...do I know you?...

A new school year has begun.  Now that I am starting my sixth year at this school, I see family resemblances all over the place.  There are some last names that are omnipresent, so I am never quite sure if  the new students before me are indeed related to their namesakes of the past or not.  Being the youngest of four, I understand that you don't exactly want your teachers to connect you with siblings the first time they meet you.  So, I try to be sensitive to that...yet I really want to know who is related to who.  The main reason is because I don't want to be the teacher in the dark five months down the road who is just putting two-and-two together.

So, last week I was talking with a student with a very common last name.  Not only is it common in our general population, but it is also very popular in this particular school.  (I'm about to use completely different names than the actual people discussed, so don't worry about me using students' actual identities.)

I noticed that Bobby Smith (remember, this is not his real name) was somehow reminding me of other Smiths I'd had, but I couldn't quite decide which ones.  Now, of course to add to the confusion, most Smiths in this town are cousins, if not siblings.  So, I simply asked, Hey Bobby, are you connected to any other Smiths I know?

Bobby:  Yeah, Johnny & Billy  [note Johnny & Billy are cousins, so this doesn't actually clear things up too much] and all the other Smiths they are connected to.

You know, that's right.  Don't bother to identify all of your relations, nor how they are related.  Just throw out a couple names and make a general association.

Thanks man, that really cleared things up for me.

...they're ba-aack...

Well, the new school year has officially started....Here's hoping this year's batch of students are just as funny as last year's.

...a typical afternoon in the hills of Uganda...

So, I was reading through my journal from Uganda last night, and I was reminded of a story I wrote down for the sake of blogging....but I didn't have internet access at the time.

Linda, Hayley, and I were in a small village of the southwest region of Uganda.  Linda was busy with her sewing students, and Hayley and I were busy, well, socializing.

One of the students at the school pulled a mattress out of the dormitory for us to lounge on in a shady spot on the hill.  As we were lying there, chatting away, all of a sudden Hayley said, A cow is eating that sweater!  She pointed about 15 feet away where some laundry was drying on small bushes.  Sure enough, a young cow had a sweater in her mouth.

The student looked up, then quietly, almost lethargically said, That's mine.  No exclamation included.  She stood up slowly, and as she walked towards the culprit, she simply added, It was a gift.  I'm still not sure why she explained that to us...or maybe it was directed towards the cow, to let her know why eating it was so inappropriate...Anyway, on her way to rescue this sweater, in a very faint, yet annoyed voice, she said to the cow, go away.


I'm not sure the humor of the moment comes through too clearly without actually hearing her sweet, Uganda voice tell the cow not to eat her clothing.  I mean, her tone almost sounded disappointed.

Imagine a young child about to take a pacifier away from his baby sister.  In anticipation of the screams that will result, you quietly, almost desperately say, please don't do it.  That's the tone I heard as she walked towards the cow and said, go away.

Well, I guess it worked.  The cow walked away, and the sweater had no evidence of having been an appetizer.  Good thing it didn't make a trip through that cow's four stomachs.

This isn't the cow....but you get the idea.  I mean, you've seen cows before.

But this one IS Ugandan, and from the same village as the cow in question.

...laundry...

I came home from Africa to find that my washing machine isn't working.

Wait, that isn't funny at all.