Retirement home
Brent and Diane the navigators invited Mich and I to attend a get together at a retirement home yesterday. I was excited to go but had mixed feelings by the end of the evening, not about being there but the events that took place as I will let you know.
I met quite a few grandma's, some were still very fun and stylish while others were a little grampy.
It was organised so that the international students could spend sometime with the old ladies and share a little bit about their country.
We had internationals from Taiwan, Japan, Ukraine,China and Liberia. I was given a slot to talk about Uganda and I thought that was tough, I have taken for granted the things that happen at home, somehow I got so used to seeing things a certain way that it became normal. Maybe that sounds a little silly considering that I have been away from home for a while and noticed the differences in culture and style. Never the less I planned out a few of the things I thought I would mention and waited for my turn. This is when Mich gets restless, he starts running up and down the corridor while some one was giving a speech and that was very disruptive, I tried to talk him out of it but he just wasn't listening. Then he run up to the Piano and the blood rushed out of my head, I almost broke out in sweat praying that he wouldn't play any keys. Well he pressed a few keys but God certainly heard my prayer because it didn't sound. I pick him up and carried him out of the room for a one on one session and he is shaking and screaming. Not long before that I saw one of the old ladies give me this look of "get a hold of your little boy and do something with him because quite frankly he is really making me mad". Oh my! that look sent chills down my spine then she seemed to say something under her breath. Granma's are the last people you want to upset, I have so much respect for them, I also know that they are special people in God's eyes and their prayers are powerful, so really there was a lot to deal with. Not forgetting the fact that I'm still feeling "new" in the place and not quite sure how they would react to me.
Mich and I had a good talk outside, a few tears where shade but by the time we were heading back to the room we had set the record straight. It was now my turn to talk and I still wasn't over Mich's behaviour, I was embarrased and flushed, thankfully being as dark skinned as I am it didn't show. My speech was very sketchy, I had a lot of random thoughts. I started by introducing myself, what I was doing in Philly and apologized for Mich's crazy behaviour. Then I talked about how green Uganda is (the pearl of Africa), how we are very community oriented (it takes a village to raise a child mentality), I don't know how that came up but I guess it had something to do with Mich. I talked about our means of transport, my family and that was it, my mind was blank, terrible situation to be I tell you. At question time I was asked what holidays we celebrated and I could only remember five. Later on, talking to Brent and Diane they said I did a great job, I thought they were just being nice but I guess if they said so it wasn't so bad, I was just overwhelmed at how thrown off I felt.
After the session we had a time to give out some goodies to the granmas' and take a few pictures.
I met quite a few grandma's, some were still very fun and stylish while others were a little grampy.
It was organised so that the international students could spend sometime with the old ladies and share a little bit about their country.
We had internationals from Taiwan, Japan, Ukraine,China and Liberia. I was given a slot to talk about Uganda and I thought that was tough, I have taken for granted the things that happen at home, somehow I got so used to seeing things a certain way that it became normal. Maybe that sounds a little silly considering that I have been away from home for a while and noticed the differences in culture and style. Never the less I planned out a few of the things I thought I would mention and waited for my turn. This is when Mich gets restless, he starts running up and down the corridor while some one was giving a speech and that was very disruptive, I tried to talk him out of it but he just wasn't listening. Then he run up to the Piano and the blood rushed out of my head, I almost broke out in sweat praying that he wouldn't play any keys. Well he pressed a few keys but God certainly heard my prayer because it didn't sound. I pick him up and carried him out of the room for a one on one session and he is shaking and screaming. Not long before that I saw one of the old ladies give me this look of "get a hold of your little boy and do something with him because quite frankly he is really making me mad". Oh my! that look sent chills down my spine then she seemed to say something under her breath. Granma's are the last people you want to upset, I have so much respect for them, I also know that they are special people in God's eyes and their prayers are powerful, so really there was a lot to deal with. Not forgetting the fact that I'm still feeling "new" in the place and not quite sure how they would react to me.
Mich and I had a good talk outside, a few tears where shade but by the time we were heading back to the room we had set the record straight. It was now my turn to talk and I still wasn't over Mich's behaviour, I was embarrased and flushed, thankfully being as dark skinned as I am it didn't show. My speech was very sketchy, I had a lot of random thoughts. I started by introducing myself, what I was doing in Philly and apologized for Mich's crazy behaviour. Then I talked about how green Uganda is (the pearl of Africa), how we are very community oriented (it takes a village to raise a child mentality), I don't know how that came up but I guess it had something to do with Mich. I talked about our means of transport, my family and that was it, my mind was blank, terrible situation to be I tell you. At question time I was asked what holidays we celebrated and I could only remember five. Later on, talking to Brent and Diane they said I did a great job, I thought they were just being nice but I guess if they said so it wasn't so bad, I was just overwhelmed at how thrown off I felt.
After the session we had a time to give out some goodies to the granmas' and take a few pictures.
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