Photos!

Here's Mal with a member of the Kika Dance troupe learning some new moves!!! She looks like she's doing it right, doesn't she? Below are a couple more pictures of the dance troupe experience... there aren't too many that show Mal specifically, but it's nice to at least see some of the surroundings. These pictures were posted on a different blog from Mal's Kampala Project supervisor. If you want to see more, you can find them at: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/oacs/kampala/gallery/


There's Mal on the right in the brown!

The band that played for the dance troupe!

A couple of other updates:

-Mal has had a new friend join her in the apartment she's staying in, along with 6 other girls... a rat named Alfred! He has only been spotted once, but he's been leaving Mal and the girls gifts of droppings and helping himself to their food! Mal said that the maintenance people came and set a trap today, so hopefully he won't be their roomate much longer!

-Mal wanted me to tell you all the breakdown of what she's been doing at the school.

-The first part of the day, she and Deepa work with special needs kids (about 10 of them) for an hour on learning to read and speak english

-After that, Mal works with 3 more special needs kids who need even more attention, including a 12 year-old boy who was never taught to read, and a 29 year-old woman who got West Nile Virus/Encephalitis and is developmentally delayed as a result.

-Next, they work with a whole class (of about 65 students!) teaching them for 2 hours... english, health, and social studies mostly.

-Lunch! Mal and Deepa normally go to an Irish pub that serves fried chicken!

-After lunch they are off of teaching duty, and in the last couple of days have been learning to make beads. Mal has been enjoying this time a lot!

Mal also wanted me to tell you a funny story, which is that she got proposed to at lunch today! The place that they go is very crowded, and apparently once all of the tables become occupied, it's not uncommon for strangers to come up and sit beside you if you have empty chairs. So, this man joined Mal and Deepa for lunch, and he was very interested in talking to them about America... he asked Mallory, "If I move to America, will you marry me!?" and Mal said "well... I'm actually already married" (HA!) because that's what she was told to say if anyone asked. She flashed her fake wedding ring too for emphasis. And the guy said "Already married? What are you, 17?" and Mal said "No, actually I'm almost 23." haha So then he got the hint and backed off. She thought it was funny.

Also, she told me yesterday that she had the kids at the school guess how old she is, and they guessed... 14!! hahaha she was like "You guys are 12! You're crazy if you think I'm only 2 years older than you!" So that was funny too.

That's all for now; I will post more updates as I get them!