recent activity

yall might be wondering... sean, what have you done lately? well here i am to answer that. one of my biggest highlights so far is beheading a chicken. i did this sometime last week i think. first i had to pluck the feathers around where i was going to cut. then i stood on its feet and wings and grabbed the neck. then i whipped out my pocket knife and sliced through its skin cartilage and flesh. with the head still in my hand i stepped off it as i watched it try to stand up and run away. it struggled to stand up, and when it did it tried to run, but it had a really hard time trying to balance. so it kept taking a few steps and falling down over and over. it made it about 10 to 15 feet away from the place of execution when it just started to flop on the ground, similarly to a fish. it was quite an experience and i hear that we are having chicken for christmas again..... look out chickens, here i come!!!! i have also been to another wedding and introduction since then. the wedding which was yesterday was much nicer/fancier than the last. the bride and everyone else was actually ready when it was supposed to start which isnt very common in africa. the ceremony took place in a huge octagonal church. the reception was at a very nice hotel. after a while of sitting through the long talk during the reception, a few guys snuck me out of there and into the bar to watch soccer with them... that was awesome and cara was mad that we left her there :P ... today i went with one of my best friends, moses babu, to his sisters introduction. his brother is very funny and is absolutely crazy for my type of music. he is very talkative and told me at least 500 times how glad he was that i came to join them for this. this introduction was also much more enjoyable thanks to moses translating much of the talking for me. it was during this that i found out that he has 9 sisters and 4 brothers... holy crap!!! but overall it was much more enjoyable to me. i cant wait to find out what this upcoming week has in store for me!!!

my role

so idk how much info leaked though and how many of you were wondering about one of my latest fb posts, but a few days ago i kind of had a break down. it all starts with the fact that i havent really had much/any responsibilities here, which is mainly due to the fact that everyone is on holiday. well a responsibility eventually came up and it was one of the things that i was told i would do. so i got excited, finally something to do!!! the people in charge of the ministry that i came here through (rtp (remember the poor)) wanted an "american" to go and meet with a minister and to relay information back about him and his ministry so that rtp could decide if they want to help support him. well they decided that cara would be better qualified than me (and i agree), but they also said that i was not even allowed to go along with her because if they see 2 white people they might assume that they "have it made." so when i heard that i would not be able to participate in this this made me very very upset. i realized that cara is more qualified than me to do pretty much everything, so i felt like i am going to be watching her be doing much of the stuff that i was sent here to do.
the second thing that made me upset is that i realized that all the money i raised for "ministry purposes" had been spent for me without me even being able to give any input as to what it went towards. correct me if i am wrong, but doesnt the person/people who raised the money decide how they want it to benefit the ministry. at least i know that it hasnt gone to waste. anyway i just felt very useless and was wondering why i was here and had a breakdown.
i am sorry that this has been so much of a downer so far, but since then i have been able to come to terms with my situation (with a huge help from david yee... thanks ;P). i realize that i am here to serve, and i need to be willing to serve in any way that is needed. i have also been able to have a "discussion" with pastor john and i/cara told him that i feel like i havent been able to serve, and would like more opportunities. i guess i am joining him tomorrow (i have no idea what we are doing) and i just have to hope that he creates/finds more opportunities for me to serve. but i realize that i will just have to make the best of the situation i find myself in. thanks for the prayers and the continuing support.

