Committees

At home, I’m a champ at doing laundrshako, if you’re a real band

 

Here on team Uganda, we’re extremely organized, and we have the committees to prove it.  It might seem silly, but hey, it’s something to do.  Let me tell you about them in alphabetical order:

 

Finance Team- Finance Team consists of Micah, Tara, and myself.  In Busia, Chris and Melina asked if Micah and I wanted to take over finances in Lira.  So, as soon as we got to Lira we took over.  We’re responsible for getting money from the ATM, paying team expenses (lodging, food, water, communications, transportation, ministry gifts, etc.), writing receipts, and keeping track of all of this on an Excel spread sheet.  One day at the market, I found 2,000 shillings on the ground (about 1 USD, don’t freak out).  With it, I bought a sleeve of cookies.  I think it’s because of the cookies that we recruited Tara.  She counts the money in stacks of 60,000.  In high school, Tara took a personal finance class, and that makes her a very valuable part of the team.  We often have finance meetings on the roof.  

 

Food Committee- When we first arrived in Lira, we had no input on the food that we ate.  However, that meant that nearly everything was fried and vegetables were a rarity.  It was getting to the point where it was making some of our team members sick.  So Jonathan, a staff member in charge of making the menus, asked Micah (aka, Michael Owen!) to write the menus.  Micah didn’t think he could do it on his own, so he recruited a committee.  As it stands now, Tara, Micah, and I are consistently at the nightly meetings, and Kaitlyn and Hope also consider themselves honorary members.    

 

MNMC (Monday Night Mafia Committee)- At the beginning of the trip, Chris got our group hooked on the game Mafia.  It can’t be said that everyone enjoys it, but enough of us do that we play it rather often.  The basic premise of the game is that there are (usually two) members of the mafia who are trying to kill everyone else without getting caught.  In the standard game, there’s also a sheriff, who gets to investigate people to see if they’re in the Mafia as well as a doctor who has a chance at saving someone from an attack.  Obviously, it’s a game and no one actually dies.  Micah and I joined the MNMC when Chris announced that he needed help planning an epic game of Mafia with team Kenya at final debrief.  To prepare for such an event, we’ve been doing research on other possible roles to insert in the game.  Most of them can be found on the Wikipedia article about Mafia the game.  So far, team favorites include the mentor & student, the paranoid schizophrenic, the bomber, the drunk, the matchmaker and lovebirds, and the underground.  Sometimes we give roles to designated people, and other times roles are given at random.  We don’t have much time to make final adjustments before the big game in Nairobi, but we’ll be ready.  Oh, we’ll be ready.  

 

PPC (Party Planning Committee)- At the beginning of this trip, Tara, Kaitlyn, and Shae had birthdays.  The PPC was formed with the goal planning birthday parties.  Initially, it was just Chris and me.  However, we were feeling overwhelmed, so we began to recruit.  Shae and Zach were added to the committee to plan for Kaitlyn’s birthday.  The name PPC comes from the television show “The Office,” so we all took on Office personas.  Chris was Michael, Zach was Andy, Shae was Angela, and I was Pam.  During meetings, we did our best to stick to those names only.  The PPC has become quite secretive, especially because another weekly event was instated– Friday (Forced) Family Fun Night. It began just with Mafia, but once there was a committee involved, it became more intense.  At one point, Shae and I got frustrated with Chris and Zach’s behavior at our meetings, so we kicked them off the PPC.  With the boys off the committee, the PPC was able to get down to business and host spectacular events such as an ’80s dance party with cookie dough, the Dirty Thirty Ice Cream Extravaganza, an April Fool’s Day wake-up prank, and Friday Night Fights.  

 

Shae and I are not superheroes, and we acknowledged that we could not plan everything on our own.  So, we began hiring PPCPCs (Party Planning Committee Private Contractors) to help us.  Sometimes, this help included going to town to get something, or communicating with the staff about what we needed.  The PPCPCs have been a great help.  However, even with the fantastic PPCPCs we were getting exhausted, and the expectations were rising, so we decided to invite Chris back on the PPC.  He graciously accepted our public apology, and now the three of us plan to finish the rest of the trip strong.   The Royal Wedding, May Day, and Cinco de Mayo (aka Cinco de Mustache) are all coming up shortly, and the PPC will not disappoint.  

      

Rumor Committee- I’ve heard a rumor that this committee exists.  I’m not really sure though.  If it does exist though, Hope is the president, vice president (in case the president dies), chairman, headmaster, director, and CEO.  

 

 

 

 

 nerd) box in Bloomington a month and a half after losing it.  

 

One time, I found my wallet in the car of my friend Jenny, who drove me to the conference.

 

One time, my ear bud piece appeared in the pocket of a pair of pants belonging to my seat buddy, Lacey.

 

One time, my Chacos mysteriously reappeared on my bed.  I was told that Susan, a cook at the hotel, had found them a while ago but just kept forgetting to give them back.  

 

Like I said, I never lose anything.      

 

at sorting lights from reds from darks.  I’m usually really good at remembering to put detergent in the washing machine.  I rarely forget to take my clothes out of the washer to put them into the dryer.  Ok, so maybe I’m not a champ, but I’m certainly not bad at it.  I mean, no one has ever corrected me on how to do laundry.  

 

There are no washing machines where we’re staying.  We do our laundry in buckets with powder detergent.  The detergent we bought is blue and it turns the water dark grey when you use it.  There is an alternative to doing your own laundry, though.  You can pay to get it done by someone else.  Getting a t-shirt washed, dried, and ironed costs 700 Ugandan shillings, about thirty cents in America.  So really, it’s not terribly expensive.   But still, I feel like I should be able to do my own laundry.  I’m a capable “adult,” after all.  

 

Laundry is typically done outside in the grass by a water spicket and  near the clothes lines.  So, after being in Lira about a week, I went outside to do my laundry.  By this point I knew a lot of the staff, and they greeted me, “Camaroon!  How ah you?”  “Fine!” I replied energetically, and then I filled up my soap and rinse bucket and began washing my clothes just as I had done in Busia the past six weeks.  As soon as I started scrubbing though, they started laughing.  Laughing!  At me!

 

I was annoyed, perturbed even, but I continued.  They asked, “Don’t you do laundry at home?“  Well… yes, kind of.  Eventually, I think it was Jackie who came over and asked if I was ok.  Again, I assured her that I was fine.  She asked if I knew how to do laundry.  I sheepishly admitted that I didn’t know how to do laundry their way, and Jackie very kindly tried to show me what I was doing wrong.  My basic explanation of what I was doing wrong is that I’m a weakling with no coordination.  However, she kept trying to get me to do it correctly, and I kept trying.  It was pretty much a failure, though.

 

So after that experience, I started doing laundry in the bathroom with the door closed where I face no scrutiny.  So far, so good.