New group!

Today was spent in Idoome, a village a little over an hour from Jinja. This was the first time I had ever been to work with the women there. I must admit it was a hard day. It just takes some time to become comfortable in a group, and for them to as well. And, not working with them before made us unaware of their skill level, so it requires some figuring out on how to teach things. Nonetheless, the women are lovely, and we were joined by several men who either are on the local council or have wives involved in the class. They added a great dimension, as the women giggled at their mistakes during English class, and as they taunted a man named Willy when he finished his fabric rosette and pinned it onto his shirt.

We returned to Jinja this afternoon knowing that we need to regroup for tomorrow and think carefully about how to plan for this group. In our meetings before coming to Africa, I said to my teams several times that the most important quality you need to have to come work with us in Africa is flexibility....and days like this are exactly why. Because we come for a few weeks in the summer, it is difficult to assess just what the women are learning and what level they are at....even knowing the needs of the class is difficult. So we tried a few things, had some success, but also need to change the way we do our classes a bit. I am confident that each day will get better and better. Not only because we'll get to know the women and they us, but also because Judy and Georgette are excellent teachers and will roll with whatever we face.

One surprise highlight of the day was entering Jinja's central market for the first time today. Basically, it is a labirynth of booths in the middle of Jinja, surrounded by a wall. It can be a little scary. But, assured that we could find knitting needles inside, we bravely entered like we had done it a million times. Unfortunately, the first section we came to was the butchery/meat section. I averted my eyes from the tables of guts several times until we came upon shoes...a section I was MUCH more comfortable in. After asking several times where to go and wandering a bit, we found a woman, who low-and-behold, was actually knitting!!!!!! We begged her to tell us where she got her needles and she said that we can't get them here....she had made hers out of a coat hanger! ha! She was really cool....after leaving her and deciding maybe we can find something else that will work for us, we stumbled upon the spice section....my favorite. That was such a cool place with bags and bags of great smelling curry's, all types of beans, some barks and rock salt, etc....so cool. We then went to the paper section and bought some cement papers to make more patterns for our class tomorrow, and eventually made it out the gate. So cool....it actually brought my spirits up quite a bit after such a draining day.

Being able to find the things you need in a new town and a different culture is one of the things that is most empowering to me. So, finding yarn and machine needles, combs, and pattern paper was really fun. It is a comfort.