middle school retreat

Last week was a short week. Instead of spending Thursday and Friday in class, middle school students and teachers went on a one-night getaway to a hotel on Lake Victoria. It was great to get out of the city, enjoy the cool breezes off the lake, and spend time with students in a different context.

Some highlights:

• Getting my own room. Now, I love Ms. Sinclair, the math teacher, but we were both pleasantly surprised when, after arriving at the resort, rooms were bumped around and we suddenly found ourselves with two separate rooms. 
• Sleeping on real pillows, with real blankets, on a real double bed. At home in Kansanga, Isaac and I sleep on a "Ugandan double" which is really a generous twin-sized bed. Although we do have sheets, we use sleeping bags as blankets and we sleep on the camping pillows that came with our sleeping bags (about the size of a dinner plate).
• Devotions with my small group of grade 7 girls. I'm growing to love my grade 7 girls, and we had some interesting discussions about the two chapel sessions.
• Kids got saved! Instead of sticking to her notes for the first chapel session, the chaplain felt led to stray from her plans and ended up giving a salvation message. Our normally fidgeting middle school students became quiet, and soon you could hear muffled crying coming from various spots in the audience. Several kids gave their lives to the Lord for the very first time, and others renewed their commitment to surrender everything to Jesus [me included!] 
• The slip and slide. Soap, water, tarp, hill, bruises, grass stains. Typical middle school fun. 
• The meals. I personally enjoy the Ugandan style of serving several carbs at once. Potatoes, rice and pasta? I'm in! 
• The bonfire on the lake. S'mores in Uganda ... Yum! It was also fun watching some of the students who had never roasted marshmallows or tried s'mores take part in a great North American tradition for the first time. "I put the chocolate here?" "Yes, Dueng." "And the marshmallow is going here?" "Yes, Sanmaek." [They came back for seconds.] 
• Wearing a sweater. That felt good. 

We were scheduled to leave the resort at 4:30 on Friday. We herded the kids out of the pool, got changed, packed everybody up, collected keys, and dutifully checked under beds and in drawers for crumpled socks and missing hairbrushes. The entire middle school was packed with their luggage waiting at the side of the road by 4:25. 

... and still waiting at 4:45. 

... and still waiting at 5:00. 

... waiting until we eventually left at 8:30. 

Why, you ask? I'm not entirely sure. Buses were sent to the wrong places, the right buses (when finally put on their way) got stuck in Kampala Friday evening traffic. 

What I do know is that I waited for four hours with middle schoolers. You can imagine -- actually, you probably can't. Hair braiding, storytelling, re-lighting the camp fire, singing, skipping stones on the lake, playing cops and robbers ... It was a long four hours, let me tell you. For the most part the kids handled it really well, although one girl had a meltdown and started sobbing while several others shrugged and said, "Why don't we just stay another night?" 

The buses finally came. We piled on. We lurched out of the driveway, almost getting stuck. We were finally on our way; a caravan led by the chaplain's car, followed by two buses, rumbling into the African night. 

And then the bus lights in front of us were blinking. We were pulling over onto the side of the dirt street; we hadn't even reached the main road yet. 

The chaplain's vehicle had a flat tire. 

Half a dozen adults got out of the vehicles to try to help fix the problem. I stayed on my bus to supervise the students who were hopped up on the lollipops and chips we had given them in place of a proper supper. As the girls began to squawk out Justin Bieber songs and the boys began to scare each other by predicting that robbers would appear out of the tall African grass, I wondered what was taking so long. When the two other teachers finally returned to the bus, I found out. The car jack had broken, so it had taken men trying to lift the vehicle (heavy with luggage) and scraping away at the dirt beneath it to replace the tire. 

Finally, we were back on our way. We rolled into Heritage after 11:00pm, only about 5 hours behind schedule. 

TIA, right? 

This. is. Africa.