Graduation!!

I took a whirlwind trip to Uganda for graduation, and what a trip it was!  I also went to be interviewed by the University Selection Committee to work at the University.  While I knew this would be a fast trip, I thought the days would be relaxing.  Silly me.


The first flight was delayed because of air traffic congestion over New York.  The second flight was delayed due to the air traffic controller strike in Greece - we had to wait for them to return to work.  With all that's been going on in Greece, I never would have thought that they'd interfere with our travel.  Who knew?


I arrived at school midnight on Tuesday, and the interview was at 9:30 on Wednesday 29 June.  Well, they began at 9:30.  I hung out in the chapel with the other interviewees until I was called in around 1.  The interview went very well.  They interviewed me for "administrative support," not lecturer.  I'm still not very sure about what went into that decision, but I'll be helping out the school with technology-type stuff, liaising with the publishing companies that send books to students at the seminary (inherited from Rosie Button, another missionary), helping students with their English, and other duties as assigned.  My ego is still coping with not having the lecturer title, though I hope that I'll be moved into that role gradually.


Had lunch with friends, then I had to go to Accounts to get my balance (=refund).  Spent some time bouncing between offices, but ultimately had to return on Thursday.  I visited with more friends in the late afternoon, then it was time for bed.  Thankfully.


Thursday morning was chapel, then something in the morning that escapes me, then rushing to Accounts before the Commissioning Service (like a baccalaureate).  I forgot that this was going to happen.  Fortunately, the chaplain asked me to take a reading, because then I got to sit on the stage.  For the three-hour service.  Despite its length, it was a lovely service with Eucharist, and the time passed quickly.  Then supper with the Provost of the cathedral, then it was time for bed.  Thankfully.


Friday morning we were to report to the field at 8:00 so we could go through the metal detectors, then find our seats in the tents.  Someone had placed our names on the chairs so we knew where to sit.  Since there were in excess of 1,000 of us, I pity that team.


Graduation was a lovely affair, with the deans of the respective schools reading the names of their graduands. We had been given "Graduand" nametags as part of our graduation packet (mortarboard, gown, hood, invitations, nametag), and we whipped them off as soon as the Archbishop conferred our degrees.


That was actually fairly surreal - when our names were read, we walked up, and assembled before the Archbishop, Vice Chancellors, and other VIPs.  Those naturally included a half-dozen bishops, several of whom I knew, such as Bishop Muhima.  My name was the fourth one read, so I had a few minutes to search the faces and surreptitiously wave to the people I knew.  The we marched off stage right.


The video below is from Agatha, whom I had charged with taking both still pictures and video.  She did swimmingly, especially since she was doubly charged.

Then we all traipsed to our respective faculties to get our degrees and transcripts.  Apparently this is fairly rare in Uganda if not in Africa:  I have a friend who graduated from Makerere University, the top school in the country, and he's been trying to get his transcripts for months.  Combined with the bachelor students, there were about 60 of us trying to get our folders from poor Gertrude.  I cannot imagine how it went for the larger faculties, like social work or law.  That makes me shudder.

Then it was off to the international theologians luncheon.  Due to all the traipsing it started late, and since I had to leave for the airport at 5, I didn't get to stay terribly long.  Note to self:  when traveling for a major event, do not flit in and out quickly.


Despite all that, I'm so glad I went.  I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Home safe

Greetings from the US!  


I'm trying to figure out how to fix the clock on my VCR; sometimes the menu won't let me in, and apparently, this is one of those times.  It also took me rebooting my modem three times to realize that perhaps the Standby button was pressed in, and maybe that was why I couldn't connect to the internet last night.  Mercy.


I'm grateful for safe and easy travel back here, and that all the USPs got situated.  I still didn't sleep on either flight for any meaningful amount of time, despite being in business class.  Murphy's Law dictates that if there are two seats in business class that don't fully recline, you will pick one of them.  And I am powerless to resist Murphy's Law.  Mercy.  But at least I was comfortable while I was awake, and I am so, SO grateful for the frequent flyer points that made that seating possible.


Now to tighten the kitchen faucet, and continue to unpack...

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.