Well, this past Wednesday was definitely one of the most exciting days of my stay here in Uganda. The official opening ceremony of Extreme College Namayumba lasted for about seven hours. Seven hot, hot, hours. Save for the heat, it was a beautiful day for a ceremony. Three other schools, Bananywa Primary School, Royal Academy, and Jolly Child School attended the opening to show their support for Extreme College. Each school performed multiple songs, dances, and short plays. Seggawa, Job, Joshua and all the others in charge even hired a marching band from Kampala to play during throughout the day!
There were also a number of speeches given by Joshua (the headmaster of Extreme), Dorothy, Seggawa, the chairman of the PTA, the Secretary General of the National Council for Children, and a few others who's names I can't quite remember. The speeches were lovely, as were the plays. My favorite performances however, were the songs. The kids from Extreme have beautiful voices, and love singing. They got so into it! Dan and Brassio were especially talented, and were belting it out and getting their groove on in the first and second rows.
After the hours and hours of speeches, dances, marches, and songs, the ribbon was finally cut at the school was pronounced officially open. Finally the kids were able to relax a little, hang out, and have some fun. They had been working until past midnight the night before finishing up the school building, and clearly deserved some R&R. We ate, hung out, took pictures, listened to music and just, chilled. I honestly can’t think of the last time they got to do that. The building, by the way, looks amazing. It’s incredible how much they have accomplished. They built their own school, how many other kids can say that? None that I know of, that’s for sure.
Thursday morning, I was woken up by the Rooster who resides near our room in Namayumba at four, five, and six a.m. After the rooster gave his final wake up call, and I thought I might actually be able to sleep a while longer, the boda boda driver, who also lives next to us, started working on his bike. I finally realized, at around eight, that I had no choice but to get up and start my day. I walked down to the school to find that the kids had already been up since seven! They seriously never cease to amaze me. Lucky for them, the headmaster decided to give them the day off, after all the hard work they’d put into building the school.
We spent the afternoon hanging around, and looking at all the pictures that Melissa and I had taken the day before. Little Henry borrowed my iPod and started dancing around on the lawn, which was really entertaining. After a while some of the older kids started a pick up game of soccer. One of the younger kids brought a puppy over to me, which was so completely adorable I actually started considering ways to smuggle it back home with me. However, judging by the little red dots on my arms that I discovered later in the day, I think she may have had fleas…
After spending the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the nice weather (it was surprisingly cool, but much appreciated since we were still recovering the day before’s heat), we decided to have a goat roast. Melissa, Nabimanya, Brassio, Dan and I went into town to buy some firewood. While we were getting the firewood, these three men came up behind Melissa and I and began trying to talk to us. It was really odd, and I kept trying to move away. All of a sudden Dan told us to start walking back to the school. Melissa and I were glad to leave, and when we asked Dan who the men had been and what they’d wanted, he told us that they’d been trying to pickpocket us. Luckily, Dan, Brassio and Nabimanya realized what was happening before it was too late, and Melissa and I were able to walk away without getting robbed. Ai yai yai are we a couple of naïve Misungus.
After bringing the firewood back to the school, the boys started preparing for the roast. And by preparing, I mean they began to sharpen a couple of knives, fetched a ladder, and tied the goat up with some rope they had laying around. Thank God I am not a vegetarian, or a member of PETA, or else Thursday night might have been my last night in Uganda. I won’t go into too much detail, but lets just say it was the freshest meat I’ve ever eaten…and it was good too!
All right, I can’t think of anything else to write right now, so Weereba, and katonda akukuume.
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