Laura Leach ‘95 is working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. She is sending regular updates to KWConnect about her experiences in Africa. Click here to read her story from the beginning.

___________________________________________________________________________

Laura with the kids from across the street

Pre-Service Training

During pre-service training, I developed a very comfortable routine. Joseph the houseboy would make me breakfast…usually an omelet, bread with jam and margarine, and Nescafe instant coffee or African tea. 

I’d walk to the training site, and would attend a morning training session. Sometimes we would start with language, but sometimes we would start with a culture session or some other topic. Besides culture and language, we had medical sessions, and then either economic development or education, depending on your sector. I thought we would have to get our vaccination shots before coming in country, but we actually received these over the course of our pre-service training during medical sessions. We also had current volunteers attend our training to teach us about topics such as HIV/AIDS, the peer diversity support network, VSLAs (village savings and loan associations) and gender and safety issues at your site.

Food and More Food

After the morning training session, we’d have break tea. I LOVE break tea, and call upon all of you to help me get this tradition going in America. We were given the choice of black tea, African tea (which is tea with milk and sugar), instant coffee or hot chocolate. Break tea was accompanied by a couple of snack items such as doughnuts, mandazi (another type of fried dough treat), g-nuts (same thing as peanuts), samosas (thin pastry filled with either a vegetable mixture or a spicy minced meat, folded into a triangle shape and fried) and hard boiled eggs.

After break we would go into another training session. This was followed by lunch. Lunch was a buffet with different combinations of local dishes, matoke (boiled, mashed green bananas), rice, beans, greens, g-nut sauce, spaghetti noodles, goat meat, beef, and chicken. The most popular lunch included roasted pumpkin and chapattis cut up in little triangles. Chapattis are just flour, salt, and water combined rolled into a flat circle like a tortilla, and fried in cooking oil. It looks and sounds like the easiest thing in the world to make, but I have yet to be able to master the art of the chapatti!

Ugandan Business

Afternoons were usually when we did our sector training. These were my favorite sessions for two reasons. First, our economic development trainer Jenny was amazing. She is very bright, friendly, funny, and absolutely beautiful. The second reason I liked economic sessions the best was because I liked all of the volunteers in our sector very much. With Stephen returning to the US with his wife, we only had seven volunteers left in our group. Despite our small number, we were a motley crew spanning the United States – UT, MN, PA, MO, GA and KY.

Another thing that was fun about economic training is that business is so different here. Our very first assignment for the class was going out to research a different type of business. We were each paired with a partner and given a business to find out about. My partner was Miranda, who recently earned her MBA before coming to Uganda, and we had to research the chapatti business. We went to find out what products they offered, how they decided their locations, the cost of the product, how they competed with other chapatti makers, etc.

What we found out is that business is extremely different here. Instead of trying to come up with the next big new idea, people see someone else doing something for business and decide to try the same thing. They don’t do any research about if there is demand for more of that product or service. They don’t do anything to differentiate themselves from their competition. A lot of small businesses don’t keep any kind of records regarding expenses, income or stock, so many business people have no idea if they are earning a profit or not.

Another element to add on more confusion is that many small business owners don’t keep their personal finances separate from their business finances. Despite our various education and employment backgrounds, we were quick to discover we were all starting at ground zero when it comes to understanding Ugandan businesses.

After Training

In the middle of the afternoon we would have afternoon tea, which is the same thing as our morning break tea. There was one last session, and we usually finished around 5:00 p.m. After training I would either go straight home and read in my room or study language, or I would go into town to buy a chocolate bar or soda. It seems impossible that I could be hungry given all of the meals and snacks I received throughout the day, but there is always room for chocolate in my diet.

Most volunteers adopted a local bar as an after-training hang out spot. I seldom went there because my home stay was not near the bar, and I had been scared enough by our initial safety session to make sure I was always inside before dark. The family that lives across the street from my home stay runs a little duka (shop) where they sell some snack foods, sodas, washing detergent, flour, rice, cooking oil, etc., so sometimes I would go over there to hang out with the children. They would try to get me to say words in dhopadhola and then laugh hysterically at my accent. They also would always try to get me to dance for them, which wasn’t difficult to do.

Ugandan children have amazing spirits. Compared to American children they have very little, and much is expected of them in terms of helping the family. Despite the difficult circumstances many of them live in, they manage to still laugh and smile, and pretty soon I was dancing pretty regularly either for or with all the children that lived along my road!

