No Power? No Problem!!

Fourth of July negatives: no fireworks

Dance Party!

Fourth of July positives: I was invited to a Fourth of July party by a team of four girls working through AIM in Kampala for the month. I was able to meet them on Saturday when Carolyn had us all over for lunch. Carolyn treated us to a delicious lunch followed by homemade chocolate chip cookies! We had a really great conversation while we ate and made the cookies; I really wish they were in Kampala longer than a month! They’re all around my age and they work at Dwelling Places, a ministry working with street children. For a short time I was actually supposed to be part of the team...then Mukisa asked for a volunteer! Anyways, the girls are awesome and they seem to get along really well! On Saturday they told me they were having a Fourth of July party and they wanted me to go. They said there’d be food and that the American Embassy would have fireworks that we’d be able to see from their guesthouse! I was planning on getting there around five but the girls I work with at Dawn and I decided to go thrift store shopping after work so I didn’t get to the party until about six or six thirty.  I wasn’t sure exactly where the girls lived so my boda driver stopped to ask some other drivers where the guesthouse was when I saw two of the girls walking down the road in our direction. I told my driver that he could just drop me there so I could walk with them to their house. Turns out they were headed to the market to get more food…one of the girls said “You know how in America if you invite 20 people to something 15 show up? Well, in Uganda if you invite 20 people to something 30 will show up!!” We picked up some rice and soda then headed to the party! They were right; there were a lot of people there! Most everyone was from dwelling places; either staff members or kids/teens that are in the program. In addition to not having enough food the area had also lost power so they served ice cream first instead of after dinner and we had candles everywhere! There was such a great atmosphere at the party; music, food, cards, dancing, and lots of laughter!

As crazy as it was for a while when I arrived (trying to get food for over thirty people prepared without power is difficult!!) it all turned out perfectly. Everyone had enough to eat and somehow there were even a few leftovers. When we were done eating some of the guys started doing card tricks and after leaving me completely impressed with all their tricks they actually showed me how to do them!! (Funny thing though, for one of the tricks he asked me to shuffle the cards, when I did the look on his face was priceless! He had expected me to shuffle them like the Ugandans do, which means just cutting the deck a few times, so when I did it the “normal” way it completely ruined his trick…it was quite hilarious!) When they were out of card tricks they tried to teach us this really strange way to whistle. It sounds really cool but looks so weird! I literally tried to get it until I was lightheaded! I got it once for about two seconds but then couldn’t get it again the whole night. We kept thinking the fireworks were coming but eventually we got tired of waiting so we all headed home.

So, needless to say, even though I didn’t get to see any fireworks I still had a fantastic Fourth of July! The positives definitely outweighed the negatives! =]

Jessica, Me, Carolyn! Happy Fourth!

Thank you Dawn, Louise, Bridgett, and Jessica for hosting a wonderful party!

This has nothing to do with the Fourth of July but....

Me, Britta, and Sophia at dinner.  

Tuesday night some of the girls and I went out for dinner. There’s this really great place called City Annex in downtown Kampala. Its part of a hotel has a big menu and pretty low prices. The catch is that before you order you have to pick out like at least three different things you might want because it’s very unlikely they’ll actually have what you ask for! The plan was to go to the cinema after dinner because on Tuesdays the tickets are half price. That didn’t happen (surprise surprise…TIA!!!!) We didn’t get done eating in time to make it to the movie so we decided we’d go for some tea instead. We went to this really nice café on top of the mall but when we tried to order tea they said they weren’t serving any hot drinks because their machine was down. We contemplated getting soda but we all had our hearts set on some African tea! We decided to go to Java’s because they simply never let you down. I may have mentioned Java’s before but it’s this really cute, really yummy, really expensive coffee shop at the mall. Apparently if I ever want some chocolate cake, that’s the place to go…though I haven’t confirmed this claim yet. Sure enough, Java’s didn’t disappoint! The tea was delicious and we got a table outside which was really nice. After the tea we called it a night and headed home. Maybe next week we’ll actually make it to the movies!!!

JAVVVVVAS!