The Counter

It is very humbling to see the counter on my blog go up by leaps and bounds. It is also great to hear from old friends and people I have never met. I feel I have to keep writing, so if things get boring let me know and I will start running repeats until I can get the writers to craft a very special episode of Magee in Uganda.

I am starting to bring my lap top to bed, so it is a good time to write. I had dinner with Amy Colleen Fitzgerald, who is doing research at Gulu University on peace research. One of the real interesting things she said was Northern Uganda might give a real gift to the world in showing how they can come out of a 20 year war with a much different model than we have seen before. She graduated from Wash U in 2002 and her and her husband kind of reside with 4 other people living in community in Boston. Her husband is going to school for Internal medicine and does some work with Partners in Health (for you Paul Farmer and mountains beyond mountains fans)

I then got home and talked with the Awere teachers about doing community service at Awere on Friday morning when the kids are at a track meet. Sounds great. Brian from Mississippi State (shout out Connor Powers), Trisha from Philadelphia and I walked into Gulu in the evening to try to buy 7up for a teacher that needed some help. We walked into David’s moms health clinic to try to buy Alka-Seltzer for a science experiment. Trisha then tried to make an Alka rocket to celebrate the 4th, it did not work because it was not in tablet form just powder and she could not get the lid closed on the film can quick enough. MacGyver (you know the tall guy) suggested wrapping the powder in toiler paper as a slow fuse. It worked.

We then walked up the street where the IC VIP house was holding a 4th of July party. The early part was several American tunes, with Sarah the Brit who is head of IC here jumping in the middle to sing Rule Britannia. I had a couple of great conversations with the Ugandans including David talking about many things. David told me I talk about my students a lot, so there it is kids. Proof that you guys are always in my thoughts. It was great to just smell a barbecue pit. They had gotten good meat from Kampala and it smelled like an American back yard. Chris amd Amy then danced around the yard in the darkness each holding a single sparkler. The dance party was in full swing with some recent club hits that appeal to that younger crowd, but don’t worry as soon as I could I put on a little Nelly and showed them how we dance in the Lou. REPRESENT. I also realized that I have now danced to Nelly on 3 different continents.

It appears I have run out of events and good ideas so

To all my homies celebrating the 4th of Julizzle

Peace out A-town,

John