Something Interesting

hey so today i think that i will write about something interesting for a change. this is the story as far as i know (which isnt much). so there is this girl who is sponsored at the school who used to live with her grandmother. well apparently her grandmother died and her mother took her away from the school for a while to live with her in the village. well... her mom just dropped her back off early in the morning yesterday. she is about 3 years old and had a hard time getting along with the other kids. cara noticed this and decided to show her special attention and tried to help her. well we found out 2 things. the first is that she didnt know a word of english(which is normal cause you star to learn it when you are about 4-5) or a word of luganda. apparently she only knew her moms language. well the other kids kept trying to talk to her, but when she kept getting frustrated and tried to hit them. the second thing is that she was very sick (i think it was malaria) and cara took her to the clinic. well eventually they came back and she was still very upset and just miserable, so cara decided to take her home for the night. cara cared for her all night long, by feeding her, bathing her, and basically holding and showing love to her all night until they fell asleep.(that happened last night) well this morning i went to the school and found her in a much better mood and getting along better with the kids. had cara not done this for her she would probably still be the miserable little kid that she was yesterday. so basically i was touched by the love of God that cara displayed to this girl and i am very glad to have her in my life as a role model that i can look up to.

and i thought the introduction was boring.....

whats crackin my peeps...... ok so in america we all hate it when there is a road sign that says something like "construction ahead, single lane only"... well in uganda they have that too... unfortunately it is one lane for both directions.... lol... i thought that was very funny and unusual. so yesterday i went to a wedding.... at first i thought i was in luck... the wedding was supposed to start at 10 am. we left the house at about that time and we were just planning to maybe catch the end of it and go to the reception to hang out, chat, and eat. well.... we beat the bride there apparently. the bride showed up quite a while after we did and this was about noon or so. so we watched a wedding that was going on in the church while we were waiting for the one we were there for. then after everyone was ready, they preformed the ceremony along side another couple who was getting married. yeah very bizzare... and having 2 couples did not make it go any faster either. btw the entire thing was in luganda too. after the ceremony we visited pastor johns mothers house cause it was on the way and cause the reception wasnt ready yet or something. when we finally got to the reception we sat and did nothing for about an hour or so until the bride and groom decided to show up. there were no tables, and i somehow ended up sitting in the back by myself . i thought ok... they are probably going to say a few things, eat, cut the cake and then par-tay. well that is exactelly what happened, except for saying a few things took about 7 hours, and everyone was tired and wanted to leave as soon as they started to party. so overall i spent about 10-12 hours just sitting and listening to people talk in a language that might as well be gibberish to me. it was an interesting experience, and i am glad that i went, but honestly i give up on these ceremonies. i really am not going to go to another one unless i have someone there to talk to and to interpret for me. i am ready for the students break to be over so i can start actually doing some work. sorry for another not very interesting blog, but i hope to have some crazy experiences soon... btw i am having some major pizza and wings withdrawals. i really am losing sleep at night because of it... i mean what else do you think i am doing up at 2 am writing this? so if anyone wants to send me a pizza i would be all for that... aight!!!!! peace out

3 weeks

hey yall... tonight marks the end of the 3rd week that i have been here in uganda. first off i would like to address an issue.... as i post my blogs and updates on facebook i dont bother to bs about events or anything. i want to give it to you, my audience, as it really is. i try to look at the bright side of things, but sometimes it does not come out the way i intend it to. some of you have commented about me being so down on the introduction that i went to on saturday. i did not mean to come off as whining about how boring it was (the im never going to another introduction was actually inspired from pastor john himself who is sticking to that... and saying that was meant to be funny more than anything else).... but during the blog i was simply trying to point out how insanely different an african introduction is from what you would expect from an american ceremony. i did in fact have a decent time learning how different the culture really is. however it really was still very boring and uncomfortable having no idea what was going on. but all in all it was a good learning experience for me. so going from that story to today.... today was another introduction and being the great guy that i am, i thought i would give it another shot... however pastor john had such a terrible time at the last introduction that he refused to come to this one.... or any other introduction ever again. anywho... today was a much better experience. first off i rode in a car with mark, cara, and an elder.... riding with them helped so much cause who youre with in a car ride really makes all the difference.... last time i rode with just pastor john. he is a good guy..... but socializing with him is a whole different story. this trip we only stopped 2 times and one of the stops was to have lunch..... so far the trip was so much better... then when the ceremony started to take place, i started to tune out due to the lack of english... and so did mark. apparently i was one of the re-occurring subjects throughout the "discussion". it was very hot in the attire that i was wearing and with the sun shining directly on me i fell asleep just to wake up to everyone (about 100-150 people) looking and laughing at me. i tried to ask people what was going on... but i never really got a clear answer. all i really understood was that the brides family couldnt pronounce my name, so that is why everyone kept looking at me throughout.... but during the "discussion" i was able to beat marks high score on a snake game on our cell phones, and it took me 86 minutes and 7 seconds to beat a sodoku puzzle... but it was really hard and i didnt cheat... not that much at least.... but the "discussion" ended up being about4-5 hours long... then we finally ate and snuck out to leave at about 9 or 10 and we got back past midnight.... but i enjoyed this introduction much more...

