Mumbere Harold and the Purple Crayon

It's hard to believe we are already at the halfway point of our summer, but by the end of this week, we will have completed the 4th week of our 9 weeks at Rwentutu School. We are continuing our rotation through each Primary class, so this week I am teaching Primary 2; a lively class of 43 children, although Monday and Tuesday I only had about 30 because others owed money for school fees and had to return home.

My favorite part about this week was teaching Reading. I read the students my all-time favorite children's book, Harold and the Purple Crayon, (high recommendations to anyone looking for a good, easy book to read this summer...) and they absolutely loved it. We then attempted to write our own "Harold" book as a class, and I gave each student a piece of paper and the writing prompt, "Then Harold saw…" which they were to complete on their own and then draw a picture with a blue or purple crayon.  I'll share with you a few of their responses...

 The cover of our book (I drew this one), bound together by dental floss!

 Harold on the hills

Harold and an elephant (we have been working really hard on punctuation marks this week...still working on them, obviously...but at least he knows what they look like!)

Harold saw Museveni!  (President of Uganda)

And of course, Harold saw a cow.  You can't live in Uganda without seeing one of these every day.

Their responses were good, but their artwork was even better. We have noticed in every class that the children are phenomenal artists. While writing may be a challenge for them, drawing certainly is not. And yet, there is no Art class at their school, and the boxes of crayons and white drawing paper lay untouched in the Head Teacher's office. Art is not incorporated into the students' daily lessons, and it seems that the teachers just don't know how to incorporate Art into the rigorous, exam-driven curriculum. Jackie, Evan and I have tried to demonstrate how Art can be used to enhance the content of so many different lessons, and we are hoping the teachers are able to see the educational value of the students drawing pictures along with words to show their understanding. The children are ecstatic when they see us walk in with paper and crayons, and they become even more excited when their artwork is posted on the classroom wall.

We have also been learning a little bit of Lukonzo (local language) here and there.  It is a confusing language to learn because it wasn't a written language until the Europeans came to the area only a few decades ago and kind of "forced" the Lukonzo language to fit into their European alphabet.  For this reason, sometimes the same word can be spelled three or four different ways when written out, and many times there are sounds for which we do not have letters.  This week, though, I learned more about the children's names. Every child has a Lukonzo first name and a second name. The first name gives their gender and birth order in Lukonzo, and the second name is I guess what we would call their "real" name. The first names are as follows:

Boys:
Mumbere (moom-bear-eh) – 1st born boy
Bwambale (bwam – bah – leh) – 2nd boy
Maserika (mahs-ray-kah) – 3rd boy
Kule (Cool-eh) - 4th boy
Thembo (Tem – bo) – 5th boy
Mbusa (Mm-boo-sah) – 6th boy

Girls:
Maskia (Mahs-kah) – 1st born girl
Biira (Beer-ah) – 2nd girl
Kabagho (Ka-bye-oh) – 3rd girl
Mbambu (Mm-bahm-boo) – 4th girl
Thungo (Toon-go) – 5th girl
Nzabake (Nzah-bah-kay) – 6th girl

Also, if you are a twin (shout-out to Kara and Emma if you read this!), the first-born twin is called Nguuru (Na-goo-roo) and the second-born twin is Ndobya (Ndoe-bye-ah).

So, for example, my name in Lukonzo would be Masika Whitney because I am the first-born girl in our family. My brothers would be Mumbere Chris and Bwambale Joel. Every single person at school writes his or her name this way, and it is interesting to see the family lineage just by learning the names. Large families are very common and the children all have at least four or five siblings.

As far as the second-names are concerned, almost all of the children have American names. Joy is very popular, as is Godwin, David, Jennifer, and Robert. I have a few favorites though – Happy (fits his personality), Lyric (self-fulfilling prophecy as she has an amazing voice), Anold (like Arnold but drop the "r"), and my all-time favorite name is Surgeon (pronounced "Sir John"), a student in Primary 3. Another self-fulfilling prophecy? We can only hope.

For now, though Mandamasate!
It means, "Go out and play!" Have a good rest of the week everyone :)