April Fool's

 Priceless!

So, they do celebrate April Fool's in Uganda.  We had heard they pinch, but none of the kids or us got pinched.  But, they seem to send each other on fool's errands.  

2 months ago, I had thought up a couple of good April Fool's tricks, so I ran them by Precious and Medard, our friends.

Here's how it went...

Hey guys, what do you think about this for April Fool's?  Me, Aaron, Leslie and Travis get some bikes and pretend to be boda boda drivers and yell out Mukiga, Mukiga...

laughter

or, what about I drive Precious up and down the town as a boda boda driver?

Yes, you should do this.  Why don't you--yes, yes, you could do it.  (I shake my head) Why not--(they both get emphatic)--you should do it!!

no way, Jose.  Women don't ride bikes here or if you are my age, wear trousers...

So, guys, what do Ugandans do for April Fool's?  Well, we call each people up and tell them to meet us in town, but we don't show up.  (Medard shaking his head) But, don't do this to old people.  They HATE this.

Good to know.

April 1, 2011

BUT, it happened that Leslie and I were in the market on Friday.  It was such a fun morning on all levels--just us, no kids, going to run errands and finish a Christmas present from Leslie--we went to a tailor to get measured and gave him some cloth to make us tunics--isn't she a great friend?

While in the market, we saw some wigs that women regularly wear and we went halves on it and cooked up a plan that I would wear a wig that day when we picked up the kids from school.  Leslie and Aaron are good at getting Travis and I to do things like this...  It was a half day (no foolin', the first Friday of every month, they do teacher training and kids get a half day)  and so, we would get all the kids at 12:30pm.  Well, I ended up going alone b/c we finished early, but tested out the wig on the Hines household.  Got some laughs from Travis, but the Ugandan friends didn't even bat an eye--in fact, they encouraged me to wear it all the time.

So, I went for it at the school.  What do I have to lose?  I was going to stay in the car, but I got out with the other parents who were walking and line up by the gate to pick up kids.  We always get stared at anyway, so no one stared anymore than usual.  My friend Claudia, who is British had a good laugh.  It totally failed with the kids.  The younger ones laughed slightly when I whispered April Fool's, but the older kids were like, "mom, you look horrible, take it off."  The surprise bonus was one of the Indian dads looked and double looked HORRIFIED and then just shook his head and looked at the ground :).  that made it worth it all....  Not all jokes translate to all cultures.

Then, later, Aaron puts it on and gets rock star laughter and status!!  Why do quiet dads get all the laughs?  Aaron is really good at skits and gags, so I love it!!

I got sick shortly after this, so I didn't get re-inactment pictures... sorry.