Farewell to a Good Friend

Sunday night, Janet, an environmental engineer on staff here with EMI, left Uganda to move back to the States.  She served here with EMI for over 5 years, so she had many friends and a strong community here to say goodbye to.  On Saturday, she threw a big farewell party for all of her friends, and I think over a 100 people showed up!  I spent all morning making cookies, and then set out for Janet's place to help her set up.  I was kind of in charge of organizing the snack table, so I spent much of the afternoon running back and forth between the food table and the kitchen, restocking as necessary.  All the EMI families with cars helped out by transporting food, people, equipment, and soda (over 100 sodas were consumed!)  We also had a top secret (beautiful wood) picture frame and mat that we were covertly getting people to sign during the party.  Janet's church has an amazing children's dance program, and the kids performed several songs, which were really fun to watch.  They even sang a song called "Sister Janet, we love you!"  I was rather exhausted by the end, but I think it was quite the success for Janet, and was a very fun time for all!

One of the children's dance groups from Janet's church.

Women from her church performing traditional Buganda dances.

On Sunday, I went with Janet to her church, which I wanted to visit one more time before she left.  The church is entirely made up of Ugandans, other than Janet, and has a great community feel.  I ended up spending the whole day with her, which was really nice.  Janet has been my EMI mentor for the past 6 months, but I also feel like we've become friends.  I really admire how she lives out her values of loving people, being a part of the community, living simply, and opening her life up to others.  And the way she does it, it's not like she preaches it from her soap box, it just seems to come naturally out of who she is.  She lives with a Ugandan woman and her 2 children, so I got to hang out with them and a couple other friends all day too.  I've really come to enjoy spending time with them, and I plan on keeping in touch with them even now that Janet has left.

Me and Janet at Murchison Falls in September

After church, we ate some yummy Ugandan food that her housemate had made specially at Janet's request.  Then I helped Janet do some last minute packing and sorting of all the various things she was leaving behind for various people.  In the afternoon, I went with them all to the pool next door, where Janet swam with the kids, which they absolutely love.  A couple EMI families came by after that to help transport last minute items from her house back to the office and to say their final goodbyes.  After weighing her 4 bags for the umpteenth time, trying to get each one just below 50 lbs, I finally ended up with about half a bag full of stuff that I offered to transport back to the states for her.  (To her defense, one of her bags was almost entirely full of a 4-foot wooden giraffe, surrounded by a wooden cage that one of our guards constructed to keep it safe on the journey home!)  We finished the night with pizza and soda, and I said goodbye as the whole gang left to accompany her to the airport around 8pm.  I'm so glad that I got to spend the weekend with Janet and that I was blessed to have her as part of my life here!