Since Being Back

What have I done since I have been back? Most of the country is ‘on holiday’ with the school kids just this week coming back to school. Since I work in the school system that means that my teachers are either going to visit family member or hanging around the school. Having a bit of down time, I have read 4 books, spent way too long on Suduko puzzles, a bit of gardening, gone to a couple meetings, spent a lot of time on daily cleaning and cooking tasks, and started to plan many things that I want to accomplish this year. But also since the teachers are hanging around or in their gardens, I have spent a good deal of time getting to know my neighbors and especially the kids. Before I left most of the kids, majority of their ages range from 2-6, would see me and either start crying or screaming and run away. When I came back and spent a lot of time hanging around my house and talking with my neighbors, the kids started to realize that I wasn’t there to hurt them and started to come near me. It also helped that I brought back a few toys and cards that I let them play with either in my house or on my stoop. And, unlike most parents in Uganda, I like to play with the kids rather than teach them how to do work or yell at them for not doing work. Just yesterday I got water from my bore hole and the kids wouldn’t let me leave my house until they could carry my empty gericans. Walking back to my house the kids happened to follow me in a single line like the pied piper. We walked by a few teachers who were sitting and talking and I stopped, looked behind me and said in luganda ‘I don’t know why they like me now, but look, now I have an army.’ They just laughed.