Back to School Shopping… Gulu Style

Planning for school requirements has its funny moments.

First of all, unable to take 17 kids with me to the market (can you say absolute mayhem), but needing to purchase all of them a new pair of shoes for school; alternative arrangements have been made. Before starting school we visit each child two times, once to get the list of their requirements and register them for school and the second time to deliver the requirements and pay the fees. To solve the shoe problem, we have been tracing the feet of every child we visit when we collect their requirements. We will then be taking these 17 tracings to the market so that we know what size shoes to buy. Thankfully kids out here aren’t picky.

Second, the list of requirements for the children is really rather odd from the canadian perspective. New students are often required to bring things such as cement, plastic chairs, brooms and reams of photocopying paper for the school. Plus most schools require children even if they are returning students to bring toilet paper with them to school! In a subsequent post I will include our shopping list so you get an idea.

The other day, I met with Erin and Alice, two sisters, so that I could trace their feet and give them the results of their entry exams for the school they are starting in February. They immediately took their exams and despite being in different grades, proceeded to go page by page seeing who had the most check marks and who had done better. “Look at all my checkmarks!” “You did horrible, look at all those x’s” “But look at this page with all the checkmarks, do you have a page with that many” “I did better in English than you did”.

I was immediately taken back to my childhood when me and my sister used to compare exam marks and school supplies and books even though we were two years apart and technically not comparable. As I left the two sisters assuring them that they had both done wonderfully and I was very proud; I was reminded once again that no matter where you are… children are children!