This place where...

Third term has begun, and school has brought a new routine to my life. I am teaching English in primary 4, primary 5, and primary 6, as well as Maths in primary 5, and occasional English lessons to primary 7. As you can imagine, school keeps me very busy, but I also continue to learn Luganda and build friendships.

These lines have been running through my head lately, so I thought I'd share...

It still feels strange to me, this place where...

• I where socks and shoes when teaching on dirt floors to avoid jiggers.
• random people ask about the "rash" on my arms.
• so many people watch what I eat, fearing that I will lose weight and eventually waste away, while I have forgotten what "hunger" feels like.
• even the youngest students in baby class can be boarders.
• I treat my father with all the respect and submission due an African man.
• people are so eagre to have pen friends in America.
• I am never quite sure if I have spelled a word correctly.
• bad or poorly prepared food can turn a night into abdominal torture.
• reading and writing for pleasure seems strange to most.
• Friday afternoon lessons can be traded for digging in the garden and shelling corn in the back of the primary 5 classroom.
• I am expected to be weak and "delicate" because of my white skin and American citizenship.
• I teach dictionary skills to a class of 30+ students in a school with a single dictionary.

But it is beginning to feel like home to me, this place where...

• I awake before the sun to "shower" with a basin of cold water.
• I tuck myself under a mosquito net every night.
• I somehow often use phrases like "some few" and "somehow."
• my sentences are structured according to the syntactical rules of Ugandan English.
• I often feel like the pied piper as I walk to and from school amidst a crowd of students in various local school uniforms.
• my Luganda is slowly allowing me to communicate.
• drinking water must be boiled and is rarely cold.
• my skin has grown dark under the African sun, yet it is still only the shade of my brother's palm at dusk.
• we have no "sunrises" and "sunsets" because the sky lightens and darkens too quickly.
• I look forward to eating matooke for supper every night.
• my primary means of transportation are my own two feet or the backseat of a boda boda.
• I feel comfortable in a skirt or dress.
• I put on long sleeves on "cold" mornings, but shed them in the mid-day sun.
• I walk home with friends, stopping to shell groundnuts or learn a few new Luganda phrases along the way.
• I am beginning to learn student names and the routine of school.
• my back and knees sometimes ache, but I am steadily becoming more flexible as I learn the "right" way to sit and work.
• I am known as Nakaweesi or Chrishtine, and students greet me as "dear Aunt" when I enter a classroom.
• children spend their lunch hour playing in the sun and grass.
• most of the village greets me by name.
• I am rarely alone, but often find time for introspection.
• I write everything on the blackboard and watch my students copy it into their exercise books because we lack enough textbooks.
• "why don't you...?" is not a question, but an instruction about proper behavior.
• my friend escorts me halfway home after I have been to visit.
• some nights I wish the power were off, while others, I wish it were on.