Rhino's and stuff

Sunday, July 20th 2008 7:10pm into Monday afternoon

Wow, long weekend. Not long in the sense of time passing slowly, but long meaning I have to motivate myself to sit here on the couch at Christ the King and try to remember everything that happened this weekend. When I get behind on a day or two of journaling it almost loses its luster and becomes a chore. What I want to do right now is sleep. I want to lie down, right here on this couch, kick my muddy crocs off, rub my muddy ankles all over the cushions until I get comfortable, and pass out. It was a really wet weekend.

Friday morning started out as a mystery. Alice and I were supposed to teach class at 9:50, but since I couldn’t get in touch with her on Thursday, I wasn’t sure what time she was going to pick me up. I text her in the morning, thinking we would go to school around nine, but I got ready early just in case. Needless to say, after texting and calling her, I didn’t hear from her at all, nothing. I have to admit, I kind of felt like that one time I got stood up on a date, just standing there, ready to go, forever. I kept calling Matt who was already at school, and Alice never showed up there either. To be honest I’m starting to get very worried about her. Her ex-husband is a lunatic, and things have been getting more and more intense with him lately, which makes me worried that he may have tried to do something to her. At that moment though, Friday morning, instead of repeated phone calls to Alice, I decided to go into town with the girls who were home instead. Bri, Jo, Wendy and I went into town and split up at first, with Wendy and I going to Ma’s for the Internet and Bri and Jo going to the supermarket and then another Internet café. I was able to check some e-mail and look at the news, which was great, because I’m not too caught up on what’s going on with Obama and the election, and I wanted to do some more research on the situation in Darfur.

Friday night the IC group came over to Christ the King for a change and we discussed our last article that we had to read. It’s so interesting hearing everyone’s thoughts on the research that we have been doing. I feel like I’m truly blessed to be in such an intellectual group, and listening to their different perspectives is really opening my eyes to new things. Last week I went to dinner at Wendy’s teacher’s house, and the conversation I had about faith there with Ashleigh and Matt was really eye opening. They were so wonderful about answering all of the questions that I had, and after speaking with them I kind of discovered that I have more belief (in what I don’t know) than I thought I did. I am so thankful for the people I have been placed with, and especially how loving they are.

After the article discussion we played a mean game of flip cup with Bell Beer and Nile Special’s, right at Christ the King! It was the Christ the King residents versus the IC house kids, and I think overall it was a tie. It was so nice to kick back and be irresponsible for a few hours!

Saturday morning we arrived at the IC house at 9am while the Schools-4-School’s winners were leaving. I stole a Chipati Burrito from the kitchen (their food is SO much better than ours) and we got in the car for the three hour ride to the Rhino Sanctuary. A few of us in the back had a 2,000 shilling pool to see who could guess the closest to what time we would get there and even though I factored in Ugandan time, I as so off. Jen guessed an hour and a half later than we thought and she totally won. Not everyone in the Mutatu was keen on us “gambling”, but I’m also not too keen on looking down upon a little fun. A self-righteous attitude is enough to make me a little annoyed. For the record, that pool made the car ride much more fun!

The Rhino Sanctuary was operated by a woman who seemed to be from the Netherlands (and not too friendly), but the meal we had when we arrived was amazing! It was kind of like a Sheppherd’s Pie, with CHEESE on top, enough to make me drool a little bit the whole time I as eating it. We ate lunch in a huge downpour though, so we had to wait a while before we actually could go searching for Rhino’s in the bush.

The mutatus drove us in when it wasn’t pouring too much, and after a short trip we came upon 5 Rhino’s in the middle of nowhere. They were bred in captivity and flown from Florida to Uganda to live on 7,000 square kilometers of protected space. Imagine being at the zoo with no fence, 20 feet away from 5 of the biggest animals you have ever seen in real life. At one point I was so close to a Rhino that I was frozen, not really sure what to do, but completely fascinated, until the tracking official was able to shoo it away from me. I got some incredible pictures, and Kyle made a ridiculous video that made me laugh so hard I wanted to pee myself, which to be honest wouldn’t have grossed me out after the past 5 weeks here!

Kyle, Sarah and I shared a room, and that night I had one of the most open conversations of my life. I listened to both of their life stories, and they wanted to know about mine. That’s one thing about this group of people, especially Kyle and Sarah, for every story they tell they want to know something about me. It’s different and nice to be given such a liberating forum to open up so much about myself, and therapeutic I think at the same time. I spoke to them at length about my mom and my family and how many emotional issues I have because of it. My inability to become attached or too emotional about things, how much commitment freaks me out, and how scared I am that I won’t be able to get past those things. Sometimes I truly believe that my mom’s broken heart is what caused most of her pain, and I just refuse to go through that myself, at least not now. I hope, however, that being open about these issues now will help me overcome them. I’ve kept so much inside for so long that I may be ready to address some of those things when I get back. In the conversation about faith that I had with Ashleigh and Matt they spoke to me about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. I have forgiven many things that happened during my mom’s illness, but I haven’t reconciled any of them. I think one day soon I’ll be able to do that, and right now I’m proud of myself for being able to recognize it.

I picked up another book on the way to that trip, and so far I am on my third. I have progressively moved my way from light reading to a Vietnam War veteran’s book of historical fiction, and if I can finish that before I leave I’ll feel so accomplished. I started with Bringing Down the House, a book about the MIT card counting team that was a quick read but incredibly entertaining. I moved from that to Diary by Chuck Palahniuk, which is an author that I love but it was not my favorite work by him (nothing beats Choke). Right now I am reading The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, which actually made me shed a tear today in the staff room of St. Mary’s.

I also witnessed one of the most brutal acts of violence that I have seen since I have been here, today in that staffroom, but I haven’t fully digested it yet, or dealt with it. 

I’m off tomorrow, I’ll write more then..


Fabien’s B-day July 25th!