Beth's Adventures in Mbarara Uganda

On Monday, when I walked into my classroom I nearly vomited. It smelled so bad! Sour, rotten, slimey sweet potatoes in jars with dead bugs floating in them. I carried them outside and aired out my classroom, deciding to wait and let Curt and Herin figure out what to do with them.
Curt and Herin decided we should change the water and that some were just not working. So we threw out some of them (the peel and the inside part of the potato).

In the two pictures above, Herin and Curt are holding their noses because it smells so bad. And on the right, Herin is changing the water in the jars with sweet potatoes.

Below is Herin's response. I didn't even change her spelling or grammar mistakes. Remember, she's Korean and English is her second language.

"Every day the bugs came and fell in the water, but one week later, it stinked so bad that we changed the water, covering our noses, and through some of the pieces out. We through the peel of the sweet potatoes and the insides. Now we're waiting for the sweet potato to grow. But I think the eye will grow better than the others. But my friend thinks that the whole sweet potato will grow. I wish it grows quickly and not stinky."

Curtwrites:

"We checked out potato plants this morning. Boy, did they stink bad! There were even some bugs floating on top of the water. We emptied the water adn rinsed out the jars. We also studied the pieces of potato carefully. Some of the potatos had grown longer roots. Others had not done anything except collect mold. We chucked these. (They were the insides adn teh piece of peel.) Then we rinsed jars and refilled them with clean water."

Below, Curt, grimacing at a moldy potato peel, is getting ready to "chuck" the peel. On the right, Curt and Herin show the newly cleaned jars with clean water with the "hopeful" potatoes.

Check back next week to see if we have more moldy potatoes or if we have some potato plants growing. . . . .