Rubanga kene

July 18th, 2010. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda, Students. No Comments.

Check out this video from Pros for Africa. These guys came out in March of this year and we spent a good part of a week with them. This video features several shots of our students dancing, singing, playing football, drilling wells etc. There might be a quick shot of me in there too.. All the kids in blue uniforms are from Restore!!

Pros for Africa News 9 Special from Derek Watson on Vimeo.

Oh! Set Me Free

April 20th, 2010. Published under Fun Stuff, Students. 1 Comment.

We have some talented musicians at the school.  Last year Brandon Heath, the Dove Award Male Vocalist of the year, came out with Bob for a visit.  We had several of our students learn a few of his songs beforehand, and then we did a recording with him.  Maybe one day in the future we’ll be able to hear those songs on the radio!

Students learning Brandon's song "Give me your eyes" last year

More recently, I overheard our students singing a beautiful song I’d never heard before.  I asked one where it came from and she told me she wrote it.  She is one of four sisters who attend Restore.  They live about 2 hours away in Lira, but the oldest was part of Cornerstone’s Youth Corps home here in Gulu and we took her to Restore.  The other three soon followed.  They are four of six daughters, all being raised by their mother.  Their father ran out on their mother a few years ago, leaving her to look after all six.  Back in the day for church their pastor wanted the children to present a song.  So this one girl went home and wrote one out.  Turned out to be a hit.  She’s since written several songs, all of them equally beautiful.

Over Easter weekend they all came to the Youth Corps Home and I decided to record the sisters singing their song.  So here it is in one Garage Band take,

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Hope you enjoy!  And plan on hearing more from where this came from.  We hope to do a legit recording of students in the future, many of them are incredibly gifted musicians!

Mark Cuban in Africa

April 4th, 2010. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda. 2 Comments.

But I’m finding myself in his shoes.  Here in Gulu, I’m kinda like the Mark Cuban of secondary school football (soccer).  We have some legit athletes in our school and have amazing boys and girls football teams.  I go to as many games as I can, sit with all the players, teachers and students, complain to the refs, yell, cheer etc.  I find my competitive athletic nature come out as I spectate.  I’m hurt if we lose, excited if we win, concerned if a key player is hurt or if we played poorly etc.  I take offense when the refs are biased (which happens a lot here, we’ve experienced both sides of the biasy and its never fun).  But being the only white guy around, I stick out.  Everyone at the games know I’m with Restore.  No other head teacher, school director or teachers go to the games and sit with the students and cheer.  They sit in the shade somewhere and watch from afar.  But we do.  We’d rather be with the players and students.     

Recently we played in the annual district football tournament.  The school that wins for each district get to represent the district at the national tournament.  Amuru is so poorly developed that the norm here is to stack your team with as many outsiders as you think you can get away with.  AKA mercenaries.  Anyone who you think can pass as a high school student.  Make them a school ID, forge their documents and have them play for your team.  The team that won the district last year had half of their team disqualified at nationals for being mercenaries.  That same team had guys as old as 27 playing against teenagers this year.  We know because our teachers went to highschool with some of the other team’s players.  But we took a hard stance on this and would not allow a single outsider play for us.  Each player had to be a current student.  We wanted to make a point that winning wasn’t everything, but being honest and playing by the rules was the best way.  If we lost, as least we lost knowing we played fair.  I prayed so hard that God would reward us for playing fairly!    

 And he did.  Both our girls and boys won the district tournament!!!  In style too, the girls didn’t allow a single goal in three games and the boys allowed 2 goals in four games, both of them on penalty kicks!  Combined the two teams outscored their opponents 19-2.  The other schools had some more talented mercenaries than our players, but we came with a team.  They had been playing together and collectively were much better because of it.  One opposing coach who was very frustrated asked how we could represent the district, being only two years old.  Representing the district was only for the big, established schools with 1000+ students, not us with just over 200.  That same coach by the way is the one who had half his team DQ’d for being mercenaries last year   So now our students are preparing for exams and then for the national tournament at the end of the month.  The boys will travel to southern Uganda and the girls tournament is here in Gulu.  For most of these boys it will be their first time out of the Gulu/Amuru area.  

