Waxing nostalgic

This week, my class started talking about a farewell party.  Yes, it’s a bit late to be planning such an event.  Yes, this is Africa, but the BD 3 class has been planning for a month (that’s another story that I won’t get into). 

So we were talking about whose responsibility this was, and someone said it was Jackson’s, because he’s our chaplain.  I said that we didn’t have a chaplain.  Then someone said, “Don’t you remember?  When we were over in that room (pointing in the general direction of Walker) and we made Jackson our chaplain?”

Oh yes, now I remember.  As time moved backwards, the memories flooded, I remembered the first semester, sitting in that room, wondering exactly what I’d gotten myself into.  Wondering what a chaplain should do for the class, and why we needed one.  Wondering if I’d ever get used to being stared at (not really).  Wondering if I can handle rice and beans ad infinitum.  Trying to write down everyone’s number that was written on the board (after I found mine, and wondering if I'd ever learn it).  Trying to figure out if I’d ever be able to make it through classes that were two hours long.  Wondering if the rooster will ever figure out that the sky doesn't change enough at 4:00 to merit telling me about it.  Trying to figure out if I’d ever fit in, if God really had the right idea by sending me to UCU.

And then it hit me – I know that I’m in my fourth and final semester in seminary, but it’s been two years since I came here.  Two whole years.  I’m absolutely stunned to think of it chronologically like that.  So much has changed, so much has changed in me, and it’s been such a joy and honor to be here.

My friends have been talking about getting me to stay for some time; Paulson talks of hiding my passport, and I remind him that I’ll just go to the embassy to replace it.  Since I don’t have a firm job from the Dean, I’m reluctant to tell them that I’ll be back, though I do tell them that there’s no way I can stay away from Uganda.  That’s the truth, and is sufficient for now.

Earthquake in Uganda

Of course, whenever there's an earthquake, it shakes the earth.  An earthquake of the magnitude of the one that shook Japan will clearly have repercussions across the globe.

I heard that there was an earthquake in Texas, and there was one here in Uganda early this morning.  It was a 5.0, in the west, near Lake Albert (about 132 miles northwest of Kampala, so quite upcountry).  Cindy Larsen is a missionary running one of the diocesan training centers there, and she reports that all is well; it was just scary.  They are examining their buildings for damage, though.  Please continue to pray for safety for all.


We have another day of rain, which is wonderful.  The drought has been so extreme that I would not dream about complaining about the mud.

Tugende!

The state of the union is that I have eight assignments (in various stages of completion) in the works, and my dissertation, to finish by the end of March.  Lord, please have mercy.  One I plumb forgot about, so we're tackling that right now.   Because it's due on Monday.  I have no idea how that fell off my radar screen, but the deadline was set about four and a half hours ago, so here we are.


But something funny happened in class... we have John and Romans with Canon Musiime, whom I absolutely adore, and would love to sit at his feet and learn from, for, about, forever.  He's got a wicked dry sense of humor, and can be a bit strict, but he's been loosening up a bit this semester.  I presume it's because he's retired from active ministry; his last assignment was as the Diocesan Secretary for the Diocese of Kampala, which kept him pretty busy.

So, we were having a student presentation today, and for some reason, the presenter stopped what he was doing and got into a small side conversation about something.  Me, being tired and somewhat exasperated, told him "tugende!" (two-GEN-day, hard g, like guess), which in Luganda means "let's go!"


My Luganda vocabulary is around 15 words.  I know the basics... sir, ma'am, let's go, thank you, how are you, OK.  By far, my favorite is tugende.  My class is used to hearing me say it.  Canon Musiime isn't.  I thought the poor man was going to fall apart he was laughing so hard - to say I caught him off-guard is a bit of understatement.  Seeing him laugh made me laugh, and I wish I could have taken a picture of the look on his face.  Priceless.


In other news, we had rain.  Hallelujah!  It was a nice, rainy season-type of rain, which we desperately need.  I hope the trend continues.

I think the rain came because Sarah Olmstead came to campus for a visit; she's in Mukono for about three weeks on her world race, before they take off for India.  It was great to see her, give her the tour, and get stuck in the dining hall during the monsoon.  Maybe I'll ask her to come back next Monday to test the correlation does not imply causation theory.

