May 22

So for breakfast this morning I moved it back down to one cup of coffee which was a good call. I’m not in the morning Religion 301 class, so I had a little break in the morning to relax and do my COM 513 reading and read some more of Crazy Love by Francis Chan, which I for sure thought I would finish during the flight but ended up sleeping too much on the way here. For lunch I ate at the Gately with Fish, Paul, and Hannah. The part of the Gately that we’re staying in now is newly built, but behind it there is the old hotel and restaurant. They had really good Thai food. After lunch we all walked to the Source Café to split up to do service learning. After we got there we sat around for about an hour before we went our separate ways while we waited for Roy and Abraham, two Ugandans who are helping us out. It turned out that they were held up for about an hour with other business, and we were all just flexible- a good reminder of Africa’s cultural differences, that they aren’t as anal about time as we are in the US.

Paul, Brian, Nate, and I went to the Soft Power Educational Center for our service learning. We rode out in the matatu about 20 minutes into the middle of nowhere and finally felt like we were in Africa. We passed by lots of huts and small buildings and finally turned the corner and came to this educational center. It’s like an after school/summer program with a library, a computer lab, a drama room for theater, etc. Paul and Nate worked in the computer room and taught basic skills on Microsoft Word. Brian and I were in the library with a teacher and about 7 students. They were learning essay and summary writing. The teacher basically asked me and Brian to explain to the class how to write an essay. We were like oh…introduction, body… conclusion. They totally didn’t understand what we were saying but it was pretty cool still. The teacher, Sheba, talked to us a lot about the education system and how it works in Uganda, which was really interesting to me. The kids were really shy but eventually spoke up to ask us a couple of questions about our own schools and our country. Everyone wants to go to the U.S. We were saying how we loved it in Africa because it is so much more relaxed and simple, and the teacher was like, “but your lives are so exciting and interesting like in the movies we see!” So, we are all wondering about the cultural lens of Hollywood that so many people see America through.

Everyone on our team loves card games and board games (which I just don’t really like that much) but we are still all having so much fun together. We love each other. YES! The intercultural com class is going great too. Gary Selby is the professor and he is just great. At the beginning of class we kind of debrief about what we encountered that day, and then open up with the Lord’s prayer and go on to discuss the textbook and how communicating between cultures works.