RLA girl footballers before the finals

Corner kick during girls championship game

RLA championship footballers after girls game

Beckham being carried off field after semis

Praying over the boys before the finals

Striker Beckham during championship game

Me and my gang

October 17th, 2009. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda. No Comments.

I’m in a gang. A bike gang to be exact. We’re not so much a gang though, really. Its more just a bunch of guys who are getting into dirt bikes and planning an epic adventure around East Africa.

So here’s the deal. In lieu of spending a bunch of money and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, something everyone here wants to do, a few friends decided to buy dirt bikes and take a trip over Christmas. One of them, Eric, sent an email, trying to talk me into it.  It read, “We will break down a lot. We won’t know what to do. We will get lost. We will screw things up. We will figure things out somehow… it will be awesome.” I was quickly convinced to join.

I was convinced, but it actually took me some time to agree. You see, I had already promised the parents that I’d be home for Christmas. I desire to be a man of my word so I hated the thought of telling them I wasn’t coming home. But this is a once in a lifetime experience. Well, now that I think about it, hopefully it won’t be a once in a lifetime thing. I’m hoping when all is said and done this is in my top 20 life experiences, but for now it definitely has the potential to be in the top 2 or 3 for my life so far. But secondly, I’m a pretty injury prone guy. A few friends who know me well, upon hearing our plans, basically told me this was the craziest idea for the most injury prone guy they knew. Haha. But to ease things over with my parents I came home for a quick trip right now and got a bunch of safety gear in case of an accident. Boom, problems solved.

But I’m doing it. And right after deciding to officially do it, a beautiful bike came into my life. My buddy Jared, after buying his bike, was riding through town and saw his bike’s twin parked on the side of the road.  He stopped, found the owner and asked if he’d be willing to sell.  He said yes. Two days later I owned it.  I like to call her Veronica. A mechanic I know called her, “The best bike I’ve seen in Gulu” which might not mean a lot, but it does to me.  So I bought it and am trying to learn to ride it.. and how to repair it.

What excites me most about this trip is that we’re doing it together. Its the group of guys I’m “doing life” with, walking, learning, struggling and sharing experiences with in Uganda. It won’t be easy, we will get hurt, lost, in trouble etc. But we’ll be doing it together, striving towards the same goal of a) surviving and b) creating a memory and a story worth telling.

So here’s the route: Leave Kampala around December 13th, head to eastern Uganda and go over Mount Elgon into Kenya. Beautiful. Then head to Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya, and stay in a beach house with Eric’s family who will be there the week before Christmas. Classy. Then down the coast of Kenya into Tanzania and put the bikes on boats and hang out in Zanzibar for a few days. Awesome. Then back to the mainland, and down across Tanzania to Lake Malawi. Legendary. Spend a few days on the lake, then start the journey north, stopping at Lake Tanganyikain Burundi, seeing friends in Rwanda, then back to Uganda, about a month after leaving.

Epic.

PS I tried and failed at posting pictures of all of us, the bikes etc.  So here’s a link to all my pictures from this year

You know you’ve been in Uganda a long time when…

April 14th, 2009. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda. 4 Comments.

This was forwarded to me, makes me laugh at how true it is…

…driving, you find yourself using your turn signals as means of
communication….’the road is too thin’, ‘don’t overtake (pass me)
there is a BUS coming’, ‘No I’m NOT going to turn here’, ‘traffic police are ahead!’

…you no longer get annoyed when people lie to you and make promises
they can’t possibly keep

…seeing someone speeding towards you in the wrong lane seems completely normal

…Your phone rings and it is a wrong number and you can keep the Hello?
Hello? Hello? Hello’s going back and forth like a tennis match until
eventually the caller realises you are the wrong number and abruptly
hangs up, after spending at least 2 minutes worth of airtime!