Second cathedral sermon finis

I’m not sure that I’ll ever get used to preaching in the cathedral; that elevated pulpit is still daunting.  It’s great because you can see the entire congregation, save the folks who are seated behind the pillars, but golly.  The steps felt less like a plank today, but it’s still strange to me to climb steps like that.

Since the USPs weren’t around this weekend, Agatha recorded my sermon so they could see it.  Rev. JJ, my cathedral supervisor, came into the service to listen, and gave me an index card with his feedback, which was both very encouraging and wonderfully sweet.  Sidenote:  last fall, Rev. JJ and his family were in a terrible accident, and his wife was killed.  Rev. JJ was hurt, and I’ve inferred that his jaw was wired for some time.  His physical recovery is progressing nicely, though when he talks too much, his jaw obviously pains him.  Keep in mind that he has the children with him at home, alone, to include an infant who was born not long before the accident.  Rev. JJ had led the first service on Sunday, and asked to sit out of the second service because his jaw was paining him, yet he came in later (unvested) to hear me preach.  He may have had other reasons, but I loved seeing him sitting there.  He’s such a wonderful man.  I’m really glad he was there, because there was a baptism that surprised everyone (another ambush, though one of the priests knew about it) and threw off the service, and then a thanksgiving after, so it threw off when I thought I would approach the pulpit, and Rev. JJ was there to tell me when to go.  [Thanksgiving is just what it sounds like; when someone has something to give thanks for, like the dedication of a baby, or surviving an accident (we had one of those last week), or something for which you’re grateful and you’d like to thank God publically, you have a thanksgiving, in which you kneel at the altar rail after the offering.  The priest offers the prayer of thanksgiving, and those kneeling often give a thanks offering.]

This is all very normal, after all; this is Africa.

The baptism wasn't the only surprise; when the reader read the lessons, they were not the ones I’d been given.  Apparently, there had been a meeting in which the lessons were revised, and no one had informed me.  This is Africa, after all.  The ambush (as we say here whenever you’re surprised by something) turned out not to be as bad as I feared as I was listening to the reader read from the “wrong” chapter in Leviticus, then from 1 Peter instead of Romans.  Actually, the 1 Peter reading was easy to fold in, though I would have loved to have done more with it than a passing mention.  But we live and learn.  I folded in the Leviticus lesson too, though that was a bit more of a challenge, and makes me curious for the reason for the change.

So, that’s done.  The USPs are probably going to have a sermon viewing later.  I don’t think I want to watch myself – Agatha was sitting to my left, and got a good angle, but golly.  Does anyone enjoy seeing themselves on film/listening to themselves?  How to actors do it?

I've had good feedback from people who were in the cathedral, and with several hundred people there, sitting four feet beneath me, it kept surprising me yesterday when folks said they heard me.  Or saw me - Joan With Specs saw the footage.  I'm most grateful for the positive feedback - praise God!  I'd still change some things, but they're mostly small.  Now to get Dr. Olivia Banja, my UCU supervisor's feedback...

International Students' Association Handover Dinner

Saturday night was the International Students’ Association handover dinner, in which the old executive committee (me – Publicity Secretary) handed over authority and responsibility to the new committee. 

This is Africa, so this was done with much pomp and circumstance, and in good time – it took three hours, and that’s because we started two hours late.  But praise God – we still ended at 10.  When I saw that we were schedule to go until 10, I immediately requested that the theologians get first dibs on the first transport back to campus.  The transport to the Rest Gardens only left 30 minutes late, so we did really well on that count. 

The Rest Gardens is where we go for our retreats, and it’s a lovely place.  With fabulous food.  YUM.  The turnout for the fellowships (Association meetings – all the regional fellowships meet on Sunday nights) is pretty abysmal, so I didn’t think that many people would turn up.  I severely underestimated the draw of food.  We had planned for 150, and I suppose close to 100 came, which is great.

Someone had printed out the flags of all the countries represented, which was the best decoration, and greeted us as we entered the meeting space.  Except all the flags hadn’t been posted yet – the oldest and newest countries weren’t represented (US and South Sudan).  Someone brought the rest of the print outs, and the situation was rectified.

Since this is Africa, there were speeches.  And speeches.  I’m amazed that we still ended on time, but some of the speakers did very well with their time.  Perhaps they knew that we wouldn’t be fed until all the speeches were over.

