Saturday, July 3, 2010

Weekend #6, which started on Wednesday

Wednesday 6/30

Today was really a great day. I already told about how I went swimming and laid out by the pool. I was excited that I had some semblance of a tan line.
Meagan and I went to get Thai food and the restaurant was so much fun. We were able to sit outside as the sun was setting. I enjoyed the peacefulness on the patio minus the sound of traffic and fumes. Because the restaurant was on a small road it gave a sense of detachment from the city that I thoroughly enjoyed. The service and the food was really good. I got them to make me the closest thing that I’ve had to cocktail since I’ve been here. They didn’t have any martini glasses, but mixed a martini with fresh passion fruit juice and rimmed the wine glass with sugar. I had the Pad Thai and ate it with chopsticks. I was pretty excited about the chopsticks.
When we left the restaurant we met up with a friend, but when I got there they had a surprise party waiting for me at the bar. I didn’t really realize what was going on until they brought out the cake and showed it to me. At first I was a little confused because the cake said “Happy Birthday Jinjer”, but was really happy when I realized it meant me. I actually enjoyed that the cake was misspelled. It encapsulates my experience and I felt like it was honestly how people think of me in African terms. Perhaps that is a bit of a romanticized way of looking at it, but I can’t help it. The person who bought me the cake, Jude, was upset that the bakers had misspelled the name especially since he had spelled it for them plainly. Cheers to Africa.
Everyone that we have met along the way came to the party. Many of them brought gifts, which was completely unnecessary. Among the things that I got was a carving of a gorilla, a Ugandan football team jersey with my name on it, music, a purse. Lots of great gifts. I’m still not sure how to thank everyone. I had gotten wind that people would be there to spend the birthday with me when I got there, but I was completely surprised at the elaborateness of the affair. It was truly a wonderful birthday.

Thursday 7/1
Meagan was nice enough to let me have one more day off, but unfortunately I couldn’t spend it lounging by the pool. The idea of it being July spurred me to start applying for jobs again, so that’s what I spent the majority of the day doing. I got three applications in, which is good. Hope things work out.

Friday 7/2
Today was my day to go out in the field. A dropped by the Foundation to see if the mentor had brought back any of the surveys that we sent out with them. We’ve gotten a few back, we took the time to grade the ones that we had. The results are pretty promising. At least we are getting a feel for what the children know and it is confirming some of our suspicions about the things that they don’t know.
I also stopped by the clinic to for a few errands. Dr. Grace, Dr. Muhumuza’s sister is also getting on board trying to help us with the IRB issue. I told her that we would welcome any and all help.
We shared the cake with Grace and Annette. I think they were really excited about it. I told them that I didn’t want to eat all of the cake myself and get fat, and they remarked that since they were women and not a girl like me, they would eat as much as they pleased. I had them laughing for some time.
That night we went to see a band called Afrigo. They are the oldest band in Uganda, and were playing during the Idi Amin era. That’s certainly something. They were an excellent band and had dancers who would do the traditional dances for the Buganda people (the local tribe in Kampala). They were amazing the way that they could move their hips. I can’t every figure out how women can move their hips, but not their shoulders when they dance. We also watched the Uraguay/Ghana game, which was a spectacular game even though everyone was upset that Ghana lost. They were the last African team left in the tournament. Oh well, life goes on.

No comments:

Post a Comment