The shop run by the family across the street from Laura

<>

Lee Goldberg, director/writer (movie Remaindered, Diagnosis Murder, and Monk) will hold a lecture/discussion on KWC’s campus this Thursday, 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Hager Performance Hall in the Ralph Center.

His program will be “Pre-Production Movie Making,” and he will offer insider insights on this process.

Goldberg is in town to shoot Remaindered, a short film he wrote and will direct. He’s doing the film here thanks to connections with Zev Buffman and Roxi Witt at the RiverPark Center. The whole collaboration is part of the new Theatre Arts program developed by the RPC, KWC, Brescia University and Owensboro Community and Technical College.

Students will have a chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at the filming process, and Goldberg will do three lectures at Brescia, KWC and OCTC. His topics will include creative writing, pre-production moving making and post-production moving making. The sessions are open to all students at each college.

You can follow Goldberg’s description of the entire process on his Remaindered blog.

Find out more about Goldberg and his career at his official website and his blog, A Writer’s Life. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Annessa Babic ’98 is a current college professor. Read Part 1 of her advice to freshmen here. _____________________________________________________________________________

When someone makes a late night run to Steak N’ Shake, go. The food might not be the best in the world, or remotely good for you, but those late night conversations will stay with you longer than the calories on the plate. When the World Series occurs, and people start converging in the common areas to root and watch, hang around. You may not like baseball, or either team playing, but in the end you will be richer for a communal moment that is harder to come by in a technology based world. For the record, in 1996 the Yankees played the Braves.  I am a diehard Yankees fan, and I took more grief than I care to remember for yelling for the pinstripes. Memories of watching those games, amongst my roommates, football players, random people from class, and those I still call friends still bring excitement and joy to me.

Use these same acquaintances along the way to battle the hard classes and laugh at the great ones. Embrace study groups, but don’t pester professors for review days. More often than not, those don’t happen. Instead, rely on yourself and your cadre of friends to amass the understanding needed for the task at hand. I firmly believe ninety percent of the college experience teaches you to make decisions on your own, stand your own ground and learn how to maneuver this thing we call life.

Notice, I did not say ace the exam. Why? Much like life, academic scores come from understanding. If you understand the material, you will show that in your answers. If you try to dryly memorize the data your answers will show a lack of understanding with jumbled and convoluted phrases sloppily laid on your page. This sense of understanding should carry you through your days. Do not worry if you don’t have a major in your first year. Do not worry if you still don’t have one in your second year. If you reach your junior year and still have no direction, then you should certainly seek some guidance. Why shouldn’t you worry? Those pesky classes called the deck requirements aren’t put there to drum you into submission. They give you a sampling of skills, subjects, and tasks. They should help you find what your true passion is. I have to say, if your true passion is history, don’t worry about how much money you won’t make. Instead, relish in the fact of how you will do something you love and love what you do.  

I see that this year the freshman class logo is “Your future is so bright you gotta wear shades.” What was mine? I transferred to KWC in 1996, and I think we were “Foundations.” Honestly, I cannot remember. What I do recall is that within a matter of weeks – like many college coeds – my wardrobe became a poster board for KWC. My friends were a hop and skip away.  Watching the football team lose wasn’t so bad because we knew them and knew they had heart. The basketball team brought up bragging rights for that blue and white school on the other side of the state. And . . . dubbing my favorite professor Captain History, later to be named “The Grinch who Stole My GPA,” and when he turned thirty, we painted Minerva in his honor.

<>

Annessa Ann Babic ’98 majored in English and History at KWC. She earned a Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stony Brook University in 2008 and currently teaches at New York Institute of Technology and SUNY College at Old Westbury. She is the co-editor of The Globetrotting Shopaholic (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008), has written scores of academic pieces and uses a pen name to write fiction. She lives in Astoria (Queens), NY.

—————————————————————————————————

It’s that time of year again, when young and old all across the land head back to school.  Back in the day, I stood in line as a new kid to get my polyester gym shorts and white tee. You could smell the fear in the room. Ugh, gym class and middle school. Neither were good combinations, particularly those polyester shorts. Ugh, gym shorts.

