LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD

Last October, not long after I began teaching at Maranatha Mizigo several days a week, I noticed that every day a small group of men spent a few hours digging on the grassy playground area between the primary school and the boy’s dormitory.

Curious, I asked some teachers what was happening.  “We don’t know.  They might be building something.  Maybe you can ask someone, maybe Daddy (Patrick), and find out for us.”

So I asked and found out that they were leveling the playing field.

This large grassy area, now owned and fenced by Maranatha schools, had long been used as a futbol (soccer) field by several schools, as well as by neighborhood children, both for practice and for competitive games.

The field had originally been partially leveled using a bulldozer, but it was definitely far from level.  The whole area was covered with potholes, and the entire east side was several feet lower than the west side. Although all teams playing on the field might appear to be affected equally by the disparity, this factor frequently made huge and significant differences in both the scores and strategies of games.

Every week for two months I noticed the tedious but steady progress.  First, the problem areas were defined.  Next each area was dug into large pieces.  The large pieces were then raked into small pieces, leveled, and joined together. Finally, in December, new grass was planted to be ready when the next soccer season began in February.

Today, in the summer of 2013, the improved field is used every day by hundreds of children for futbol and other games.  It is still far from perfectly level, but it makes for a much better game both for teams and for all the individual players.

Leveling the playing field can help in all areas of life, in all parts of the world.  It is in some ways similar to what we call equal opportunity, but it is not quite the same.  The more level the playing field is, the better the game is for everyone.  

Both Uganda and the USA have some large disparities between the personal resources of the rich and the poor.  Uganda has a lofty national goal of having over fifty percent of the population belong to “the middle class” a few years from now.  In America we are already there, but differences between the extremes in the USA continue to increase.  

Children in Uganda and elsewhere learn to read and to use computers and smartphones, just like children in the USA do.  Both groups can learn more easily, and can build a better world for all of us, when their basic needs for food, shelter, health, and love are met at an early age.  And children in all countries sometimes need help from others to make, and to keep, this playing field level.

   

FRIENDS

FRIENDS

“You need to come play futbol with us,” says Gladys, Senior 4, age 18, about 5’9”, well over 200 pounds, backed by twenty girls and a half-dozen boys.

“Now?” I say, looking at my sandals, standing on the road outside the fence by the girl’s dormitory.

“Yes!  I will play you first.”

Futbol that day last September turned out to be taking turns trying to kick a soccer ball through the other person’s goal, two bricks on end about two meters apart, about ten meters between goals, best score out of five tries.

Short version:  Gladys wins, 3-2.

They are amazed that I can score at all.  So am I.

I tell Gladys, “I am glad you won.”

Everyone yells, “Why?”

I say, “Because you would have something really wrong with you if you couldn’t beat a 69-year-old Muzungu of my size (4’11”, 119 pounds).”

They all laugh, and the conversation begins.

“You can’t be 69.”  

I will be 70 when I come next year.

“What is your favorite food?” 

Apples and chocolate.

“Do you have a cellphone?” 

Yes, an iPhone.

“Is it true that Americans wear their clothes two times and then buy new ones?  

You saw me wear this same skirt and shirt when I was here last spring.

“You will have to learn our names.” 

I will learn four today.

“We will give you this rock: it has four corners, so you can remember us . . . Gladys, Tasha, Bett, Shamine . . . We are your friends now.” 

Webale.

Tasha

THE ETERNAL RETURN

Coming home . . .

A wonderful feeling that I experienced again last month.

Anticipation building . . . passing familiar landmarks as we come closer and closer to Mityana . . . now we are turning off the main road into Mizigo village . . . and all at once we are at Patrick and Eva’s house.  I am home again.

And life, and conversation, picks up, just like with good friends everywhere, right where we left off . . . a day ago . . .  a month ago . . . five years ago . . . six months ago . . .

Last fall, on my second visit to Uganda, after I had been here about two weeks, I wrote a friend, trying to describe what I was feeling.

“Hard to believe that I've already been here two weeks.  In some ways it seems as though I've always been here, a strange feeling, not deja vu but similar.  In other ways, every day is fresh and new, full of excitement and promise, similar to this summer at home.  Nice to remember that this feeling is how life should be for all of us.”

In December when I returned home to beautiful  “Catalpa Gardens” in Pascagoula, Mississippi, I experienced these same feelings, but, of course, I was expecting to.  After all, I was returning to family, friends, homestead, homeland.

But how and why do we feel this same way half-way around the world, in a place we have barely (or even never) seen or experienced?  John Denver describes it well in “Rocky Mountain High”:  “He was born in the summer of his 27th year, comin’ home to a place he’d never been before. . .”

