Weekend reflections

Last week was my birthday, and it only registered but yesterday that I am actually 25! Kinda crazy, but what better place to be experiencing a quarter century of living than in a place with so much life. Life, beautiful, joyous and devestatingly raw. It is a place that evokes tremendous joy and God-touched beauty, and frustrating sadness. The people are so well adapted to handling the pain, that as you walk along and ask people Itye ni ning? (How are you doing) they will respond with full heart, "I am well"... with the most infectious, and full smile.
The culture is interesting-a mix of British formality in its infrastructure, (due to it being controlled by the British in the past), with the laidback and blunt style only the Pearl of Africa (Uganda) can do. Yesterday, we went to an event honoring the students at Atanga Secondary School, where our Organization is working. The ceremony reflects this funny combination of Ugandan and British culture. The lack of regard for brevity or time, plus the structure of pomp and circumstance turned a seemingly short itinerary into a 4 hour ceremony.In example...

M.C.: "I would like to introduce the honorable governor of this region, Mr. Okot Samuel, who serves as the governor of this region in which Atanga Secondary School sits."

Governor: (speaks in Luo, the native language for about 1 minute...)

MC: "The honorable governor has just confirmed that he is indeed the governor of this region"...

The funniest part of the event occured afterwards. We were planning to travel back to Gulu (about an hour drive), but it began to thunder and lightning rain. We decided to wait for the intense rain to subside, so we all ran for cover under their tin roofed schoolroom. To kill time, Katie Bradel, (a girl that has worked for Invisible Children in Uganda for the last 2 years), and I made up a game of competition in which people would race to draw an assigned animal in under a minute on the blackboard. Then we would get the rest of the kids to vote for who's was the most recognizable. We played for about 15 minutes, and could only really engage a handful of students to participate. The rain continued to pour down, as their attention was diminshing, so we suggested to switch games to another cheesy American game. Then, one kid took initiative to start his own game, writing an algebra problem on the board. Within seconds, almost the entire room of students were throwing out answers to the problem, and scrambling to write more math problems in the little chalk they had. The entire room became full of life, as more and more kids ran up, writing over the animals to fill the board with equations. Katie and I slowly shuffled to the back of the room, laughing hysterically at our naiivity. It became incredibly apparent that these students are TOTALLY different from American students. They were eager to do math on a Saturday afternoon! The only person who might relate would be my younger brother Danny. But it was a great realization that I have a lot to learn and open up to here! Until next week...Sunday afternoon is beckoning me outside. The streets are alive with music and people shopping in market.