My Career at Kuluva

Now that I’m settling into my site, I’m getting a better idea of what my workdays will be like.  Sister Anne gave me a modified job description that she made after my visit in September.  (I gave her my resume during my site visit, so the work could be more specific to my knowledge and experience.)   Well now my job title includes: Data Officer, School Administrative Assistant, and teacher for the social psychology and computer training courses.

So basically, what I’ll be doing is creating databases to track student records and school financial records (because everything is handwritten in binders right now); writing quarterly school reports and summaries; project and proposal writing for community outreach; creating school brochures; analyzing the school’s strategic plan; and teaching classes.  And if I have free time, the Kuluva Hospital would like me to help with their Health Management Information System (kind of the same thing I was doing at CDPHE).  My workload is full!

My schedule follows the school hours:

Monday-Friday 8:30am-4:30pm

Morning tea break 10:30am-11:00am (Uganda was a British colony until 1962, so they still have morning and evening tea times!)

Lunch 1:00pm-2:00pm

The nursing school has four sets of students on rotating class schedules (or tracks) – so there is no summer vacation.  I’m okay with that because I’m not sure what I would do with an entire summer off.  (*The Peace Corps is my official employer and provides two vacation days per month that are accrued.  So even if the school has summers off, I would not be allowed to leave my site unless I used my Peace Corps vacation days.  It’s kind of messed up . . . but irrelevant.)  And for those of you who don’t know, I am saving all of my vacation days during my first year so that I can fly back to the states for Scott & Kailey’s wedding next year!!

Anyway, the teaching staff had a meeting on Tuesday about the next student set, who start school on November 21^st.  My social psychology class will be Tuesday mornings 8:30-10:30, and the computer class is tentatively scheduled for Thursday afternoons.  (We’re still working on the teaching schedule.)

Overall, I’m pretty happy with my job description.  (It’s slightly odd to be in Africa working on a computer for most of the day.)  But since I don’t have a medical or clinical background, I wouldn’t be very helpful teaching nursing classes or doing field visits.  And I still get to coordinate community outreaches for the students, so I can contribute to the local public health that way.  There are also several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Arua that I can work with for secondary projects.

And the staff at the school are all fantastic.  :)  They’re just the nicest, friendliest group of people.  Look at the note they printed for me when I arrived!  :)

I’ll write more about them later – after I take their photos!