June 8

So an important part of the Pepperdine East Africa program is the overnight village bonding experience, where each of us goes off into a different village, stays the night, and learns a little more about what life is like in Uganda. So yesterday morning I was waking up in the village! Unreal/I can't believe that just happened. We all left the Gately at about 10 AM Saturday morning with our bags packed with bug spray and water bottles and a bag of rice, beans, sugar, etc. to give to each of our host families as gifts. We divided up into different cars and the missionaries started heading in four different directions. I was in Ben's car with Hannah, Ashley, Krista, and Paul. Hannah's, Ashley's, and my villages were all pretty closeby, but we got to mine first after maybe an hour of driving.

Everyone got out of the car to greet, and they ended up staying for maybe an hour. There were probably about a hundred or more people all around to greet us- there were so many kids. All the visitors had chai and bread. Oh, and within five minutes of me being there, they had me wearing a purple gomas- the traditional Ugandan dress for married women. After sitting around for a while we walked down the road to go look at the shops/booths where some people were selling food for the village. Everyone was laughing soo hard at us/me! While we were walking, a woman started talking to Ben in Lusoga, the native language, and he told me that she said she wanted him to take me to her husband to be another wife because she was tired of doing all the work. I guess that counts as a marriage proposal, but it doesn’t compare with the two or three that Thiersten has already gotten. Shortly afterward, the rest of the Pepperdine group left to go drop off everyone else.

Anyway I was staying with a guy named Livingston and his wife Adisa and their six kids. Adisa was pretty much by my side the entire time. Soon they gave me more food- roasted maize, which was good and tasted like popcorn, and chai. Adisa spoke a little bit of English…but not really. Then she gave me a huge bowl of kasava (which is a root that sort of tastes like potato) and black beans, a LOT of millet (not even sure what that is), and a big bowl of this soup with tiny whole fish floating in it (that one of the missionaries was warning us about a couple of days ago). They give visitors SO much food that it was impossible to even come close to being able to finish.

After that we walked across a little field where there were a ton of kids and men who I guess were doctors, giving them immunizations just like sitting under a tree. That was a little weird, but no one spoke enough English to explain to me any more details about what was going on. I held so many babies that people just kept handing to me. Keep in mind that I am still wearing the gomas aka every single person is cracking up at me.

Then we started to walk around the whole village and greet every single person (they were basically all related to my family) who was sitting outside their hut. We would like round the corner and a woman would start DYING laughing, like to tears, could hardly breathe (because I was a mzungu, and because I was wearing the gomas). That was funny at first but kind of got old fast. It would be so socially unacceptable in America to laugh AT someone like that! At every hut we went to, Adisa told me to greet them, and she had to tell me what to say every time, and the greeting process is not a quick one, and every time I spoke Lusoga, they could not stop laughing. Oh, also at every hut they gave me more food to eat (matoke, kasava, and g.nuts which are like peanuts) and gave me more babies to hold. I probably would get overwhelmed meeting the entire family of some random woman I had just met even if I were in America. Like it was worse than sorority recruitment.

Anyway, then Adisa said we were going to go back and listen to her choir. So I sat down in this chair and there were over a hundred people sitting in the circle. Maybe even just a hundred kids, and then all the adults. All the women started singing and dancing. I thought it would be a nice couple of songs, but they went on for at least an hour. About 30 minutes into it, Ben drove back by on his way home and waved. I must have looked hilarious. I got some pretty good videos of the singing, dancing, and drumming on my camera, but I know it will not do the experience justice at all, and I dread having to explain this entire Africa experience to anyone at home.

Finally they stopped singing and moved me to a different chair. The mob shifted and was still standing all around me just staring and laughing and talking in words I didn’t understand for maybe another 45 minutes. I was beginning to wonder when it was going to get dark (we weren’t allowed to bring watches or ipods).

Later they gave me a big pot of hot water to bathe with (even our showers at the Gately are cold, but it’s just not the same…). They put it in the shower stall, which was a little shelter made of crude bricks and didn’t have a door. I didn’t really shower (however hearing everyone else’s showering stories when we got back to the hotel after it all was definitely the funniest thing I have ever heard!). It started to get dark, but they were still making dinner (they eat very late). So I sat and sat and sat and talked to this guy Henry for a long time. He was 18 and knew a little bit of English. Mostly he just told me the Lusoga words for things like chair, sky, grasshopper, chicken, and things like that. Then he asked me a lot of things about Obama and the U.S.  and everything. Like he asked me what the national budget of the U.S. is. Hmmm….nope, sorry. He also asked for my phone number but I said sorry my phone doesn’t work here. It is soo weird to see Ugandans with cell phones even if they live in a hut with no electricity. They just basically skipped the whole landline phase, which raises a lot of questions about their evolution of technology compared to ours. Finally he left too and I sat around some more. I finally used the latrine which was definitely not as bad of an experience as I thought it would be (again, hearing stories from everyone afterwards was HILARIOUS). Eventually they gave me my dinner inside this brick room which is like where they sleep It was fish (cutup, but with all the skin and bones) and matoke with g. nut sauce. I could eat a little bit of the matoke but the fish was more difficult because first of all I was trying to eat it with a spoon with my right hand (since I’m left handed, and you don’t use the left hand for eating here, since it is used for other things). So that was a challenge to say the least. I ate a little but it was just impossible to eat it all. Matoke doesn’t taste bad, but there is just so much that you can eat.

