Fourth of July!! Part Two: Celebration

It turned out to be a good thing that we had knocked some beers back because the first thing that our Sudanese hosts insisted we do was sing the national anthem. They refused to eat until we sang it. Jerome (damn him) had a camera and took highly embarrassing photos of us. George, Neesha and I gathered as far back in the shadows as we could, and started to sing.
Lets put it this way. We sounded like a goat dying. None of us can sing. None of us can harmonize. None of us can, in any way, carry a tune. And we forgot the words about halfway through. And then i accidentally started back at the beginning, and had to just invent a line to get us back to the "spangles" part. And the high singing part was painful. I saw them wince, as they all stood with their hands over their hearts (or in most cases, beer over their hearts). George couldn't get high, Neesha compromised by whisper singing and I hit notes that I didn't know I could hit-but not in a good way. It was awful. But they sat through it. Because they are amazing.

It turned out to be very good that the Minister of Health didn't show up because she would have witnessed some very unprofessional things. Rex and Father Andrew didn't end up coming either but we had about 6-7 unexpected guests who stumbled into a party, and Florence showed up on the back of a motorcycle right around dinner time, so all in all it worked out well. The perfect amount of food. And an excess of burgers.

After highly embarrassing ourselves we all sat down to eat. I even convinced Lucy and Abigail to sit too! There was the silence of eating, interrupted periodically by loud shrieks from me and George (we were sitting under the light bulb under the trees so all the bugs were flying right into our hair). The chicken was a huge success (although the three of us avoided the neck piece). Then Tionas (one of the men who works here,who i have been calling Theodonous for a month) made everyone do introductions. We all had to stand up and say our name, where we were from, and how many children we had. (I threw in the last part to harass Jerome, but it was a good question-everyone seemed to have two "almost three") It was hilarious. George has nicknamed Neesha "Nous Nous-pronounced Noose noose) because it means half half in Arabic and he claims that she is Jerome and my love child, and thus half white, half black) So anytime Neesha attempted to get a real introduction in he would say NOUS NOUS!

I drove Father Amiyo's Prado over to the tents and we blasted the Ugandan Reggae and Phil Collins, and everyone started dancing after dinner. Neesha was a riot. She was dancing around like a clam digger, and kept challenging Jerome to a dance off. Jerome insisted he could only dance if he had Indian music, and we kept reminding him that he wasn't Indian, but his dancing only deteriorated throughout the night. At one point, he and Neesha went to go wash their hands and all of a sudden, from the direction of the bathroom, we hear a sound like a chicken in terror. Jerome claimed it was Neesha seeing a bug, but we all concluded that Jerome had seen a lizard and freaked out-a claim which was not disproved by the "lizard dance move" that Tionas did towards Jerome that caused him to disappear for a good ten minutes.

Soon enough, every single person was dancing. George and I did some special American moves (The Gone Fishing dance, the Shopping Cart dance (hey busi!), The Lawnmower, The Sprinkler, The Check Out, etc) and Neesha did anything you shouted at her (Dance like a Chinese person Neesha! to which she flitted around waving her arms in the air and shouting "RIBBONS. RIBBONS."(we had trouble understanding that one.) Dance like a Sudanese person Neesha! to which she very slowly shimmied her shoulders like Jerome and looked ridiculous (like Jerome))

Halfway through Father Ben showed up and gave us big hugs and twirled us around and Florence danced and Abby danced and Lucy took a shower, but then we made her dance too. Through all of this, more and more beer was being drunk (lots of "Horns of the Elephant"). This was around the time we poured diesel on the bonfire to make it bigger and then George and I posed with the rusty machete and then Father Amiyo insisted on taking a picture of us all standing behind the bonfire making muscles (Is there a tailor here because I am RIPPED-that kind of thing) and the bonfire obligingly looked big for about two minutes before sputtering out and dying.

At ten thirty the generator went off at Swiss Caritas so we turned on ours. We also killed the battery of Father Amiyo's car which I had predicted would happen, so I drove the Pajero over (nearly giving Jerome a heart attack), k-turned it on a termite hill, and drove it up so we could jump start the Prado. And then the music resumed! And we danced!
George wanted to find the fat from the beef and light it on fire and throw it in the air for fireworks but someone had cleverly hidden it from us.

Then George, Neesha, Jerome and I took four beers and went off to do "Team Bonding" which was pretty much playing that game (Moose?) where you clap your hands and everyone has an animal and a sound: (I was a mosquito, George was an elephant and made a spastic gesture/noise with his arm, Neesha was Jerome and was all talk and Jerome was ......something that I forget but that involved him making a really ridiculous drunk noise) and Never have I ever-ostensibly to make us stronger as a team. All it really did was make us hungover.

Then Father Amiyo showed up to tell us he was turning off the generator in ten minutes, so I dashed inside and took the worlds crappiest shower (just to get the dirt and dead chicken and raw beef off my body and to wash out the cuts I got from the thorns and chicken bones) and got into bed and passed out.

But then. At three am I woke up having to pee. I blearily stumbled to the bathroom. But because I was probably 75% asleep and pretty drunk, when I opened the door, I accidentally turned on the shower, covering myself with cold water. One would think this would have woken me up. But no. Soaking wet and totally startled, I ran OUT of the bathroom, outside, and peed under a tree. Not so successfully. And then I went back to sleep. And when I woke up, I was really confused as to why I was so wet.

Jerome woke me up early (because he is mean) and so I had tea and peanut butter and then he made me help him wash the car (worst. hangover. cure. ever.) and then I got disheartened because I was very wet but accomplishing nothing except making the car MORE muddy, so i took a shower and went back to sleep.

The End. Happy belated Fourth of July!!