Sunday... a day of rest... Monday... party!!!!

so some of you might have seen some of the latest pic i have put up on my facebook... those are from yesterday (sunday). on sundays we usually hang out and relax after church. cara, i and some of the boys who stay at pastor johns house thought that it would be a great idea to take advantage of the beautiful beach at lake victoria. there is a beach that is a few miles away that is possible to walk to, but the boys wanted to show us a better one that was a few more miles down the road. it was really cool and we all had a really good time. i tried to swim to an island that was off in the distance. the only problem was that as the shore got further and further away, the island didnt appear to get any closer, so after about 10-15 minutes of swimming i decided to start to head back. cara started whining and complaining about how worried she was of me... lol... anytime i ask her a question about what i should do she almost always replies "i dont know... im not in charge of you." yet somehow she always ends up trying to take charge... idk... girls are way too confusing. but after we were done swimming we played a bit of frisbee and soccer and just chillaxed till it got dark...
today was pretty cool. i went to the school for most of the day. because most of the children are going back home for holiday (which is like our summer break, but theirs is during the winter/now) they decided to have a christmas party now. so everyone was preparing for it all day long. mainly it was just a big/nice dinner for the kids, and loud music to dance to. so living here at the house, i get about the same foods for every meal, but at least i get a selection of about 4-5 items at each meal. the kids who live at the school get either rice and beans or posho (made from flour and water... like a blan piece of rubber) and beans for every single meal (and they eat the mangos off the trees at the school). this would be the equvilant of having spaghetti (without sauce or cheese) and meatballs with apples for every single meal..... think about that.... by the 3rd day of that you would be sick of it. well tonight the kids got a special treat. they got rice, matoke ( smashed and cooked bananas), irish (potatoes), macarone (spaghetti), spinach, beef, and chicken. it was really funny to see these kids eat huge mounds of food. these 3-8 year olds seriously ate over 2 lbs of food each (around here there is no problem with getting kids to eat their food.) it was lots of fun. then the kids danced for hours... they kept wanting me to dance, but i had to explain to them a few things... first it was not possible to headband to that type of music, secondly the only type of dancing i do is moshing, and finally i dont mosh alone/you wouldnt want me to anyway. but it was a great night...
as far as my actual work here... the majority of it is on hold until school starts up again which isnt until at least january. so mainly what i am doing right now is just getting to know the people around the school and a few computer things. however pastor john told me he wants me to teach "computers"(i know so vague) to a few people in a week or two. so we will see how that goes. oh and btw i might have to go to another introduction on thursday :(... lol i will have to hope that it is better than the last one..... alright... g2g peace out my homies!!!!

