The Last Lesson

Today’s lesson marked the end of the basic business class in the village of Mpummede and boy did it give me something to remember it by! To start off with, eight women showed up for class and we started the closest we’ve ever been to on time since I got here two months ago. Then, one of the women (whom I had never seen before but later found out was a relative of one of the regular students) reminded me so much of one of my friends I met back in Idaho it was uncanny! Thinking about it a bit more now that may be interpreted as a bad thing, seeing as the friend I’m reminded of is a boy and she is a girl. That’s not to say that she looks especially masculine or he particularly feminine - it’s the facial characteristics that are similar. Anywho, I kept stealing glances at her throughout the whole class, not fully being able to get over the shock of seeing such a familiar looking face, as I’m sure you’ve experienced at one time or another.

The class went on with Julius teaching, Annet translating, students more or less taking notes, and little kids; little kids crying, shrieking, and running around intermittently throughout our four hours together. I didn’t mind this too much because my favorite little tot, who incidentally is quite a hell raiser (but is so cute it almost makes up for it), was there. For the first part of class he and his friend were not-so-quietly playing in the corner, disappearing into the other room every now and again. No one paid them much mind, that is until the little cutie came tottering back into the room wielding a giant knife. No lie, this thing was huge and obviously made with the intention of being used for some serious slicing and dicing. My jaw dropped. And I’m pretty sure it just stayed like that, hanging open stupidly, until his mom had safely managed to get the blade away from him.

My interaction with, for lack of knowing his actual name, Little Cutie, consisting of smiles and stares and eventually progressing to handing random items back and forth and him sometimes sitting on my lap, continues to strengthen our almost non-existent bond at every meeting and today was no exception. However, it was an entirely different form of bonding. Yes, indeed. We started off with some serious staring, and then quickly moved things along to handing an empty pill package he found on the ground along with my phone back and forth. From there he took things to a whole new level. Standing in front of me, hands on my knees we stared at each other and then . . . wet. Why is my foot wet? Little Cutie is peeing, that’s why, and is using my knees to stabilize himself as he does so . . . right next to my foot. Oh look, you can even see the little stream coming right through his little blue shorts. Nice. While it is pretty disgusting and my foot is now covered in urine, how can I be mad at him? He’s SO cute. Plus, in all seriousness it’s hilarious. I’m sure even more so for the Ugandans than for me. I mean, how many of them get to witness a Muzungu (white person) nearly getting peed on by a little kid, in the middle of class?!?