Uganda Independence day…my gmail session at a local internet café interrupted when the power went out. I think these are official government power grid roving blackouts, and they are completely arbitrary and unscheduled. Some of the university students at the school said millions of hours of homework and term papers have been lost through these power blackouts. My timeless prose of yesterday can never be retrieved, but here’s what happened on Independence day: nothing.

Jimmy said he thought they might have an independence day celebration at one o’clock and assemble all the kids and sing the national anthem. About 50 children live there at the school. These are mostly orphans and rescued children of some sort or other.

But the independence day cel. Never happened. Jimmy wasn’t too enthusiastic about it anyway. Because he sees it as backing the government, and Jimmy’s in the DP, an opposition party.

Around noon, Jimmy and I walked down to Hoima Road and finally found an electrical adapter I could use so I could re-charge my computer batteries. Actually its very handy…a four slot power strip that accepts every plug configuration known to man. The power was off, but they turned on the generator so I could charge my computer and I hung out with the children for the rest of the afternoon showing them my pictures on the computer.

Later, Irene and Andrew, one of the younger staff drove into Kampala to go to the national trade fair where zillions of average Ugandans jammed into the fairgrounds to see huge displays of Uganda-made dish pans, clothing shoes, housewares and food, and German-made machine tools. In the evening we watched some of the speeches from the big-wig independence day cel. Then we watched Venezuelan soap operas with dubbed English sound track. These are extremely over-acted and melodramatic, and everybody thinks they are hysterically funny. For supper we had pea soup, roasted banana, pumpkin, and cassava, and for tea they handed me a huge plate of raw sugar cane which I’d never had before. It’s just like stuffing refined white sugar into your mouth and chewing. We could get the Internet here at the school for $350 installation + $50 a month. I’m thinking of financing that because I think it’s the only way I’m going to have reliable internet service for posting pictures and big sound files.

They’re asking me to teach a guitar playing class. This seems highly impractical, since there is only one guitar, and I’m one of the least qualified people in the world to teach other people how to play the guitar. but I'm thinking of developing it into a singing and public speaking class, and maybe produce a radio play or something.