…You find yourself pointing with your lips and saying “yes” by raising
both eyebrows.

…You can masterfully employ a variety of “Eh!” and “Eh eh!” noises to
convey a range of meanings

…You know “Come back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.” means whatever you’re
trying to get done is NEVER going to happen

…You start using the words “even” and “ever” in places you never would
have (“Even me, I’m feeling hungry,” or “I have ever done that”)

…You start referring to people as “this one” or “that one”

…You know you’ve what? been in Uganda a long time….when you what?
Start each sentence as a question and proceed to what? Answer it
yourself!

…someone asks you “How is there?” You reply “It is there…

…You willingly drive into oncoming traffic just to avoid the potholes

…A car isn’t full unless it has at least 7 people in it

…you can speak Uganglish so well that – you talk with a Ugandan
accent; use words like ’shocked,’ ‘fearing,’ ‘extend,’ ‘balance,’
‘’somehow,’ ‘even me,’ and ‘can you imagine’ and ‘are you sure?’ far
too often…

…someone “flashes” your phone you just flash them back and wait for
them to flash you back and then you flash them back and then they
flash you back and….

…you keep a jerry can full of water around, just in case…

…you feel exposed without bars on your windows

…When you come back from being out of the country and conversations go as:
Them: “you have been lost!!” and your response: “I have been found!”
Them: “how is there?” and you: “there is fine!”
Them: “you have gone fat!!!” and you are lost for words cause you are
not used to be told so with such frankness!!

…You emphasize how you like something and they say: “Are you sure?”

…you are asked how you are and your response is: “Me I am fine, how are you?”

…you end the conversation with “ok please!”

…your knees ache from squatting over a long drop 4 times a day as a
result of a parasite living in your intestines

…it’s 80 degrees outside and there are people wearing jackets and beanies

…You ask for someone, and you know the answer “He’s within” means
everything from “He’s within the building” to “He’s within the city”
or even “He’s within the country”.

….you refer to others as ‘you people’ and don’t intend to be rude

…you start sentences with ‘As for me, I ….’

…you stop using those little ‘off’ or ‘up’ bits of verbs. You pick
people. And you drop them.

…you get ‘Fine’ as a reply to your ‘hello’.

…’nownow’ means sometime soon, possibly in the next day or two,
whereas ‘now’ means anytime in the next month.

….’moving’ becomes ’shifting’ (but you move with people rather than
hang out with them)

…you stand in a line and feel something is very wrong because it is
orderly and the person behind you respects your personal space…

…”ok” punctuates,modifies, tags and answers almost every sentence.

…”Bambi”, said with that humble look, becomes your standard expression
of sympathy.

…you use the term “just there” to mean on the other side of the city

…”first let me come” or “first wait” makes perfect sense to you

…at the end of a meeting, people say, “Ok Please” as opposed to good
bye or have a nice one.

…your stories always have an “eh?” to make sure the people are listening

…you say SORRY! when someone hurts themselves through no fault of yours

…you call white people “muzungu” and forget that you yourself are white….

…you go to a restaurant and order something off the menu and the
waiter/waitress looks you right in the eye and says “We don’t have
that one”

…walking by a uniformed officer carrying an assault rifle is completely normal

…Clothes becomes a two-syllable word. Clo – thes.

…You know the man asking for Lose actually refers to Rose.  And when
someone says “let’s play” you should stay seated.

…you don’t get confused even though the person you’re talking to keeps
mixing up ‘he’ and ’she’ in the same sentence talking about the same
person.

…you are reluctant to let go of a new, CLEAN 1000 shilling note.

…your home does not have an address.

…your handshakes last an entire conversation

…next to a public phone at the bottom of the call cost there is a
charge for beeping

…marriage proposals become a normal and almost expected thing from strangers.