African introductions

alright where to begin this one..... so a few days ago.. pastor john asked me if i would like to attend an introduction with him. then he explained to me what that is. an introductions is a ceremony for a couple who is about to get married (within a few weeks). so we left at about 9 am to start this journey. we showed up at 10:30 at the place we were supposed to meet moses who is the um, groom to be and his family... there was no one. so we drove though downtown kampala for 2 hours and then went back. they were there this time. so we all packed up and drove some more towards where the ceremony was taking place, but on the way, somehow we realized that there was no soda, meat, and many other things that was needed. so about 6-7 stops and 8 hours later we arrived at the ceremony. the "bride to be"'s family was already there and sitting for i-have-no-idea-how long. so once we were finally seated they started talking through a mic and pa system. all that happened for about 2 hours was groups of guys and girls came out to the center, kneeled and answered questions from one of the guys from the brides side of the family. it was very boring cause they only spoke in lugandan. i was so bored that i started trying to throw the coffee beans that were on the table into my friend marks jacket, but he was tired and got pretty pissed off after about an hour of that. finally after that part of the ceremony the grooms side of the family(and friends which included me i guess) went out to the parking lot (if you could call it that) and brought in many gifts which included many fruit baskets, huge sacks of sugar and salt, and half of a dead cow(which i helped carry in). then they did some more boring stuff until we ate dinner, and about 30-45 min after dinner it was over and we left..... that is why i will hopefully never attend another african introduction again.

Living arrangements

nothing super interesting has happened lately, so i will take this blog space to tell you about the condition of my living arrangements. i started on this journey with out any expectations, and what i have is way on the other end of the scale. Johns house has a living room which is connected to a dinning room and a kitchen. there are 2 rooms and a bathroom on either side of the living room. john and esther live in one, i have one all to myself, cara has one to herself, and his kids sleep in the other. the other boys who live here live in the building right next to the house. my room has a nice tile floor and white walls/ceiling. before i moved my clothes and stuff in the room there was only a bed and a small fan in the room. the bathroom is very nice. similar to one you would find in america, but there are no drawers or cabinets, just a few shelves and tons of bugs. there is hot water, but it is currently not working, and that is fine with me and cara.... mmmmmm cold showers... fun. the boys who live here pretty much clean, cook, and watch tv all day. they clean my room, make my bed, and do my laundry, and i feel bad about it and tell them that they dont have to clean my room and that i will do it, but they insist. i really do feel terrible about it. i practically had to beg them to not clean my shoes, but they still do it anyway. they are really nice. so... onto the food. for breakfast i usually have tea, and a slice of bread with either butter or peanutbutter. lunch is usually posho (like a really blan rice-like material) and beans. dinner at the house is very nice though. there is always rice, chipote(thick tortilla), mashed bananas, potatoes, some meat (fish, beef, chicken), beans, and fruit. it is very very nice. there is electricity here and it is supposed to be all the time, but it goes off for a while every now and then, and so does the water. overall these people are very hospitable, and i am not suffering in the least bit, but i might be taking a trip to the farm, and living there for a bit.... that will be a different story... oh well gotta go to bed.. peace y'all

Church

whatsup my peeps... sorry for the slow blog progress. today i went to church for the first time (last week we went to the prisons.)... it was very interesting. most of the adults get dressed up and some of the kids, but many of the kids and a few adults just wore their regular clothes. it started at 8 am, and lasted until 11 o'clock. it was very long lol. the pastor spoke in lugandan( the native language) and someone translated. there was one problem with this. the person speaking lugandan always cut off the translator before he finished speaking. therefore it was very difficult to follow what was being preached. they did many worship songs, but only about half were in english. the people got pretty "into it". they sang very loud and many danced, sort of. it was very cool. they actually had a pretty good sound system there. i hate to admit it, but the sound system there was much better than the stuff i had to work with at my school. they had a keyboard and drums for the instruments. for lunch we sort of had a surprise visit from some of the sponsors for some of the chidren at the school. they were 3 ladies from denmark. they joined us for lunch and then after lunch julius and cara showed them around the school. i mainly rested and worked on the school database the rest of the afternoon.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

