February 27^th

Lots to write about this afternoon – I was going to go to the worship service this morning to hear Sheila preach. The schedule says it was to start at 10:30. Tony picked me up at 9:15, before I had any breakfast. The service actually began to form at about 11:15, when some of the first arriving students began singing. Fortunately, we were served tea and white bread at 10:45. I felt much better after that. My mother, who I think made me compulsive about time, is undoubtedly laughing from her grave.

Most of the teachers don’t go to the worship service, although several asked if I was going.  One said, after coming back from the service, that if god had said that only the people at this service would go to heaven, I would have been left behind. I told him that the god I believed in wouldn’t have done that.

The students wander into the service, carrying their bibles, over the whole first half hour of the service, while the singing is going on. Sheila never came. Plans must have changed. In the end I didn’t go to the worship service, but, besides the singing, I could hear them all shouting prayers at the same time. In fact, two days ago I sat in on a worship service at Keframa, while I was waiting for my ride home, organized by the students every Tuesday after classes. It was also very pentecostal, with drums and dancing and praise with everyone shouting prayers at the same time. I have enough trouble with worship services at home. Sorry Sharry and Fr. Michael.

What are the teachers’ real feelings about the worship service? They would not tell you, or they would tell you what they think you want to hear. Sheila spoke about this in a conversation last week. She spoke of hearing an African minister speaker at a religious conference she went to, who spoke of the almost absolute lack of truth-telling among African people. Because he was African he could get away with saying it, but she has noticed the same thing. They will not tell you the truth about something you have done or written, and so much time is wasted, because eventually the truth seeps out, and then you can begin to correct what you have done or written.

I feel strange here all the time. I am strange here all the time.

Great soundscapes here. Next time I will bring a tape recorder. (Will there be a next time?) The pentecostal services with the clapping and singing and ululalias; the market places with loud music over very large speakers, motorcycles, cars, trucks, people talking and shouting; the kids playing, running, squealing outside my door in the afternoon and evening; dogs barking out the tune of “We wish you a merry Christmas” over the phone of a teacher at UCI, trying to entertain her baby.

If I were to write a book about all of this, I would call it “The Land of Waiting.” A pack-packer whom Meagan met on a trip would call his book “Uganda - That F#@king Country.” Not me. It is what it is.

My sister, the writer, is urging me to continue writing after I return home, and I will try. I will start with feelings and observations on returning home. I will try to gain some perspective. I will read others who have “analyzed” Africa.

Every day, hoping it will be less hot tomorrow. And it isn’t. Yesterday I was thinking about the sweet breeze that cooled me. Today the wind is hot. But still it is movement of the air.

The final blow (for today): went to teach my class. No students. They told me that they were given the time after lunch to write up their notes from last week’s hospital experience. It seems like this is being strung out so that I have no (or very few) doubts about going home now.

On the way home with Tony he told me that Sheila preached at the other campus of UCI.