Growing Up

 I woke up this morning in my typical way. Actually, it was a bit worse than normal. The chickens woke me up at 7:00 pm, and I could hardly open my eyes until 7:40 am. By the time I got out of bed, it was 8:10 am. I knew I needed to bathe, but I also knew I didn’t have any pressing reason to be at school until tea at 11:00 am. After my bath, I took the time to wash my feet because I’ve been in Kyenjojo a lot recently, which is much dustier than Fort Poral, and I was ready to head to school by about 10:00 am. When I looked in the mirror as I was brushing my teeth, though, I saw something new: I look like an adult.

This weekend, I directed a one-day camp for the PCTs and some students in Kyenjojo. I signed up for this responsibility, excited to be able to try something new and also because it didn’t sound like it would be tooooooo much work. It turned out to be more work than I thought but still manageable. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as I know everyone involved did. The PCTs taught the students about HIV/STIs and budgeting and savings, and I brought my youth with me who went to YTT as well as the ones who attended YTT with another PCV. They facilitated sessions on Leadership and Gender along with a couple of PCTs who wanted some extra practice facilitating. Everyone did a wonderful job facilitating, and the students learned so much! I even got to teach some Team Building exercises to lead into the leadership session. It was easier than I expected to release control to all twelve facilitators even though I’ve never seen them facilitate before.

Get to know you in English

Get to know you in Rutooro

Practicing Rutooro

Budgeting and Saving

What business could you open if you saved 10,000 =/ per week?

Human knot!

Hovering...stick?

Do you trust the driver?

GROUP PHOTO!

The whole day ran behind schedule in proper Ugandan fashion, and I seemed to be the only American who was completely unbothered by it. I had not been able to properly reflect on my growth in that aspect before then, but I remember internally freaking out about our mini-camp running behind schedule. I had gotten to the point that it no longer made me angry, but I was still annoyed that we were so far behind schedule. On Saturday, though, I inherently knew that it was more important for learning to happen than for us to remain on schedule. Although this has been an ideology of mine for years, I have had difficulty acting on it until now. I did not interfere except on the prompting of others to move the schedule along. As long as people are learning, the schedule can go jump off a roof.

Maybe I shouldn’t make this post about me. Maybe I should focus on the participants and on the facilitators. But today I am proud of myself in a way I have never been proud of myself before. I am growing in myself and in God while I am here. Never have I loved myself like I do now. Never have I studied the Word like I do now. Never have I felt closer to God or closer to my true life’s purpose. Never have I taken on a huge project like this and not even stressed out about things not coming together until the day before the camp. (We were still working with the caterer on the morning of the event….) Never before have I been able to lead an event without micromanaging, truly just checking in and following up instead of wanting to know every single step. Never before have I been such an … adult.

Sure, there are days when I hole up in my house and refuse to come out because of something petty. There will always be days like that. Along the same vein, there will always be days like today when I wear a wrinkly shirt to work and pretend it’s supposed to be like that. (I cannot stand irons!) Today, though, I feel like I have accomplished the next step towards feeling comfortable in my adult skin. If I can put together this mini-camp (with SO MUCH help from my language trainers), what is next?