Under the African Sky

There was a moment this weekend when I stopped and thought, “Oh my goodness. There is nothing I would rather be doing right now.” Kiersten, Justin Lane, John Riley, and I were sitting beneath the African stars on a blanket on the edge of Queen Elizabeth National Park. Our campsite was surrounded by hippos and we could hear the sound of wild animals (at one point I am pretty sure we heard a lion kill an elephant). The best part is we were playing Rook and we were winning. It was a great moment in history. Justin paused and said with a smile, “Guys can we just remember what we are doing right now?” Let me tell you he wasn’t so happy four games later when Kiersten and I were still undefeated.
I know that many of you are wondering how my weekend went parading around on the Savanna of Africa. Let me fill you in. It was fabulous. It all started Thursday night. Thursday was Independence Day and therefore the Ugandan students had no class. Unfortunately for us, our USP classes decided to run anyways. Thankfully they gave us Friday off because a safari takes an entire three day weekend. So Kiersten decided to spend the night at my house as my family is much more exciting and inviting than hers. Shannon (my host sister) also had one of the USP students come over as they were planning on hanging out during the weekend.
Kiersten and I were walking home at about 5:00 on Thursday. For anybody that knows me let me tell you I have found a path through the country side that not only cuts off 5-10 minutes of my walk, but also is beautiful and has way less people than the main road. There are parts where I pretend that I’m home in the country, not surrounded by thousands. So Kiersten and I were walking this path and about ten minutes from home we started hearing this loud music. I jokingly said, “Man someone in the neighborhood is having a dance party and I wasn’t invited!!” As we continued towards the house the music got louder and louder. As we came out of the path and I could see my house I noticed that there were about 30 little neighborhood children all standing in front of Shannon and Kaitlin. The music was coming from a HUGE speaker on my front lawn. There was a huge canopy covering tons of chairs. My family had told me they were having the Rotary club over for tea. Ha, little did I know that it was going to be such a big deal.
We headed to the back of the house after saying goodbye to the curious children and found my whole family frantically cooking tons of food! (I guess this explains why we had not been eating much variety at night for supper…) I asked Stella if there was any way we could help and got assigned to the cutting of the pineapple. We cut three huge pineapples and a watermelon while Kaitlin made two salads. It was really fun. Mama asked us if we wanted to serve the food when the time came and we very excitedly agreed.
One thing I want to remind you about Africa is the tendency to not do things promptly. So at about 8:30, I was starving because I didn’t take tea. We waited and waited to serve, but kept hearing, “It is not time.” All of a sudden the family was called out and whisked away. Julius was introducing them to the entire group. As Shannon and I were peering at them through the window he called us out after and specially introduced us to the entire group. So with a huge spotlight in my face (it was dark by now) I smiled and waved. Julius then looked at me, said something in Luganda, and handed me the microphone. It was as if he forgot I didn’t speak Luganda. Laughing I pulled one of the meager few phrases I knew and greeted everyone and handed the mike to Shannon who used the other phrase we know ;). It was great and everyone laughed. The night went on with us serving the food and dancing the night away with the people of the Rotary club. The night was honoring Julius who was handing the presidency of the club over to a new guy for the upcoming year.
The next morning we walked to school at the crack of dawn and loaded into two vans for the eight hour drive to Lake Victoria National Park. On arriving to the park, we saw our first wildlife, the elegant warthog. Naturally we all shouted out, “PUMBA!” Let me tell you Disney did some good working in making Pumba a cute little fella because the real thing leaves much to be desired. I guess it is one of the examples that God does indeed have a sense of humor. When we got to our campsite the task of setting up the tents was first on the list. A couple girls starting making the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while the boys ran off (as they tend to do when work comes around). One boy tried to say that they should set up the girls tent. I said, “HA! Give me the tent poles.” A couple of us girls and Phil set up our tent and I had a moment of sadness for all the girls in the group who just stood there not knowing what to do. Sigh. Kiersten stood on the roof of the van taking pictures and who-knows-what, probably laughing at me taking an active part in this process. She did come down however when one warthog tried to run away with a backpack. I looked over to see Kiersten guarding with a large stick.
We then took part in our supper. I was smiling as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich had never tasted so good. Amidst the grumblings of the inadequate food supply many whined and said they were going to go hungry all week. I just smiled and looked and Kiersten and said, “A good independent girl never goes far without packing extra food!” (This has been a common theme in my life). Unfortunately our jelly we had brought erupted in the car, but don’t worry- we managed to save about ¼ of the can!
Before heading to bed a hippo wandered into the camp. That was very exciting and set up the stage for our late-night Rook game. We got up at 6 in the morning as our game run was from 6:30-9:30. An hour into the ride we had seen no animals and my face was literally black from all the dirt. I was sitting in the second car and the dust from the first was coming in my window and getting me dirty. Gross. Don’t worry we did end up seeing tons of wildlife from lions to waterbuck to water buffalo to antelope.
As soon as I got back I headed right to the shower. Of course I hadn’t brought a towel and in true camping fashion used a t-shirt. When I got out Kiersten had to rewash my face and neck with wetones because it was still so dirty! We then headed to an extravagant lodge to research for a 7-page history paper that I hadn’t started and was due on Monday! (There comes the cross-culture procrastination problem.) We had a cold pop and I loved every second of it. Oh how I miss ice! Kiersten and I then watched Remember the Titans on her laptop while drinking coffee. I literally cried about five times during the movie. It always reminds me of my dad and good times. I miss football… Two boys came in and laughed. They said, “Kurty, we were talking about you the other day and decided you reminded us of that daughter in Remember the Titans and here you are watching the movie!” I smiled and replied, “I am that girl, and my dad is amazing.” Next up was our second game run.
This was a great run. We got to be in the leading van which had a pop up top so I got to sit on the roof! Kiersten, Megan, and I all had three cups of coffee running through us and were having a fabulous time! At one point about half-way through we moved to the front of the van and sat on the cab part. We were cruising along and all of a sudden there were elephants blocking the road! I wanted to scream, but they say if you scare them they will charge you. When we came to a stop there were literally 35-40 elephants surrounding us on the sides of the road. AMAZING!

All-in-all the trip was really fun.. a little camping.. a little Rook victory.. a little fellowship.. a little football.. and some wild animals. Pretty special.

I’m sorry I don’t have any great toilet stories for you this post.

I little update.. Kiersten and I played John and Justin again this morning in two games of Rook. Now the record ups to 6-0. Our total record for Africa is 9-0 :).