Last Saturday the gang and I went to little Italy, also called the C&D compound. C&D is an Italian NGO that has been in Karamoja since the 60's. They have a massive compound which hosts a nearly full sized soccer pitch, community center and hotel plus 3 ostriches that are looked after by the Uganda Wildlife Authority. I call it little Italy because it more or less is Italy. They have even taught their Ugandan cooks and maids Italian. It's a strange little world inside those 4 walls. Anyways, we went to celebrate Tomasso's birthday with a true to form Italian pizza night. Tomasso's parents flew in from Italy for the occasion with a suitcase full of Italian mozzarella so the invitation was impossible to pass up, and little did I know but little Italy also houses a legitimate fire burning pizza oven. Unbelievable.
As we stuffed our faces with pizza and salami and cold beverages, I stepped back from the group and sat down on a comfy couch, partly because my legs were killing from our first ever Moroto Olympics held just hours before in which yours truly took a respectable silver. Irishman Cormac took the gold by edging me out by inches on the hammer toss and both the standing and running long jump. Ironic because I run 12 miles a week and he smokes 12 packs a week, and drinks about 12 crates of beer a week. Embarrassing. Tangent aside, as I sat and recovered I marveled at the diverse collection of beautiful people I now call friends. We sang happy birthday in 9 languages. Italian of course, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Belgian or was it Dutch?, English and Canadian, which is basically English happy birthday with a bunch of Eh's. Okay we may all be white and we are all aid workers in a remote place, but still a beautiful diverse posse who have made many sacrifices to try to help others. The evening gave me a small glimpse into heaven, where color, language, wealth and differences will have no meaning and where good byes don't exist.
This week I move from my posh 24 hour powered, hot shower filled, comfy couched 2 bedroom villa to a new team house with unfinished floors, no running water and electricity just 4 hours a day, at night. Farewell cold drinks, freezer full of bacon and hot showers after a morning run. It will be a bit of an adjustment to say the least. I'm packing today and tomorrow and thinking about how in just a few weeks, I will be packing for good. It's an emotional experience putting all of your things into a few bags and not knowing where you and your stuff is going to. I'm still excited to see where God sends me next but I know I will dearly miss my small ghetto town full of corruption, crap roads and animal and human poop everywhere. Moroto is a mysteriously captivating place and it has a large piece of my heart.
As we stuffed our faces with pizza and salami and cold beverages, I stepped back from the group and sat down on a comfy couch, partly because my legs were killing from our first ever Moroto Olympics held just hours before in which yours truly took a respectable silver. Irishman Cormac took the gold by edging me out by inches on the hammer toss and both the standing and running long jump. Ironic because I run 12 miles a week and he smokes 12 packs a week, and drinks about 12 crates of beer a week. Embarrassing. Tangent aside, as I sat and recovered I marveled at the diverse collection of beautiful people I now call friends. We sang happy birthday in 9 languages. Italian of course, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Belgian or was it Dutch?, English and Canadian, which is basically English happy birthday with a bunch of Eh's. Okay we may all be white and we are all aid workers in a remote place, but still a beautiful diverse posse who have made many sacrifices to try to help others. The evening gave me a small glimpse into heaven, where color, language, wealth and differences will have no meaning and where good byes don't exist.
This week I move from my posh 24 hour powered, hot shower filled, comfy couched 2 bedroom villa to a new team house with unfinished floors, no running water and electricity just 4 hours a day, at night. Farewell cold drinks, freezer full of bacon and hot showers after a morning run. It will be a bit of an adjustment to say the least. I'm packing today and tomorrow and thinking about how in just a few weeks, I will be packing for good. It's an emotional experience putting all of your things into a few bags and not knowing where you and your stuff is going to. I'm still excited to see where God sends me next but I know I will dearly miss my small ghetto town full of corruption, crap roads and animal and human poop everywhere. Moroto is a mysteriously captivating place and it has a large piece of my heart.
Wow, that's ridic- a pizza oven?!
ReplyDeleteThanks for differentiating that Canadians have a separate English haha
Where are you headed next?? Is someone else taking on NUSAF2?