PoPo and Aki

The other day I woke up, walked into the kitchen, and discovered that I had rats. My beloved tomatoes sat half eaten on the rack. Within twelve hours of having rats I had a cat. Another 24 went by and I had two cats.

A few weeks ago I stopped at one of our local ‘restaurants’ for a quick plate of beans and cassava. While I was waiting, four tiny kittens wandered into the room. I started petting them and the owner of the restaurant asked me if I wanted one. No. I’ve never really liked cats. After having an epic allergic reaction as a child I’ve steered pretty clear of them for most of my life (with a few exceptions of course). As a result they kind of scare me. They scratch and bite, and their actions feel sporadic and unpredictable. I’ve even been quoted saying that I’d only want one if I either lived in a REALLY big house or had a REALLY small cat. That way I’d only have to see it, from a far, once every few days.

That being said, I found myself thinking of one of the little cats quite often. Three of the cats were mostly black with white faces but one had very unusual markings- white with a patchy back of marbleized orange and brown. It was beautiful. I tried to justify the idea in my head. What better time to get a cat: African cats are usually more work animals than pets so they don’t require much attention, I can leave the window open and it can come and go as it pleases, and it’s only a two year commitment- I can find someone to take it when I leave Uganda. I even thought of a hypothetical name for the kitten. Alas, the rats were the tipping point that pushed me into experimenting with becoming a cat owner.

When I got home Tamale asked me what I had named the cat. I told her that I had named it Popo. “Popo!” She yelled. “Where’s Aki!” I was totally confused. As far as I knew Popo was the Lango word for papaya. What was Aki? It turns out that Popo and Aki are two of Nigeria’s most popular movie stars. According to my Google search they are either children or dwarfs who have a series of films where they get into all sorts of shenanigans. Where’s Aki? Good question!

After a rather rough night of sleeping on the couch with Popo who had been crying out of loneliness Fidelis, my neighbor and fellow cat hater, asked me if there were any more available. She was having rat issues at her family home in the village. I told her I’d take care of it. I went back to the restaurant that day and asked if I could take a second kitten- the mellow one with the really green eyes- Aki. No worries, as long as you can pay. The average cost of a kitten in my village is one chicken. Considering I’m currently out of chickens they were willing to take 3,000 shillings or about $1.20. “Enjoy your cats,” on my way out. “Two girls! That’s great!” Wait, yesterday you told me they were boys…

Our walls are like paper so Fidelis was all too aware of Popo’s crying the night before. It wasn’t difficult to convince her to let Aki stay with me. Taking on the responsibility of feeding him/her and looking after him/her was also an easy sell. It’s been a few days and I’ve realized that I’m going to have to find Fidelis another cat. Currently curled up together in a sleeping ball of fur, I don’t see how I could separate them. I also have to admit, despite my prejudice against cats, I’m already feeling quite attached to these little guys/girls (as long as they don’t 1- poop in the house 2- tear up my clothes/shoes 3- make me sneeze excessively).

So the cat owner experiment continues. We are currently working on socialization of semi-wild kittens and owner’s ability to focus on tasks other than watching cats play for hours on end. We have successfully proven that kittens can go from being malnourished to obese, with the appearance of having swallowed tennis balls, within a matter of days. I’ll be sure to keep you posted as things progress.

Obama Books

When I first got to site I didn't have housing. I also didn't have very much to do at work (the work assigned from the Ministry of Health and District Health Office is very sporadic, sometimes there's tons, sometimes there's none). Without the Peace Corps newbie mission of nesting or any distractions at work during the day, time seemed to drag on. Luckily I was enjoying the integration process thoroughly and having a great time getting to know my temporary hosts. While most of my time at home was spent talking with Junior, I was also very interested in making a connection with the 3 school aged girls who lived with us. Lucky, Fiona, and Tamale had a few things in common- they all did their work around the house diligently and discreetly, they all loved to dance, the were all shy around me, and they were all either partially orphaned or viewed as semi-expendable members of their families which is how they, fortunately, fell under the loving care of Junior.

Partially out of care and goodwill and partially out of boredom I bought 3 school exercise books for the girls to practice their studies in during the long December school break. When I gave the them to the girls they were expectedly excited to have books to work in but surprisingly ecstatic that the books had pictures of Barack Obama and his family on the covers. They got to work immediately. Tamale made the brave move of starting out by writing full sentences. The first line in her exercise book read, "I want to take off my clothes." When Junior and I, trying to hold back laughter, asked her to read it to us she read, "I want to take off my clothes because they are dirty." We pointed out the difference and she fixed it right away. Fiona is 9 years old and has never been to school. Being from the US I never would have imagined that this Obama book, as they were named by the girls, represented the first real opportunity that she's ever had to hold a pen and attempt to write and draw. Working with Fiona on forming letters and drawing pictures of our house and farm animals was amazing. The girl was like a sponge and her creativity and determination has resulted in a lively book of images, including some funny pictures of me. Emulating the Ugandan school system, Lucky started off by copying notes from her old school books into the new one without knowing the meaning of any of it. It was very difficult to tear Lucky away from the comfort of copying and she seemed notably uneasy when she didn't know the answer right away. I mentioned this to Junior and she told me that Lucky's younger sister was very smart and, as a result, Lucky's parents repeat criticized her for being dumb.

After dinner studies became a tradition and I racked my brain on a daily basis to come up with challenging but achievable lessons for the girls. Children of other health center staff started to come with their own books as well and our nightly activities were soon dubbed 'Eliza Academy.' Some evenings I was tired and just wanted to lay down with my own book but the girls enthusiasm was a force to be reckoned with. Our nights were riddled with small successes and fleeting moments of intense pride for all of the children but my favorite to date was with Lucky. Always naturally drifting towards teaching English, one day I decided to change it up and give Lucky some math problems. She impressed me with her ability to add relatively large numbers but it was as if the subtraction problems were written in a foreign language. After a few failed attempts I dug into the family supply of onions. Through demonstrations (we don't share enough of a common language to explain verbally) I showed her how to count out the onions, take away the number asked and count the number that represents the correct answer to the math problem. While it doesn't sound like much, that night I witnessed a mathematical break through. Lucky went from having no idea how one would go about finding the answer to not getting a single question wrong- all within the course of an hour. I was, and still am, so proud of her.

As the girls have gone back to school (Including Fiona) and my work has picked up at the health center Eliza Academy has largely been disband but I still see traces of it. Every night while preparing their dinner of beans and cassava school books scattered across the veranda and someone is talking about what they learned that day. The other kids still come over daily and the older students go over lessons with the younger ones. I'm also still an active participant when I'm able- I'm currently drilling them on the translation of question words from English to Lango. I hope this will give them a fighting chance on their exams which they usually fail, along with the majority of the student body. Overall I'd say that academics have become a little bit more fun and communal since the arrival of the Obama books. Eliza Academy was never Harvard but it has created a tangible feeling of enthusiasm surrounding education and turned 3 shy little girls into my amina atitidi- Lango for little sisters.