4th of July- Acholi Style

Last night,  after a great conference we went to a party at the Acholi Inn.   There were about 200 people there,  and we had hamburgers and french fries,  and some kind of burrito thing.  Wonderful,  wonderful food.   There was also much beer available and almost all the partiers got up off their chairs and danced.    Daneen gave me a plastic Statue of Liberty hat,  so I lit a napkin on fire and stood like Lady Liberty,  until the napkin start burning my hand.  Later,  Amy surprised us with some sparkling candles,  which were really more like fountains or roman candles.  It was a great fourth.  The DJ actually played the Star Spangled Banner,  and all of the Americans stopped and sang that song as loud as they could.   It was pretty cool.  You could definitely feel some pride.  I hung out with Lisa, Lauren, Abby, and a lot of the Group I girls.  They are leaving in a week,  and I am going to miss their energy,  and their talent.    Luckily,  Lauren is a Wildwood Gangsta and she is already excited about going to a game in the bleachers.   Lauren and I have also pledged to have at least one talk a month in St. Louis talking about the people and students of Uganda.

      The Acholi Inn has a real swimming pool and a bunch of us beat the heat and jumped into the pool.  Next it was off to Bambu to finish the night.  I made sure Michelle's (a new San Diego teacher from Group 3) and my boda boda kept in contact as we travelled down dark roads into the night.  The boda boda drivers dropped us off at a dark and closed Bambu.  They took off and Michelle looked at me like what the hell did you do to me.   We quickly got the bodas back and got directions to an ex-pats party up the road.  So we roared off on our bodas deeper down dark Ugandan roads.  I don't know what Michelle was thinking,  but I was hoping like hell to find this house,  because I had no idea what I was going to do if we did not.  We found the house and all was well.    Not a bad party,  and a very interesting group of people.  Mick and Lisa sang some more,  and soon Michelle and Raysa wanted to go home so we walked into the darkness home with the Bavabuka hip hop dance crew (a great group).  It took me an hour and a half to walk them to their lodging.  It is called Elephant Graceland,  and has a shower in every double room and a sit-down toilet.  I am so jealous.    When I finally got home, I told the night guard that I was probably the last.  David said,  "Oh no, there are many left."  I think the last of the crew may have wandered in the wee hours of the morning.   Let's see--who was that.  One guess, Trisha and JRob???

I will probably text post this week and more longer posts will happen over the weekend.  Justin, an American has agreed to let me use his laptop,  which is great news since yesterday it took an internet page a minute and a half to load.

Still thinking about those 10 Sacred Heart students and the dreams they shared with me yesterday.  A good weekend,  many great people here.  Walked home from buying beads at the IC house with Mike F.  He is a great guy and I will have to write about him sometime,  I promise.   Also my bed at Atanga is starting to splinter,  and I will soon find mind self on the floor falling through the frame.  So a former student helped me procure 5 40 inch pieces I am going to use for bed slats.  At the time,  I did not know there were 40 inches,  but I had marked their length on my tie.   So I went to church with a purple shirt and a green tie (apologies to the fashion conscious AP stats girls),  but I needed the tie to measure my boards.   I walked into a Lwo Mass with 5 boards and was the only white person there.   I got quite a few MORE stares this time.   I also did not know the etiquette if I should clap for some of the announcements at the end that the congregation did.  I obviously did not know what they were clapping about!!

But I chose to applaud on 4 different occasions something that I will never know...

John