Proctoring Exams & Visiting St. Ursula's

The second week at HCLV was filled with proctoring exams, which I actually had a lot of fun with as I felt like I was actually contributing something by distributing papers and what not. I filled the empty time during exams with lots of solitaire on my phone. Maureen, a Notre Dame graduate student who came here for her ISSLP (the program that existed before NDBridge) in 2018 and ended up spending an entire year here in 2019-2020 before the pandemic sent her home, arrived on Wednesday, and it was so nice to be able to talk with her. She set us up with a co-teacher who will be returning from maternity leave next Tuesday (apparently teaching on our own during the first week of being here isn’t normal). 

Celia and I also went to St. Ursula’s with Maureen while she was here. It was just about a ten minute walk, and we had a great time while we were there. St. Ursula’s is a school for people with disabilities, rumored to be the first of its kind in Uganda. There were around 80 students at the school, many of whom boarded. Lots of them had down syndrome and autism, and a few had cerebral palsy like my twin, Evan, and other disabilities as well. Most were also primary school-aged. There was so much joy there, and it made me miss Evan. We got a tour of the grounds, which included classrooms intended for vocational (crafts) and academic pursuits. There was also a place for gardening and a mini playground where we pushed the kids in swings for a bit. We also spent some time this week playing sports with the students at HCLV–both volleyball and netball (a sport I had never heard of that is kind of like handball and basketball but with a different hoop and–ironically–no net).

Over two weeks in, I feel much more settled, though the diet has made laxatives a necesity. Still, it can be easy to sometimes drift into thinking about home--Graeter's ice cream, hanging out by the pool, walking Dixie around the block. Because of this, Celia and I have tried to come up with something to look forward to each day to remind us of home, whether that be a sort of graham cracker with groundnut sauce on top that is reminiscent of nutter butters (especially now that our chocolate stash is depleted and, because everything here is fresh, there are only around 5-10 commonly eaten types of food here in general like rice, meat on the bone, potatoes, beans, etc.) or watching a TV show when we leave the school (so long as the wifi cooperates and the power isn't out due to one of the routine power outages).