I have struggled a lot with trying to feel like I deserve all of the things that I've been given here at site. They have put me up in the equivalent of a baller house in Uganda, and have continued to offer me meals every day, even if they know that I'm planning on cooking my own. They have been as nice as any group I've ever met. With that, I really want to give them something so that they feel like it was worth it, in the end. It took a friend of mine within PCV visiting to remind me that, sometimes, it's the things that you would never consider important that are exactly the things that they are hoping to get from you.
With that said, there are a few things that I shared with my surrogate family that I thought they may enjoy, because if nothing else they were most definitely hits in my family reunions. These two things went especially well:
1) Spoons
In 3 months, I have literally never seen the parish priest laugh harder than when we were playing this game. The coolest part though was that the chef, the parish priest, the youngest son of 12, and I were all sitting at the same table. In Uganda, that rarely EVER happens, for anything. Indirectly teaching them a silly American game, I also saw my first true signs of equality at home. Pretty cool.
There is also one kid who always, always cheated. I named him Stephen.
2) Sound of Music
I took this to the convent, after purposefully buying the illegal copy in Kampala while I was in In Service Training. For the first time ever, I saw Ugandan's get up and leave the room when they had a phone call, and even tell people to be quiet at certain parts of the movie. Unbelievable. The nuns gave it to the parish priest, who last night stayed up with 5 or 6 others until 2am watching it. How cool is that!
So, thanks family. It seems some of our traditions are powerful enough to transcend cultures, language barriers, and the Atlantic Ocean.
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