Fourth of July, Uganda style

 The site of 4th of July fireworks, Uganda 2010...our kitchen.

Happy Fourth of July!  We turned off the lights in the kitchen last night and turned the propane on and off on our stovetop once or twice while playing "Born in the USA" on an ipod speaker…that's the closest we got to fireworks in Kasese, but an enjoyable weekend nonetheless.  We decided to lay low and hang out in Kasese for the weekend, as this coming week it will be a busy week full of visitors (our University supervisor, her son and his friend, and five teachers from Canada will be joining us at our home and at school).  Friday night we went to a concert in the park – the Eagles performed!  No, not the "Hotel California" Eagles, but instead a group of ten musicians who played calypso, African-style music for six straight hours.  We went to the concert at 8:00pm, left to watch the Ghana vs. Uruguay World Cup match, and then returned to the concert at 11:30pm to find it still in full swing, still the same type of music, and still packed to the brim with people smiling and dancing.  We didn't understand any of the words (songs were in Lukonzo) but it's amazing how much you can pick up just by watching the singer and listening to the rhythm of the song.  And, much to my delight, the dancing didn't really need to be translated, so we were able to pick up on the general swaying and clapping of the crowd and pretty much fit in, with the exception of an occasional disco move, of course.

Yesterday we found the Kasese swimming pool, which was absolutely gorgeous (part of a hotel, built just last year on top of one of the mountain foothills) and also a restaurant that served the most Americanized meal we have had since we've been here…pizza!  We opted against the pizza with goat cheese and gizzards on it (I know, tough choice), but were pretty happy with just tomatoes and cheese.

Where we watch all the World Cup soccer matches; one of the only places in town with a TV!

We have come to love Kasese and in general I would say we feel settled in.  We can walk around town on our own, we have made friends at the local market who sell us fruits and vegetables every Sunday without hiking the prices up (like they do for foreigners, especially white people because it is generally assumed that we have more money and can afford to pay more), and we have made a fair number of friends in Kasese who stop by our house every so often just to check in on us and make sure we are doing okay.  No matter where you are in the world, it is so good to have the company of friends.  I don't think you can really understand the beauty of friendship until you are somewhere completely unfamiliar and you find people who care enough about you to check in on you, invite you to dinner at their home, or just tag along with you to watch a soccer game.  To know that in the small amount of time we have been here, we have made friends who care about us and who we could call on if we needed anything really means a lot to us.  It makes us feel like we belong instead of just being the visitors (but not so much where I don't still want to come home in a month, Mom, don't worry!). 

 The "Ice Cream Truck" came to our neighborhood!  Aka a guy on his bike with a bell, and a cooler full of flavored ice...and yet we still went running out of our house like we were six years old...                                                                                                                    
All too often we have been receiving "celebrity-style" treatment in Uganda.  Wherever we walk in Kasese, we somehow end up with a mob of children following behind us, calling out to us in the only English they know, "Hello!  Hello! How are you?  I am fine!" over and over and over again.  Sometimes the children come up close to us and ask to shake our hands, and other times they will just run up quick to touch our arms and then run back to their friends, ecstatic because they have touched the arm of a "muzungu!" (white person).  Enoch, our supervisor at our school in the village, told us this weekend that more children will come to Rwentutu School next year, "because of you."  Because, he said, the children are telling their parents they are being taught by American teachers, and word is spreading to other families in the mountains, who then recognize the school as ten times more credible if it is able to get teachers to come from America.  I'll be honest, it's a weird feeling to get this much attention and praise just for being from America, but I'll take anything just to get more kids to come to that school.   

Watching those kids play this Friday afternoon before heading back to our home in Kasese, I thought about this rural school, in the middle of nowhere, and how much it means to the kids on so many levels beyond academia.  This school gives them a place to go (for some of them a place to live), it gives them food to eat, it gives them a community of friends to be a part of, and it gives them pictures and stories about the rest of the world. These kids love coming to school.  When you talk about giving children the world, this is really it.  This tiny little school, in the middle of the mountains, where children walk to-and-from for miles every day…it gives these kids a little glimmer of what else is out there, what their lives can amount to, their future.  Even if they remain in their village for the rest of their lives, they will at least, hopefully, have the knowledge and education to help them see their world in a more brilliant light than ever before.

And so, God Bless these children, God Bless Uganda, and, of course, God Bless America.

Happy 4^th of July everyone :)

 Some boys playing soccer at school in the afternoon.

Outside with a few of the Primary Two and Primary One students