Statement on Thursday's events

This is a statement released by the government about what took place on Thursday.  Since it was written by the government, they glossed over the fact that, as illustrated by the picture, the police broke into Besigye's vehicle and sprayed pepper spray and tear gas inside.  Well, spray is a bit of a euphemism.  They drenched the occupants.  The US has expressed its concern over how Ugandan forces handled the situation.


Besigye sustained serious burns because of this, and was later cleared to go to Nairobi for treatment.  There are serious questions of why he had to go to Nairobi for treatment, and why he could not/chose not to be treated here, but earlier, talks between the opposition and the government had been proposed to take place on Monday.  Who knows whether that will happen now.


One sad irony of this is that the officer who smashed the car window graduated from  UCU in 2006 with a degree in social work.


The situation is tenuous, and when Besigye returns, who knows what can happen.  Please continue to pray for peace, wisdom, and appropriate restraint for all involved.

Peaceful demonstrations

Ever since the elections in February, the opposition has been threatening peaceful demonstrations.  The demonstrations started a few weeks ago, ostensibly to protest rising petrol (gas) and food prices.  Actually, they started during exams.


Mondays and Thursdays were deemed "walk to work" days as a protest, and succeeded in gnarling up traffic in the usually jammed Kampala quite well.  The police, in an effort to keep the peace and protect people as spontaneous demonstrations/riots popped up, have been arresting opposition leaders.


I've not mentioned the demonstrations here yet because 1. I hoped all would settle down (silly me), 2. I didn't think it would escalate (sillier me), and 3. I didn't want to freak out my mom.


Mom - I'm very safe, though clearly housebound, at the Muhimas.


Things escalated badly yesterday, and continue today.  I won't link to any articles, but please pray for peace and safety.  The police overreacted yesterday, and badly mistreated one of the opposition leaders in order to arrest him for like the fourth time in two weeks.  Parliament, and clearly the public, is outraged.  I've not checked the news yet, but I'm sure that's the root of today's demonstrations, that are all over Kampala.  We had an interesting discussion about the situation and civil liberties over dinner last night, but clearly, everyone is in the wrong here.  The opposition is being provocative, and the police are overreacting.

The president said the other day that he would meet with opposition leaders, though few hold out hopes for this being productive.  


Uganda is called the "Pearl of Africa," and the [fairly] peaceful elections served as a model for the continent.  Please pray for people not to get swept up into the rebellion that is sweeping the north of the continent.

Forgetfulness and finalist parties

I was chatting with Sara as I was typing the Easter post, and completely forgot that we had to be frisked before we could enter the church compound proper.  I think it was because it was a large gathering of people (to their credit, the Ugandan forces have been pretty consistent about this since the bombings last year.  Your car gets a cursory search before you can enter the parking lot of a shopping center, and it's normal to see the riot police walking around), but there were also several members of Parliament in attendance.


As I mentioned previously, finalist parties are held prior to exams, mostly because everyone disappears at different times after their exams end, so there's no way to hold them post-exams.   I just posted these on Facebook, and am a bit too lazy to repost to Photobucket, and am also not sure whether I have the bandwidth for Photobucket today.  And this way, you get to read better captions, too.

Something funny happened on the way to church

Jesus Christ is risen today!  Alleluia!

Since I’m currently staying with the Muhima’s, I went with them to Easter services at All Saints’ Kampala, along with roughly one third of Kampala’s population.

This is Gideon, Mark, Sara, and Peter Muhima, in a photo that I grabbed from Facebook.

Actually, we had to divide and conquer, since the car wouldn’t hold six of us.  Sara and I had planned to attend the 9:30 service, but ended up attending the 11:30 service.  This actually worked out well, as they boys went ahead to the 9:30 (by taxi), and I was able to visit after the service with one of my friends who was posted to All Saints’. 

This was abundantly helpful, as when Sara and I went to go to the service, the car died while trying to get to the main road.  I thought the car stalled, but no.  It was dead.  This is Africa, as so a couple guys helped us push jump-start the car.  I fancy in the US that they would have just looked at us and kept going, but one of the guys got in the car with me, rolled back down the hill, trying to jump start the car while it was in second gear.  It eventually happened, and we rolled on to church.

All Saints’ Dale City has parking challenges, especially on holy days.  But holy days in the US are typical parking days at All Saints’ Kampala.  On holy days here, there ain’t no chance of parking anywhere close to the church; we had to park three blocks away.  Which worked out well, because once we turned the car off, it refused to restart.  So we met Mathew, Sara’s boyfriend, had the boys meet us, then dumped the car on them, with the plan to ride home with Mathew.  See how the Lord provides?

