Today we woke up early because we were going to go to church. Along the way we saw Allan and invited him to come along with us. We went to the Church of Uganda which is equivalent to our Episcopalian church in America. Walking through the town to church the people continue to wave and ask “How are you?!?”. During our walk, we passed my many different churches (you can tell by the beating of the drums). When we got to the Church of Uganda we realized that we were an hour late and missed the English service, but we went in anyways. We listened to the sermon, stood when they sang, prayed when the prayed, but didn’t understand anything. Occasionally the preacher would say a few words in English for us but then she would switch back to her language. I only knew about African religions from movies and books, where everyone believed in spirits and voodoo and things of that nature so, when they weren’t banging on drums and screaming towards the sky like in the movies I was a little disappointed. However, It opened my eyes some more to see that, even though we live completely different lives in completely different countries, they had the same religion. When it was time for offering, we walked up and put in some money. There were a few coins and a couple 1000 shillings (2000 shillings = 1 US dollar). For offering, some of the Africans don’t have any money that they can spare, so they put in an avocado or a chicken or a mango or something that the church later auctions off for money.
After church, we went to Mary’s house. We walked up the street a mile or so and then hopped onto a motorcycle to take us to Mary’s house. AGAIN, as we were driving through town, everyone would wave to us, and their faces would light up when we waved back. Her family lives on the side of a hill, but it felt like we were climbing a mountain when we got off of the motorcycles and walked up steep dirt path to her house. Once we got to her house, we stopped for a drink and then climbed the rest of the hill to go to the top. When we reached the top, you could see out for miles. We saw the road we first drove in on through the mountains with the steep parts. We took some pictures and then went back down to her house for dinner. They basically had a feast for us, there was so much food. After dinner we hung out with the family. I feed the goat and chicken, gave a test, and planted an eggplant. We were each assigned to do a chore of each family member so that every time they did that chore they would think of me or Andrew. So every time they would feed the chickens they would think of me. After visiting Mary’s family, we went home and didn’t really do anything because we were beat form the long day.
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