4th of July

Happy post-4^th of July! We celebrated the 4^th with a little village party, which only the other foreigners actually came to (the Ugandans said “yes” in the way that meant “no”). We only had three Americans in attendance, equaled by the number of Brits, plus a German and of course a Korean.

Lacking hamburger meat or hot dogs, we turned to another entrée for modern American cuisine: fajitas. We used chapattis bought in town instead of making our own tortillas, but we also had corn and tomato salad, guacamole, rice, vegetables, and fajita-style meat. We moved the feast outside so that it would feel more like a barbeque. Instead of watermelon, we had pineapple for dessert. Delicious.

We told the story of America’s fight for independence, and this also led into the story of Thanksgiving. Other than Oktoberfest, we failed to get much information about other national holidays. We couldn’t find any fireworks, though all of our lanterns were lit since we were on the third day of a power outage. Accordingly, we were also cooking by headlamp and lantern light.

We took a moment (but only one) to reflect on what it means to be an American, which is always more vivid when you’re in another country. We bored everyone else to tears talking about regional American accents and 10-year-old political battles. Though we often see other Americans, it’s nice to actively take a day to reflect on American history, for better or for worse, and feel patriotic about the aspects of it we can be proud of.

By the way, the Ugandan date of independence is October 9, so we’ll miss that and any celebration that accompanies it.