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Before I dive into orientation stuff, there's a picture of the equator which we passed by on the drive to Mbarara from Entebbe! Check it out! =)
Home and showered after a long day at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST). All the others in my QE Scholars group have been "complaining" about how long and tough the day was. The quotations are only there because some individuals in particular complain considerably, and their voices drown out everyone else. During class and opening speeches, I finally got a sense of how Ugandans really reiterate things! Even if they don't use the same words or phrases, they're expressing the same idea multiple and multiple times. What we covered today probably could have been covered in a couple hours curriculum in Canada. That's what makes the classes so tough to get through at times. I personally found the day long and at times uncomfortable (the seats are just 3 wooden seats in a row, which after long periods of sitting are quite rough to sit on). However, there was still plenty of interesting moments, an abundance of opportunities for interaction, and learning moments, nevertheless. I feel that rather
than focusing on the negative aspects of school, we'd be much better off discussing what good aspects we can take from the facilitators here at MUST. Mr. Gad Ruzaaza is quite the character. He's the program coordinator and seems to command a lot of respect. He's also quite philosophical, but difficult to understand at times. And since his way of thinking and communicating is different, it's hard to gather as much as I would like through conversations with him. We also met with Dr. Samuel Maling, the dean of Medicine. This guy comes across to me as an incredibly intelligent and diversified in his experiences and culture. I personally feel as though he's a great communicator and I immediately wanted to get to know him better through private conversations and even keep in touch with him (plus possibly eventually get a letter of recommendation from him). He's obviously a busy man though so I don't know whether I'll follow through with getting to know him.
Today's orientation started off extraordinarily weird. It was a bit of a culture shock to experience the lack of organization and different speech styles of Ugandans. It was also another opportunity to experience "Ugandan
time", which is the term for Ugandan people's tendencies to come leisurely and late to anything and everything. The University is a bit better though when it comes to Ugandan time, compared to some experiences in Entebbe. One of the most shocking moments of the orientation came from the stakeholders speeches. The stakeholders, Uganda Manufacturers Association (UMA), brought a bit of a surprise to everyone, including the local MUST students (over 200 of them) who are participating in the community placements. What was originally meant to be a 3-4 week community placement had become a 10 week placement. To make matters worse, the coordinators and administrators didn't know either until 2 days ago, hence the lack of notice for anyone. There was a bit of an uproar among everyone and it's obvious the local students weren't happy. Overall, it was in the most Canadian colloqial term: a massive gong show. To top it all off, I felt the speaker for UMA was also a massive prick. Not only was he obnoxiously loud, but he almost felt as though he was sneaking in insults as he was speaking. Perhaps this was just me and my western cultural influences, but my personal
opinion is the local MUST students probably feel a similar way. So the 10 week placement... we were all worried upon hearing this news and a bit nervous since this wasn't what we had signed up for. We were expecting a 1 week orientation, 4 weeks of rural community placement, and then 5 weeks of our own respective field work, such as working in hospitals for nurses, or vets without borders stuff for me (vet med). Fortunately, we have the associate dean of nutrition and pharmacy, Dr. Carol Henry, here in Uganda with us to make sure we're all safe and things are in order. So she was obviously surprised just like us. Dr. Henry quickly went to work and visited the dean of medicine to discuss the situation. In her words, "you can't change the rules after the game starts". So she managed to schedule a meeting with the dean of med and we all crammed into his office to discuss our concerns. Dr. Henry addressed the length of stay as well as the fact that our group of 12 scholars were split into 3 different locations rather than 2 like in the past. We couldn't switch our teams
so that we were in 2 places as the accommodations and such were set, however, Dr. Henry did basically tell the dean that we were only going to do the 4 week community placement and the dean then said that we could give him preferences for where in the MUST hospital we could work after we get back from the placement (including the nutrition students). As for me, I'll have to coordinate my own schedule and work with vets without borders, Dr. Siefert+lions, and perhaps the chimpanzee sanctuary centre (don't have a contact for that though, I'll need to look into that more for more information).
A few select interesting moments:
- during the opening remarks section, one professor received a huge applause and laughter during his introduction. We met him later on and I asked him why everyone seemed to love him so much. As it turns out, he's the anatomy professor and quite the humorous guy. Almost all the students have to take his course too. i would be interested in sitting through his course and comparing the curriculum here with what i learned at WCVM.
- After being quite vocal and active in the
first day of class, a local MUST student called Mwesigwe came and chatted me up. He was really friendly and invited me to his place and as part of immersing myself in the local culture, I'll have to visit his place sometime this week.
- i feel my high amount of participation made quite an impression. The dean of Medicine and local MUST students have been quite receptive.
- Ugandan males will sometimes hold hands as a sign of friendship. However, I think a Ugandan will grab someone's arm as a sign of dominance (not exactly sure about this).
- had matoke and posho for lunch today. They were both really bland, but fortunately the beans and sauce that they come with are really salty so you just pair each bite of matoke or posho with beans and sauce. Managed to finish it all, which the food ladies seemed to really like. =) As for dinner, matoke and rice and beef stew were served. The beef was really poor quality stuff though, as in it had too much tendon in it. Otherwise though, it was quite delicious, but I was actually still quite full from the lunch
that I couldn't fit as much dinner in. I may have to try to get less for lunch in the future. they also served a breakfast tea snack, which included a plain, non-sweet donut and 熱奶茶 or something that tastes just like it. I'll be looking forward to seeing what variation of food we'll be getting tomorrow or if it will be the same.
interesting English language phrases Ugandans use: interface (for discussing or interacting between individuals) and are we together (for does everyone understand or is everyone following).
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