Pasca Enungi

A good Easter it certainly was! I think I did the more unusual and amazing and interesting things this weekend than my entire time in Uganda so far. Starting on Friday when I woke up early to go to the stations of the cross Good Friday service with my little brothers, where I ended up having to carry the cross from one station to another. I seriously thought I was going to trip and fall and drop the cross (which was bigger than my body), but I luckily managed not to, even though it started to get so heavy by the end. My 12 and 14 year old brothers also carried the cross, which was especially funny because it was like a family affair. I bonded a little bit with my 12 year old brother who is normally at boarding school about how heavy the cross was to carry, and learned the serious extent to which he is religion when he said “it was very heavy, but I thought about how Jesus died for our sins and I thought I could carry this heavy cross for just a little bit.” He’s the one that wants to be a priest, obviously.

Next, on Saturday, I made chocolate chip cookies with my brothers and we all sat around the table and ate them with our milk. In the afternoon, other family members starting coming home, such as my 21 year old sister who goes to Makerere and my 22 year old brother Godfrey who is also in University. Then my parents came home in the evening with bags and bags and bags of vegetables and fruits and meat and sodas and beer and wine and liquor for this big family get together on Easter. I got to help my mom prepare mango-passion fruit-watermelon-orange juice and just do family type activities, which was so amazing.

Then on Sunday, the fun really started. Church was not anything really special, but afterwards the preparations went into full-swing, with pizza making, cake baking, guacamole making, etc. The other family that was coming turned out to have about 6-8 siblings who were all my age, so we spent the day chatting about University, playing cards and drinking a lot of beer and wine. By the end of the night I felt like I had made some awesome new friends who promised to take me out with them when I come back to Kampala. I even bonded a lot with my sister who I don’t see very often, and she decided that she really wants to come to Gulu to visit me because she’s never been! I’m a little sad that I’m starting to bond so much with my family after I’m officially living with them, but I’m hoping that this will make it easy for me to come back and visit them or for them to even come to D.C.!

Lastly – Easter Monday. Epicness of Epicness. This is not a holiday in the U.S., but in Uganda it’s a very big deal – barely anyone works, and there are a lot of concerts for people to go to. I have a feeling the day is for recovering from the party on the day before, and the night is the final “hoorah” before classes and work begin again. Anyway, Julie and I decided that we wanted to go to this big concert called the East African Carnival that had singers from all over East Africa including Sweet Kid, Chameleon (pretty much the most Ugandan singer), and some other popular ones that I don’t remember. When we first got there the place was swarming with people and the line to pay and get in was SO long. After first being hassled by this kind of creepy seeming guy, Julie spoke to him in Luganda and he immediately changed attitudes and dragged us to the front of the line to get into the concert! It turned out he was one of the promoters working at the concert so he could easily get us in (even though we still had to pay).

After checking out the music scene for a while, Julie and I went to look for some drinks, where we ran into our friend again! We told him we were looking for this type of wine and he proceeded to drag us to every single bar to find said wine, even though everyone at every bar said that it was over. We settled for Bells, which of course he bought for us. We sat and listened to the music a bit until our new friend told us that he was going to take us to see Chameleon (!!) because they were besties. We stumbled after him in shock, where he took us just a little ways away to where the performers’ cars were parked. We didn’t find Chameleon, but we did find Sweet Kid sitting in his car with one of his band members! We talked for him about how he’s coming to Gulu next weekend, and I promised to see him at his show and got his number!! Then we turned around and BAM! There’s Chameleon and his entire posse, just hanging out behind us. We had fun introducing ourselves in Luganda, and then he was whisked off to perform, while we followed after him to go backstage. When he went on stage, we pushed our way up to the front and the 1000s and 1000s of people that were sitting there on the grass stared at the mzungus dancing and singing to Chameleon.

And THEN, when he was finished performing, our friend grabbed our hands and dragged us behind Chameleon’s posse to where they all got on bodas to ride to the car. Get this – Julie sat on the same boda with Chameleon!! I somehow got left off of a boda, so our new friend and I had to walk alone to the super market where the car was parked, and the whole time I was freaking out that Julie was going to get taken away with Chameleon and his band and I was going to be left behind! Luckily, they all waited for us and when we arrived at the car, I was shuffled in to find Chameleon sandwiched in between me and Julie. We spent the car ride with the sun roof down, wind blowing in our hair, talking to Chameleon about why he likes to sing, where his name comes from and what he thinks of Mussevini while driving to his next show. We arrived at a bar in Kabalagala surprise surprise, 15 minutes from my homestay, at around 1 a.m., where we climbed out of the giant SUV behind Chameleon to a crowd of screaming Ugandans. Un. Freaking. Real. At the show, Julie, our new friend and I sat with his band, drinking bottles of free wine that Chameleon kept ordering for us and listening to him sing every now and then when he felt like it. The whole time we just kept thinking “this is not happening!!” After posing for pictures with Chameleon and his brother AK-47 and exchanging phone numbers and emails, Julie and I whisked ourselves away on a boda at around 4 or 5 in the morning to crash at my homestay. We were so tired from the night before that we didn’t even wake up when my mom knocked on my door at 6 a.m. to go to town, and my house helper had to come knock on the door at 6:45 a.m. to make us wake up. Thank god I had asked my brothers to pack my bag the night before when I was at the concert, because I immediately had to rush to town on a boda to get on the coach bus to Gulu by 8 a.m.!! I still couldn’t believe that merely hours before we had been partying it up with Chameleon, but my lack of sleep was a small price to pay for the most amazing experience of my Uganda trip! I definitely have to say that at times, being a muzungu has its perks!!