It wouldn’t be a Study Abroad in Africa without all this

So the last few weeks have been jam packed with travelling as we finish our classes before starting our research and practicum time. We started our trip in Rwanda, then moved to Western Uganda, back to Kampala and then East to Jinja. Luckily we were able to mix work and play, learning so much as we got to experience life in the many places we visited. I decided I would summarize the cool things I’ve seen over the last 3 weeks. There has been so much that I could write a blog post about each one, but instead I’ll save you the trouble by just giving you the highlights:

The view at Lake Kivu

In Rwanda we got to spend two days at Lake Kivu, one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever seen. When sitting by the water you couldn’t tell where the water ended and the sky began because both were so blue. We went for a hike through the mountains and made a bunch of cute little friends as we walked through the surrounding villages. The air was so crisp and the view was breathtaking. Unfortunately my happy vacation in Rwanda was made into a little moment of terror. I was standing outside on the patio of our hotel one night when a black snake slithered across my feet. For anyone who knows me well, I HATE SNAKES…. After screaming at the top of my lungs and running over to my friends crying, they alerted the hotel staff and killed it (we didn’t want them to kill it, but I think things got lost in translation a little). Were still a little unclear as to the status of the snake. The locals claimed it was a black mamba but we have other snake enthusiasts who claim otherwise.

The last of the sprinting children

On one of our excursions we went to one of the Millennium Village Projects sponsored by the UN. We got the opportunity to visit a school where a bunch of little children greeted us with a song and dance about butterflies. As we were leaving, a few kids decided they wanted to chase our van down the road. A few seconds we looked back and a swarm of children flooded the street all running to catch the Muzungu van. At first our driver Godfrey slowed down because we thought it was cute, but the kids were a little too fast so we had to go full speed (once they started climbing on the car it started getting a little dangerous). A few of the kids actually managed to keep up for a couple hundred meters, and we decided they’re going to be the next Olympians.

In Western Uganda we got to spend the night at Queen Elizabeth National Park (the biggest game reserve in Uganda). Apparently they spread the big 5 throughout the different National Parks to promote tourism throughout all of Uganda, so we didn’t get to see giraffes or zebras. We went on a boat ride to see the wildlife around Lake Albert where we saw hippos and crocs and lots of buffalo. We spent the night in a house within the park, and were warned that we could wake up to some animals in our yard. Early in the morning we heard the sound of trees breaking and falling, we looked out the window and realized it was a couple elephants walking away from us. When we woke up in the morning we looked again and found a momma and a baby hippo right outside our window casually strolling by…

Sitting on top of our safari van

The game drive was the stereotypical African safari experience, with animals all around us. We got to climb up on the roof of our van for a better view, which was slightly terrifying at first but really fun! The view was absolutely breathtaking, and although we couldn’t find the lions we saw a bunch of elephants, hyenas, hippos, kobs, monkeys, birds, warthogs and buffalo. Apparently Rafiki in Swahili means friend, and Pumbaa means silly or foolish. However, we noticed that the Lion King is a little inaccurate because warthogs are actually very fit and not very large at all. Swahili is very common in this region so we really liked saying hakuna mattah to all the kids, although they’ve never seen The Lion King so they were kind of confused.

Literally an Elephant crossing

My homestay grandma peeling matoke

We also went to a rural village in the West for our village homestay experience. Rural areas in Africa in some ways look very different, but in other ways are just like home. Other than the lack of electricity and toilet facilities, the rural homestay was actually very normal. Our home had real walls and a roof, and even a yard for kids to play in. I learned what it actually means to walk 5km to school and how time consuming life can be without electricity for cooking food (ie shelling ground nuts, then crushing them to powder, then making sauce and then cooking over a fire… for each dish) and transportation to get around. However, the simplicity of my few days in the village was actually very relaxing and pit latrines are very comfortable once you get used to them (it’s the natural position anyway!!). The last night we were there, we played with some of the neighborhood kids as we cooked dinner over the fire. The kids decided they wanted to sing for us and preform a traditional Ugandan dance. As I sat there holding a little baby with kids all around me, I looked up and was able to see every star in the sky so clearly. I was awestruck and amazed by the beauty of the moment. The kids dressed in rags, sang the East African Anthem with all the pride and joy in the world. This moment was unique to Uganda, something I could have never experienced anywhere else.

These kids loved taking selfies

One of my family members during my homestay saw me helping to prepare dinner and then washing dishes. She came up to me laughing saying “It must be hard cooking and cleaning for yourself for the first time.” Apparently it is commonly thought that all Americans have a house help that cooks and cleans for them, as many middle/ upper class people have in Uganda. I kindly informed her that I learned to cook for myself a long time ago, and am completely responsible for my own food and dishes at school. She was absolutely shocked, but was happy to know that Americans knew how to take care of themselves, even if cooking and cleaning is much simpler in the US. Another common misconception was that America is only made of white people (apparently they think Obama is from Kenya?). I was happy to share something new with about life in America, while learning about their lives at the same time.