hey y'all.... sorry i havent updated lately. i have been very busy and the internet has been having problems. the past couple days have been the last of the exams for the highschoolers before they go to their holiday break(instead of summer vacation).... so i have been very busy entering data into the school database... i was really supprised at the program that they were using... it was very good, but the way they were using it was horiffic. they wanted me to manually enter tons of info that would take hours if not days to do, but i came to the rescue with my macros, and got most of it done in a few minutes after i programed the macros... hopefully this will do (they arent very good at explaining things or communicating.) a music instructer that is somhow related to john wants to learn about computers, and in return he wants to teach me an instrument... i told him i would like to learn drums... he wants me to make a cd of the types of drumming i want to do.... lol lol lol... i explained that i like heavy rock and roll... i will probably just put on some day to remember, rise against, and an autopsy by the faceless for good measure. that will be interesting... the thing that is currently really funny is that everyone is worried about how much i eat........... the funny thing is that they dont think i am eating enough... lol lol... i am not kidding they are actually very serious that they think that there is somthing wrong with me... lol today i had tea for breakfast, a few peices of jack fruit and a hard boiled egg for lunch(and a mountain dew!!!!), and a pretty good meal for dinner, but i did miss having lefsa. for dinner i had rice, chipote (like a thick tortilla), chicken, irish (potatoes), and deep fried fish. mmmmmmm.... delish. during dinner, john asked cara about the history of our thanksgiving... she said that she didnt really know but she thought it had something to do with the indians giving the pilgrims a turkey... lol i thought that was hilarious and made fun of her the rest of the night about it. i told them the real story...i finally have settled in and feel semi at home here... way off topic, but i feel that this is important, the tag body spray, making moves, is not flammable... the canister lies!!! i tried to show the mini flamethrower trick to some of the boys who live at johns house, but to  our dissapointment it didnt work... it only burns if it is sprayed into an open fire, and even then it does not do much... so make a note to self about that. maybe i will need to find some axe and show them whats what.....  anyway... until next time

peace out

sean kesler

Do you play basketball???

believe it or not i get asked if i play basketball more often than any other question. it is really weird. they say i look like i play basketball.... especially with my shoes. the funniest thing about it is that most of the people that ask me could easily be asked if they play if they were in america. my friend moses said... "i could never play basketball... i am not big like you i might get pushed around"... this is coming from a guy who is my age, about 3 inches taller than me, black (of course), and in really good shape from what i can tell. lol these people crack me up.another thing that i get asked is if i use my pocket knife for self defense..... i simply reply... no not yet... i use it to cut open fruit, packages, soda bottles, and that sort of thing. i am suprised than no one here carries one around. anyway yesterday i went with john to the jail instead of going to church. i am not going to lie, of all the things that i thought might make me a bit uncomfortable, this didnt turn out to be one of them, at least until they asked me to go up and teach(not just introduce myself, but actually teach). first off the drive took forever cause there was a marathon in the city of kampala, but when we eventually got there, we just drove right into the area in which we did the service. the atmosphere was amazing. seconds after we got there they started to do a song. these men were ecstatic. it is very hard to describe in words, but the whole experience was amazing. the rest of the day was mainly just relaxing. this morning we went to the school. i saw the computers that the school uses. they arent terrible, but they have a ton of junk software that i will probably need to remove. eventually i somehow got roped into entering grades into a data base... with my a.d.d. this was brutal, but i eventually finished (but i think they want me to do more tomorrow :( ...). i met a man named mark... he is definatelly the funniest person over here. i hung out with him for quite a while. eventually one of the boys about my age took me to the lake. this would be simmilar to what we would call a boardwalk. there are shops everywhere, and people building boats... it was very interesting. finally me and cara had dinner with aunt rose and many of the children from the school. she gave us some of the best tea that i had ever had. it was amazing. right now i am really tired and about to crash for the night so until next time......
Peace out
Sean Kesler

MZUNGU!!!!!

