Sunflower Press and Education Update

It was a very quick week of work in Padibe – Shawn was busy at the Sunflower Press while I hit the pavement to begin working toward our education goals. The Press is progressing better than we ever could have expected, the ebb of so many customers coming and going is proof. The first batch of seed is running out and we are now preparing for the fall season when the harvest will be abundant. Based on the many fields of sunflowers we have passed along the road, we are expecting a crop that will fill the press to capacity — hard to believe, but it’s true. This project has been so popular that when news that our current supply was low spread, the people were coming in a non-stop wave – this time with the biggest jerry can of oil possible as opposed to the little kids coming by for a cup of oil (which we saw last week). After all if the preparation and fundraising, it is awe-inspiring to witness its success. The guys are even heading to Kampala to purchase industrial-sized steel racks and a silo because we are expecting the fall rush to be just that overwhelming!

Last week Monday, I met with the education committee — Otim John Bosco, our head, and three other guys, Patrick, Morris, and Richard, who are his former students and now successful teachers. They have been very pleased with our sponsorships project so far — they explained in detail how they conducted extensive interviews to pick the students we are sponsoring. The committee is sending them to the best school that is still somewhat close – about a 45 minute drive away – in Kalongo, and I plan to meet with most of them there next week while staying with the sisters. I was a little concerned that the students would be disappointed to be stripped away from their parents, as community is such an important part of growing up here, and the committee assured me that all of them were thrilled by the idea of a good education in a boarding school sponsored by the Americans. In fact, many students were begging to go. It seems that the kids here, especially the extremely bright ones that we have chosen, understand that doing something great for the community requires a great education and if that means that they need to get out then, so be it. It does dishearten me though that there is no school in Padibe that the Global Solidarity believes could offer these kids a form of solid education, which leads me to believe that we need to think bigger than these 13 students. We can’t send all of Padibe’s best and brightest away for schooling… there has to be a better answer for those who value education and live in Padibe. So, that being said, we are starting to brainstorm as to what the bigger projects look like around education. So far, we have come up with the idea of a printing press that could help school costs by printing the class materials and examinations (apparently, the closest one is in Kampala, a full day’s drive away). The next idea, which I am the most interested in, is the creation of a model school here in Padibe that would run similarly to the ones we have seen from the Catholics and Jesuits in Gulu and Pader. Rehabilitating the existing schools is nearly impossible – with 180 students per class, teachers who only show up certain days of the week, barely enough materials, inherently low standards, where would we start? I know it is a huge dream, but before I leave I hope to visit the school started by Monsignor Odong in Pader that runs under this model: high standards and a rigorous education that empowers the students of the north to rebuild the community on their own. For me, that is why education is the answer here — the people know their culture and what works and what doesn’t more than I ever could, so the idea is to empower them to do the building, empower them to have the ideas, empower them to be the doctors, the engineers, the teachers of the future Padibe who will lift the community back up to a respectable standard of living. The third idea was to build a nursery school onto the current primary school, but we are skeptical to just throw more money into a current system that is not working. Just as my fearless headmaster at Pewaukee says all the time, we have to rethink the system to make real change. The final idea was to begin teacher sponsorships where we could send teachers back to school to continue their education (similar to a Master’s Degree) but this one is also less appealing to us because it is very expensive and if we educate 2-3 teachers in the community, we would be spending a large amount of money but not really reaching a large part of the student population. Additionally, there is no guarantee that the educated teacher would stay in the district or could be able to work through the terribly difficult challenges of a system that is not valued in a way that could really bring change. Anyway, the meeting was a success and it was really inspiring to hear of all the processes that went on over here to make our dream of student sponsorships and relationships a reality. The interviews, the discussions with the parents which required that the committee convince them of the importance of their child’s education, the full days of picking the kids up from all different parts of this wide community, and bringing them to the school all humbled me. My favorite news was that the students, when chosen, have grown immensely in their self confidence and efficacy – I cannot wait to meet them and hear their stories, share in their joy and bring all of the love and letters from home to their lives. But this definitely has me thinking: what if we could do this for so many more students?

