Unasema Kiswahiri?

Do you speak Swahili?

Swahili is a language I have been thought that I want to speak. People in Eastern Africa such as Kenya and Tanzania they speak Swahili. In addition, even some people in Uganda they also speak Swahili.
Generally, it is said that those who people who speak Swahili in Uganda are the people who work in militarily and polices, especially those jobs who are coming from different area and tried to communicate with each other. It is because in Uganda there are a lot of language. Some are similar but some are not similar at all. Of course, they speak English but when it comes to communicate with colleagues, Swahili is much easier than English as I heard. That is the reason why some people in those jobs speak Swahili.
Likewise, people in Kakira, where one of the biggest sugar factory is, they also speak Swahili. Kakira is located around 15km away east from Jinja. On Sundays, there is a big market. Recently, I go out there for finding the opportunity to speak Swahili. I was so surprised when I went there as a first time that people called as "Bowana" means Sebo in Lusoga, or Sir in English. With books I brought it from Japan as well as the book I found in Kampala also help me to understand Swahili. On weekdays I use English and Lusoga (just for simple greetings) but on Sundays I started to use Swahili.

That is why, my Swahili is slowly slowly, or pole pole developing.

Kenya @ Jinja

A Good African Story

 

      This is the first English book I finished reading since I came to Uganda. The title of this book is "A good African Story : how a small company built a global coffee brand" written by Andrew Rugasira, who is an entrepreneur founded an Ugandan company called Good African Coffee. He was born in Uganda and studied in UK. After finished master degree in University of Oxford, he came back to Uganda and started his business. From his study, he had some doubt about development aid. For the past fifty years, the World Bank, UN and other birateral organizations have granted and lent huge amout of money but it hasn't worked well. In that view point, he started to think to embark a business which is related to local people aiming at a trade with a fair price. As a result of his effort as well as his colleagues, he finally started retail business in UK after S. Africa. His coffee business bloomed, finally.  Then, he also started a retail business in the U.S though he struggled some hard situations.

     After finishing to read this book, I understood how hard to embark a business in Africa and how hard to make the businness, especially when it comes to compete in the capitalism. As he pointed out through the book, of course capital is importnat but perseverance is more importantly than the capital. He never gave up to keep pushing up his business. I think that perseverance was the key to success in his business. Because of he and his team's effort, coffee famers got  a certain amount of  money by selling coffee (it should have given them). Lastly, as he told the reader that poverty is not only a lack of money but also a lack of oppertunity. From this view point, I could understand why he made SACOO for famers.

     The Andrew's way of thinking to help people in the village is very logical and well estimated.

Since I can even  find his coffee in the supermarket in Jinja, I am going to buy the coffee not only to enjoy the taste but also to help the poeple in Kasese, where their Arabica coffee is from.

 

Kenya @ Jinja

  

Student Teachers







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Student teachers has come since this week. This is a program for them to become a teacher as we did in Japan. I was surprised to hear that student teachers they teach during the daytime, starting from 8:30a.m to 4:00p.m. Since school has to keep their time to teach, I had no lesson during the daytime. Even though I have to teach math for P6, I decided to teach in early morning and late evening.

     From last Tuesday, I started go to school at 7:00a.m and taught them if there is no teachers to teach. We, the teahcers made a timetable but I told pupils like this;

 

"I come at 7:00a.m. every moring for the lessons and started to teach from 5:30p.m to 6:30p.m."

 

Whether they understand my reason or not, I much come to teach them, otherwise I won't finish all topics of P6 within the term.

In addition, I have just started to teach on Saturdays.

What I concern is that I'm not sure if they come on time. Like today, I came to school at 8:00a.m as I told them last evening, but no one was there. The first pupil came at 8:10am, then, one third of the class came up to 9:30. That is why, I started my lesson at 9:30. I didn't have enough time to teach today, but I think it is importnat to try encourage them to attend the lesson.

 

Though those student teachers will come for the next three weeks I hope I will find out what I should do during the daytime and keep teaching during those two durations of a day.

