Hi Hi From Allie Muehe

by Allie Muehe

Hello!
Well even though I have my own blog, I will write a quick note here on our community blog. I'm one of the new volunteers who arrived in March of 2006 and I have been placed in Kangulumira, a small town North West of Jinja. I am in the education program and although my background is in engineering, I am finding many things to do with the schools in my area. Lucky for me, my DEO (District Education Officer) wants to focus on incorporating practical knowledge in the area of agriculture and have each school start a garden that the students will keep. I am very interested in environmental conservation, so while making a garden at the school, I also want to teach them about composting and waste disposal. Right now if the schools are good enough to not leave garbage and waste on the ground, they burn everything, including garden and food wastes. Therefore, I have started with some workshops and I am going to follow up with the schools to see how much information was actually ingrained during the session. Between workshops I have been coaching the schools soccer (football) team which is awesome but if you look on my blog you will see the challenges that I go through. I am so excited because the teams first round of games is on Friday but unfortunately I have a conference and cannot be there, but I'm confident we will win so I will be able to see the next game. Unlike in America, a soccer season begins with a day that resembles a tournament of local schools (in the sub-zone) who compete all day and the best team continues to the zonal level. After zonal, the winner continues to area, district, region, and then national level for a game in Kampala. The other major event that is taking up my time is getting my house livable because when I arrived the house didn't have anything in the windows, no locks on the doors or windows, and the washroom wasn't finished. Getting the builder, carpenter, and electrician to complete the work has been a hassle, but a rewarding one because I just moved in yesterday! Granted I have no furniture but a bed, it's ok because I have a place to sleep and bathe. Until now I have been staying at my CCT's (Coordinating Center Tutor, like my co-worker) house which is two doors away from my house. She has been great and she has two of her family members that have been very nice and very helpful for me so it was almost bitter sweet to move into my house. In the next few weeks I am going to help the local schools improve their resource centers/librarys then I have to facilitate a training on AIDS education and how to incorporate it into the classroom. I am trying to keep myself busy and while enjoying the beautiful and green scenary of Uganda.