On Tuesday, I went to the secondary school, Padibe Girls’ School (even though there are boys there… I know; I still don’t get it) as they have collected and gathered the students from the school to become pen pals with my students at Pewaukee High School. A few months back Morris went there to get the names of interested students and came back with a list of 40. Well, when he showed up Tuesday with the white lady, it changed things entirely: suddenly, it wasn’t just talk but rather a real person with a real plan. That being said, 70 – almost double the initial amount! – showed up to have their pictures and names taken! We initially allotted 30 minutes to get this done and the whole thing took about an hour and a half! Of course, the students were just late to class and blamed it on the Muzungu – oops! I will be leaving with letters from the students here for my Pewaukee High School students, but, dang, I’m going to have to get working to publicize and grow our group — so, if any of you Pewaukee Global Solidarity students are reading this, it’s time to hit the pavement and grow our numbers! 🙂 Wednesday was spent visiting more schools and meeting with more headmasters. I really enjoyed the nursery school kids (aging from 2-6); they are so friendly and lack any wall that sometimes remains a barrier for me and their older counterparts. They very proudly sang songs that showed they could name (most) of their body parts in English as well as their numbers (9, 10, a BEEEG FAAHT HEN! So freaking adorable: and, yes, I have video footage :)). I did feel sort of annoyed by the meetings with the head teachers who had nothing but a list of things that were wrong with their schools to hand to me. We are not going to be able to fix everything, especially by just writing checks which seems like the agenda of so many people. As we have seen with the issues of welfare recipients in the US, there is something really disempowering – harmful, even – about just giving handouts and walking away. As one of our friends Charles put it, they will only be back again asking for more, more, more instead of going out to fish for themselves. So while I understand the pain and struggle, it is easier to walk away from these meetings maintaining boundaries if I keep this in mind: handouts only harm in the long run.

At about 1:00, I was pulled away from the school and taken with the Sunflower Press guys to the house of our machine operator, Michael Onakeliet. He was the main guy behind the water filtration project and one of the hardest workers we have met. Quiet, a little shy, sincere, he always repeats himself in a way we’ve grown to love to ensure that we understand him. The big news (or the “order of the day” as they say here in Uganda) was his new baby boy! He arrived only eight days prior to our visit and we were having lunch there to greet him and his wife. We’re still not really sure how his wife, Beatrice, managed to prepare a full Ugandan celebratory lunch while taking care of an 8-day old, but I have a feeling that the mother, mother in law, and mat-full of familial women sitting with her had something to do with it. Ah, these people, I tell you! They know how to support each other. So, humbly, we entered his house (yes, a real “house” that he had built; we are so encouraged to see that the people who are really working hard like Michael are enjoying the fruits of their labor! They are an inspiration to us and the other villagers) and were served lunch. After we were through, Beatrice came in with the baby – ohhh my goodness what a sweet angel (admittedly, meeting him made me sentimental as I keep thinking of my sister who is about to welcome a little man soon – I have been telepathically begging him to hold off two more weeks!). When I asked his name they all gave me a funny look, so I had a feeling something was up. And sure enough, all of the elders, and women, and relatives crowded in as we found out that that’s why they had brought us there: to name the baby! What?!? Apparently children are named based on events that have been important to the village and our visit was too important to miss in the history of Padibe. 😉 So, because most people can’t pronounce the name Shawn, we named the little guy Alexander (Alex, which is a name we like but will never be able to use because we don’t hate our future children). It was pretty humbling. After some celebratory sodas and pictures, we were back on the move to Padibe to have Shawn’s final supper with the sisters and priests.

On Friday, Shawn’s last day in Padibe, we attended the early morning mass where we met Christine, Tommy’s wife. She asked that we stop by their place on our way out to Gulu (the city where we were spending the weekend). I guess I didn’t know what to expect, but I can assure you that most of the time that we are asked to go to someone’s house it is usually to hear a proposal or a request. So, as we entered the place, Christine was doing wash which she quickly put away and went to get Tommy. As we sat there, Tommy began by telling us that in the Acholi culture the people don’t come together simply in the good times, the peaceful and celebratory ones, but also to mourn. They wanted to sit with us for awhile to share their deep sorrow for our miscarriage prior to our arrival in Padibe. Christine then chimed in and from a very real place explained the sorrow of a similar tragedy in their home: she too experienced one after their first born, Claudia, and was home alone when it happened in the middle of the night. I can’t really tell you why, but I was so touched by their sorrow, their sharing of pain, that my eyes started leaking (that’s how I cry here: the moments of intense emotion come quickly and instinctively, not so much arising from my belly but rather rawly pouring out of any and all the available crevices). It really felt like we were equal in our pain and in our joy, and it was the first time that I felt the empathy of someone here, that I was an equal human who also knows pain, who doesn’t always have the answers. I tried to talk but couldn’t do it well because of the aggressive lump in my throat, but I attempted to explain how these moments of sorrow and struggle that we share are really the glue that is tying our relationship together more strongly, which is I guess why I’m writing about such a personal matter in such a public place. I felt this same truth in the U.S. as well. While the event of our loss was tragic, it was one that was able to bind me in a new way to all of the people I love including my husband, family, friends, even acquaintances who wanted to share their stories of similar pain and loss with me. The cultural expectation of silence around the issue of miscarriage disappointed me about Americans – why can’t we mourn together? Why should our pain be so secret, so shameful? In this moment, I felt so grateful that Tommy’s family, living in the bush of Northern Uganda, has somehow come into my life, connected to the truth of why humans were meant to suffer together, teaching me to understand some piece of humanity that has been forgotten by my culture – one that knows isolation more closely than community. If you would have told me that this would be the case as a little girl, that some of my closest friends would be from halfway across the world, I wouldn’t have believed you. But every time I arrive here and spend time with these people it seems so obvious that this has been part of God’s plan for me since the beginning.