A Teacher

 I come back to gulu for several reasons, one i feel like I can make some steps to help my friends and the students of Gulu.  More and more the true reason I think I come back to Gulu is the friendships i've made. And I guess the most prominent of those friendships havec been with  four young men who many years ago, i met at the same age as my current students. Amos, Ronald, Julius, and Geoffrey.

This post it's about Amos.  Since i'm in the old blog and have not figured out quite how to get to the new blog. You can probably read more stories about him.  He still struggles, and when money is tight. And he needs something in town. He walks for two and a half hours to get there.  He just smiled when he told me this story.  No complaints, just the way it is.

That is not the main story here. The main story is a young man who is in love with teaching and loves his students.  At the end of the school year, I got a little complacent, and did not wear a tie every day.  I don't think that will happen this year because a young man named Amos clearly demonstrated what professionalism is.

I fought hard this year to get three eighth grade classrooms.  So I could teach seventeen students instead of twenty three.  This morning Amos i taught a hundred and thirty fourth graders we were jumping out of their seats to get him to review their work or to answer a question.  

Amos  has only been at the school since august  and he has already been promoted to director of studies.   I have the address of his primary school Akonyibedo and I suspect we will find ways to send this school things that will help these students learn.  We had a wonderful conversation with Head Teacher at Akonyibendo, Lucy a wonderful educator and a very amicable host.

I always like to tell my students. I am a lifelong learner, and today I was taught by a wonderful teacher, my friend, Orach Amos.

Gulu half a world away but so close

It is 4:30 in the morning and i'm wide awake . Yesterday, at this time, I followed the nba finals via just a box score and a written play by play, but it still felt like a gut punch in the final minutes.  Today was a good day Geoffrey helped me obtain a Ugandan  phone so it is easier for me to communicate with my Ugandan friends.  We also met julius and his wife Ketty.  Julius, it is a charismatic preacher and one of the most grounded and practical man I've met in any part of the world.  Oh by the way the Immodium worked.  So I ordered plain rice at 1 of my favorite restaurants Pagoda .

Pagoda has new management and they were not too friendly after the chair was sitting on, I broke into pieces.  Just call me goldilocks. But I paid for the chair, and we learned a lesson today. Large men should be careful on plastic chairs.

And tonight, I got to meet my friend. Aliker David Martin.  We think it might have been 10 years since we have seen each other. But we settled in quickly like old friends. The cold Nile beers may have helped.  It is interesting that I i call my friend both Aliker and David drew interchangeably.  His good friends did we one better by occasionally calling him Martin also. Aliker has started a school called Saint Sylvester and I hope to visit next week.  Our dinner consisted of oxtail, millet bread and greens coomed with a peanut sauce.  The immodium held the line.  I first met David years ago with a group of 25 teachers at a Buffet lunch.  He loudly announced that he would get next to John in line, " I want to see if he can defend his mass."

NOTE: i have not yet figured out how to post to my new blog. So I am again posting here.  I wanted to share these stories with my St. Gabriel students past and current.  If you have found these via Facebook. Then please share with the others in our community.

1st Day in Gulu 2026

 I am relaxing at Palm Gardens in the exact room I had 3 years ago.  Last night I could not sleep and ended up watching the Spurs blow that big league.  By watching I mean watching the box score change. So today started out with the breakfast of spanish omelet which every hotel in Uganda makes. With a sliced Mango, it turns out I like this one because I did not have to pick it the strings out of my teeth.  Jeffrey has arrived bright and early to help me in town with some errands.  I realized this is on the other blog, but I haven't figured out how to publish them both yet.  All is well in gulu, but I have not really seen it.