During my more than twenty years as “the Utopian’s wife,” married to futurist Ernest Vlahos, I heard him talk many times about his version of the concept of the eternal return, one of the experiences that people seem to seek in their quest for a better life: a desire for both novelty and a sense of place . . . a sense of belonging, as well as a sense of  purpose, in life. Many of us have experienced this feeling of return, often from an early age, when visiting grandparents or vacationing in familiar favorite places.  

In promoting his Utopian vision of the Resort Circle, a worldwide network of intentional small-village leisure communities that even poor people could afford and enjoy, helping themselves and others, which he had been writing and talking about since the early 1970’s, Ernest would say, “Tomorrow you will live the leisure lifestyle that the rich enjoy today. You will want, and have, a second home.”

I never dreamed I might actually experience this feeling one day. (The wives of Utopians are, of necessity, wrapped in a protective cloak of skepticism.)

Mityana, Uganda, heaven on earth?  Practice, perhaps, for that day when we shall all meet again.

FAMILIES

On a beautiful Thursday afternoon last month in Nkonya I experienced in one hour some of the best of life here in Uganda, along with a glimpse of some of the worst. 

Nkonya is a remote fishing village on a huge lake in Mityana province.  In recent years poverty and unemployment here have increased steadily following many too many years of consistently overfishing young fish and evading the government inspectors sent to help prevent this problem.  Along with the increased poverty level are significant increases in child neglect and abuse.  

The staff at Maranatha Primary School Nkonya has devised a unique way to support the students and help them deal with the many new problems they are facing at home.  All of the students, from Baby Class through Primary 7, along with all faculty members, are divided into four “families,” which meet for about an hour at least once a month and more often when needed.  Each family has students and adults of all ages.

The school families gather outside under the beautiful shade trees and engage in dialogues meant to encourage the students of all ages to share and talk about concerns and new problems in their lives.  The adults take the roles of “aunt” and “uncle” and also share their own recent experiences.  The students then begin to respond and frequently talk about things that the school can help with.  They also learn that they have a support network of concerned adults and fellow students. 

On the day I visited, one of the uncles began by talking about a family burial he had recently attended.  Another uncle told a funny story about a problem he had with one of his own children, and some of the older students suggested some things he could try that might help.  A few other students talked about things at home: a new baby, family visitors, mom working in the fields.  The younger children watched and listened.  

And then the aunt asked some of the girls about how things were this week with a problem they had recently with jiggers, a serious and unpleasant parasite found in this part of Africa. The girls said they were fine and took off their shoes for everyone to see.  The aunt, Teacher Gladys, was hoping that one of her P2 students would say that he still had a problem and let the group know that he needed help.  We had noticed earlier in class that he was showing some unusual physical behaviors, and she thought he needed help but was probably afraid to say anything because his stepmother would beat him if he told the adults at school. He is eight years old, and his father told the school earlier this year that he didn’t need to go to school any more because he was too stupid to learn.  In the class I visited for four hours he was one of three students out of about twenty who knew the answers to every question the teacher asked.    

The girls and some of the older boys remembered that he also had had jiggers a few weeks ago and gently convinced him to remove his shoes and let them see his feet.  He had six or more jiggers on the sole of each foot: small black burrowing fleas, each surrounded by a large white egg case, looking like a large grain of white rice.  The surrounding skin had peeling skin and large unhealed areas from previous infestations.  I’ve seen a lot of gross parasites in my years as a Mississippi schoolteacher, but jiggers can be bad and can have serious consequences.

A P7 boy produced a surgical tool ... the sharp end of a high-quality drawing compass ... and skillfully removed all the jiggers.  The school office was notified and has made arrangements to follow up ... and the school family will continue to watch closely . ..  

And we all prayed together.          

10,000 SMILES

Early one morning in September, shortly after my arrival in Uganda, Pastor Patrick Walusimbi looked up from his morning prayers and asked me to join him at 6:30 Monday morning to greet students arriving at Maranatha Primary School in Mizigo village, Mityana.

He told me that he had been praying to God for the past few mornings about exactly what help God had in mind to give him when he sent a 69-year-old stranger from half-way around the world to live in his home and teach in his schools for three months. 

Patrick has always personally greeted the students arriving at the school five mornings a week, believing strongly that a smile and a friendly greeting can make an important difference in the daily lives of both the orphans and the village children who attend Maranatha Schools.

However, this fall he was also trying to plant a new piece of land with corn, an important project in his efforts to continue to help his schools become as self-supporting as possible, and he needed to be in the fields very early every day.

