anna lied in the last title of the blog postings. it's not hot here.

June 15th came and left so quickly. It was my 21st birthday and I feel honored to have spent it with such fine people for yet another year. A wish of mine is that our worlds were not so far apart. That I wouldn’t have to use the word “there” or “far” to describe the location of my friends here. Someday.
The day started with listening to some David Crowder in the morning. We had our first teaching session with the girls (which Anna mentioned in the last post). The girls are bright and very attentive to what we have to say. They are very teachable and eager to learn. They got their packets from girls in the U.S, and their eyes were glued to the words written on the pages from so far away. We had some tea with David and Arnold and headed to town on a boda boda to the hotel for some internet. Along the way, I received a phone call from a dear friend back home. Twas so good and ridiculous. We interneted for a while and then went shopping. David had given Anna some money to buy me “something nice.” What does that mean? I don’t know. We found this really cool green jacket but it had a hole in the pocket, so we kept searching until we found a seamstress on the side of the road. She was working diligently on a dress and had some fabric. Anna and David bought me this “nice” something. We headed back to the Isangas for the evening adventures. Along the way, our boda driver was stopped for a police check. A man wearing an army uniform walked our way and exchanged some Lusoga words with our driver. This policeman was putting forward his best flirtatious skills and was not shy to ask how he can get a girlfriend from America and if I could be his girlfriend. I politely rejected his valiant attempt to woe my heart and we waved him and rifle goodbye.
Anna, being very sneaky in her ways, had told the family about my birthday and they were determined to bake a cake for me. Side note: Ugandans don’t celebrate birthdays traditionally but the culture is being influenced by Western practices. Anyways, our next project was to bake a cake. This was quite the ordeal. We lacked the following to make our cake: a recipe, baking soda, oil, vanilla, a measuring cup, real butter, a cake pan, icing, pot holders, and an oven. After an hour and a half and with the help of the catering students and the construction of a make-shift oven, we had a chocolate cake. The semi-finished product was disappointing because we placed buttered paper (make-shift wax paper) around the pan and that had burnt directly onto the cake, which left the cake looking like a piece of coal. Anna shaved off the burnt toppings and we placed some candles on our burnt-gooey-butter-brownie cake. You can see this occasion below. It is mama, Sam, David, and Noah. Anna was kind to take the picture.
The night ended with Avatar. Try explaining that here, especially with no sound for the first hour.
Thanks for the birthday wishes and for being a part of it, even by just reading this. ‘Twas good.