sun, 7.1 through wed, 7.4 – wow. it’s july already? i think that might’ve been the shortest month in my life. we have less than one week before we leave gulu and begin our journey home…yet it seems as if we only arrived in gulu a few days ago.
on sunday, several of us attended the church service that is held weekly in one of the larger buildings on gulu high school’s campus. it was a catholic mass in nature, but it was one of the neatest experiences i’ve ever had in a church setting. for starters, it was completely student-led (even moreso this week since the priest was unable to come). also, the music was starkly different from what i’ve witnessed in catholic masses in the past. the students had an array of instruments, and they sang a variety of songs, ranging from traditional acholi religious songs to hymns in english that i actually knew. the students were very welcoming, and they even helped us to understand the words to some of the songs that we were [quite obviously] having trouble with…it was a really neat experience. the priest had an unforeseen conflict and was unable to come, but after a few slight delays (which were filled with improvised singing), one of the older boys addressed the congregation. they still went through the majority of the service, minus the parts that the priest was integral to. they were reverent, respectful, and even apologetic to us, their guests, for his absence…but it was actually far more rewarding to get to experience the makeshift, improvisational service that took place in his stead. they were so genuine, their praises so heartfelt, that i found myself on more than one occasion simply sitting there in the front (where we were asked to sit upon arrival) and listening to the chorus of voices in their shout-song that is such a unique sound to a suburban white kid from the states. i cannot do this sound justice in my description of it, but i would liken it to the sound of a black choir in america…with ten times the passion and a soulful authenticity that reflects the hardships that can be neither fathomed nor replicated in the u.s. seeing these students gather on their own…no one was forcing them to be there, and it was obvious that they were there because they WANTED to be there…was so touching, not to mention extremely different from my experience in the church last sunday. very encouraging and a wonderful experience.
monday, i ended up teaching class by myself. isaiah, as it turns out, did not have malaria, which is good news. the bad news, however, is that he DID have typhoid fever, which can be worse. he has been in bed at home since thursday evening, and he called me (as i was walking to school in the pouring rain) to tell me that he was coming in, but he was too weak to teach…so he asked if i’d be comfortable teaching the lesson on my own. i had no problem with it, and so i hurried the rest of the way to school so i’d have a few extra minutes to throw a lesson together. the lesson went well…the students all opened up to me a lot more and by the end of class, after they presented their work, they were laughing and grilling one another about the meanings of various lines in their poems. isaiah came in for the last fifteen minutes or so, and he commented afterwards that he had never seen his students so welcoming or so vulnerable to an outsider in their classroom, which was some much-needed affirmation for me. in the midst of all of the emotional wrestling that you go through here, a few encouraging words or hearing that you’ve touched a student’s life is sometimes enough fuel to keep you going for the next week, or in my case, for the remainder of the trip.
tuesday was pretty uneventful. i felt pretty gross all day…i’m having my first stomach problems since arriving here, a fact that is both amazing (almost everyone else has had COUNTLESS problems) and unfortunate (i’d rather have dealt with this 2 weeks ago…NOT 5 days before we leave!)…but oh well…break out the immodium and cipro! in the evening, sarah hartley (the director of schools4schools) led a workshop on ESL strategies which was very good and extremely useful to me as an english teacher. we had fun, and by the time we wrapped up, it was after 10, so most of the crew went to bed. i stayed up, mainly because my stomach still felt pretty uneasy, i wasn’t tired, and i DEFINITELY didn’t want to lie in bed with a 3-ring circus going on in my small intestines for an hour before falling asleep.
i woke up about 5 times in the night because my stomach is pretty much in a constant state of cramped-ness. i felt like the guy in ‘alien’ right before the little creature burst out of his stomach…for about 6 hours straight. on the upside, i haven’t thrown up and the immodium’s working, but this cramping is getting old…quick. i only slept about 2 hours, so i woke up this morning tired, sore, and gross. another night like that, and i’m gonna have a picture-perfect set of washboard abs! i think i’ve discovered the next big workout plan…african parasites (or maybe it’s a bacterial infection). i’m hoping for the latter, because the cipro will kill it…parasites i’m not so sure about. so keep your fingers crossed! (i’ll bet you never imagined you’d be rooting for a bacterial infection, huh?) it’s like a presidential race…choose your favorite candidate (for fun, i guess we could include worms as the long-shot ‘green party’ candidate) and i’ll keep you posted of the poll results…i guess i’m feeling a bit patriotic since it’s the Fourth!
happy 4th of july to all of you back home…have fun celebrating our country’s independence! now let’s just pray for the ‘independence’ of this THING in my belly (preferably not the ‘alien’ way, either)!