Even though we were ridiculously late, we arrived during the readings, which means that the service also started late.  There are usually four tents at All Saints’, because the congregation can’t fit in the building, hence their building campaign.  Hmmm… that sounds familiar… except for the tent part.

For Easter, they added another tent, and we found two seats (miracle number 2?  3?), nestled between the children’s church building, the youth tent, and the sanctuary.  We couldn’t hear the readings or the first five minutes of Archbishop Orombi’s sermon, but the young ones eventually went radio silent, and we were able to enjoy the sermon. 

There were probably eight clergy there, including the Archbishop; I don’t think all the cathedral clergy are there at one time except for holy days.  Hey – Bishop Zack (the assistant bishop of Kampala Diocese) wasn’t there, but the rest were.  Since there were oodles of clergy, five remained inside to distribute Eucharist, and the rest came out to the tents, which was wonderful.  And we sang one of my favorite hymns, as illustrated in the first line of this post.

The car is fine; it turns out that one of the connections to the battery wasn’t properly secured, and therefore wasn’t giving any juice to the engine.   We’ve had a four-day holiday, as Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays here.  I think I have vague memories of that being true in the US while I was in elementary school.

Back to the grind for all.  I need to finish my sermon for Sunday.

Blessings this Easter season!  He is risen!  Alleluia!

Safely at the Muhima's

I'm mostly unpacked in "my room," as Bishop Muhima calls it, and am ready to rest and write for the next two weeks.  It's going to be a good time.

And Gideon let me drive to the house!  Yes, I have my international driver's permit, so this time it's legal.  Last year's driving back from All Saints' Kampala, not so much.  But we rationalized that since it was a Sunday evening and there were no traffic police on duty, that it would be fine.  

Onward, ever onward...

Tonight was the USP farewell dinner, and with that, I think the semester is officially closed.  I finished clearing today (and apparently have a balance with the University; it's rather large, so the gentleman helping me wants to check with someone before he gives me a whole bunch of money.  I appreciate that.), and am currently packing.


Tomorrow, I'll shift to Kireka (CHIR-eka; suburb of Kampala) and hang out with the Muhima kids for two weeks, then leave for the US on 3 May, arriving on 4 May.  Perhaps at the Muhima's the sleepless conspiracy will take a break, but that's not likely because the nearby mosque blares it's prayers rather loudly, especially in the morning.  Oh well - a girl can dream.


And a girl can grieve, in the midst of completing my missionary application and writing a sermon and resting and trying to find decent times to go into Kampala to go shopping since I haven't done that this semester.  And I'm trying to put out of my mind that everything here is really over, because I can't process that yet.  One of my friends accused me of leaving him; I'm coming back, but he'll be off in his diocese, and I'M the one leaving?  That's actually how I feel about my friends, so I suppose it's fair.  But I'll unpack all that, along with my suitcases, at the Muhima's.

Congs!

That's how one expresses congratulations here, though to me, it sounds like a plural of King Kong, like Kongs, and I always have to think about what someone's said.


But it's getting easier to decipher, because I'm done with exams, and am almost done with clearing through the school, so I've been hearing it more and more, though I've not yet adopted it as a saying myself.  I've decided that the clearing exercise is a bit like an administrative version of Capture the Flag.  There are five places to go for signatures to prove that you have no issue with the department.  That requires that you know who the right person is.  For example, I assumed I'd check out of the dorms with Rev. Susan, because she checks us in.  Turns out that she's delegated this aspect (which is GREAT for her, and I'm really pleased to hear it.  The vast majority of the students are women, so she's plenty busy).  She seemed surprised to see me for clearance, and when she asked who said that I needed to see her, I told her everyone.


And if you know the right person, they may or may not be there.  I've only had one misfire that took three attempts to get a signature, but the rest have been blissfully painless.  With the exception of the sunburn I might have on my face from crossing campus so many times on a day when I forgot to apply my moisturizer with SPF.


I still need to process all the emotions running around, but right now, I'm thrilled to finally be finished.  It's been such an amazing journey, and it doesn't seem quite real.  


And yet, it's bittersweet.  I'm always the first done with my exams (my explanation is that I think in English, which probably has quite a bit to do with it), and when I went up to drop off my answer book, my friend Isaac waved.  Then Beatrice waved.  I waved back, and it hit me:  this is it.  


And it hit me hard, and it still is.  I'm thrilled that I'll be coming back to lecture, but it will be so different.  My friends won't be here.  I won't be living in the dorm.  I won't be eating in the DH (not a complaint, but I'll have to buy food and cook).  Yes, I'll make new friends, and build a new life as a lecturer, not a student, but many of the people who made these two years so special won't be here.  So I'm grieving that.


And I'm hoping that after a great night's sleep with no reading for exams, I'll be rejoicing.  I think my Kindle's been missing me.  The feeling is mutual.