the weekend...an adventure? kind of

Hello,

So the weekend, was good for the most part. The plan on saturday was to go to Mabira Forest somewhere on Jinja road between Kampala and Jinja (East of Kampala). So we got on a taxi headed for Jinja and told them we wanted to get off at Mabira, and of course they said "ok". Well as we keep seeing signs saying we are getting closer and closer to Jinja we start to wonder if they've passed it up. So we get the conductor's attention and realize we're about a mile on the other side of where we are going. We get out, and do the completely normal Ugandan thing, which is pee on the side of the road with lots of cars going by, haha.
We pick up a taxi going the other way and tell him we want to go to Mabira and he tells us it's 1000 shillings which is a completley ludicrous price for such a short distance but i think none of us felt like arguing and we all gave in. This taxi though was already completely full, so by the time we got in it was ridiculously packed. So apparently this guy thought that what we meant by Mabira forest, was a sign that says mabira forest with an arrow on it and 3.5 kilometres underneath, which we didnt realize till we got off the taxi and paid.

At that point we gave up and just walked the rest of the way there to blow off some steam, at least in my case.

The whole way there on the taxi and during our walk i was listening to some sermons by N.T. Wright, who is supposedly the foremost scholar on the new testament. Since I've been here Alan has introduced me to the novel thought, which isn't really so novel at all, to look at the gospels and the rest of the bible for that matter in context. Like, understanding jewish culture and the way it was then and applying it as such, then the exegesis occurs when we take that whole applicatoin and compare it to our lives now, not just take the letters that Paul wrote and directly apply them as if they were written to us, although there is alot of valid stuff in doing that. When you know more about the culture surrounding the letters and gospels and such, you see that for example Jesus parables have alot more depth than one woudl think and it makes alot of things make alot more sense, and thus can lead to alot of controversial thoughts, but i'm not that far yet into it, but the whole thing is called hermeneutics and it's fascinating to say the least.

That was a side note, but finally we got to Mabira and hired some bikes and rode the worst bikes on one of the least maintained bike trails i've ever been on. Yet it was still a good deal of fun. I think it at least will hold me over till i get back and can ride my bike on some Austin trails before i head back to school in the fall. Or maybe it just whet my appetite and now i absolutely can't wait for that when i return.
The trail took us through a village at the end, and it's always a spectacle for kids especially in more rural areas here when muzungu's come through (especially when they are zooming by on bicycles!). Eventually after taking the bikes back and paid we ended up taking a wrong turn and walked through the main road of this small community and you wouldn't believe how excited all these children were to see us. All wanting to hold our hands, and of course saying the only thing they know in english, "Hi muzungu how are you?" and answering themselves before we get a chance to answer, "I am fine!" It was awesome though, as is typcal there were even naked kids following us too, or abaana abareere (naked children), HA I am learning words!
So we had our first experience with I guess this culture's very unobtrusive begging. And we learned that when someone starts following us and talking to us and trying to show us around we need to say, "We don't need a guide, thank you," because this man started trying to teach us the names of things that we didnt need, all we needed was some time to look around to find bananas and water for lunch, but eventually he just said, "what about me" and Mark gave him 500 shillings so we could run away and get on a taxi. People never come right out and say what they want, or if they do, they wait a very long time after making alot of conversation, as if the reason they came to talk to you in the first place was really an afterthought, in a way it's cool because this culture is more friendly, but appealing to my american nature, it can be annoying at times because we live in a very fast paced, what do you want kind of world.

On the friendly side of the culture though if i was to refer to my entire extended family as a local here, i would say that i have lots of mothers and fathers and brotehrs and sisters, grandmas and grandfathers (or Jaja's). Cousins are sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles are mothers and fathers, etc. Whereas friends of the family or just older people are your auntie and your uncle. And that carries over into reality too, like if you are a woman (omukazi) and your sister died, then you are responsible for her children as well as your own. One of the ladies that works at our house has two children of her own, and three of her sisters.

Oh, I have not yet mentioned the whole DVD copyright, mess they have here, well not mess i guess, I'll even call it amazing. There are tons of stores, streetside vendors, hawkers, etc that sell compilations of lots of different movies. On saturday night i bought a dvd with all four harry potters, charlie and the chocalate factory and some other movie ive never heard of for 10,000 shillings (6 dollars), as well as an adam sandler 6 movie compilation for the same price. I am not really sure how all of you feel about that, but it is what it is here and i'm going to take advantage (however poor the quality of the movies actually are).

So Mark and i went to the dvd shop and just to walk through Kansanga, Kabalagala and Muyenga as a change of pace, and man i'm going to be in amazing shape when i get back from walking so much! But he stays at my house and we really click alot, he reminds me alot of Jspence personality wise which is definitely a compliment for either of the two i think. So we walked around alot and ended up at the international hotel to see Ghana destroy Czechoslovakia in their match (naturally all people here cheer for all the African teams before any other team, and it's just really exciting here because all the people are so into it!). On that note forgot to mention Alan (whose personality reminds me of Andy Marks--again compliment to both) accompanied me to Heritage international school where we played soccer with Steven (our day guard and beast of a man), Paddy, and Kizito, as well as some other guys. I guess needless to say abadugavu (black people) have more stamina than abazungu (white people) do, or at the very least these guys are in much better shape than we are as far as aerobics are concerned. As was made evident on the football pitch, but it was fun nevertheless.

Sunday morning we attended Ggaba Community churhc again and they ahd a guest speaker it didnt really like much, but the worship was good as ever. Afterwards I had my first experience with Ethiopian Food, man five guys ate for three dollars a piece and couldn't finish the food we had, and eating with your hands is always fun. It was actually really surprisingly good. I never knew that an Ethiopian looked so much different than say any other African, but you can really see the Arab influence on their facial structure and skin color.

Last night we watched the Brazil/Australia game and watched Australia get the tar beaten out of them at the house that our friend Henry is house-sitting for, ironically an apparently ridiculously rich Aussie family with a three tiered front yard/pool table/satelite tv/inverter so they can watch tv with no power, and an amazing view of lake victoria from the balcony upstairs. <---All of which is completely ludicrous for a missionary family, but i won't say much more about that. We had some pizza and just chilled.

I also met a guy whom Henry had been hosting thta had been living on Langira island, an island just 2 hours south of Jinja with no power, no running water, completely primitive doing some medical stuff, that we had heard about before and really wanted to visit one weekend, and so now we have access to the contacts so that we can do so!

Ahhh, I'm so excited i'm finally really leving this city, we go to Kitgum, or close to there on friday morning!! get excited!!

By the way, for those of you that read this, you can feel free to leave comments, it's ok if i dont know you, i'd love to get some comments

Amanda: thank you so much for that message, you have no idea how much that brightened my day when i read it this morning. I do agree, we need to have somthing more meaningful than a 2 second conversation and so we can call ourselves better than facebook friends, so we shall work on that in the fall. Just invite me to hang out with you guys again i love all your friends, tell kieth and mateo i think they are freakin tight!

Dad: Sorry i didnt get a chance to email you yesterday, but i'm going to do so today, Happy Father's day at any rate, i hope you had a good weekend and some well deserved rest from work!!

Much love to everyone!!!