Up Another Level

I was looking over my electronic diary yesterday. I smiled at the August 15 entry:

“Other recent stuff: kids done with school, now on holiday. Got report cards – R and B doing okay, in the 70s, but Agnes not doing well - around 50. Def need tutor.”

Agnes was barely passing P5 this summer despite having taken P6 twice already in the village; despite being a 16 year old squeezed into a class overflowing with 10 and 11 year olds. I was worried about her morale. Would dejection slink in, poisoning her passion for learning? Would sincere appreciation and elation for her second chance at school fade as failure and embarrassment loomed?

How strong was she? How strong is a girl forced out of her home by her parents to marry a man decades her senior? How strong is a girl who has endured suppressive poverty, sleeping in the dirt of a mud house, barely attending school, usually not eating enough, most often going without medical attention? How strong is a girl who cared for her four younger siblings, feeding them, washing them, watching them, guiding them, while tending to her mother as she wasted away and succumbed to AIDS?

Agnes was not unlike other Africans, taking her life in stride, not questioning the unfair and the uncontrollable, doing what had to be done; surviving.

But passing exams and levels were not requisites for life. Could Aggie persevere in the face of obstacles not necessary for her very existence? How strong was she?

During the last holiday in September all of the children, except little Rachel, went to school for private tutoring five days a week. The teachers all remarked on their improvement when they began the school term a few weeks later. The kids continued to receive coaching by their teachers in the form of extra nightly assignments through the fall term. This past week put the months of labor and learning to test: it was exam time.

“Mommy! Mommy! I got a 93 in math!” Aggie told me excitedly a few days ago when I was visiting the kids in their home.

“What? That is fantastic Aggie!”

“And English. 76.”

“Very good, Aggie. Very Good.”

Aggie floated back to the food she was preparing for her younger sisters and brother, happily bending over the charcoal stove the size of a child’s stool, tending to the sauce bubbling in the pot. A bright smile spread across her pretty round face.

A couple of days later I went to visit the kids again at their new place in Nkoko. As per usual, I was greeted enthusiastically; screams, hugs, running, laughter.

“Mommy. I am going to P6,” Aggie said in her stilted, but perking English.

“Very good, Aggie.”

“Mommy! Me P1!” Sylvia exclaimed to me thumping her chest.

“You are going to P1?”

“Yes!”

“Very good, Nabu. You have done very well and you have worked very hard. You couldn’t even count to ten before, but now look at you. You can count. You know your letters. A,B,C, what. You can add and subtract.”

“Mommy. Two plus three is five.”

“Yes, Nabu. Two plus three is five.”

As I spoke to Sylvia, the other children started yelling their new levels to me.

Mommy! Me P3!

Mommy! Me P3!

Mommy! Me Top Class!

“No, Rachel. You are not going to top class. You are going to middle class.”

“Mommy! Middle class!” Rachel shouted smiling, thumping her chest like Sylvia had.

“Yes, middle class.”

I turned to Aggie.

“So your teacher said you passed?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said through an enormous grin.



“She can’t,” Mama Ester later told me. “She can’t know yet. They only know if they passed when they get their report folders on Tuesday.”

I laughed. All of the kids thought they passed, but apparently they couldn’t know for sure yet according to Ester. It didn’t matter though. I had been talking to their teachers. I knew my kids were passing. Tuesday morning would just confirm what I already knew.

Tuesday morning, this morning, offered another bag of surprises. I was at the snack shop putting out another fire: the power had been turned off for nearly 24 hours; no electricity meant food was going bad and little could be cooked on charcoal stoves; it meant we were losing a lot of money.

Get me the contract with our landlord. I need to talk to him again about getting our own meter. He can’t deny us after not paying his electric bill and forcing us to lose this much money.

Cooks. Next time tell me when food is starting to spoil. I can bring it to my refrigerator at home. We threw out too much.

Has the town council paid for yesterday’s delivery?

We already used 8 bags of flour? How?

I was sifting through a lot of chaos with my staff. Ugandans aren’t known for their strong planning skills; the weight was falling on me. I was working hard to get us more efficient, to make us more profitable. Managing through the web of cultural differences was delicate and navigating African contractual obligations was yet another lesson in gratitude: no, there are basically are no real contracts with landlord, you just draft up something small. And yes, they can turn off the power for days.

This isn’t acceptable!

Then. Brightness.

Aggie came to the shop door face glowing.

“Hi Aggie! How are you?” I welcomed her with relief.

“I’m fine.” She was wearing her school uniform. She had a pale pink folder in her hand, which I recognized.

“You got your report folder?”

She nodded happily and made a slight gestured indicating she wanted me to see it.

“Let me see.” I opened the front page with the teacher’s notes on her test scores and his comments on her performance.

“93 in math. 76 in English. 48 in SST. 40 in Science. Very good Aggie.” I searched for the note saying she passed. I didn’t see it. Other notes filled the page: Balance all subjects. Buy one ream of paper. Term starts January 1.

There it was: Promoted to P6.

“Promoted to P6! Very good Aggie!” I hugged her and kissed her forehead. “I am very proud of you!”

Aggie smiled and tuned from me slightly, biting her school sweater folded in her arms. She was bashful; unaccustomed to attention, unfamiliar with praise.

She was shy, but she was strong. And she was moving on.