Pearls from Africa: Happy Birthday, America

Happy 4th of July from Bukinda!

It seems strange that a year has gone by since our Fourth of July party that we hosted last year, with our Ugandan neighbors at the PTC. This year I had vowed to have a proper celebration with the teachers at my school. My counterpart Bright suggested we make it a little more local by serving African milk tea (black tea in hot milk) rather than iced tea (minus the ice…). So we had homemade banana bread, cookies, milk tea and boiled sweet potatoes for our party. It was America's birthday in a Uganda-meets-USA style.

I wrote the lyrics to the national anthem on the blackboard so the teachers could follow along, asking questions like "What does 'ramparts' mean?" to which I replied, "No idea!" My favorite part of the party though was when we got everyone up and dancing to American music like "Twist and Shout" and "Born in the USA." I showed the teachers how to "do the twist" and swing dance. We had fun mixing local Bakiga-style dancing with some rockin' moves to old 60s American music. After the party with the teachers, I hightailed it down to Kisoro, where we would celebrate Independence Day with a few fellow PCVs and Ugandan friends. We had a big barbecue at Lake Mutanda, hosted by Sheba. We had a proper grill (made out of an oil drum) to make burgers and franks, chopped up some local potatoes and celery to make potato salad, and pasta salad. We were joined by a few Ugandan friends, Max's guys in the workshop from Rwanda and a few PCVs visiting Kisoro for the first time. We had a dance party to American and Ugandan music, a drumming circle around a big bonfire and some local dancing.

All we were missing were the fireworks!