…you have time to grab lunch while the bank teller cashes your check.

…you stop noticing how ugly marabou storks actually are

…you think the taxi you’re about to enter is too full but the
conductor will squeeze you in and let you sit where he was sitting but
then he will be standing over you with his bad body odor.

…You have 9 x 10,000UGX bills and you wrap the 10th one around it and
put it in your wallet.

…being given a “push” has nothing to do with “push and shove”, but
being escorted to your car after a visit….

…You lie on the phone that you are about to arrive for a meeting…yet
you’ve not yet left you’re home, forgetting that someone can do the
mathematics and be able to tell that you lied!

…You have constant power supply at your house for a week. It leaves u
thinking Umeme is not doing its work rite. Supplying darkness instead
of light.

…people walk into your house and you say “You are all most welcome!”

…you are making a verbal list and trail off saying “what, what..”

…you start calling inanimate objects “stubborn” when they don’t work well

…you always use your big notes despite the fact that you have the exact change.

…you think “eh” in a high pitch tone is the correct way to respond
when a boda drivers price suggestion is too high.

…umbrellas are not for rain but for the shunshine

Prayer breakfast

February 10th, 2009. Published under Fun Stuff, religion. No Comments.

Last week I was in DC for the national prayer breakfast. Any words of mine cannot do justice to what this week was like, but I’ll try.

I have been blessed to have a guy like Bob invest in me and encourage me to go to DC for this. I was able to spend most of the beginning of the week with him and a few others, running around meeting people. For Bob it was meeting friends that he already knew, but new friends for me. I met ambassadors, businessmen, politicians and average Joes like me from all over the world, from Sri Lanka to Lebanon to Benin to Kazakhstan and many, many more. What was so great about everyone here attending the prayer breakfast is this: you are instant friends with whoever you meet. The whole spirit surrounding everyone there is indescribable. Virtually every conversation is centered on Jesus. For politicians, politics usually gets thrown out the door. I saw between Bob and these friends a deep friendship, most of which started with Bob just calling them and saying “Hey I’m some dude from San Diego and I want to meet you.” Sounds weird right? But he did it, and now is incredible friends with people from all over. And its not like he’s friends because he wants something out of them, more of the opposite. With every single one of them, he is discussing ways he can help them, not vice versa. And every single one of them he is being an instrument to point them to Jesus. Many of the people I met were Christians, but several were Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or non-believers. But all of them had had some encounter with Jesus or were experiencing Jesus through the likes of Bob and other friends.

One of the cool things too was that once I met someone, if I saw them later in the day or week, it was like we were old friends. Through the friends I met I learned a great deal about other cultures and religions. For example, through some friends from Sri Lanka I got to see, through two different generations’ viewpoints, their thoughts on topics like Muslim extremists and arranged marriages. It was quite funny hearing a girl my age ask her parents, jokingly, how many goats or cows she was worth to them for her dowry. But with religion, both were simply outraged at what is going on and disgusted with the fundamentalists. Both the kids and their parents talked about how hard it has been for them though in the West. They are prejudiced against from both sides, from many Christians for being Muslim and the general clumping of all Muslims into the extreme suicide bombing category… and from extremists (supposedly about 10% of all Muslims) who are attacking everyone. The two my age talked about old high school friends they saw who are now extremists and how weird it was for them.

Anyways, the week was incredible. Obama and Tony Blair spoke at the actual breakfast; both gave really good speeches.

Note that this was not a “Christian” gathering. There were people from all sorts of religions, but the focus of the whole week was to put aside out religious differences and look at Jesus and his life. Every religion can accept Jesus and what he taught. They may not accept that he is truly the way truth and life, but just looking at his life is the beginning of the conversation. You can’t become friends with someone by telling them from the start that they are wrong… I met several people, from different religions, who bumped into Jesus through friends and heard how it had changed their lives. Its just so cool seeing how focusing on something that unites us can transcend our differences and bring peace and reconciliation to people from all over the world.

