Welcome to July

Sunday, June 29^th:
I got an email about orientation at UNC while in Jinja yesterday. The registration and paperwork begins two days after I get home. It might be a little bewildering.

I had a pretty normal day today: washed my sheets in my bucket, tried to remove ants from our breakfast, read on the porch. Lucy and I went over to Sandra’s to check on the kittens. They’ve opened their eyes now and having some kitty playtime made me happy. Sandra picks up the cats by the ears and legs and it kind of makes me cringe, but I realize that “pets” are quite a different thing here.

Four weeks left on placement!

Tuesday, July 1^st:
July! We got to flip our NOGAMU calendar to its final page for our Uganda stay, July/August. In the seven-month week, we’ve finally reached Sunday. Feels good.

Dennis and I usually have a lesson first thing on Tuesdays, but we’ve having a placement visit from the office today so we’ve postponed it by a few hours so the SPW staff person can come. We’ve gotten through all of the health-themed lessons with the Kagoma kids so we’re doing life skills classes now. The plan for today is to teach about Friendship. It’s really tough trying to pick lessons at this point. You’d think it would be easier for the kids to grasp the relationship/life skills material than the SRH stuff, but they really struggle with it. I was really surprised when I got here and the secondary school kids couldn’t wrap their heads around what “emotional changes” were. And “values” is always a tough one. All of the self-esteem, assertiveness, and feelings-talk that we throw around with kids at home is totally absent from people’s upbringing here, and trying to get the kids to speculate how people would feel in certain situations is like pulling teeth.

My stomach has been upset for a couple days. The bugs that seemed to attack everyone else right away may have finally caught up to me.

Paul finishes his stay at the parish on Thursday, and the three of us took him out for dinner at Green Valley last night. We had a nice chat. GV always has something ridiculous on their television set, and last night it was a Mexican soap opera called “Until We Say Goodbye” or something. Surprisingly, Paul was really into it and gave us the back history on all of the characters. He said it wasn’t a very good show for entertainment because it was very complicated but that it was good for learning about “relationships and business.” Lucy and I found that funny. The acting looked pretty horrendous, but being dubbed into English probably didn’t help.

There was another sports day yesterday, where schools picked their best players to make local teams. It’s usually annoying when kids from other schools are on our field; they’re not used to seeing Lucy and I, and don’t allow us the relative privacy the Kagoma kids do. There was a massive crowd on our front porch, and one girl from Muguluka kept running into our room and picking up things. We spent much of the morning in our room with the door shut.

Thursday, July 3^rd:
Last night was probably the most fun I’ve had on placement! The priests had their going-away dinner for Paul at their place, and it was everything we could have wanted and more. The whole crew was there: the Fathers, the Sisters, Teddy, Jen (teacher at Kagoma), Samali (cute girl who stays with Teddy), and a few other characters. With the exception of a couple school kids, everyone I like in Magamaga was present. The priests kept the beers and sodas flowing and we had the best Ugandan dinner I’ve had since I got here. Everyone was being highly sociable and having a really good time.

After the meal we took turns saying nice things about Paul and giving him gifts – most people presented envelopes of what I assume was cash, but we wrapped up a nice shirt for him that Dennis had picked up while in Jinja that day. Then the music was cranked up and we spent the rest of the night dancing. Father Francis had some pretty choice moves. Drunkenly dancing the night away to ridiculously cheesy music with a bunch of priests and nuns was definitely a highlight of my trip thus far.

Dennis had been at the SPW office and brought home letters from Grandma, Emily, and Jeff (all the way from Kazakhstan!), which was a perk to the evening as well.

Paul left this morning for a month off around then Kampala before he starts his philosophy training for the priesthood up north in Gulu. I’ll miss seeing him around.

Today was kind of crappy; we had to wait forever for matatus to Mutai and back for our lessons, missed lunch at St. Gonzaga because we were late, got rained out of our lesson (metal roofs make it impossible to teach when it’s pouring) and then had to sit around in the cold for a long time waiting for the rain to let up enough for us to run home. By that point it was around 4pm and I was starving. I got some chapattis though and I kind of enjoy the rain as long as we don’t have to go anywhere. And it’s almost the weekend. A group of us are going to this vacation spot called the Hairy Lemon on Saturday, and that should be really fun. I keep remembering how little time there is left and the daily struggles suddenly seem much more manageable.

Tomorrow will be busy. And it’s the 4^th! I still don’t know if I’ll manage to do anything to celebrate, but I hope that everyone at home will eat a little extra BBQ and light off an extra firework for me. Marching in the Enumclaw parade last year seems like so long ago.