One picture--two boys

      Hopefully the picture uploaded to the right. I spent an hour trying to upload it in Diana Gardens. A bar and restaurant that has moved up the street a bit since my first trip to Gulu. In my first week 8 years ago, it was my friend Aliker David who loudly told the crowd of teachers and Ugandans that he wanted to walk behind big John so he could watch me "defend my mass".

     Anyway, I am sitting at Diana Gardens enjoying a 1.5 liter of cold water and watching the Internet wheel spin and spin with no pages loading. My attention goes to the World Cup soccer where they are showing a "feel good" story about how the World Cup is helping brazilians. It helps the people of the ghetto, because they are on a hill and can see one of the stadiums from their corrugated metal shantytown. Are you kidding me? Food, health care and a path to education are not needed if you can see a stadium from your shack.

     I think you can see a picture of 4 boys holding a flag. Today, I had lunch with two of them. One is a young man whose only family is an elderly grandfather he rarely sees. He has essentially found a way to put himself through school all of the way up until Senior 6. In Ugandan schools you have to pass a test at the end of the fourth year of school to move on to the last two years at Advanced level. He did this, but at the end of Senior 6, his marks were very poor and he cannot go on to the University. What he would like to do is either repeat his Senior 6 year or more probably have to repeat Senior 5 and 6, and there is no guarantee that his results will be better. I am going to try to tap into a network of Ugandan friends to help him, but many, many prayers are needed. I wish I had the resources to make his life better, but sometimes, actually quite often poverty sucks. And I literally mean sucks here as it takes away the passion and the dreams of great, bright kids.

       The second boy has always been amazingly friendly to me. He somehow got to know several of my teacher friends in past years and then I got to know him as well. He is always helpful, always working hard, and on at least 3 occasions did me a big favor to create a special memory for my friends. Two years ago, he was the head boy of a small school here. The head boy and head girl are amazing students...think Student Council president on steroids. Even as head boy, he had been sent home from his school and told not to come back without paying school fees. On that trip I was out of money and had already committed money to other students. I made one phone call home and Jack Magee made sure enough money was in my account and Julius was back in school that week. I am happy to report that Julius graduated from Senior 6 and will start at Gulu University in mid August. He actually went to a bank and convinced them to give him a loan to pay off his high school debt. So financial struggles are not over for Julius, but he has a job working with Favor of God church and they have even lent him a motorbike to make doing his job easier. So the day ended when Julius gave me a ride home. He is now my all-time favorite boda boda driver.