Thursday, March 1, 2018

I finally got a mosquito net today after asking 3 days ago. I’ve been getting bitten each night and not sleeping as well as I’d like because of it. My friend Enid from the hotel made sure that I got a net today. Yay Enid!

We went to another two schools today. The first was a secondary [high] school where we spoke to about 150 girls and gave out about 60 kits with the promise of getting one to every girl by term’s end. The head teacher, a man, was so grateful that we were there and we spoke for about 20 minutes about menstrual issues and how boys treat girls at this school. He told me that one day a group of giggling boys learning about women’s issues were asked, “ I’d like a show of hands from each brave boy who was not produced by a woman.” Apparently that was met with complete silence. I was told that in that school, boys are taught to respect women and to help their female classmates.  Uganda often seems far more advanced than the US. Sometimes I truly wonder why we call this a developing nation.

Secondary students receiving MoonCatcher Kits.

The second school we visited was a primary school. I had thought that these young children would be shy and not know much about the subject. Boy was I wrong! These girls spoke up and had insightful things to contribute. We had a blast in that classroom and left feeling like “they got it” as Phoebe would say.

Primary students learning about menstrual management.

Throngs of little children met us outside wanting their pictures taken and to see the results. They created a circle around me and kept pushing closer and closer until I could barely show them the camera much less take a photo of all of them. It made me think of the first year I came here and handed out stickers to ever growing crowds of kids. I laugh when I think that the same child would take off the sticker, put it behind his upper arm and ask for another as though he’d never seen me before. Rows of stickers were on that arm before I finally noticed that they were getting the best of me. We all had a good laugh.

A group of school children enjoy being photographed.