Here I am back with some new stories from the past week.

The week has been rather quiet. During the day I am now up to full speed with my work, while the week nights are pretty much like everywhere: it's not that there something to do every single night (unless you're in NYC of course!).

Nonetheless, Thursday night Francesco and I have been invited to the house of Florence, one of the staff of te Hospital, to celebrate the 13th birthday of her daughter Paska.

Being present at a birthday party here in Kalongo has been another, additional beautiful experience to learn more about the local culture.

All the guests were sitting in chairs and/or sofas around the main table in the centre, where we were initially served food and then cut the cake, as the tradition wants!

You see in the picture below Paska beautifully dressed in red, with two friends of her, just before the cut of the cake.

After that it was the moment for Paska to receive the presents the guests brought.

A chicken (yes, a chicken still alive...you can imagine my astonished face when I saw this!):

A present from her lovely mum:

And finally a present that Francesco and I brought (or better Francesco since the invitation to the party caught me unprepared so I did not have anything ready, unlike Francesco, who is the master of efficiency and things about everything!):

As initially said, the rest of the week passed by quite smoothly, until the week end arrived!

This week end we were not blessed as the one before with sun and clear sky the entire day; actually, it has been raining cats & dogs for the entire of Saturday, which I spent inside...marking the assignments in mathematics that the girls of the St. Theresa have solved (see previous posts for details on this).

As you can see...a LOT of assignments for me to mark, but I made it and it was actually a really enjoyable work. The students are impressively good in mathematics, and this is thanks to the high teaching standards for which some of the schools here in Kalongo are well known in the all of North Uganda.

Sunday was spent with a nice walk with Francesco and Nighty, one of the students that just graduated from the Midwifery school, around the fields in Kalongo.

But before going into the details of our walk, I would like to introduce you to our...lunch in few days!

This goat has been the present of some students of a nearby school to the Comboni Missionaries in Kalongo, to thank for the end of the academic year. 

The afternoon has been spent for some relaxing walk here and there, observing animals, here below a mum duck with her littles:

White fields of cotton, with the mountain of Kalongo in the back:

And beautiful fields of sunflowers too:

Finally, after about two hours of walking around....we deserved a cold, refreshing soda at the Paradise Hotel!!

This is all for my past week in Kalongo. See you soon!

Ale