Slumdog Millionaire

February 10th, 2009. Published under Fun Stuff. No Comments.

Go watch it.  This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. It is very entertaining, but tells the story that is true for over millions and millions of people in our world.

Basketball Gulu style

October 25th, 2008. Published under Fun Stuff, Life in Uganda, TIA. No Comments.

Ever heard of a “professional” basketball game getting rained out?  Neither have I.  But that’s exactly what should have happened today.  I’ve been playing with the Gulu Hawks, a team in the Federation of Uganda Basketball Association, or FUBA.  Every game I’ve played thus far has been outdoors on sketchy courts.  There are mini potholes on the courts, one rim might be six inches or a full foot shorter than the other, or the rim is slanted 30 degrees to the side.  This actually describes our court in Gulu to the T.

So today we had a game.  At the start of the game, everyone could tell a storm was brewing.  Lightning was flashing in the distance, the wind was picking up and the sky was growing dark.  Luckily it didn’t start raining until halftime, when it came down in buckets.  There was an abandoned building not too far away from the courts, so players, refs and fans all ran inside to take cover and wait out the storm.  It was actually fun, just joking around with guys from our team and the other team and getting to know some “fans.”

I should mention we do have a loyal support group of fans… that always show up drunk and harass the other team or referees.  Its pretty sad and embarrassing, but they are hilarious when not trying to intimidate others.  Today was no different, they actually brought a case of like 24 beers for the few of them.  They were in a jovial mood today though and our halftime show involved them debating members of the opposing team about Jesus and drunkenness.  It was hilarious and luckily everyone stayed friendly throughout.

Anyways, after about an hour of waiting in this abandoned house, the lightning and torrential downpour had passed, but it was still raining.  People slowly came outside and stood in the rain, then made their way back to the court.  The court literally had to be drained by digging miniature canals to divert water and once the small lakes were cleared the second half began.  In the rain.  The entire second half was played in increasingly harder rain on a very slippery court.  At one point, standing there soaking wet, I literally pinched myself and remember thinking, “Is this a dream?!  Am I really playing “professional” basketball, in Uganda, in the rain, on a court like this?” 

I have to admit, I’m a pretty lucky guy. 

Rwanda/Burundi

September 11th, 2008. Published under Fun Stuff, New Countries, TIA. No Comments.

I just got back from a week in Rwanda/Burundi visiting friends and meeting new ones.  I went with my buddy Kyle who is out visiting and four other friends from here.  We started the trip off with a bang… karaoke with like 15 friends followed by a 3 am bus ride.  Below or some notes I took along the way:

Sept 6th:  Drove from Kigali, Rwanda to Bujumbura, Burundi today.  Craziest drive of my life.  We barely got seats on the bus, the worst ones in the very back.  The road was great compared to Uganda in terms of potholes… but it was windy and very hilly.  We were screaming around blind, hairpin turns, the bus rocking left to right at each turn and the wheels screeching.  I honestly thought we were going to tip over and fall the hundreds of feet down the side of the mountain to our death.  It was by far the scariest bus ride I’ve ever taken.  And thats saying alot, because most people say the Gulu-Kampala is the worst.  Oh, and we blew a tire on the way up the mountain… then blew the spare on the way down.  Blowing the spare we didn’t even flinch.  Just kept on driving, because there was no other spare.  It was keep driving or sit and wait, and our driver wanted to be finished.  So we kept right on going, kareeming down the mountain like we had nothing to lose.  Now we’re in Buj.  This place is weird, like a ghost town.  Tonight there were hardly anyone on the streets, even in the late afternoon when we got here.  It almost has the feel of an old western movie, like when everyone closes up shop and leaves town when the bad guys show up.  A little eery.

