New Kabaale Busega

Today was our first day volunteering at New Kabaale Busega, the school where we will primarily be working for the next 4 weeks. New Kabaale, much like All Saints, has classes for students ranging from the nursery level to primary 7 (about 6th grade in the US). The school has about 500 students, and while the classrooms differ in size the smallest are about 45 students (nursery) and the largest are about 80 (primary 1 and 2). All of the classrooms are completely full, and there is only one teacher in the room with the students at any given time. Just like at All Saints there are students who board and those who come only during the day. The students who board are orphans and underprivileged students who do not live in close proximity to the school. The school is also located in a fairly poor area of Kampala, so even the day schoolers often come from poor homes. Some of the children pay school fees, others pay subsidized rates, and still others come to the school for free.  

We arrived at New Kabaale at 9:30 am, while the students were still in their morning classes. We began by making plans with the principal, Rose, about what we will do during our time at the school before leaving to be introduced to all of the classes. As we entered each classroom all the students would stand and shout together "You are most welcome our visitors"-- their facing beaming with broad smiles. Rose introduced us to each class as "Auntie Christina," "Uncle Andrew" and "Aunt Jennifer"- titles that are typically given to teachers in Uganda to show respect. When she announced that we would be staying for a month all of the children began to whoop, cheer and wave their hands--excited as we will be the first foreign volunteers to work in their classrooms for at least the past 3 years.

After introductions we were thrown right in, beginning in the older pre-school class. We did not know that we would be teaching a lesson today and had no formal plans, so we were a little caught off guard and had to make do with the little we had. We taught a lesson about the names of colors (school in Uganda is primarily conducted in English, so study of the language begins at age 3) and did some face painting with the children that corresponded to the colors they were learning. It was a little chaotic with even the small 45 student classes but we learned some important lessons that will help us in the future. The children had to share crayons-- about 1 to every 5 students- which made using different colors difficult. In addition there were few working pencils, as to sharpen each pencil the students and the teacher would use knives to whittle the wood away and create a tip. Tomorrow we will return to the school to teach at the Primary 1 and Primary 2 levels and I am optimistic that with a coordinated lesson plan things will run much more smoothly- even with 80 students in our class!

* We didn't want to overwhelm the children too much so we didn't take many pictures today. We plan on taking more in the later weeks- hopefully more of the students working and of the interiors of the classrooms. Today we were distracting enough as new foreign faces!

Primary 6 students

Primary 1 boarding students washing their clothes after class