The Wednesday after we got here, the AHI staff cooked a huge African feast in honor of the school’s 5th birthday – matoke (mashed, steamed plantains), gingery beef stew, steamed cabbage, taro, g-nut (peanut) sauce, “irish” potatoes, pineapple, and brownies were on the menu! We helped scrub and peel and chop and mash a giant mound of food for the 70-something community members who showed up.

I remembered the matoke from last time. The peel oozes a super sticky sap when cut, which leaves your hands black and covered. Water won’t clean it off, only oil and a sponge!

It’s the beginning of the rainy season, but for this day, everyone was praying that we wouldn’t have any showers since all the tables were set up outside! In the end, there was thunder, but no rain. Guests started showing up about 4, and by 5:30 all the tables were full and there was a blanket on the grass, covered with children.

There were speeches from all the local dignitaries – prefects, school headmasters. Isa gave a “brief” story of AHI that had us all laughing, and several of the Eastside team did an improv routine. Then it was time for the mountains of food! I sat next to Jovia, who I remember from when I was last here. At that time she was a teacher at the Ekitangaala Primary School, but is now the headmistress. She told me that many classes have close to 100 kids! Can you imagine trying to teach that many at a time, squeezed into one room? An article I read yesterday said that since the government made primary school free for all in Uganda, the classes have exploded in size…

The next morning we were up early to send off the Eastside team at 7 am, then Maggie left with us for Kampala. Peter drove us the two hours into the city – it would be a lot faster if not for the pot-holed 6-7 miles between us and the main road (takes 20-30min), and the traffic once you hit the outskirts of Kampala. Most of the drive is fast and beautiful, past farms, many little towns, banana and pineapple groves.

We stayed at the Cornerstone Guest House for two nights and went all over town as Maggie showed us the post and immigration offices, grocery stores, market. We bought a phone and modem, found a wifi café, and went to a yummy pizza restaurant! By the time we shopped on Saturday morning, though, and tried to fit everything in the mid-sized sedan, there was barely room for us to fit! It reminded me of traveling to Papua New Guinea; remember the old ladies laughing at you, Dad, as you tried to fit all our luggage in the trunk of the rental car? And that we sat on top of more luggage inside?

Despite our full car, we stopped on the way home in Luwero to buy fruit through the window, and found room for pineapples and watermelons on our laps =)

Before we left the market, though, our driver Peter discovered a flat tire! So we somehow extricated ourselves out of the car so he could jack it up. Off came the old tire, he hopped on a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) with the tire balanced in front of him, and took off to ? It was midday and we were in the sun, until a nice market nyabo (woman) offered me her umbrella. Peter showed back up 30 minutes later, and we were off, back home. =)

Maggie has lots of ideas for us to do, many of them things she’s had to put off for lack of time. Patrick will be designing inventories for the school, teaching Excel and typing, and gathering interviews for the book. I’ll be teaching cooking and baking classes, designing an AHI cookbook (anyone want to help me with this?), and taking photos. Together, she wants us to teach Character Development classes, start staff bible studies, and somehow work on fostering more community on the Ranch. Whew! Lots of ideas are going through our heads - we’d love prayer on what to focus on and how to best use our time here. =)

Check back soon to hear about Patrick’s insect-killing techniques and headlines from the local news!

-- HCD