Visiting the Scholars and Community Service

This morning, we went to three different secondary schools in the Fort Portal area. The first school we went to was St. Leo’s Secondary School for boys. It was cold when we got there, even by our New England standards. We meet with the scholars who had been sponsored by AFROKAPS/The Kasiisi Project. The boys were pretty quiet and reserved, and had very few questions for us. One boy, 12 year old Moses, was pretty vocal when it came to answering questions. Most of the questions that were asked, both by us and of us, were pretty simple; What classes do you take, what clubs are there at your school, when does your holiday start, etc… after we met with the boys, we headed out. Our next stop was at Nyakasura Secondary School. The ratio of boys to girls was 3:1. Nyakasura was my favorite secondary school. All the students, yes even the boys, wear kilts. At first I thought it was strange, but as I got used to it, I liked it more and more. They weren’t plaid kilts; they were khaki, so it’s not as weird as it sounds. We met with the scholars there as well, but they asked some much tougher questions. They asked about the university system in the United States, and about how they could apply or get financial help. We had some time for “interaction”, so I talked to some of the boys. They all laughed when I told them that I played football (soccer). I don’t know why, but it was a good conversation starter. All the kids there were super nice though, and they were all really happy to see us. After we interacted with the students there, we left and made our way to St. Maria Goretti, an all girls school near fort portal. We didn’t get to spend a lot of time there, because the girls were all in exams. We just took pictures with the scholars, and then talked briefly, but they had to get back to class. Right from there, we headed out of Fort Portal to Kasiisi to paint the blackboards. The smell was really strong. I’m not sure about the number, I think we painted 14 rooms, but we painted all the boards in the school. That night we went to the Kasenenea’s house for dinner. There were a lot of people there, including the Wrangham’s, and teachers from various schools associated with the Kasiisi Project. We went inside with Helena to watch some Ugandan music videos. My new favorite is bread and butter by Radio Weasel. It’s really catchy. The Ugandan hip-hop music is very similar to our hip-hop. Dinner was delicious, and I talked with some Ugandan teachers and we had a very interesting conversation with them about various cultural differences including relationships, and how people act in public. They even asked us to be on the radio to discuss our culture for the public to hear. It was a really good, but long day.