Ya’ll probably already know that my team is spending the month working at Makobore High School, a secondary school that currently has around 400 boys. We decided early on that we would spend one day with the boys as they went to class. This is what happened:
6:38 am: Wake up to Leanna’s alarm going off. Groggily cover my head with a blanket. It’s still dark out, which means that it’s definitely too early to go to school.
7:30 am: As always, I’m blown away by the quiet beauty of our walk to class. God is so creative!
7:37 am: Greet the boys who’ve shown up for morning devotions. Led by Isaac, the Chairman of Scripture Studies, we sing several hymns, accompanied by a drum. Leanna gives a short word about Nehemiah, the book we’ve been working through with the boys.
8:00 am: Head to class with my favorite kid, Philemon. We’re both pretty excited to have the whole day together. He’s taking pre-engineering classes, so we head to math first.
YUCK. I haven’t been in a math class since I was his age and for good reason. I entertain myself by writing letters and starting a blog instead.
10:15 am: Geography class next. Philemon and I both make sketches of British Columbia. He’s a much better artist than I am. The teacher asks me about the land features of the United States and I explain about the sheer vastness of my country, how diversified it is. I realize how blessed I am to have a country as rich in resources as the US is.
10:48 am: The teacher tells the boys that women in America aren’t as fertile as East African women. Apparently we don’t eat enough maiz (corn) or matoke (mashed bananas). He tells them that if their wives don’t give them sons, they are free to find another woman. I struggle with silence for a minute and then firmly explain that neither of these “facts” are true or Biblical. [I've never been good with silence.]
10:51 am: I am dismissed for tea in the Teacher’s Lounge.
11:30 am: Philemon comes to find me for Kiswahili class. There’s only eight of us in the class and we all share one book. We take turns reading a paragraph of a story, but as soon as the teacher leaves, the boys want to know about America. Sammy Too Tall, the tallest boy in school, asks me why the US is more developed than Uganda. I explain about the size of the US, how we have many different kinds of people, climates and places that facilitate different aspects of our country. I draw a makeshift map and have the boys guess what kind of things are good where: New York and the northeast are good for commerce, they guess and California is good for Hollywood. I tell them about the agriculture in the Midwest and how the cultures in the North and South are so different. They’re amazed and, surprisingly, so am I. It’s easy to forget how amazing a place is when you’re so far away. Their appreciation made me see my country with new eyes.
1:00 pm: The cooks prepared a special lunch for us, consisting of an entire bull (yes, organs, bones, brain and all), matoke, and posho (something like congealed grits). In serving us meat, the school is showing us high honor and respect. The boys get a kick out of Brandon’s enthusiastic devouring. They give us girls a hard time about the small portions we took until we assure them they can have our leftovers. Then they just hand us their plates.
2:00 pm: Some of the boys return to class and we head home for a break before coming back for the boys’ free time.
5:00 pm: We come back to Makobore for the boys’ only break from 5:00 – 6:30 pm. Leanna, Dan and Brandon play volleyball or soccer. Caitlyn hangs out with the drama students, dancing to Usher and Chris Brown, which they love. Kenra’s running a study session with some of the Senior 5 boys. Philemon and I sit on a bench and pull out pictures of our families. We laugh about the crazy similarities until the drum sounds for dinner. He walks me down the hill and then grabs my hand.
“You will come tomorrow?”
I grin and say yes. He laughs and turns back up the hill, walking at his usual steady pace, long legs covering more ground than the boys running.
I go home excited and tired, happy to be done with the years of homework and exams, and loving these incredible boys so much that I have to wonder how exactly I’m expected to leave them.
