Time passes quickly in a slow-moving world

This blog post comes a little later than I had intended. Various factors delayed me, which I will delve into later. However, I first want to share my thoughts on working within a different culture and social system.

I consider myself quite adaptable, and it was relatively easy to adjust to life in Uganda, especially in everyday aspects such as travelling, shopping, and food. The general working mentality here, however, is quite different from what I am accustomed to in Europe. It's slower and more reliant on verbal agreements, with contracts and deadlines being rare. I would be lying if I said this didn’t bother me, even up to now. I have always been conscious of my finite time in Uganda and wanted to use it as effectively as possible. Nonetheless, I knew that imposing my expectations of how things should work based on my Western background wouldn’t be helpful. Judging people for their accustomed ways and learned practices is unfair.

On the other hand, my role here is to share my knowledge and experiences, which are primarily shaped by my Western upbringing. This dilemma has been on my mind for quite some time, and I still don't have a clear answer. I have learned a lot about Ugandan culture, for which I am extremely thankful. And the beauty of this experience for me lies in the cultural challenge it presents. It has made me reflect on the differences and the functionality of my own culture.

Working in this environment has often been different than I anticipated. For a long time, I attributed the slow progress to the pace at which things move here. While there is some truth to that, I also need to reflect on myself and acknowledge that I have been too quick to assign blame. I must accept that I have struggled with the change of pace and that I have, at times, let myself drift too much. (To be honest also one of the reasons why this post comes late.)

Even though I would consider my relationship with the staff of the school of Kikooba (my main project) as really good, I think there is a big difference when looking at the joint experience that we share. For me, six months seemed super long, but now I feel like they passed so quickly that I don't even understand where the time went. For the teachers, these are just six “normal” months in their day-to-day life, with me coming and going. I had to understand a lot about how things work here and how I can integrate into that. I feel this gap in understanding also creates a different view on the expectations from one another. And, of course, there is a process of adapting to each other, but this process is slow, and six months is a short time for that. 

All that said, I think I still accomplished some nice things, and I am convinced the school staff appreciates my work. I am generally very happy about how things are going. I just wanted to share some thoughts about my experience here. I also blame my background in sociology that makes me think about societies and their workings a lot.

Let's dive into some more concrete updates since my last post. Unfortunately, I had a pretty rough experience recently. While heading to Kikooba in a local taxi, we got into a car crash. Our driver collided with another car coming from the side. Thankfully, I was lucky to escape without major injuries, though I did suffer a serious concussion that knocked me out for two weeks. The good news is, I recovered well and was able to resume my activities.

Now, onto my projects at the school. One of the first things I did was revamp the afternoon sports program. I introduced a variety of games aimed at improving team spirit, balance, and other skills. This came naturally to me due to my background in circus arts with children, which involves a lot of movement-based activities. I noticed that the school primarily focused on football and netball, with a very performance-driven approach. To diversify the activities, I created a document full of game ideas for the teachers and involved them in the process, explaining the purpose behind each game.

Another major project involved collaborating with the teachers on alternative teaching methods. Previous volunteers had started this, but the teaching style remained largely traditional, with frontal teaching dominating the classroom. As someone without formal teaching experience, this was challenging for me. I conducted small workshops on theoretical approaches, building on the work of previous volunteers. When I noticed the theoretical approach wasn’t very effective, I began teaching some lessons myself, integrating the discussed methods with at least one teacher participating. I taught about Germany and am now preparing lessons on plastic pollution in Uganda, which is a significant issue here. This not only introduces new teaching methods but also raises awareness about an important topic.

Additionally, I assisted with the school's management tasks, including helping my organisation, Mondo, update their database on the children they support. I also visited local farmers selected to receive new stoves for cooking and conducted small interviews with them.

On some days, I worked with the Kampala Cycling Club, which included a highlight trip to the Ugandan National Championships – a chaotic but very cool experience.

Finally, I had the chance to do some travelling. I went on two different safari trips, one to Kidepo in the north and another to Murchison in the west of Uganda. Both places are stunningly beautiful, with untouched nature and incredible wildlife.

This post is already quite long, so I'll wrap it up here. My next and final post will come at the end of my experience in September. Thanks for reading!