Some African Stories

10 months from now, I think Kami and I will still be laughing over dinner at the daily happenings of this place. Here is a few of the latest stories we have laughed about at the end of the day.
1. I had my first soccer match on Wednesday. The kids were really excited and the game was set for 3:00 in the afternoon. At 2:30 we found out the pitch we were supposed to play on was being used (no one organizes anything here) so both schools (and I mean every student in both schools) walked 3 kilometers together to find another pitch. Warm up, practices and everything else on the field are always a scattered mess of me yelling the few Lugandan phrases I know trying to get a team of 40 kids to do one thing. But, by 4:30 the game we were finally ready to begin. This is how football matches go here. (Sorry, every bit of our lingo has switched, so yes its football and pitch and kilometer etc.) Everyone from both schools come as well as any passer by's who stop. Both sides of the field are littered with people and the girls from each team stand behind the keeper of the opposing team screaming, yelling, singing and trying to distract them. Then when a goal is scored (my team scored first after 5 minutes of playing) the entire school and team rushes the field to congratulate the players. After a few minutes play resumes again. Then my team scored again and as the time before, everyone rushes the field and both Kami and I look at each across the field like "what the heck?" The second half changed things. We were winning 2-0 and so the other team allowed 3 players from clubs around Kampala to put on a jersey and play for them. None of them went to the school and have been playing high-level football for a long time and they quickly scored two goals. My team went nuts. All of them starting yelling at the other coach and the ref came over to explain to me my team said they wouldn't play anymore because the other team was cheating. I came out on the field to see what was happening and suddenly both the teams were yelling at each other. Then both sides rushed the field so I was in the middle of 300-400 Ugandan high schoolers, coaches and villagers screaming at each other in Lugandan. There was nothing I could do but start laughing. What else can you do when that happens. I decided I would just start walking back to my side until things starting cooling down. I just wanted to leave. But, since we came, Kami and I both made an agreement that we wouldn't give up on things here no matter how tough they got. So I went back and just starting pulling my players back to my side one by one. I was yelling for about 10 minutes at my players and for the rest of the people to leave the pitch. I had to actually hold my hand over several of my players mouths until they were all quiet. I told them I knew the other team was cheating, and that was on their own conscience but I told them they were a better team and they could still beat them, whether they had new players or not. This got them pretty fired up and after several more minutes of clearing the field play resumed. And...we tied 2-0. But after, the ref asked us if we wanted to go to PK's to see who was the real winner. I talked to the other coach and told him, although it was only a friendly match, after everything that happened we should let the kids finish it...and that he should have only the players from his school kick. They were agreeing until this point, and then the other team all just walked away. I'm still not sure what really happened that day, but I was really proud with the way my team played.
2. Kami's daily lessons and experiences at the Primary school still continue to be pretty priceless. Everyday, even after months, the same smaller children run in and yell at the top of their lungs: "Muzungu!" and grab her legs and lift their own off the ground. She has to stop her lessons, waddle over to the door with kids on both legs and push them out of the classroom. She is also teaching in a class with such a shortage of pencils that half of the time is spent trying to sort out fights between students stealing each other's pencils.
3. Yesterday I went to school and found everyone still outside, even though I was a few minutes late. (I always show up late now because the first few weeks I was on time every day and had to wait over 10-15 minutes for students to enter my class. Since school is 9 hours every day, classes start at more of a general time than any specific one.) Anyways, on this particular day, everyone was looking at something and after squeezing through the crowd I saw there was a 16-17 year old standing facing a tree with his head down like he was in trouble in the corner. I asked the headmaster what was up, and he told me that the boy had been walking across the school grounds and he suspected him of wanting to talk to one of the girls...so he tied him to a tree! I'm not joking. Then for 20 minutes all the rest of the kids sat around sort of chuckling at this kid. (We are still in the middle ages here.) Punishment is public disgrace and beating with sticks. We just sort of try and figure it all out as we go along. And no, neither of us have adapted to punishing our students in this way.
Life continues everyday at the home. We are on as much a daily schedule as any other part of the world in the week. Chores in the morning, school, play, homework, fetching water, dinner, reading, fnishing more homework, reading lessons, prayers and singing and then lights out. But each day still brings with its own crazy events. The weather has been beautiful, although we have officially entered the rainy season and it has rained every day this week. But the rain is only periodically through the days and the rest of the time, its beautiful and sunny.
We're healthy, the kids are healthy, Sam is healthy.
Everyone is excited for Easter Sunday. The kids are having their first ever Easter egg hunt and everyone is excited to do a Jesus re-enactment play they do every year. Kami and I are are pretty excited to see what how these kids reenact the event. Either way its bound to be a good day because all the kids get meat, potatoes and several other types of food that only happen occasionally here.
We will let you know how it goes.