Yesterday I decided that I wanted t make some new friends and that I wanted to go and see the dorms where some of the students stay. Keyo is not a boarding school, but many parents have arranged to have some of their children stay here at the school. Well, needless to say their dorms are a little less than par. There are any where between 35 - 60 boys staying in one room. If there are bunk beds, they are stacked edge to edge with no space to walk between, only across the end. If there are no bunk beds, then the foam mats are just placed on the ground. Some of the boys will sleep two to one bed. It was fun to visit them in their dorms. They were excited o show me their area and their belongings. I took pictures and just sat and visited with them for some time. I met Patrick there. He is a senior four student and is the 2^nd of eight children in his faily to be able to go to school. We passed the primary school on our way back and saw them preparing for a cultural dancing competition. As we walked back, he told me about his family and educational goals. We then talked about their breakfast they take each morning. So this morning I came early to take porridge with the students. That was an experience! All the students had huge smiles and laughter on their faces as they saw me standing in line with them for porridge. It turned out to be really good actually. Yesterday, the girls described it as mixing wheat flour with water and then pouring that mixture into boiling water and that was it. It turned out to be just like cream of wheat an even had sugar in it! I actually really liked it and I am going to see if Carol will make it for us one morning. We go our porridge and just sat and visited again. Patrick seems like a great student and I really enjoyed visiting with him. He shared with me that after school at 5 they will return tot he dorm and change. At 5:30 super is served back at the school and at 7:30 they begin their prep period till 10:00. They then return home and he says he will sleep till midnight and then he will wake up and study for a couple of hours and then sleep again only for s few hours before he rises around 5 AM. He says that he is studying like this to get ready for the big exam next week for all senior fours. It was drizzling a bit after breakfast and so they did not have morning parade. So instead I was visiting with James (the teacher on duty this week). I asked him if all students were like Patrick and he shared with me some disturbing news that I don’t really believe. He says that some students may, but he has something out against Patrick. He said that he was one of the most undisciplined students at Keyo and that he was on a list to be dismissed soon. James told me that Patrick was lying about waking up to study as he thinks he is one of the lowest performing students. He says that he is often caught infringing the school rules and has immoral problems. It really was so saddening to me to hear that from James. I don’t blame James, but more the system. There is very little teacher to student relationships. I feel bad that that is the way he feels about Patrick. If he truly has those problems, then I look at it as an opportunity to help him and provide mentorship and counseling, and Ugandan teachers see him as a problem that needs to be dismissed from the school and indirectly denied access to an education. These students would really benefit from a guidance counselor and the mentorship that occurs between some students and teachers back home. I would be nowhere had I not received the mentorship and counseling of many of my teachers and professors.

With more teacher involvement in the lives of the students I think this would lead to less discipline problems. Take for example. Yesterday was the first day we returned to school after the lightning accident and I was shocked to see that they did not begin with an assembly or at least make mention of it at morning parade. No support or anything was provided to grieving students. Instead, all the late comers were sorted off before morning parade and required to slash the grass for the first period. There were only about 100 students who were lined up on time, leaving over 300 to be sorted off as late comers. I just thought it was ironic that on the first morning back they were punished instead of comforted. I was even more disturbed that the two teachers on duty did not see to understand or even ask why the students were late. I understand that boarding students have no excuse of lateness, but others coming from home may have a different story. Many of them have no parents and are raising their younger siblings themselves. Maybe something went wrong that morning doing the chores or getting the younger siblings to primary school. I know that some were just lazy and late, but I do not think that is the case across the board. I also recognize it is difficult to make that judgment call and punish some while not the others, but I feel that they could do more to understand the reasons of truancy here in Uganda. Another example of black pants. So, the student uniform includes blue slack pants, not black. Today, the teachers on duty went through the classrooms and any student wearing black instead of blue were removed form the classroom. Again, their punishment was slashing grass on the compound for over an hour. No inquiry was made to determine why the students were not in the required blue pants. Again, I do recognize that some are just being truant, but what of the others? I am sure they only own one pari and perhaps they had torn, were dirty, there was an accident, etc. There could be more done to understanding the individual student and their individual needs here in Uganda.