 

Kenya @ Jinja  

 

Uganda VS Ghana

    

     Last Saturday, I went to Nambole studium (located in Kampala) to watch the football match between Uganda and Ghana. This is the match for the World Cup qualifier in 2018, Russia and this is the important match for both teams. Because in Africa there is only one team will go to the world cup in each league. There are four teams in each league. Uganda is same as Ghana, Egypt and Congo brazzaville. Leading by the Egypt, Uganda comes next before Ghana. However, in oder to be qualified for the World Cup. Uganda must win this match same as Ghana.

Though the Cranes, the nickname of the national team of Uganda was tryed to get a score, they didn't get it. Ghana, the black star, also didn't get a score. As a result of the match, it was drew. Both team had some chances to get a score but it didn't. At the last part of the match, I though Ghana scored after the keeper of Uganda stroke the ball. But it was off-side. Though there was some doubt about the judge, we survived. The score was 0-0 and the dream going to the World Cup as a first time has disapper.

I hope someday that Japan and Ghana will hold a match in the World Cup!!

Kenya @ Jinja

The New Semester has Started

Time flys.

The three weeks holiday has already finished and the new semester has just started this week. I have started to teach mathematics to Primary 6 (P6) at my school. As I heard from my colleagus, pupils need a time to come back to school. Around one third of the pupils in P6 came to school this week. I don't know the exact reason why they are so slow. This is Uganda! Maybe I will ask them why they are so slow.

During the holiday, I went to Kapchorwa district, where it is located about 200km from Jinja. I stayed there for about one week with my friend. The place where we went called Sipi falls it is 15km from Kapchorwa town and a lot of nature there. What is good in Sipi is the tempreture. Since the latitude in Sipi is around 1,700m, which means around 6-7 degrees cooler than Jinja. Though it rained everyday also the sun came everyday even sometimes we saw a rainbow! We enjoyed staying there with a lot of natures and delicious food.

We did some activities. For one thing, we participated in coffee tour. We visited a local house where coffee harvested with a guide(Actually, the area around Kapchorwa is famous for the coffee product. They produce the best coffee in Uganda called Arabica.). Then we experienced the process how to make coffee powder from the seeds. Of, course we skipped some parts of the process since we had to do all the process around an hour but we could know the process how to make coffee. After an hour, we drunk coffee we made. It was delicious! After the tour, we bought a coffee powder and even coffee trees (young one) in order try to harvest at my garden.

Another thing the rice in Kapchorwa was very delicious! I normally eat rice called Kaiso, which costs 2800sh/kg. But the rice I ate the guest house called Spa, which costs 4000sh/kg. Then I had an idea trying to harvest some rice then I bought 3kg of rice seeds. I talked with my roommate and then we are going to harvest Spa in Namutumba, where is 100km west from Jinja. For one thing, it is important to have a wet land in order to harvest rice which Jinja doesn't have. Another thing it's easy for us to supervise because the place is not far from my roommate's hometown. We can go there in the weekend.

It seems good to do some work not only just as a teacher but also to think how I support local people.

Kenya @ Jinja

One month

One month has passed since I came to school in Jinja. I have enjoyed staying so far.

So, this time I am going to explain what I have done for the past month.

First, I had some lessons. As I have already told you the first lesson is P4 class and the topic was circle. It was not easy for me to teach them because of two reasons. First, it's not easy for pupils of P4 to understand English. Second, it was not easy for me to teach by English. Because of these two reasons the first lesson was not easy but I enjotyed it. As for P6&P7, it was more easier for me to teach them because they understand English well compared to P4. Since not all topics I have taught in Japan sometimes it's not easy for me to understand the contents of the topic. So, my colleague, Joseph, he helped me to understand. He is very good at math.

Second, I am going to explain my life in Jinja. The working hour starts at 8 am. until 5 pm. After I finish working I go back home. My home is located in the school. It takes only 1 minutes from the school. What is good I can easily access to the water (There is a tap at the school.) and safe. Since I live with Joseph and two other people who are relatives of Joseph, they normally made suppers for me, which means I don't have to cook. I only cook in the morning to make a sunny side egg.

