to help each other and I found that this was something positive that comes out of all this hardship.
Today it was our first day of the workshop, and I started the day off by attending a Catholic mass --what the ....? Ok, ok so I haven't been to a Catholic church ceremony in like 13 years (since my parents decided it was up to me to decide whether I wanted to go at the age of 18). You could say that it was a choice between unpacking really heavy boxes from the car to the workshop hall, or going church...but also I was curious to see what the ceremony would be like in Africa. At the church, men and women were literally dressed in their Sunday best --suits for the men and bright colored dress and headscarves for the women. There was singing and music through the majority of the mass, with hands waving in the air as they sang Hosanna. It was actually, and unexpectedly, really heart-warming --to see how everyone was so happy to be there and with a real sense of community. The church was a large airy structure and that was so full of people that there were attendees listening and participating on the wide grassy area outside. During the announcements we got a special welcome to the foreign visitors, and Shannon I had to stand before the congregation as they clapped and welcomed us. Afterwards, we were greeted and welcomed again by the parishioners, the priest and a nun --wow what a warm and friendly community!
The next day was the long haul to Kasese where the workshop is held. We packed the SUV with all the material for the 3 workshops and had so much stuff; information binders and notebooks for the participants, activity guides for their schools; that the SUV looked like it was on the brink of exploding --did I mention we also had 6 people traveling (Shannon and I, the driver, Aidan, her daughter and her daughter care-giver). It was a long a hot ride, but the highlight of the day happened when we stopped at the house of Aidan's cousin, Grace. She and her family of 8 had prepared a nice local-food lunch for us and her family was so welcoming! It was truely a great experience to sit and chat with them --I was really impressed with how warm and friendly they were to a stranger.
I stayed up late that night, chatting with Aidan about the corrupt politics and difficulties of life in Uganda --the most prevalent message was that getting a job and making money is really hard for Ugandans (with bias for some tribes over others), and when you do have a job, you suppport your younger siblings' education costs and support the children of friends of the family that have been orphaned because their parents have died. It seems that with all the struggling here, people still go to great lengths to help each other and I found that this was something positive that comes out of all this hardship.
Today it was our first day of the workshop, and I started the day off by attending a Catholic mass --what the ....? Ok, ok so I haven't been to a Catholic church ceremony in like 13 years (since my parents decided it was up to me to decide whether I wanted to go at the age of 18). You could say that it was a choice between unpacking really heavy boxes from the car to the workshop hall, or going church...but also I was curious to see what the ceremony would be like in Africa. At the church, men and women were literally dressed in their Sunday best --suits for the men and bright colored dress and headscarves for the women. There was singing and music through the majority of the mass, with hands waving in the air as they sang Hosanna. It was actually, and unexpectedly, really heart-warming --to see how everyone was so happy to be there and with a real sense of community. The church was a large airy structure and that was so full of people that there were attendees listening and participating on the wide grassy area outside. During the announcements we got a special welcome to the foreign visitors, and Shannon I had to stand before the congregation as they clapped and welcomed us. Afterwards, we were greeted and welcomed again by the parishioners, the priest and a nun --wow what a warm and friendly community!
The workshop has been really fun so far. We have prepared lots of interactive activities and games that makes it fun for both us and the teachers attending. We played a 'Web of Life' game that the teachers really liked --this involved using a long piece of string and starting our with a source of water. The water source holds the first piece of string and then all the creatures and plants in the food chain that relies on the source of water holds the next parts of the string. If you polluted the source of water, you could see --like domino effect --how each living thing would die.
So I sign off this post with a few thoughts --the web of life may have been just our little workshop game, but the 'web of life' and our interconnectedness was also made visible in the way people help each other out --from welcoming us foreigners in their homes, at their church, and how people here support younger siblings and orphaned children even though they have so little to being with. That's the kind of web that even the most jaded person can smile about.
Viviane
Viviane
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