Not your average Yom Kippur....

Hello friends!! I hope those of you who were observing yom kippur had a very meaningful holiday and an easy fast! I had a very interesting Yom Kippur celebration! Saturday morning, I went to the Baha'i temple in Kampala with some friends to do a makeshift tachlit service. The group included myself, Ali, and Margie (two of the other 3 Jews on the program, the third, Hannah, was sick and couldn't come) and Greg, who is Catholic but decided he wanted to experience Yom Kippur with us and even decided to fast as well! It was really fun to have him there, to share Yom Kippur with.

The Baha'i temple is really beautiful. The nice Baha'i man at the temple told us that there are only only 9 Baha'i temples in the world representing each of the 9 servants of the Baha'i god (Tom, correct me if I'm wrong here). The Kampala one is less fancy than some of the others, but it is still really beautiful:

The temple is surrounded by beautiful grounds, that make it feel like a really nice oasis from the hustle and bustle of the city. The grounds include a little cemetery with this funny sign:



So for tachlit, we incorporated Margie and my family traditions. My family essentially treats tachlit as making new years resolutions, and discussing on things we want to accomplish and improve on in the coming year. Margie's synagogue discusses good or bad things that happened in the last year, and as they throw the bread into the river (or the pebble down the hill in our case) they recognize that the event has passed and the need to move on. So the four of us did a hybrid tachlit and it was absolutely wonderful. I was so amazed by how candid we all were with each other, indicative of how close we all are after just three weeks together.

One of my personal goals was inspired by a story from this past week. I said that certain events or people put your life into startling perspective, and this was one of them. We went to see an organization that addresses HIV/AIDS in one of the slum areas, which is actually on the way to my house. AIDS is a huge problem there, both becasue of the prevalence of prostitution in the area, but also the transient nature of the residents (many come and go with the season, because the rainy season totally floods the slum) leads to a lot of AIDS being brought into the community. We met Regina, one of the program's community volunteers. She lives in a tiny one room house, with no bathroom or cooking area to be seen. Not only does Regina spend her time outside of work helping counsel other residents about AIDS, but she took in a young girl with AIDS who was kicked out by her family when they discovered she was HIV+. I was so amazed that someone with so little is so astoundingly generous. Certainly, a lot can be said with the discrepancy of how much I have and people like Regina have in terms of monetary posessions, and that is a perspective that I always try to maintain. But I was so touched by her generosity of spirit. After working what I can only assume is a gruling job for far too little pay, Regina comes home and listens to the problems of others and cares for her adopted daughter. I hope to emulate her generosity of spirit in this coming year.

After tachlit, I met up with my Mom and Kathie to go to a wedding. A couple of things that I had expected to happen didn't quite pan out:

1) I thought I was going to a wedding, but it was in fact a wedding reception.
2) I thought I was going to a wedding, but I initially wasn't allowed in because I wasn't on the list.

This reception was at quite the fancy hotel and I guess last minute "plus ones" weren't tolerated. So I had to enteratin myself for a few hours until the end of dinner. So I got some work done, read the paper, wandered around the nearby shopping area, and eventually got some delicious Chinese food to break the fast! Yum!

When I was eventually let in, my first thought was that, if you didn't look at the traditional Gomez's that the older women were wearing (my mom is wearing hers below!) you wouldn't be able to distinguish this wedding from a wedding in the states.
Of course, it was about at that moment that the traditional Baganda drum troupe in the corner began playing and the traditional Baganda dancers started dancing around the room. The integration of tradition and modernity here is very interesting, and was super apparent at this wedding, with the older generation in traditional garb and the younger in party clothes. One of my favorite moments was when the groom, in traditional Muslim wedding clothes, started dancing and mouthing the words to "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga. But after my exile, the wedding reception was quite fun. I got to dance a little, and I got to meet my older sister Stella for the first time, so I'll call it a success.

Well I am literally about to leave to head off to Western Uganda and Rwanda. I will miss you all for the week and I will talk to you all soon!