God surely must have a sense of humor if he picked me to help Patrick with this problem.  Even my family and friends, who love and appreciate me, most likely would not consider shy, introverted (if not “socially challenged”) Marilyn, who often avoids eye contact and frequently speaks too softly to be heard, and who definitely is not a vivacious social butterfly, to be the best candidate for this job. 

Malcolm Gladwell suggests in Outliers that it takes about 10,000 or so hours of practice to develop expertise.  Although since September 17, 2012, I have greeted about 300 to 500 Maranatha students every school day, including shaking hands, sustained eye contact, and personal greetings, and have waved to, smiled at, and spoken to countless adult and student passers-by from Mizigo village, I still have a long way to go.  

But I have received far more than 10,000 smiles in return already . . . a beautiful way to start each new day.

MAKING MODELS

"The best way to teach is by example.  The best way to learn is by doing."

On a Friday morning after midterm exams I help Teacher Margaret and 48 Top Class students make modeling clay and use it to "make models."  We have a wonderful time for about two hours, and we all learn many important school and life lessons from this experience. We take about 80 pictures and make a slideshow with music to watch many times and to show our families.

 Teams of boys and girls take turns digging clay with a shovel and carrying buckets of clay.

 We mix clay and water to get just the right consistency for modeling clay.

 Then students make large balls of clay for each small group.

 Each group divides the large balls into individual balls for each student.

 Teacher Margaret gives directions:  "Make something you want."

                                   

Isaac is busy working on his model.

 A cellphone!  Cellphones are very popular.

 All the models are drying in the Top Class classroom.

 Students are volunteering to tell about what they made.

Teacher Margaret is completing her final term of practice teaching: excellent teacher.

 Teacher Marilyn has made a new dish for her earrings.


We are dancing in the sunshine today in Mityana, Uganda.

DEDICATION

Facebook  09/29/2012

DEDICATION

Last Saturday we had a three-hour workshop ("seminar") on "Using Sounds to Teach Reading in English," attended by twelve teachers from Maranatha Primary Schools, one from Maria Assumpta, three toddlers, and a baby. We served snacks, learned a lot about each other, and had a good time. 

Thirteen experienced and dedicated teachers, who work from 7 to 5, five days a week, spent a precious Saturday morning learning new skills to help their students. We started about 8:45, and the last people left about 2:30.

Two current areas of emphasis for improving education in Uganda are phonetic reading skills and preschool education, and training in teaching decoding skills has only recently been provided in university teacher education programs. Additional training is expensive and requires traveling to Kampala, the capital city. Amazing that these are two areas that I actually know something about from both education and experience.

We discussed introducing decoding skills into an established reading curriculum, practiced teaching English language sounds and sound-blending using Dubard Association Method techniques, and demonstrated activities for ages 3 to 10, using methods and materials developed by Dr. Maureen Martin, Director of the Dubard School for Language Disorders at USM, and the late Dr. Etoile Dubard. We also viewed short internet video clips of students using this method at the TALK Institute and School, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Cathy Walusimbi, who organized our workshop, and I have been invited to teach something similar later this year at Maria Assumpta School on the other side of Mityana.

A good day ... Dancing in the Sunshine in Mityana!

 Polly Brady Sumrow Marilyn, I am in love with your updates and pictures. You are an awesome teacher and a blessing to the other teachers and students. What a wonderful way to learn from each other. Thank you for your service. God is good all the time.

Thursday at 1:36am · Like · 3

Marilyn Vlahos Polly, it's nice to have such kind words from my former boss. See what wonderful experiences you can continue to have when you retire!
Thursday at 3:20pm · Like

Johnnie Quick Phelps How wonderful that your trip is turning out to be everything you hoped it would be and more!
Thursday at 2:18am · Like · 1

Marilyn Vlahos Johnnie, it's nice to get to do all the fun part of teaching school. The adults are kind and caring, the children are precious, and the village life is in many ways like Mississippi when we were growing up.
Thursday at 3:29pm · Like

UPDATE  10/08/2012

Kind words from Eva Walusimbi.  She and her husband Patrick, Pastor of Golgotha Missions Church here in Mityana, Uganda, are the founders of the Maranatha Integrated Schools Project, which operates five schools in this area.  They are graciously allowing me to live in their home and teach in their schools this fall.  

Facebook  10/04/2012

Eva Walusimbi

posted to

Marilyn Vlahos

Thursday

The greatest love that one can give and demonstrate, is for one to give his/her life for the other, You have done that so be blessed by the only one who can reward you abundantly, That is God.

You, Jenn Lynn and Ed Davidson like this.

Marilyn Vlahos Thank you, Eva.
Thursday at 8:27pm · Like