This last weekend was perhaps one of the best times I’ve had here, and it ended on one of the worst and saddest possible notes. A full post on Sunday night’s events will go up soon. Most of this is a post typed up as an e-mail draft throughout the weekend, my opinion of the weekend’s end has definitely shifted due to recent events.

Friday night started poorly, as my laptop charger literally exploded on me, and I started a four-day, $60 effort to get it fixed. I went to Brian and Susan’s house for a barbecue where I helped Brian with the cooking a little bit (and by “helped with cooking” I mean we used plates to fan the heck out of the coals) and hung out with them and Lisa and Alison. Some other guests were there but they generally weren’t that cool. I also got to meet Lisa’s friend Ilaria who came up from Kampala. All in all it was a lot of fun getting a chance just to hang out with friends.

I spent Saturday with Lisa, Ilaria, and Alison, and we met an American named Ben who was sharing the Sankofa balcony with us. Alison had tracked down her favorite local spirit – a brand of vodka that comes in a plastic bag. Needless to say, bags were being emptied into fantas all day (I naturally sipped at virgin cokes). Eventually, we ended up back at Lisa’s place drinking the night away while playing a new card game called shithead. It was a lot of fun, but I’m definitely not good at it (or at thinking proper) and was the four-time gracious loser.

Sunday was a nice adventure as I spent the day walking around town with Lisa and Ilaria before going with Alison back to Lisa’s and hanging out. We spent a lot of time talking about the whole process of going home and about development in general; it was really nice to talk to people and really get an idea of what people were thinking, even if my perspective was very different from their 12-18 month stays in-country. We went to dinner at Whiskers (and I’ve officially been to all 5 restaurants!) and watched the World Cup match there. All in all the weekend was a lot of fun and I’m glad I got to hang out with a great group of people and really got to talk about all sorts of things.

As the night wound down Lisa, Ilaria, and I quickly got news of the bombings in Kampala and tried to get ahold of as many people as possible. While Lisa and Ilaria made a few calls, I got ahold of Morris and George, but couldn’t get ahold of Tony. Brian and Susan had been the ones that informed us, so we knew that they were safe.