School Days

Here's a picture from science class with the four "middle kids" I was teaching in 2005. The coloring pages hung on a string in the back were Amy's clever idea for keeping Karamojong visitors occupied: they could color and see their pictures hung on display, and that would keep them from rifling through papers and interrupting every two minutes. Aleper and maybe one or two other kids did hang around for a science lesson or two; I think we were studying electricity at the time, which Aleper found very interesting. (Did you know you can make a bulb light up with just a battery and foil wire? You can also make a battery out of pennies and other stuff.) Aleper was supposed to be in school a couple miles away, but his mom didn't make him go and he apparently found this more interesting...

Very cool...

I just watched this documentary trailer of schoolkids from Northern Uganda who made it to the finals in a country-wide school music competition. It's amazing (and humbling) to see how life is still good for kids who have been through a lot of suffering already.

Someplace sunny and warm...and with lots of smiling people to exchange "ejok noois" with. It's sounding very, very nice right now!

I've been missing Africa lately, which is just how it goes. But maybe I'll come up with some more interesting blog posts as I'm thinking more about it and remembering stories from the last couple years.