The Debate

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School is going well, everything is very enjoyable. Today I witnessed a
very interesting debate among the P6 and P7 classes. Another school had
challenged them to a debate for tomorrow and they were practicing. There
were 4 students on the Proposers side and 4 on the Opposers side, a
Chairwoman and Timekeeper and a Secretary who was one of the teachers and
the judge, though all she did was tally the unique points each side made to
come up with the winner - there was no clash or counterargument, just each
kid standing to deliver 2-3 "reasons" in 2 minutes. They did have. The
resolution was "Science has done more harm than good." But before the
debate began they had to pick 8 kids to argue, and nobody would
volunteer. So I witnessed an entire double class of 65 or 75 kids
beaten. Every single one of them was whacked, and with such a volume
the teacher didn't bother to aim, so some got hit on the back or
shoulder but some on the bare neck or arm. It was disturbing, and
had the kids been younger I don't think I could have stood to watch.

Then as the teams were prepping the teacher had the kids in the room
brainstorm points for each side. One of the pro points was that
scientists have created diseases like AIDS. At which point I stood
up and gave a 10 minute lecture on AIDS and also decided to do a
lesson in a few weeks for both the teachers and P6-7 on AIDS, condoms,
etc.

The actual debate was interesting, again no clash, but kids brought
up interesting points. Proposers said there were nuclear weapons,
disease, fertilizers that spoil soil, Africa being forced to change
traditional ways, people not believing in God, etc. Opposers said
that new medicine saves lives, living conditions have improved,
machines make labor more efficient (then there was a POI - can't
we get cows to do it, no cows can't dig holes, well we can teach
them, much laughter), communication and transportation are better.
One kid proposing kept saying he'd heard weapons kill people or car
accidents kill on the radio. Though opp didn't pick up that he
was advocating the radio, a piece of tecnology, a kid did stand
to ask him why he'd heard everything on the radio and the
questioner hadn't, which brought lots of laughter. All around quite
interesting.

More contrasts with Ghana. The food isn't at all spicy - but also
not so overly salty. It's pineapple and peanut butter and jelly for
breakfast, perhaps an egg, and lunch and dinner always include beans
and either rice, spagetti, mashed potatos, or some combination
thereof, with avocado and maybe cooked cabbage or mixed beans and
carrots. For lunch Esther sometimes does fresh orange passion fruit
juice which is the freshest thing I've ever tasted.

The language. Everyone speaks Lugandan which seems to be preferable
to English. School is conducted in English and the road signs and
such are in English, but the younger children are still learning.
The accent is much clearer than the Ghanaian accent, they
annunciate their words much more even than I do sometimes.

The weather. It's really nice, though of course the proximity of
swimming pools helps. It's usually cool in the mornings and
evenings, some days I've even put long sleeves on. It heats up
in the mid morning to mid afternoon which makes laying out by the
pool or going for a dip a nice activity. The walk to and from
school is really really enjoyable and not a bad workout with the huge
downhill then uphill hike.

And the clothing. An even greater percentage here dress in
western clothing, but it's less of the T-shirts you know they don't
get (Boston Garden, XYZ school field day) and more of nicer,
dressier/business casual clothing. The local clothing for this part
of Uganda is pretty ugly, with these upwards pointing shoulders on
the dresses that look like something out of Star Trek.

And not nearly as many funny signs; they are few and far between.
So far it's
- B.O. Cleaners
- Value Supermarket "Pocket Friendly Center" (complete with a logo
for PFC)
- Something Secondary School "No Way Through"