Go See the World — So many Wonderful, Wonderful People.: Yin Aye Iber

   What a day!! Maybe one of the best ever, so a couple of odds and ends at the market than back to my room.  Something that did not agree with me, so rush to the bathroom.   I decided to take my anti-biotics and several other pills and just rest for 2 hours, I had planned on taking the boys swimming at Bomah hotel.  This short trip is mostly connecting with old friends and setting things up for future trips (Stephens, Hellwig).  Last year the guys and I had such a wonderful trip to the pool I was hoping a little rest would help me answer the bell.  The pool was totally calm when Ronald and Geoffrey showed up and I told them a Ugandan mist pierce the stillness, I would follow but they must start.  Ronald, Geoffrey, and Amos have different levels of skill and comfort in the water so we spent some time this year actually teaching them how to swim and be more comfortable in the pool, they made amazing progress in just 45 minutes time.  I was showing them how to just be comatose in the water and how relaxing it could feel.  Soon I heard another voice asking them questions about me. It was my host for the evening Julius. He had invited me to dinner, as we left the pool we travelled together as a team.  It soon dawned on me that we were all going to dinner together.  I should have known, Julius is a preacher and a man of God, and he certainly would INCLUDE all. What would Christ have done?

          It is amazing what Julius had done and how many people he brings with him.  He is now preaching in his home to over 100 people every Friday and Sunday. Tonight at midnight he is riding a bus to Kampala to make sure his wife has a passport.  They will spend no time in Kampala after the passport office and immediately take another 8 hour bus ride home, so Julius can preach on Friday.  Joyce his wife and her friend just prepared the best meal I ever had in Uganda.  We had deep fried chicken and fried pork, roasted pork, american salad, Irish potatoes and more.  All of the dishes were cooked in a way I have not had in Uganda.  Unbelievable, the thought of going slow with my weakened stomach immediately vanished.  Oh and the pineapple was wonderful.  The boys and I had the most wonderful conversation all evening and were joined by a 22 year old student teacher at the end of the meal.

     We all started walking home in the dark to our 5 different homes.  Ronald even went the wrong way for awhile to continue this amazing evening. I am so blessed to have not one, but all 4 of these men in my life.    I will try to update this with more details later, but I am joining Amos at his school tomorrow morning and have to go to bed.   Of course, Julius called a boda boda driver he knew to make sure I got home.  Samuel was his name and he described Julius as his Father, the one who leads him to God.  1 kilometer from home the headlight on the motorcycle  went out.  Samuel asked me to get off the bike, I told him I could finish on foot, but he insisted no.  He picked up the heavy motorcycle shook it twice and the opened up the gas tank put his mouth on the opening and tried to suck the gasoline up.  (For us Gulu boda boda riders this is not all that uncommon).  The motorcycle rose to a start and we finished our journey.  For those of you who know a boda ride through the cool Ugandan night with the wind whipping at your face is a experience like no other.

After, arriving home and grabbing my iPad to FaceTime mom, I noticed two selfless kind colleagues at home Gail and Lisa had both come through.   

Get out see the world—people are quite something.

Everything has Value

     This morning I took a boda boda. (Motorcycle) into town to buy some envelopes to organize my expenses for the rest of the trip.  The ride of a mile or so cost me 57 cents.  On a ride earlier in the week, th boda driver told me he had to stop for petrol and gave the pump attendant 2000 shillings, enough for about a water bottle worth of petrol.  I bought the envelopes and walked past a shop that had several soccer balls on display.  All were used , but so,e were in pretty good shape.  In the last rack was a basketball with several panels coming off. It was for sale.  For some young one who could not afford the decent soccer balls, I guess the old basketball was to be his prize. It would not be displayed if someone was not going to buy it.

    I sometimes smile when I see recycle signs in Uganda, they are very thrifty and will reuse and repurpose a lot.  Plastic and plastic bags need working on.  But the plastic water bottles that started with water often are used 4 or five times and often that is how kerosene is sold to people.  It is easy to be here for a week and want to stop throwing so much away when I get home,  In Uganda old car wheels become grills to cook the Rolex (rolled eggs—breakfast burrito).  I usually come back more purposeful and conscious, you can let me know if you see it in my actions.

Why we kneel —Part I

When the Africa students would come and talk to a teacher. They would walk to the table in the staff room and kneel in front of it until their were instructed to rise. While I was at Amos' school, he stayed kneeling during the entire conversation with the teacher while we were discussing his school fees.