The power of literary technique allows me to jump forward seven or so years to my days at Kentucky Wesleyan. Those first days for new freshmen are always filled with wonder and awe, and in many cases a lot of angst arises. Unfortunately, this angst does not necessarily dissipate with the swing of the new semester. More often than not, though, this angst can pass rather seamlessly like the turns of the seasons. These are the things I often try to convey to my own timid freshman, or drifting and worried upperclassmen.

I graduated college in 1998, and yes we had the internet. My college days were shortly before the birth of Google, long before the advent of internet blackmail known as YouTube, at the beginning of cell phones becoming commonplace, right before the installation of key cards versus keys, when the computer lab was the only place to do your work, and at the end of the era when cable was not in dorm rooms. We gathered in common rooms to watch South Park and yell at ESPN games. In the midst of this, course work fell and campus legends loomed.

First, professors do not sharpen their pencils with their teeth or grade your papers with their blood. Trust me. We do not idle away at our desks and computers looking for ways to make your life miserable, and when we say come speak to us you should. Course syllabi are like maps for the semester, and like any good road trip, things may change. So when a professor adds a reading, or changes a due date, he or she is doing it because the nature of the group calls for it. Believe it or not, we have lives. We like ball games, we like dinner with friends, and we like to do things non-academic. Hence, when something is due turn it in. When you have trouble, don’t wait until the last minute to get help. Emailing a professor at 1:00 a.m. the night before the final will not help your grade.

On that same note, but slightly different, college is about more than the books. My fondest memories of KWC involve strolling through the quad and sharing a soda with those I met along the way. There used to be an infant tree outside what is now the Old Grill. In 2000 a tornado came and took it down, and to this day I am still saddened. Why? I read Jack Kerouac under that tree, studied for my favorite class, and Melanie Basham, Sonya Martin and I planned how we would change the world.

My point: remember in the hustle and bustle to stop and talk to those around you. Those first few days you won’t know many or even anyone. Within a week you will certainly know at least twenty-five, and the beauty and joy of KWC is that it is a small campus. There is always a friend around a corner. Though too, the pain of KWC is that it is small. If you do something outlandishly stupid you will be reminded four years later after you walk across the stage. More so, remember to have fun.

Stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon …

<>

Check out this interview of KWC basketball signee Jason Hall on ESPN’s First Take. Jason earned a scholarship even though he has born with only three fingers on each hand:

<>

 Laura Leach ‘95 is working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. She will be sending regular updates to KWConnect about her experiences in Africa. Click here to read her story from the beginning.

(Tororo is on the right, just above the box.)

One of the toughest emotional challenges during Peace Corps is losing members of your training class. After that first weekend with our host families, a married couple that we came over with decided to go back to the United States. They had dreamed of being in the Peace Corps back in the early years of the Peace Corps, but they had been discouraged by their parents. All of their kids are now grown, and they had recently retired, and decided to pursue their dream. The wife was an education volunteer, and the husband was an economic development volunteer, and both brought with them a wealth of knowledge and experience.

After that first weekend, they decided they had made a mistake and could not spend two years away from their children and grandchildren. With a bat of an eye, they were gone and there was nothing for the rest of us to do but move forward.

Snacks and Weddings
Things were looking pretty sunny for me at my home stay. I had chosen carrots and cucumbers for my first night snack, and this turned out to be a good move. Ugandans are very warm and welcoming people. They go out of their way for their guests, and as soon as Jane found out I enjoyed carrots and cucumbers, they become a regular part of my diet throughout my stay.

My first weekend at home stay, Jane had a wedding reception she was catering, and I got to tag along. I can’t imagine crashing a wedding reception in the United States and the wedding party being okay with that, but there I was at a wedding reception where I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me, and I was greeted and told that I was “most welcomed.”

I was the only white person there, which means I got a lot of attention, especially from the children. This wedding was a western style wedding being held in Kampala. The main difference between an American wedding reception and this one was that there were many more speeches given at the Ugandan reception, and then the cake was served to the guests by the bridesmaids and groomsmen. I thought that was a nice touch.

Heading East
Pre-service training is all leading to you getting your own site where you will live and work. Although we had to wait until our last week of training to find out the exact community where we would be located, we got a big hint when we were divided into our language groups. I was put in the dhopadhola  group with Mary Beth, Greg and Racheal. Only one district in Uganda speaks dhopadhola, and that is Tororo. I would be heading east.

<>