Team Bill Gates

I taught the students at my school how to play Ultimate Frisbee.  They were a little hesitant at first and usually just ducked when the Frisbee came within 20 feet of them, but after a little while they seemed to enjoy tossing it around so I decided to turn it into a competition (which I do with most things in my life).  I explained to them the rules of ultimate Frisbee and had one of the boys who had played with another American explain the rules in their native tongue (you’re right, I don’t yet know how to say “You can only pivot on your leg” in Lugandan).  So we picked teams and went on our separate sides.  I decided that for team moral we should come up with a team name.  They were baffled for a good 2 minutes and then someone came up with the name “Bill Gates” and everyone agreed that it was a good name.  And so we were Team Bill Gates. I spent the first 10 minutes of the game laughing at our team name and once I got serious about playing and got the Frisbee in hand I realized that I had no clue which of the boys was on my team because they all have such similar features and were all wearing the same school athletics uniform.  So here I am in the middle of the soccer field screaming, “Team Bill Gates…. Where are you?  Which ones are you Bill Gates??”  That method proved to be fatal because all of the boys put their hands up and I inevitably tossed the Frisbee to the other team.  Drats.  So it was decided that the other team would be shirts and we would be skins, with the exception of myself of course. 45 minutes later we were down by 1 and there were only a few precious minutes of sunlight left so things started getting pretty hard core.  Diving was involved as well as some minor wrestling (What can you expect with a team full of 18 year old boys) but in the end Team Bill Gates was defeated. Sad day, but I guess there is always tomorrow night.

 

 

In case you are wondering, here is a list of things that you can carry on a single bicycle that only has one gear: (And by you I don’t actually mean you nor I, but I mean more specifically Ugandans)

• 45 three-litre jerry cans
• 5 small children (equivalent to 3 grown men)
• Exactly 8 crates full of 30 bottles of soda each
• 4 bushels of matooke weighing about 40 pounds a piece
• 50 pieces of sugar cane (put horizontally only as to impede the movement of anyone else on the road)
• A large piece of plywood with the following items stapled to it for sale: 5 pairs of womens underwear, 20 hats, 15 combs, 10 slips, 7 mirrors, 20 bags of hair ties, 50 handkerchiefs, 30 pairs of earrings, 40 clothes pins, 13 grocery bags, 4 large pieces of fabric, 2 mats, and some type of perishable food.

Also, if you live in Uganda you will unavoidably carry these things on your bike at least four times a week and you will do so up hills that I can barely run up.  Also, you will be moving faster than I am.

 

So, I am always pretty impressed when people have really cool party tricks (i.e. being double jointed, doing a backflip, etc.) and though I have tried desperately my entire life to come up with a really great one, I really don’t have much more than touching my tongue to my nose.  I haven’t introduced this one to Uganda yet and the only thing that I can attribute this to is the fact that I have a much cooler and freakier party trick that I can do here.  Sitting in front of a group of people I can get even more attention than I get for being white if I simply take out my contact.  Yes, taking out my contact is my party trick and I want to thank Moses for enlightening me to it.  I was sitting in my house with him the other day and had something in my eye.  I couldn’t get it out for the life of me so I just casually took out my contact.  (I might add that I am legally blind without my contacts in, which is necessary to know for the next part of the story.) All of the sudden he starts screaming, which provokes me to start screaming because not only is a grown man freaking out, but I can’t see what he is freaking out about.  Thousands of things are running through my mind: a rat just ran into my house, his truck is rolling down the hill, ants are attacking my dinner.  So I start screaming, “What, what, what is is?” And he continues to scream until he calms down and says, “You took part of your eye out!” I bust out laughing and he continues by saying, “Put it back, put it back!” and so I do.  I try to explain what contacts are and that they are not part of my eye but something to help me see better and after about 10 minutes of explanation he seems to understand the concept.  Then he proceeds by saying, “Take it out again.” Which I do, and then he commands me to put it back in, which I do as well.  This goes on until I say that it will hurt my eye if I continue to take my contacts in and out and so he seems content with this fact and the conversation moves on to something new.  The next day I am walking up to teach a class and I see Mose standing outside with some of the hired help from our college.  He calls me over and promptly says, “Take out your contact.”  This is precisely how it has become my party trick.  So I take it out, and all 5 of the people watching step away from me as though I will try and take their eyes out as well if they are standing too closely. I explain the concept of contacts to them as well, but they are confused and so I drop it.  But now I know, if I am ever somewhere where I feel lost or simply without words all I have to do is take out my contact I will have the best party trick in the room.