It would be tough to imagine American students kneeling in front of teachers. I think it would appear too subservient or beneath them. But if we can remember why we kneel, then we can maybe start down a path we all want to take. We kneel to show humility, not subservience, and by kneeling these students immediately show a respectfulness and a courtesy for others. It is the opposite of ego, of boastfulness, of arrogance. It is saying not "me first", but no you first my friend. I really enjoy going through a buffet line last. It is a simple pleasure I get by saying, "No it is your turn first, my friend, my colleague, my brother." By being humble it allows communication to happen. It is saying I want to go more than halfway to meet you where you are, and I am on my knees and expressing your interests and your wants first.

Humility does not deny our self or our worth, but rather it affirms the worth of each and every human being we see or meet. And by affirming the value of others first, it triumphs us also. So we say, "Here I am my brother, meeting you down on my knees to listen before I speak, help before I ask favor, love before I am loved." It, our humility, is the ultimate risk, it is asking us to show love to show that we care before we know it will be reciprocated. And sometimes our humility is not met immediately with compassion or love, it can be met with derision or hate or indifference. And in these cases, we must be true to ourselves, we must understand that by kneeling, by being humble, we have truly gained. We have sacrificed ourselves and the needs of ourselves for others. We are truly then "Men and Women for Others."

I am sitting on a bed, typing this blog, and looking at my feet, which still bear some stains of the incredible red mud that is prevalent all over Africa. All of us in our travels, riding in dusty Mutatus joked about how dirty our feet were. Most of us, kind of gave up, on cleaning our feet, and just tried to keep the rest of our body clean. It is this setting, at 48 years old, looking at my still somewhat dirty feet, that I can really understand the incredible humility of Jesus' washing of the feet. And just as important, how enjoyable it must have felt, as an apostle, having your friend, your brother, wash your feet. To kneel before you, and be that humble--that is my goal. To be humble, is to live at peace, and borrowing this line from the website "twopaths.com"----"Humility dissipates anger and heals old wounds. Humility allows us to see the dignity and worth of all God's people. Humility distinguishes the wise leader from the arrogant power seeker." And kneeling on the concrete or the hard wood pews in the churches of Gulu, I tried my best on bad knees to say to my Acholi brothers and sisters. That I was not better than them. I was just a man who was born into abundance and great wealth in the United States. But the wealth, I am seeking on my knees with you, the Acholi, is a far better prize.

A couple of years ago in a visit to the Jesuit Volunteer house, I saw the following quote which I have, of course, used on a basketball t-shirt for my team.

"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."

Several of you have praised my efforts in going to Africa, and treat me now as the mighty hero. But I strive to think of my actions, not as the hero, but as one of many honest workers giving the tiniest push. I met so many people in Africa doing more, taking bigger risks than what I have accomplished in the last six weeks. And also if you think of me as a hero, of someone accomplishing a great task, than it is easier for you not to act. But if you consider my actions in their true context, of just one tiny push, then you can do something. You might not have the same talents or the same opportunities, but there is always something that each of us can do. When I tell people, we are going to end hunger and extreme poverty by 2025, I am occasionally met by the skeptic. They say things like that will never work or others have tried and failed and if you look at the enormity of that goal it seems impossible. But if you look at each of us giving one tiny push, and I have met many in Africa giving those tiny pushes, then all of a sudden we can see the world beginning to move little by little. And once we get it moving, you never know what WE can accomplish.

I found out that the quote actually starts this way. "I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."

So there my friends is the simple answer, I will continue to strive to accomplish the humble tasks, and to do that I have to start at the beginning. Just like my Acholi students, I will begin on my knees.

peace,

john 

4 girls in Uniform walking Home from School

 I saw these 4 young girls in pink shirts and blue skirts, laughing and talking.  In a different place one of the could have been Tessa, or Maggie, or Maura. They looked happy that the day was done and looked like they could have walked forever.  It turns out there daily walk to and from school was over an hour each way.  That is what it took so they did it each and every morning and each afternoon.  I need to walk more,  twice a month to St. Gabriel’s that should be a goal I can accomplish.  Have to start the walking school bus next year.  I am constantly amazed at how much the Ugandan students want to learn.  Earlier in the day it was 5 S2 boys around lunch.  I noticed one young man lagged from the group just so he could talk to me.  I told him I was a teacher of Mathematics in America, I asked how he did in Maths and he looked at me with pride and said loudly, “I do well in maths, Sir!”  Good thing I have 72 great 8th graders waiting for me in St. Louis or I might be staying.