A trip to Washington

About two weeks ago, Sam Mich and I travelled to Washington, Reverend and Michelle had come in from Uganda and we wanted to see them before they headed back.

Meeting friends and family here is so exciting, you get to hear lots of stories, I feel like they have brought a piece of home with them when they come. We were able to talk about things that are familiar to natives and ... well, it's a bit hard to explain, it's just great.

One of the other things I was really excited that we were able to do was visit the head quarters of my former place of work. I guess it was not at the best of times especially since the President Paul Wolfowitz was being asked to resign.

Security was tight as usual, we had to go through all these machines, Steven had to explain we were his visitors. We had our pictures taken for identification and so on and so forth. I was truly a stranger, meanwhile back home I was the one who made sure every one who came to the Bank country office was checked, they would have to identify themselves and who they had come to see via speaker phone and this was before they came in the door. So it was definitely interesting that this time I was the one being checked.

The World Bank offices are huge, several floors and several blocks too, we were told that people do get lost in the buildings, especially the staff who are visiting from other country offices.

It was a Friday so there not that many people in the building at the time, which was good because then we were able to get a nice tour of some places.

I took some pictures, just in case I don't get to work with them again at least I will be able to say I went to the headquarters, and I have proof hehehe.

Mich and the Bead

Remember the story of Gipir and Labongo in p3 history?
I don't remember the details too well but I think I can create something close to the original story.

Gipir and Labongo were neighbours and they spent a lot of time together, I believe they were both hunters. One day while Gipir was away Labongo decided to borrow his favourite spear (without asking) and go hunting. While he was out there he saw a juicy elephant and decided to make a kill of it, the spear hit the target alright but unfortunately the elephant made a way with the spear in his side and Labongo was not able to find the animal.
Aha!, he had some explaining to do, when Gipir got back home his favourite spear was missing and Labongo had something to do with it. He of course explained himself but Gipir would have nothing of it. He insisted that Labongo go back into the forest and find his spear.
Tough!! but well he had to do it otherwise things would get really bad for him. Well he braved it and went looking for the elephant and found the spear.
Life went on after that but obviously their friendship was strained. Then as things always happen, this time Gipir's kid was playing with Labongo's child and it swallowed one of Labongo's beautiful beads.
Labongo gets to know about it and tables turned, he assured Gipir and insisted that he gets his bead back. Now I'm getting to the gist of my story.
I don't know what Gipir was thinking but because he was under so much pressure and Labongo would have nothing less, he got his kid, diced the stomach open and got out the bead. Gave it to Labongo and said, 'there, you want your bead?, you can have it!".
Now I'm just wondering why he couldn't wait, that bead could have come out another way you know?! but anyway that was the end of their friendship.
Legend has is that they packed their bags and went separate ways and that is how we get the tribes of the Acholi and Langi. Ok, ok, it's something like that, this is just my modified version.

And now to why I had to tell this story, I'm sure every parent dreads the moment their kid puts one of those small things; beads, stones, g.nuts e.t.c, into their ears, nose and the like.
We had our share of it recently when some time last week...

It was bed time and Sam was putting Mich to bed. Mich showed Sam a bead, and said "see I have got the thing that people put on and they look nice" and Sam replied something to the effect that it was for girls and they put it in their hair. After reading him a story, praying and saying goodnight, he walked out of the room. Before long we heard Mich calling "daddy", when Sam went in he said, "the thing that girls put on their heads is in my nose".
I was in the sitting room when Sam tells me, "I think we have a problem here, Mich stuck a bead up his nose". Obviously there is a bit of panic and people are holding their breath.
I check it out and it was at a weird angle, there was no way we were going to get it out easy. Meanwhile when Sam would tell Mich to sneeze, he would sniff instead and that wasn't helping. So I get on the Internet to see if there are any solutions, meanwhile Sam is calling the emergency line. The Internet basically said, these things happen, if you can't get it out, see a doctor, the doctor we spoke to said, he should be fine for the night the bead won't go further back, if he can breath let him go to bed and we'll remove it tomorrow when you come in.
We didn't want to complicate things by trying so we sent Mich to bed, for some reason I knew Mich wouldn't sleep because now he knew he had done something crazy and the bead was in his nose.
After a while I got an idea of trying to remove the bead, I got one of the plastic toothpicks, asked Mich to lie still and tried to remove it. Amazingly it came out after two moves, no struggles, no crying or discomfort and we were done. Now that was absolutely God, because all through this time I was praying for wisdom and I know he guided me. Phew!

May be someday I will tell you of the time my brother woke up and had a live cockroach in his ear. I will not disclose which brother though but I will tell you how a wise old man removed it.

Wharton International Cultural Show

Hey, just wanted to give you a sneak peak into some of the interesting school events that "Whartonites" enjoyed this semester. They are not all about books you know and as the saying goes work without play makes Jack a dull boy.


I attended the Wharton International Cultural Show, aka WICS, it had dances from all around the world, it was amazing. After the show I kind of felt like I had been to each of the different countries just for the brief moment.

I'm a little biased here but I honestly think the African dance was the best, it got the most cheers (or may be I was cheering too loud to hear anything else). The guys as usual danced with rythm and such ease like all the moves came naturally to them and the ladies were colourful and African, I mean what can I say?!.

Check these out.