I've contemplated trying to update on everything (or at least major things) that's happened since my last update, but I get overwhelmed just thinking about it and fail to post anything, hence the 5 month hiatus. So instead of drawing out ridiculously long rambles, here's a pictorial update of my life in last 5 months. I think when we last met I was preparing for my aerofoil competition...so we'll start from there, enjoy...
Aerofoil competition was a success (somehow). I like to look at it from this angle...90 Senior 3 students worked in teams of 3 to develop a solution for a practical problem (make something that can fly using a strict set of materials). A great "stretching" exercise for brains which are usually asked only to memorize and regurgitate info. The teams each developed a plan complete with a blueprint, built their apparatuses, and flew them. They saw it through to the end, they applied themselves to a problem. Great.
Downside: Winning team flew 90cm. Yep, thats less than a meter...from about 40 feet up in the air. But I can take some blame as my launcher was less than ideal.
(Next term we're egg-dropping!)
Senior 3 Class was crowned inter-class champions in the annual competition, which has now been moved to third term to allow our football team to better prepare for their season (first term of the following year).
Goat slaughter #1. An overdue feast with the teachers at Kelly's school. I have really grown to enjoy goat meat (sorry Anne, but whats else is a man to do with no crabs?) One minute your shaking the leg of the little fella and then next your eating him on a stick. (ok that was low....but i could have gone much more graphic....your welcome.)
BTW, just as a sidenote: goat is extremely popular here and a lot of people even prefer it to beef. Easier to raise them on a limited plot of land, and many prefer the taste. In case you were wondering...
Bringing football (yeah, the real one) to Uganda. We put the footballs we received in a care package to good use with some of the kids in Kel's village. I found quarterback, a wide receiver and a running back. Only problem is you have to hand the ball to the RB and then chase him to make him start running the direction you want, but nothing wrong with his endzone celebration (below). Oh and the above picture is a boy....the dress is for errr easy access to relieve himself?
I got a proper thanksgiving, thanks in no small part to kel's efforts and a few well-timed care packages from the states...
Attended a wedding ceremony just before Christmas for the Director of Studies at my school. Fairly similar ceremony to ours at home. One difference that sticks out is that they put these sort of sparkler type candles on the wedding cake. Definitely a bit more exciting than ours, but seems like something I saw on funniest home videos. Also lots of food....for everyone. And eeeeeveryone comes. The custom is to ask for donations from friends/family to help pay for the costs, but even with these it is quite an undertaking by the family. I believe it is the groom's family who foots the bill, but i'm not positive. Here is me and my parish priest Father Moses in our traditional kanzu's prior to the ceremony.
Christmas. Spent the holiday at my site with the fathers and two volunteers (Kel and Margaret) - the fathers really enjoyed that we were there and all around a very memorable Christmas was had by all.
Christmas morning we exchanged presents (10,000 shilling limit - that's about 5 bucks). I got a battery operated rickshaw, a bottle of whiskey, and a spiderman kite. All smiles. We cooked a big breakfast of passion fruit pancakes - which you'll just have to take my word for - amazing, then I took advantage of a windy 85 degree Christmas afternoon to fly spiderman with Margaret.
Christmas eve (i know i'm out of order, but I wanted to get the pleasantries out first) was spent on goat slaughter #2. This time I took hold of the machete and did the deed....
Zanzibar!! Wow, what a new years. For those who don't know, and I didn't before Jack Black, this is a small island off the cost of Tanzania in the Indian Ocean and is absolute visual overload. We had some issues with our hotel, but hey this is africa. Check the old twitter messages for the details. On the upside our cottage was about 10 yards from the water...at least during high tide. The tidal changes in the portion of the island we were on were unbelievable. High tide was essentially at our doorstep and during low tide the water was beyond the horizon...about a 15 minute walk straight out across the sand. The picture below was taken at low tide looking straight out into the ocean. At high tide I would have been completely submerged standing in the same spot.
By far my favorite memory of zanzibar was the boys from the village and their sailboats. As soon as the tide went out in the morning the village kids came out and gathered around small pools of water and sailed their homemade sailboats (called dows in swahili). They were made of local plants and sticks, plus garbage from the beach (flipflops, plastic bags, etc). All day you would hear them cheering for their boats as they raced them from one side of the pool to the other.
I confess this trip needs a more thorough post. I'll try to get to it...
Then there was the time earlier this year that I found red bananas...
Who knew?
Was fortunate enough to spend Valentine's Day with Kel at an amazing resort overlooking Queen Elizabeth National Park. Can't beat dinner overlooking an elephant savanna. Spent two days here relaxing and swimming.
Got a chance to volunteer helping a group of medical students from America run an impromptu clinic in the bush. My language and cultural knowledge gave me an advantage of being able to talk to the villagers and play a sort of crowd control role for the day, freeing them up to just concentrate on treatment.
Spent Easter weekend in the extreme southwestern portion of the country. Did some hiking on a volcano which stradles the Uganda/Rwanda border and rises to about 15000 feet.
(We had to hike w/an armed guard btw...breath mom, it was for animals...i think)
And the rest of the weekend relaxing on a beautiful lake nearby.
And welcome to today!
I'm sitting here in Kampala for a mid-service training (yep, I'm halfway done! a scary thought) on wireless internet catching you up on the last half year of my life. This weekend I am heading to Fort Portal to coach my school's first ever girl's football team through the national tournament (my boy's got knocked out of the district tournament a couple weeks back, more on that later).
I have acquired 2 new toys to keep me entertained the next few months - a mountain bike and a mandolin. We'll see which one gets more use.
And I am extremely happy to say that my family will be here in less than a month! We are all very excited to welcome them to Uganda, and I hope they are ready for a whirlwind 10 days in the motherland. Can't wait to see you all!!! Have fun with your shots! If it makes you feel better I got a bitter flu shot and tb test today, so stop your whining.
Hopefully this sufficiently satisfies everyone's appetites out there and helps to relieve your curiosity of what exactly I am doing out here these days. Please let me know if anyone has issues with this entry loading - i know its a big one with a tons of pictures but I think we all deserve it :)
Also, if anyone is interested in helping Kelly cement her school's classrooms you will be ensuring that her kids no longer have to do this:
(Every little bit helps) Find out the details about the project and how you can help here:
And stay tuned for upcoming news on my library which is in the pipeline.
Love and miss you all,
Eric
