First of all, Happy New Year!! One of the great things about Invisible Children is that the organization is always willing to try new things. I have been fortunate enough to be chosen to participate in the 1st Reciprocal Teacher Exchange where Ugandan teachers travel to the United States to teach for 3 weeks in January 2010. For this inaugural time, 6 teachers (2 females and 4 males) have traveled to the US to spend 3 weeks in various places teaching in a middle or high school. Two teachers have gone to St. Louis, Missouri, one teacher is in San Francisco, two teachers are in Colorado (Denver and Pueblo), and one will be in Columbia, South Carolina at Ridge View High School. Her name is Akullu Lydia, and she is a teacher in Health and Nutrition at Sacred Heart, an all girls school in Gulu, northern Uganda.
The host teacher (me) and team teacher (our Health Sciences teacher, Diane Melton), and I traveled to New York City on December 30 for a 4 day orientation. It was an awesome experience watching our Ugandan colleagues experience the US for the first time. Their eyes were wide trying to take everything in. The cold was shocking to them, especially considering they come from an area of the world where there is no winter; it is either the wet season or the dry season. New York was especially rough, and they saw beautiful falling snow. It blanketed the city in white and was so gorgeous.
We also had the opportunity to go ice skating. This was my first time ice skating as well, and I was very nervous. We all did well, and several Ugandan teachers were pretty good by the end of our time. We also saw the Broadway show Memphis: the Musical. On a personal note, the music and lyrics were created by David Bryan, the keyboardist for Bon Jovi, so obviously I was so excited about seeing this show. At the intermission, I asked Lydia what she thought of the show so far, and she replied with wide eyes, "It is breathtaking." The show was wonderful, and it was such a pleasure to watch it with my new friends.
We had a busy 4 days of orientation, so we were excited about flying back to South Carolina on Sunday. As we navigated the airports, I took the time to show Lydia the process as she will have to make her way back to NYC without me on January 24. I kept promising her that South Carolina would be warmer than NYC, but I was proven a liar as we have had very cold weather, and some weather forecasters are calling for snow later this week. For those of you who know me well and how cold I keep my house, I have raised the thermostat to accommodate Lydia.
When we returned to Columbia, I took Lydia to Publix to pick up some food for the week. This was her first experience in a grocery store, and while we were trying to move quickly, I think she was amazed by two things: the variety of offerings and the fact that you can get pretty much any type of food you want whether it is in season or not. She likes to drink hot tea, and it took us a while to pick out tea for her to try (we finally chose a variety pack). Last night, I made spaghetti with meat sauce, and her comment was, "Your meat is different than ours." Is that a compliment?!?!
One final story from orientation. We stayed in a hostel, and the morning after we arrived, the Ugandan teachers took showers. Each shower had one knob that controlled the water and its temperature. However we failed to tell them how to make the water hot, so they all took ice cold showers (in a NYC winter!). Once they heard that the water temperature could be changed to hot, one teacher said, "We suffered needlessly!" Can you imagine witnessing the United States for the first time?!?
I look forward to the next three weeks and the experiences that we will have together.
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