Sept 8th: Left Buj.  Wasn’t as bad as we first thought.  Hung out and relaxed at a beach on Lake Tanganyika.  Saw some amazing tribal dancers/drummers at the beach.  Burundi is definitely not a tourist destination.  Eric thought we were possibly the only foreign people in the country not there for work.  The country has really only been safe for about 2 months.  They’ve had a civil war for the last 15 years or so, stemming from the Rwanda genocide.  So what happened in Rwanda happened on a much smaller scale here… but went on for over a decade, killing 2-3 times more people.  Thats why it feels like a ghost town/country… it practically is.  On the bus back up to Kigali to hang out.  Eric stayed behind to get work done on a potential youth corp home here.  This bus driver goes slow, we’re loving him.  Not too scared of death today. 

September 10th: Left Kigali, back on a bus for Kampala.  Was able to relax and spend time in Kigali with friends, just talking and hanging out.  Then back on the bus to Kampala @ 6am.  Pretty horrible drive.  Even worse for Kyle, who’s having stomach trouble.  We just calculated that after Friday, when we drive back up to Gulu, we’ll have gone on 6 bus rides in 10 days, a total of 48 hours on a bus… not fun.  The bus rides zap any and all life out of you.  Side note, neither Kyle or I fit in the seats, so we both sit sideways at like a 45 degree angle… for 10 hours.  It does wonders for your back, try it sometime.

Overall, the trip definitely wasn’t a relaxing vacation… but it was fun seeing friends and hanging out in two incredibly beautiful countries. 

Arusha Jesus Reunion

July 24th, 2008. Published under Fun Stuff, New Countries, TIA, religion, thoughts and questions. 1 Comment.

I just got back from a conference in Tanzania called the Jesus Reunion.  It was a conference put on partly by Cornerstone here in Uganda and the guys behind the national prayer breakfast movement.  In short, the conference was amazing, I’d never been to anything like it.  People from all sorts of backgrounds and faiths were there to focus on what unites us, Jesus.  The theme was to think, talk, act and love like Jesus.  Every session, speaker and small group surrounded this focus on Jesus.  I can’t really put to words the thoughts and feelings I had throughout the week, but it was life changing.  Everyone there was considered to be a part of this “family of friends” and treated everyone like family, thus the reason for it being called a reunion.

The godly advice and leadership that is being exemplified by so many around the world was mind-boggling.  To steal from one of the speakers, I’ve seen first hand the liberating power of “doing unto others what we would want others to do unto us.” 

A few things I wrote down that I thought were noteworthy:

• Regarding Matthew 6:5-13, the passage where Jesus teaches us how to pray:  He says we are to pray “our Father” and not my father.  We are a family and Jesus was teaching us to behave and act like one.  “Ubuntu” which means, “I am because we are.”
• About the “Jesus Movement” of bringing the focus back to Jesus and his life instead of promoting “Christianity” or certain denominations: A few of the main points were that: It’s a focus on Jesus as the common ground, It’s a revolution of love that works across all that is dividing humanity, It’s a call for personal transformation, Its about faith for a better world, A focus on the essentials: love God & love your neighbor as yourself, And reach out to leaders, but only have one Leader that you give your life to.
• The last point that Doug Coe, the main guy said to the group was pretty cool.  He said the two things:  First, that on his tombstone he would hope people would say, “Here loves Doug Coe, a man who loved Jesus with his whole heart.”  The second point was to challenge us all “Don’t be led by men.  Follow only Jesus with your whole heart and let the Holy Spirit guide you.”

Each afternoon there were breakout sessions and the one I went to each day was on leadership academies.  The guys from Cornerstone led it and talked about the schools they have and about our school.  I never really saw how revolutionary these schools are until meeting people from all over Africa who desire to have something like it in their country.  Its unheard of here to have a school founded on love and grace, a place where students aren’t afraid to approach their teachers.  It gave me a new and fresh vigor to continue helping Restore Academy grow and become just what I described.