I was able to teach and play Frisbee with a bunch of the village kids. As we said goodbye, we left them our Frisbee which made them so happy. Apparently they are now obsessed with it and play it all the time! My host mom made us all matching dresses, which we proudly wore all morning before we left.

Candid village family photo

Although the travelling was exhausting and uncomfortable at times with the conditions of many dirt roads, this trip helped me to appreciate what it is I love about this place. No matter where I go, I am always learning or experiencing something new. The people here are so loving and are just as interested in America as I am about Uganda.

Also, here's a video of cute kids at one of the schools we visited:

Education in Uganda!

This post is dedicated to my mom’s 5^th grade classes. Apparently she likes to read them my blog posts so I thought I would write about the schools here for them to learn about!

The education system in Uganda is set up based on the English system with Primary school (our elementary school), Secondary school (our middle and high school) and University. Primary education is available to the public, but there are not many public secondary schools and University is only private. Kindergarten is not a part of Primary school, so those children go to a separate pre-Primary school.

Science Posters in the Library

Just like in America students study Mathematics, Reading, Science, Social Studies, and Geography, but they additionally study Religious Education in public schools (they learn about both Christianity and Islam since those are the two main religions in Uganda). They sometimes participate in school agriculture projects, planting trees and growing vegetables to sell for the school. Children regardless of the school they attend wear uniforms every day. At the end of each year, students take National exams that determine whether the child is able to move to the next level in school. The exams are very challenging and many children don’t pass the exams, especially the exam promoting an individual from primary to secondary school. Because the national exams are so difficult, students may be required to go to school on Saturdays, which we obviously don’t have in America.

Students learning about science

Uganda is mainly in the southern hemisphere so the school year begins in February and ends in November, with summer break from November- January (in the southern hemisphere the earths position is in a different relation to the sun, so the seasons are opposite). Uganda also does not have an official language, so students are taught the first three years of primary school in their local language (in my region the language is called Luganda) and taught in English starting at Primary 4 level. This means that for most children English is their second language, making it much more difficult to learn in a new language. Additionally, in public schools the class sizes can range from 50-100 kids per teacher. Imagine having a classroom 3 times as large as your own, and all trying to learn from one teacher.

Some children, starting as young as 6 years old, may attend boarding school. Unlike in the United States, it is very common for children in Primary and Secondary School to live away from their families at the school they attend. My homestay sister who is 15 attends a boarding school about an hour away from my home (she is in the equivalent of 9^th grade). The reason so many children attend boarding school is because Uganda does not have school busses to help children get to school, like in the US. Instead, many kids walk up to 10 kilometers to get to school, or must ride in public buses (we call them taxis) in order to reach school, which can take hours (the school may either be very far away if you live in a village, or the traffic may be very bad in Kampala).

We got the chance to sit in on a P5 class

The school day usually goes from 8 am to about 4:30 pm, and most schools do not have PE in their schedules for the day. When students get home they are usually responsible for taking care of their younger siblings and completing chores for the household such as feeding the chickens, fetching water from a local stream, or helping to prepare dinner. I’m sure not many Americans are responsible for retrieving our own water because we have plumbing, or feeding chickens for that matter. The biggest difference between public schools in Uganda and the United States is that many children go to school without food for the entire day. In Uganda, parents must pay small fees for their children to pay for books, teachers’ meals and uniforms. For many families who don’t have much money, these fees are too expensive and so the parents must sacrifice their children’s food in order to pay the fees. Unlike the US, lunch is not provided for those who cannot pay (because too many children in public school cannot afford lunch) so these children must go through the entire day without lunch, after walking miles to school or travelling for hours. Imagine going through an entire school day without anything to eat. Wouldn't it be difficult, or nearly impossible to pay attention during class while hungry?

Regardless of the difficulties children face going to school, it is still considered a privilege to be able to attend school and gain an education. Not every child is able to go to school or finish their education with lack of funds, so children are very grateful for the opportunity to learn. Kids are always on their best behavior and highly respect their teachers who provide them with such a valuable skill. Education provides them with the opportunity to pursue their dreams and earn a better life for themselves, and the students know it is the key to their future.

This is just half of the giant class full of students

As a person who grew up and attended school in the US, I am now realizing how lucky I was to have the opportunities for education that I did with caring teachers, small classes, lunch every day, and the ability to go to school free of charge. Because school was not a privilege but a right, I did not appreciate my education as much as I should have. For those of you who are lucky enough to live in the United States, just imagine how different your life could be if you had to go to school in a different country. One of the big differences between Ugandan school children and kids in America, is that in Uganda the students are very well behaved and are always very respectful of their teachers. They know that their teachers are there to help them and want to learn all they can from them, so that they are able to pass their exams and eventually pursue their dreams. Ugandan children still love to play games like soccer and capture the flag, have similar interests and career goals to students in America. They are really just like kids in the US, but are growing up in a very different world.

I hope you all are able to enjoy learning about school kids in a different place who are just like you, and that you all are able to gain a new appreciation for the place in which you are growing up and able to attend school. I hope that you all will work hard enough in school so that you will one day have the chance to study abroad like I am and see the rest of the huge world we live in!