Like last year, we sang the first verse of everyone’s national anthem.  Last year it was a capella, which was fine.  This year, someone had gone to the trouble to find the music for everyone’s anthem.  That’s Botswana, DRC Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, the US, Burundi, and I’m not sure who else.  And the Star Spangled Banner was in a wicked high key.  I hit all the notes, but I’m sure it was abject torture for everyone there.  When the MC asked if there were any Kenyans in the house, about half the group went forward to sing.  South Sudan doesn’t yet have an official anthem, so they played a patriotic song that was used to mobilize people to vote in the referendum.  It was a really catchy tune, and lots of people started dancing.

Of course, there were presents and certificates for the outgoing committee.  And cake, which was scheduled to be served before dinner.  African cakes (at least in Uganda) are generally spice cakes, with a hard icing, and tend to be on the dry side (comparatively).  The cakes aren’t served in slices; the cake is hacked, I mean, cut into cubes a little bigger than a petit four, then those pieces are put on plates that are distributed. 

I have long been a staunch believer that cake only exists to hold up icing, and when I scored a corner piece, that was fabulous.  Everyone around was a bit appalled that I’m only in it for the icing, and when there was extra, the server brought me some more pieces of icing.  I’m sure my body was in overload trying to digest everything.  When I was sick I really didn’t eat much, and then I capped off the week with a fabulous dinner and cake.  Oy vey!

Please click here if you’d like to see other/more/different pictures with longer captions.

Culture shock, revisited

My friend Paul, from South Sudan, has recently been commenting that his eyes are bothering him, especially when he’s working on his computer.  He thought he had an eye infection, so he went to the campus clinic.  The clinic couldn’t help him, and referred him to the eye place in Kampala.  I encouraged him to go, telling him that it may be time for specs.

This morning, I asked Paul how it went at the eye doctor.  Turns out that Paul is indeed short-sighted (which I like much better than nearsighted), and is getting specs in two weeks.  I was appalled that the poor guy has to suffer for so long, and when I asked why, he gently reminded me that we’re in a Third World country, and that the materials aren’t readily available; they have to be imported from Kenya.  I thought that when my friend Amos got specs last year he didn’t have to wait that long, but perhaps Paul’s prescription is more specialized.

Then Paul proceeded to tell me about the doctor’s visit, as they don’t have such equipment in Sudan.  He described the different tests and apparatuses he was experienced as the doctors decided what was going on with his eyes. 

Now, I’ve been subjected to said tests and evaluations (and I consider the field of vision tests I now undergo to be a minor violation of the Geneva Convention, and may have muttered something about waterboarding after the first one – it’s wretched, and nearly drove me batty) for the better part of 28 years, and consider it a routine part of life.  Listening to him describe everything was amazing, as was his wonder at all that the doctor did, from shining the light in his eyes at different angles, to the apparatus with the different lenses to find the right prescription, and being taken into different rooms for different tests.

Obviously, listening to him reminded me of how blessed I am to think of such a doctor’s visit to be something that must be done every year, rather than like him, being so grateful to have the opportunity to have his vision corrected now, while he’s 1. young and 2. in school. 

I need to be a lot more like Paul, in any number of ways.

Speaking of the clinic, I returned for yet another check-up.  The doctor was amazed yesterday that I kept time and arrived at exactly 4:45 for my follow up injection.  And those nurses were amazing – usually I bruise like a banana (or tomato or something else that bruises really easily), but I just have faint bruises.  The doctor has deemed me fairly healthy, saying that the remaining cough “will go away.”  I actually agree with her; today I went down to town to go to the supermarket, though I took a boda back up the hill, and actually had energy left over.  She did give me a steroid (I think).   This is Dexa, and yesterday’s injections were x-pen, a crystalline penicillin. 

My medical knowledge has been growing by the day.  I think I’ll take a break for a bit.

Happy Lent!

Yes, I know that's an oxymoron... and it's one that will probably make it into my sermon on Sunday.  But it bears noting.


As I mentioned last year, we marked Ash Wednesday without the imposition of ashes.  Sandra said that she'll have to find a Catholic church next year because she misses it.  Apparently, All Saints' Kampala imposes ashes, but none of us has time to go there.  I miss it too, but what I really missed is the invitation to a holy lent in the Ash Wednesday service.  Our service was properly meditative, and we had an excellent sermon from Canon Musiime, but I missed the invitation:

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting.  This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.  It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.

Amen.