February 19^th

Well, I have started to think about coming home early. In fact, I may have already made the decision. I want to write about it here on the blog, so that the blog readers might understand, and to help me to understand. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

The first reason to consider coming home early has to do with money and usefulness. I thought about this before I came, and I continue to think about it. The amount of money that I spent to get here, and that it costs me to stay here, would be better spent, I think, to directly support the programs here. As I stated early on, one of the main reasons I came was for me, for the adventure, and that has been fulfilled. As I look back at the reasons I came, I see that they did not include providing a service to the people here. I thought that I would be of service, but that wasn’t a primary reason to come. Well, it turns out that they really don’t need me to teach, either at KC or UCI. They have good teachers at both places, who actually do a better job of teaching than I do, because they know how to teach in this environment. Lecture from the book, students write down the lecture because they have no or few books, and that is how the information is passed. There is very little problem-solving thought by students in the learning process, and, in fact, to try to stimulate problem-solving thought perhaps detracts from the main job of passing information.

Comparing myself to others who have been or were here long-term, such as Sheila and Ian, they really did provide a great deal of service in that they helped establish UCI. In addition, they have provided a lot of funding for KC and students there.

So, recently I haven’t been enjoying myself at all, as I was when I first arrived. The negatives, the heat, lack of privacy, loneliness, bugs, difficulty with AODL, all have been bothering me a lot, and if I’m not enjoying myself, and I realized that I am not really providing a service, then I think it may be time to go home. I told Sharry when I came that I wouldn’t stay if I thought I should come home. I don’t think I’m depressed, but perhaps depression is part of it.

I want to stay at least until Sheila and Ian, and Meagan leave (next week). I really like being with them, and sharing knowledge and observations with them. I want to finish up some of the lectures I have already begun, so I am considering leaving about mid-March, which would make it about one and a half months in country, and would cut my stay by about 2 months.

It is strange. I wanted to put all this in the blog so that you readers of the blog might understand my reasoning, but to the Ugandans I plan to say that I need to go home early because of my mother-in-law’s health, and to support Sharry, which is partly true. I don’t want the Ugandans to think I was “driven” out by conditions here. I don’t want them to feel badly about themselves, or to think badly of me.

So, that’s where I am at currently. If anyone has any thoughts about all this, I’d be glad to hear them.

I don’t know what I will do when I get home, but I will work out at the gym, and cross-country ski.

By the way, I love god’s little jokes. After being awake much of the night last night thinking about all this, I walked into town this morning to use the internet café (SanKofa) because they have a generator and we still have no electricity, and when I arrived, their generator wasn’t working. But one adapts, and I got a lot done by hand.