Finally she left me to eat alone so after a few minutes I went into the alone so I went into the adjoining room that was maybe six feet by six feet to start getting ready for bed. They had a bed for me to sleep in—it was definitely drooping in the middle/didn’t seem clean/etc., but you know, it was not that bad. I used my rain jacket as a pillow and slept in all my clothes. After laying there for about ten minutes, Livingston and Adisa came in and started laughing because they said I was in the bed the wrong way, like my feet was where my head should be (even though the bed was exactly the same on each side) so that was funny. Anyway they came in and saying this song “I want to shine” and then Livingston prayed. Afterwards he said, “I just prayed in English, but I speak Lusoga!” Haha yes, yes you did. After that I really had no problems. I think I was just so tired and the room was so dark (although I had seen a rat in there earlier…whatever) that I fell asleep pretty easily. I woke up a few times because other people came in there and slept on the floor of the same room, and then got up before I did too, one of which was their baby who never stopped crying nor wore pants the entire time I was there.

Livingston came and woke me up in the morning. I walked out in my regular clothes and Adisa wanted me to put back on the gomas. So I sat around for a while and then she wanted me to peel matoke with her. This probably wouldn’t have been a problem except that I had to use my right hand, so I was not good at it at all. I could have done such a better job. I got through about five in the time that she got through about twenty. Then I went back in the cooking hut where the smoke hurts your eyes sooo much. One of Adisa’s relatives was over, and I was holding her baby, who was extremely young and looked exactly like a cabbage patch doll, and she pooped on me so that was good. After a while they fed me g. nuts, chai, matoke and rice. So much. Wow. After I ate as much as I could they brought me a huge bowl of avocado, which I like, but I was just so full.

Then Adisa helped me change into another sparkly purple gomas with a green sash. I sat some more and tried to journal a little bit but the kids kept crowding around me. I knew they couldn’t read what I was writing, but it still felt like they were reading over my shoulder. Finally (I think I am starting every sentence with “finally”) the guy Hannah was staying with dropped Hannah off at my village and we were so happy to see each other! Then we all walked down to church. They just built a new church building and it was so nice! It had a concrete floor and walls and wooden doors that are about to be replaced with metal doors. Ashley met us at the same church (she was wearing a gomas too) and they were so excited to have three visitors.

They welcomed us and told us that this new church was for us too since we are all brothers and sisters. It made me think a lot about my home church in Memphis and their move and building process. Anyway the three of us each got up to share a verse and to greet the church Then the service lasted only about 45 minuets, which was much shorter than any other church service we’ve been to in Uganda. Then the preacher said that there was one more visitor who was going to speak, an Spencer (the missionary who was picking us up) walked up from the back! We were so happy to see him. He talked for a little bit in Lusoga and prayed and then we went back to Livingston’s village to get my and Hannah’s backpacks. They of course wanted us to stay for lunch, but Spencer explained that we were going to go to Ashley’s village to get her stuff first. So we went there and ate. Then back to my village and ate again. Then to Krista and Paul’s village and ate again. Oh my gosh. Spencer is such a pro at packing it in though because he has lived here for 4 or 5 years so he was definitely helping us all out a little bit.

When we were leaving Krista and Paul’s village, the men said they wanted to show us the lake. So all of us plus SO many Ugandans all go in Spencer’s car and drove down to Lake Victoria where they did a couple of baptisms. It was crazy and there were so many people there. But it was so cool and such an amazing view. Afterwards we drove the Ugandans back to their village and they started singing in the car and were all clapping. It was so surreal looking out the window and seeing nothing but green Africa for miles and miles. Finally we got back to the Gately and started being reunited with everyone and we all had so many stories to share! After everyone took much-needed showers, we sat down to dinner (even though we had each already eaten about four meals throughout the day) and took turns going around the table and telling about all our highlights.  If I didn’t just finish blogging for fifty hours, I would include everyone else’s highlights. Maybe I will add a few later because there were some really hilarious and awesome stories. We sat around the dinner table forever talking.

I can’t believe that just happened!

Anyway everyone’s safe. Except today the majority of the group is at least a little sick, but we’re just glad it’s now and not 24 hours ago. Also, we’re leaving Jinja in 3 days which is so weird. That is all.