An invisible hand?

As I type up my thoughts this evening, I’m listening to the final perfection of the evolution of music. I didn’t plan for that, in fact, I didn’t bring any music over with me. On purpose anyway. The way it ended up with me is kind of an amazing story, howbeit a simple one. It all started last August when I was preparing to move down to Cedar City to attend George Wythe College. I needed a laptop, preferably a cheap one. Thankfully, some one invented Ebay, and I was able to find something that fit my needs and my pocketbook. I purchased it about a week before I moved; as such, I had it mailed directly to my Cedar City address. It arrived, and I learned why it was so cheap; it had everything, except a cd drive. Until that moment, I didn’t even know that they made laptops like mine. It did however have a USB port and I had a flash drive. I transferred my music to my flash and thence to my laptop. It worked perfectly. I then forgot completely about the music on my flash drive until it was plugged into our laptop here and began playing music. And Africa, which was already awesome, became better as the air was filled with the sweet strains of country music. The failure of a certain Ebay member to mention that the laptop they were selling was missing a vital part of its anatomy put events in motion that enabled me to have country music in Africa. Coincidence? Maybe. Except I don’t believe in coincidence.
On Saturday I taught a class to roughly forty African high-schoolers. It was kind of spur of the moment; we were supposed to be doing the second day of a two day program with about forty other African high-schoolers. They were, however, taking an exam, so the school administration gave us new kids. We ended up playing hangman, finally coming to the word leader. What, and more importantly, who is a leader, I asked them. They started with the obvious, government leaders. By the time they left, they had the beginnings of a slightly different perspective: they were leaders; leaders of their own lives today and of society tomorrow. The future movers and shakers of Africa were sitting in that dirty, rundown schoolroom with me. All it takes is their choice.
Tuesday I met individually with one of my students, something we do regularly, just to know if we can do anything to help mentor them more effectively. He expressed two things to me. “Ben,” he said, “I feel the need to take what I have learned here and teach it in my home. We have many schools and churches there, and they don’t know about leadership education, and they need to. I don’t know how I’m going do it, where I’m going to get the money to go over there. But I know I need to, and I will do it. Somehow.” Not content with simply knowing himself, he needed to share what he had learned, how he had changed. I know the feeling; it burns inside of me. But he had another dream, “I used to write, articles, papers, actually I started a novel. I would like to finish. Can we work on my writing? I would like that actually.” This is where I find out whether or not I learned anything at college. For the sake of my students I sure hope I did.
How did I end up here? It’s a question I ask myself often. A white boy from Wyoming teaching leadership classes to Ugandan high-schoolers and mentoring a teacher in his writing. Random. Even more than the circumstances that led to my having music during my stay here. Over a year and a half ago a teacher at Northwest wrote on a paper of mine, “Ben, you should join forensics. Talk to me.” Before that, I would never have been able to stand in front of anyone and teach anything. Six months later another man said something that altered the course of my life again, “Ben, money should never be the reason you don’t do something you believe is right.” And before I knew it I found myself accepted to George Wythe College and preparing to move to Cedar City (which, incidentally precipitated my buying a laptop, which is why I’m listening to country music right now). Coincidence? Don’t believe in them. Adam Smith said that there was an invisible hand guiding economics. Maybe that invisible hand is really guiding our lives.
So Africa is good. Life is good. God is good. Chipates are dang good. You all should come over and try some. Till then, take care all.

Attack of the warthogs!!

Sorry about that last rushed post, but the wild African savannah was calling my name and I just couldn't remain in civilization any longer. The safari was great; we spent three days and two nights in Murchison Falls National Park. Crocodiles, hippos, elephants, giraffes, about a million different types of deer like creatures, warthogs (more on them later); we even saw a leopard almost attack a herd of antelope, but he got stage fright at the last minutes. The warthogs were all over our base camp, literally. There was this old guy who basically spent the first day curled up to my tent sleeping. They pretty much left us alone, except for this one momma. After the morning safari on the second day, I'm trying to get back into my tent, and she's sitting there guarding it. I try to go around her to get in, and she charges me, sort of. More like threatened me. So I went to take a shower instead, cause these warthogs weren't no lovey, cuddlely Pumbas. Took lots of pictures (like 1000) so I'll post some on here as soon as I have a way of doing that, which means as soon as I get back to the states, which means two months. Sorry.Speaking of showers though, that was honestly one of the best parts of the trip: running water. Our place in Mukono doesn't have a shower, we take sponge baths in a little tub. And then about two weeks ago our water ran out, so we've been hauling it from a well that's down below our house. Which I actually don't mind at all, it's just another great part of this whole experience, but having showers available for those three days was heaven. The food wasn't, however. I've been enjoying the African food a bunch, and there they served-or tried to serve-American food. They should have stuck with the local foods. Seriously, the food here is amazing. Least I like it. Staples are rice, beans, matooke (which is boiled plantain bannanas, which is kinda like mashed potatoes), and chipates (African tortillas, way good). Once in a while we'll eat chicken or beef; Irish potatoes are pretty common too. It's good eatin'.Anyway, like I said I'm teaching three classes now; two at Muslim primary schools (basically elementary) and one at a secondary (high) school just down the road from our place. The two Muslim classes we're working out of Thomas Jefferson Education, and the secondary (the schools name is Giants) is going through 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But I'm not just teaching; I'm learning too. One guy from the Muslim school is teaching some of us Islam Tuesdays and Thursdays; it's so interesting. Another guy named Samuel Sambuze from my Giants class is going to start mentoring me in Lugandan, the local language. I found a Bible about a week ago and I've been struggling through it on my own, but he offered to spend an hour or so on Sundays reading it with me. I'm way excited for that. Life's good. Take care all.

First classes

Hey all! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted; the internet's been out for about a week now. I'm actually writing this from the office of a safari company in Kampala; we're heading out for a three day safari in about half an hour or so. It'll be awesome, hopefully I don't get eaten.

My teaching partner, Rachel Jones, and I started classes about two weeks ago, right after we got back from the river rafting. We were actually supposed to start a week after that, but the people we were teaching were way excited; they pretty much forced us to start early. It's a group of about 5 teachers at a secondary school called Crane's Giants. Secondary is basically high school. They are so awesome; they always read the assigned sections of the books and have so much to say that we basically let them teach the class. We also started two more classes last week at a Muslim school. More to say, but our ride's leaving. Take care all>