Katogo Again!

The Ugandan Dwight:
If you are familiar with the TV show “The Office” you will be familiar with a character by the name of Dwight. He is a beet farmer from good German stock, who works at the paper company as a salesman and serves as “Assistant to the Regional Manager”. Uber paranoid about everything, conspiracy theorist (not to the extent of Creed, one of the other characters), quite a character.

There is a teacher here at the school who has struck me as familiar. You know- something familiar about them that you just can’t put your finger on? It finally hit me one afternoon when Rebekah and I were looking at something he had written…. He is the Ugandan version of Dwight. We got a good laugh about that…

People are people. Cultures may be different, geography may be different, climate, time zones, language, these things all may differ, but when you get down to it, people are people. It is funny how an American tv show and a Ugandan teacher reminded me of this.

Living in Ug it is easy to fall into a pattern of seeing all the differences from home. I think focusing on the differences isn’t the best thing to do; it can lead to division and discontent.

Division in that I find myself torn between being focused on the people here and missing the people at home, and discontent as I remember how much I love ice cream and cheese and good meat….

So recognizing my very own ‘Dwight’ was a good reminder, as different as my life is now from what it once was, people are people. Some things are similar after all.

Sweet!:
Down in the kitchen one evening (helping cook for a visiting conference team) I saw the kids lining up for dinner. The S1 boys were first in line, ready and eager for dinner. Quietly the S1 girls filtered in, stepping in front of the boys who were fighting for their excellent position with the older and bigger boys. I asked the girls if it was a rule that they ate first, they all said no… then I asked my S1 boys if they thought it was a rule for the girls to get food first. They also said no. Still valiantly holding their front line position one boy informed me “It is not a rule they eat first, we just let them”. SWEET!!!! I was thrilled. It is sinking in slowly; these boys may become gentlemen yet!

Games
I brought this two person game called Master Mind with me to Uganda. Mom sent my Mancala game, and I found this new game here called Gobble. The boys are now familiar with Master Mind, and they are starting to give me a run for my money, so I was thrilled to introduce the other two games to them. As I had not played Mancala in years, and had never played Gobble before, we worked together to learn the rules. I started with two of the S4 boys and in a short time there was a group of about 15 gathered. Both games are only two person games, but in this culture, such a thing is impossible. Everyone was giving advice, cheering, explaining the rules, arguing about points. It seems like an almost inconsequential thing, but in reality it was a neat time of “class – less – ness” S1s were competing against S5s, and there was no distinction about who was allowed to play. Getting the boys together in this kind of situation goes a long way towards diffusing hazing and the oft mentioned “welcoming parties” that are commonplace in boarding school situations. I hope the girls will start to join us someday, but for now, I am happy to play Gobble, Mancala, or Master Mind with those who are willing.

Oh Boy:
Conferences are a big thing here. I can’t understand it really, they are terrible in my opinion. They are so popular and are expected here, and everyone is thrilled when a conference is scheduled for our school. Everyone but me, and Rebekah that is. The Chapel Master here at school seem to think that we must be involved with the planning, labor, hosting, etc, because obviously we love them as much as he does. Most times I can flat out refuse, but now that we have shifted to school, wiggling out of the obligation proved to be difficult. Long story short, I am in charge of cooking for 100 people tomorrow. Let me brag for a second- in high school my class and I cooked for about 100-160 people each Friday, no worries… tonight however I am worried. I have never cooked posho in my life. Same can be said for “sauce” – no experience at all. And yet somehow, I am the one for cooking. Oh boy. The Chapel Master told me to pick my crew, three girls and two boys and organize it as I saw fit. Let me outline this for you. We have two fire pits = fire wood needed. We have to cook for 100 people: 20 kilograms of posho, 15 kilograms of beans, 10 heads of cabbages, 2 kilos of tomatoes, onions, 2 kilos of g-nuts, 5 kilos of rice. We are expected to serve tea in the morning, and then have lunch prepared.
The Chapel Master was skeptical that I would be able to get the help I would need (and a logical person would then ask, “why did he assign you the task then??” but let’s ignore that for a bit). I will let you know how it turns out. On a big positive note though- I got all the firewood chopped today. The S4 boys had a free period so I asked them to help me out. It was actually fun and we all laughed a lot. I told them we had enough (cause in my years of experience cooking over a fire pit surrounded by three large rocks I easily knew how many trees we needed) and they continued chopping “to be sure”. After we finished I was crossing campus and the Chapel Master told me that I should probably think about asking at least four boys to chop the wood today. I loved the shocked expression on his face when I told him it was done, stacked in a hidden location, and ready to go. “How did you get boys to help you?” he questioned, I smiled and told him, “l just asked”.