One of Jenna's Ugandan friends, Mike (a student in the pharmacy class that Jenna is helping to teach at the University), picked us up and took us to the high school where he teaches physics.
It is a boarding school with approximately 1200 students from all over Uganda. Every Sunday, the school brings in a priest, a pastor, and an imam, leaders of the Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic religions, respectively. Each religious group holds services in a separate large classroom, where there are probably at least 300 (or more) students attending. As Mike is Catholic, we attended the Sunday mass program.
The church service was quite interesting. In some aspects, it was very similar to Catholic services at home (I haven't been to many, but I have been to enough services in the US to get an idea of what it is all about). In other aspects, the service was very different. There were the usual prayers (all in English), but there was also frequent lively music, accompanied by drums and clapping. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this never happens in Catholic services in the US. In one of the spirited songs, the children sang about how they were "Kings of Africa;" for some reason, this phrase really touched me and I was unable to get it out of my head throughout the rest of the day. During the services, the priest and other speakers spoke frequently of the "visitors" (aka, the obvious white people in the room). At one point, they even asked us to come up and say a few words in front of everyone! Luckily, Mike came to our rescue and said a bit, then sat back down. The priest mentioned at the end of the service that they were "so blessed to have such wonderful visitors here with us today." It was very sweet. A few members of the congregation wrote us letters after the service. Some of the letters were very sweet; others were just plain interesting...
After mass was over, we went with Mike to "inspect the dormitories." Apparently every Sunday, each dormitory (10 for the girls, 10 for the boys) is rated on a 100 point scale for such categories as lack of cobwebs, clean floor, luggage arrangement, neat beds, and clean windows and windowsills.
Each dorm (some more than others) take pride in keeping their room very clean. At the end of the semester, whichever dorm has the highest total points gets a party. It's a big deal. So we set out to help with the evaluations.
Of course, we wanted to give everyone full points, as the dorms were spick and span; however, Mike and the headmasters were very difficult graders. It made me wonder what type of score I would get for my own home in the US...
After the grading was completed and the winner was announced (always from the younger grades, as they are more "creative" in their cleaning and organizing), we headed back to the classrooms to observe the spelling bee for a while. The event was very well organized, though I was worried that I might not be able to spell some of the words that were given!
The students did a great job, and even when they spelled a word wrong, they were great sports about it. A large portion of the student body came to watch and support their fellow classmates.
Throuhgout our entire day, all of the students (and teachers) were so friendly and welcoming. Many would come up and introduce themselves, say hello, and ask how we were enjoying Uganda thus far. They were always offering refreshments or something cool to drink. And everywhere we looked, there were smiles and laughing children. They really were kings (and queens!) of Africa!
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