I was woken up to the lovely sound of John faintly playing happy birthday on the guitar and then promptly told him to shut up. I left for breakfast planning on having presents later but the gifters thought otherwise. For those who haven’t guessed, its Josh’s birthday today! We had planned out a normal day the evening before, so I assumed everything would stay low key… or so I thought. After some lovely presents from the group of which clothing and a “I (HEART) BABY” bag, it was time to get to work. By the way, the boys were considering buying me a chicken for the equivalent of 7 euros. The whole group prepared a very tightly fitting white vest with some heartwarming messages on it such as “I am special” in big on the back, which I was peer pressured into wearing for the morning.
We went to classes, where I joined the P5a English with Charlie and later some P4 maths. A few found out it was my birthday and gave me some actually heartfelt cards made out of carefully cut pages from their exercise books. After this we came back for a humble and delicious lunch of rice and pea stew. Then we went to build some more tip taps for the local community.
The ball started rolling when we got back and a group of 10 kids were picking stones out of the rice, and a massive pot similar to the one they cook 400 portions of porridge in, cooking rice. I thought it was for the lodge but that’s about it. I completely forgot about the 200 or so bananas we bought the day prior in town, and thought nothing about it. Then we were asked to move the rice pot to the main dining area, but outside, as opposed to inside where we usually eat. As crates of soft drink started coming out I put two and two together. Claire announced a general meeting “for an announcement about bible study this evening”, yeah right. She then told us all the boarders would be coming for a nice meal, a drink, biscuits and a banana, and my birthday would be the pretext for all this. It was truly humbling to be the reason all these kids would be able to have a nice evening and a special meal. They very rarely have rice, and the next day I asked them about it and they said the best thing was the rice, even though our group found the rice bland.
All the boarders arrived and after being fed, I was sent to the middle of everyone. Nobody said anything for a couple seconds and the next thing I knew I was drenched head to toe in freezing water.”It’s a Ugandan tradition”… They started singing happy birthday and more showering pursued. Two of the older P7 students handed me a big poster with comments from the students and as I was trying to read them in the low light yet another bucket of water hit. They all grouped up and sang Ugandan variations of happy birthday as well as a song saying “you are shining” as I cut the cakes. I was really in awe of all these children being so happy and all the work that had gone into this moment by the leaders and staff that I wasn’t even aware about. Everyone proceeded to the lodge’s bar where there was dancing. Needless to say being drenched didn’t help my already lacking dance skills. After lots more fun everyone had to leave as it was 9:30. The evening ended calmly in the bar with a fire and pool. This birthday really was the gift that kept on giving, seen as the next morning I was getting up at 6:20 to go serve porridge and, even better, clean the cooking pots from last night.
This day was truly an amazing day, which I will definitely never forget. I am really grateful for all the work that has gone into this day and how happy it made so many children. Thank you to everyone who helped with our fundraising and made this whole experience possible.
That’s it for today, tune in next time for Vol. 15 of Uganda 2019.
Love from Josh