The computer lab has 2 laptops for student use

Some of the students at Kyanzee Public School

My Journey to Rwanda

*Warning* this is not the world’s most happy blog post, but I feel it is necessary to discuss this experience so that others can understand how the West impacts the rest of the world.

Rwanda is a tiny landlocked country to the West of Uganda. It is best known by the genocide that occurred there in 1994 (For those of you who haven’t heard about it please Wikipedia it). The second we crossed the border of Rwanda, we could immediately see differences between the two countries. For example, Ugandans drive on the left side of the road and Rwandans drive on the right. Other things such as the way people grow crops, the mountainous green landscape and the infrastructure of the newly paved roads. We spent our time in Rwanda in Kigali, the capital city. Kigali is a huge city that has developed very rapidly over the past 20 years. It looks more Western than some American cities, with really cool pedestrian crossing signs with timers (like an electronic person physically walking, and then stopping when it’s time to stop). We were shocked as we walked through the city and saw so many places that resembled a Starbucks or an H&M, so much so that we forgot we were in Africa for a minute (until we would see women in traditional dresses, at which we would quickly snap back to reality). After a day of taking it all in, we woke up the next morning with an eyrie feeling as we got ready to visit the many genocide memorials, which I quickly realized I wasn’t prepared for.

I had first learned in depth about the Rwandan genocide when I took a course on Humanitarian Aid and Sexualized Violence my freshman year at Emory (if you are interested, Ghosts of Rwanda is a really great documentary!). During the genocide from April-July 1994, Hutu (majority ethnicity in Rwanda), massacred over a million Tutsi (minority ethnicity) and Hutu sympathizers. In 4 months, over 10% of the population was killed and many to this day remain refugees in the surrounding countries. The genocide was committed not only by the government, but by neighbors, coworkers and friends of the Tutsi people. Before I get into the genocide there are two very important things to note: First, the terms Hutu and Tutsi were created by the Belgians under colonial rule to separate ethnicities so that they could rule Rwanda more easily (with the Tutsi as the minority in a position of power, and the Hutu as the subordinate working class). Second, the genocide did not begin suddenly. Instead tensions had grown over decades and the genocide was the culmination of many historical underpinnings. 

During my day we attended 3 memorials: the National genocide memorial in Kigali, and 2 memorials at churches where genocide was performed. The first explained the social history leading up to the genocide, the timeline of the genocide itself, artifacts remembering the events, and stories of victims and perpetrators. Although it is not culturally appropriate to cry in Rwanda, it was impossible to look at images of children with machete cuts through their heads without breaking down. One of the rooms of the memorial had a wall full of missing persons posts and photos remembering loved ones. I came across a birth certificate of a baby whom was killed that’s birthday was December 22^nd, 1993 (just a day before mine). The reality was that my world in the US was so inherently different than this baby whom was my age and never got a chance to grow up because of the place she was born. The 2 church memorials were full of coffins for the bodies of the lives lost, clothes of the victims and the weapons used during the genocide. The churches remained exactly as they were left with broken stained glass, bullet holes in the wall, hacked through doors and even blood stained floors. Churches became the primary place for killing as many Tutsi sought refuge within their walls (which disgustingly was more convenient for the Hutu). Crosses were used as weapons, and even some priests committed genocide. I will stop my explanation to spare you the trauma, but as you tell the genocide was horrific.

One of the Genocide Memorial Churches. Out of respect for the bodies within, we were not allowed to take photos inside

The worst part of all of it, was that the genocide was not committed in masses like the gas chambers of the Holocaust, but instead on an individual level (victims knew their killers). The social history and propaganda engrained so strongly within individuals that they were able to gruesomely take another human life. If you are now asking yourself how the UN or the United States could allow something so horrific to happen, I am sorry to say that they knew. The UN not only knew about the genocide, but they knew it was being planned months before, and after the genocide began they chose to pull out peacekeeping troops. The US took 5 months to define the word “genocide” which now many political officials within the government attribute to the lack of interests the US had in Rwanda. Instead of helping, Americans (all but one) fled the country while Rwandans working for the US Embassy were slaughtered. The international community’s response to the genocide is almost more tragic than the event itself.

I am writing this post because I feel it is important to understand what happened to this country and maybe even more so how a nation can come together to rapidly develop into modern day Rwanda. I have realized that often Americans live in their own little bubble, but there is a huge world around us with many other nations and cultures. The genocide went on so long because no one knew, and those who knew chose to ignore. We are Americans but we are also human beings, and the interests of the individual should never come above the interests of humanity. If you get a chance to go to Africa and want a tourist-friendly, more western version a Sub-Saharan African city, Kigali is a beautiful place to visit. Since the genocide, the people have worked hard to move past and reconcile, focusing on development as Rwandans, not Hutu and Tutsi. Although it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, I’m glad I got a chance to see the past and the present in person so that I may share this story with you and learn for the future.