Third, since I brought a soccer ball from Kampala I can play football with kids in the village. They play football in bare feet. Though some of them have sandal, they took it off. Maybe for them it's more easy to play without having anything. On weekends, I sometimes go to a bar to watch premier league with Joseph. He support Manchester United and I just started to support Arsenal because I support Fry Emirates. The game which we saw at the bar was ManU VS Leichester. Since Okazaki, who is a member of Japanese national team was in Leichester I had to support but there were plenty of supporters of ManU at a bar. As a result, Leichester was lost.

So this is briefly what I have done for the past month. I enjoyed so far. I hope it will last for the next two years.

Kenya @ Jinja

P.S I am going to travel for a fortnight heading for eastern part of Uganda.

A Lecture at Teacher's College

Since I have an oppertunity to have a lesson for the future primary school teacher at Jinja Teacher's College. I went there last Saturday and had a lecture for the differences of education between Japan and Uganda.

I had two lectures. Each lecture lasted for 50 minutes. After I explained what is the difference of lessons for math between Japan and Uganda, I had a model lesson. The first period I taught about ratio related to pie chart and the second period I taught about finding area (rectangle). It was challenging since I didn't have much oppertunity to talk in front of college students, and math taught by English. But somehow I managed it.

The script as follows came from those lectures for the first 15 minutes each. I hope students at teachers college learned something from my lecture!

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Good morning, ladies and gentleman! My name is Kenya. I am from Japan.

Do you know any cities in Japan? I am from Tokyo, Japan.

Today I am going to talk about three stories.

First, I am going to introduce myself. Second, I am going to talk about the difference between Japan and Uganda, especially the math education. Third, I will have a model lesson which is based on my experience in Japan as a primary school teacher. If you have any questions please ask me at any time of the lecture by raising your hand.

So, let me introduce myself. Do you remember my name? My name is Kenya and I am Japanese. I will turn to 30 this year and I am single. I have worked as a primary school teacher in Japan for the past three years. I taught mainly math. I have a family of four my father, mother and my brother and me. I have learned politics at my university and then I travelled throughout the Europe by bicycle for ten months. During that travelling, I thought it would be interesting for me to work with kids. But in order to be a teacher in Japan I needed a licence. After I went back to Japan, I went to teacher’s college like you and I spent three years (normally it takes two years) and I got a licence for teaching at primary school. At that time, I worked at primary school to help the class teacher as a part time job. Then, the headmaster of that school offered me to work as a teacher at different primary school and then I took that offer. Luckily, I had a job and started working as a math teacher at primary school. At first year, I taught math from P1 to P3 and for the next two years I taught math from P3 up to P6. Then, after finishing the school year in 2016. I left Japan and came here!

Any questions so far?

OK, then I am going to talk about the second story, the difference of math education between Japan and Uganda for primary school. I will talk about three points.

First, the biggest difference between Japan and Uganda for math education is the value of math. We think math is important to make a think logically. Here in Uganda the answer, or the result is the most important for math, or to get a high score of the test, which means accuracy and efficiency is the top priority. Of course, we think that it is important to get a high score of the test, but we, especially the teachers impressed from the students not because of that they got a high score but because of the way of thinking, or how to solve the questions. We think how and why the key words for math, not what are.

Second, based on this idea, we consider the value of expressions. I noticed expressions are not so important in here when I marked. For example, in Japan when pupils solve the sentence questions in math exam they got 5 points for the expressions and another 5 points for the answer. So, there is a difference between 2 times 3 and 3 times 2. If the answer is 2 times 3, you must write 2 times 3 for the expression. Otherwise you lose your points.

Thirdly, I will talk about the lessons. In Japan, we do question-solving method. Have you heard about this phrase? In this method there are six steps mainly. We do it in one lesson lasted for forty five minutes. The first step is question. Ideally, it comes from the pupils, but mainly we give them. The second step is to think about the clue or hint to solve the question based on what they have already learned. Normally the question which is given shall solve how to solve the former lesson. Third, solve the question by themselves. Forth, share the idea what they have found or how they reached the answer. Fifth, we conclude how to solve this type of questions. Sixth, they do some exercises. Sometimes we skip sixth because we give them homework every day.

Well that briefly what I have done for the past three years as a primary school teacher in Japan and what I have felt since I came here. Any questions so far? If not, let’s try a model lesson.

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Kenya @ Jinja