(sorry i was supposed to post this yesterday, but i got really busy)...today was a much easier day. first i went with cara to the school in the morning. most of the kids are gone because it is "holiday". from what i understand, holiday is like our "summer break" and lasts from now till about february.we went and played with the kids till lunch. after lunch i went with johns wife, julius, and a couple from st louis to servaral houses to meet with people and pray with them. it was during this time that i saw some of the areas that are really in poverty. it was really cool to have all the little kids come up to us and shout "mzungu! mzungu!!!" which means white person in ugandan.... speaking of ugandan, everyone speaks it. it reminds me of my summer job at dirks. everyone that i worked with spoke spainish unless it was to me, and even then some needed to help translate. it is the same here. everyone speaks ugandan, and when they do speak english, they speak it very quietly.... very annoying. did i mention that i stick out like a sore thumb... i wish that i could blend in a bit more, but idk. it was really funny, today when we were playing with the kids, they kept running up to me and holding on to me. but when they saw the tattoo on my leg, they kept touching it and feeling it. you might be wondering to yourself... didnt he just mention a couple from st louis... yes i did. they are visiting here. they are specialists in agriculture, so they are giving john tips about the farm. btw i got a cell phone and i get free incoming calls and texts!!!!!! my number is 070-159-5979 (idk what the calling code is for international calls from the u.s.)

first day

ok.... so my mind has gone absolutely crazy... the ocd in me is really showing. first off the first thing i learned today is that i have to completely forget everything i know about j-walking, and everything about giving pedestrians the right of way..... have you ever had that terrible gut-wrenching feeling when you screw up in traffic like maybe you accidentally cut someone off or you almost ran that biker off the side of the road because you didnt see him...... well.... that is the feeling i got every 15 seconds during the 6+ hours i spent riding in the van. the driving here is ludicrous!!!! words cannot describe it.
anyway back towards the beginning. i arrived last night at about 11:45. john and 2 others picked me up from the airport. it was about a 30-40 minute drive to johns house, but i had finally made it. there is a lady named cara here from chi-town (chicago). it is really nice to have an american show me around. anyway i chatted with her and 3 of the student who are just about my age till about 1 or 2 in the morning. this morning we drove for what seemed like forever until we reached the farming land that they are trying to grow crops on. we stayed there for about an hour until we went back into the city for lunch. btw they have soda and it is cheap!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!! so i had a mountain dew with lunch. we made a few more stops until eventually we stopped in the city to change my money and to get me a cell phone. unfortunately they gave me a bogus sim card so i will need to go back to get a new one.
so i have been asking around what type of music people like hoping to find a fellow metalhead... but so far no luck... for that matter i havent even found anyone who likes rock and roll. crap... ill have to make some metalheads. the only answers i have received is rnb, country, and contemporary christian. hmmm toby mac might be in again?????? btw there are billboards and signs everywhere that say that R Kelley is coming here to uganda in january. lol. and the people ask how i spell my name and when i say sean... they are like "oh like sean de paul"... lol but everyone is really friendly. oh well there is alot more, but ill save it for an uneventful day or somthing..... until then

peace out
Sean Kesler

Hey Africa!!!!

hey sorry i can not write much but i am here in africa. the flights were really boring, but nothing went wrong. hopefully ill be able to write more tomorrow!!!!!

still in the air

so i was up all night last night packing my stuff and moving all the rest of my stuff into a closet in the garage... this was super stressful for me and my parents, but i somhow made it through and i am currently just crossing the border between ohio and new york about 35802 ft in the air and crusing at about 549 PH. it is crazy.... i cant believe that i am really doing this... it seems so surreal. i keep telling myself that it is only for a year, but i just cant convince myself to just relax. i have had, a redbull, monster coffee, 12 pack of mountain dew voltage, and 3 hours of sleep in the past 36 hours, but i am still wide awake. i guess i am a bit nervous, but mainly there is just about a billion thing going through my mind.(i hope it will cramp up so i can get some sleep) i watched a documentary about the history of metal music on the in flight tv.... it is like they knew i was going to be here at that time...i have to go from newyork to london and then to entebbe where i will be met by john mugabi and cara at approx 10:10 pm their time.it seems like forever.oh well... i guess we are almost at the airport, so i need to shut off my lappy, but hopefully ill be able to upload this in the airport.... until then....

Peaqe out,
Sean Kesler