Sitting alone in my Pawpaw Tree

As I was putting on my backpack today to roll on into town, a dead bird fell out. An ominous beginning, no? Since the internet cafe is my first stop, I haven't had anything drastic happen....yet. We'll see though. Today is the first day I will go to the TRA (the IRS of here) and attempt to thwart the customs men from charging a box I got sent. Apparently they are legendarily capricious and sometimes charge quite a lot, up to fifty American dollars, for someone (white) just to receive a package. However, word on the street is that they are -gasp!- bribe takers. Sometimes a little under the table grease gets the package over the table a bit easier. The best part is, they're not pretentious about their bribes. From what I hear, anything and everything flies. If you get a big box of candy, alright we'll take a Snickers! Some new shoes? Gimme them laces. So I guess its sort of a game to see how and what you can give them to retain the rest of your belongings. I've never tried this sort of haggling, but my Swahili has been on point lately, so I'll give it a go. I even asked Ester to give me some greetings in the local tribal language, Kihaya. I practiced them on the "mzungu" walk into town, with inspiring success (by the way, nearly every email I got since that last post has involved that word somehow referencing me. Thank you for the empathy, my fellow wazungu...). Every person whom I greeted properly stopped walking and turned around to face me with a jaw-hanging-to-their-chest amazed sort of look, which generally broke into a giant smile and some sort of response which I couldn't follow. It made me realize how much of an effect learning Kihaya could have on my stay here. Sure, a lot of the foreigners learn Swahili, thats pretty common. Some of them are even fluent. But its not every day an mzungu rolls on by with a truly local greeting. At first I was planning on not learning Kihaya, as greater Bukoba is the only place its spoken in the world, but now I'm reconsidering. Sure, I'll never use it again, but who knows what could happen while I'm here. It may even save me a Snickers bar and shoelaces at TRA. We'll see...
In other news, I've got a few questions for y'all. I mentioned sometime that I was planning on trying to implement a music program at school. The secondary schools, they are all business. There is no art program or music program (one and the same?), and I think the students miss out on something. So I'm hoping for....exposure of music I suppose. There is hope, as some of the local drum music is great. There is sadness, as most everyone prefers American rap over it. Right now my plan is to petition Peace Corps for a grant to get some sort of simple instruments (read: recorders) with which I can teach the students some basics of music. In conjunction with that, I will have a music hour once a week in the computer lab (Aaron willing...) where I show them different types of music. We'll see how it works. I already talked to the headmaster, and he gave me a "you're on your own, but that sounds great!" kind of statement. So I guess I'm looking for ideas. Despite my plans, I really don't know where to start. Does anyone have any great memories of something music-related from school? Or a method of learning about music they particularly enjoyed? Preemptive thanks for the help has been given.
Second, one of my fellow teachers, a young guy with the unfortunate name Oswald (no offense if you are reading this and also named Oswald) has been asking me a lot about how he can go to university. I have been trying to give him ideas and encouragement, but there is a real issue with funding here. He did extremely well in his biology exit exams from form 6, and is looking to go into medicine. The amazing thing about his story is that he was orphaned at the age of 7 or so, and some sort of orphans' trust fund paid all his school fees up through A-level of secondary school. Unfortunately, this fund has never had a student progess with the drive and ability of Oswald; he is the first to have attending a university as a legitimate prospect. They are not equipped with the kind of funds to send him even to public university. I tried seeing about loans or scholarships, but both are in rare supply, so that's out. I've given him the best advice I have, but as it stands unless a benefactor appears I somewhat doubt he will continue his education. So my question is this: Does anyone know of any sort of grants/scholarships/places to find funding for a case like his? Or does anyone have any advice that I could pass on to him? Again, anything helps (knowledge-wise, keep your money in your pockets for now).
That's it for now. I am in the slow process of posting some pictures of my house and whatnot. My aunt had the brilliant idea to have a caption contest. So if you see a picture that strikes you as needing a witty caption, be free and add it. Otherwise, take care, and congrats Mikey G. on getting married, big fella.