Trip to New York, California, Uganda

No posts for over 2 months!? That's because I took a much-needed vacation (after teaching the Chinese-language course, you will recall) and traveled to the U.S. and Uganda.

For some reason, flying out of Rwanda and back to Uganda was several hundred dollars cheaper than coming directly back to Rwanda. (That is, when I booked this ticket back in October.) And it's only a 9-hour bus ride from Kampala to Kigali, which costs around $11. So my itinerary was this: Kigali to Doha to New York (JFK) on Qatar Airways, spend 4 days in New York, then on JetBlue to California for almost 2 months, back to Kampala for a week, and then finally return to Kigali.

(By the way, if you land in any of the New York airports, you can either rent a car, which I was not inclined to do in a jet-lagged state, or take public transportation to get upstate to the Bethel complexes. Newark is the closest approach, but I didn't know this at the time. From JFK, it took 3 hours on 2 trains and a bus to get to this shopping mall in New Jersey, which is where a sister picked me up. That place is still at least an hour from Bethel.)

So, how was the trip, you may ask? Well, this was my first time seeing Warwick, and of course it was incredible, though I only had a few hours there. (That's because I had 4 complexes to see in only 4 days.) You have to reserve a 3-hour spot in Warwick, which includes a 20-minute "tour" (consisting of sitting in the Kingdom Hall and listening to a lecture, very enthusiastically given, by a brother or sister volunteer), and then you have the rest of the time, if this is even humanly possible, to view the exhibits on the history of the Bible and Jehovah's organization. Shall we say that what you see blows away anything in any museum on the outside. There are many interactive exhibits; on some of them, if you leave your e-mail address, you will get a digital "gift."

I also took one day to travel to Wallkill and Patterson. At Patterson, I visited my old department (Legal), but unfortunately saw only 2 out of the 20 or so I still remember. It was a Friday afternoon, and it was snowing, and most of the brothers in Legal were not there for one reason or another. I had a good friend in the department whom I saw for a grand total of 2 minutes. He was tied up, due to the snowfall, with making rearrangements for a circuit assembly the next day. So I told him, see you in another 10 years, ha, ha. (Yes, it has been over 10 years since I visited U.S. Bethel last.)

Finally, I stayed one night at Fishkill, which houses elderly Bethel family members and also Bethelites in certain departments, particularly the Computer Department. It is a luxury apartment complex, but being 40 minutes away from the nearest Bethel complex (Patterson), it is like a neighborhood unto itself. Those who live at Fishkill work out of their rooms. So, imagine this: you wake up in the morning, and while fixing your own breakfast, watch Morning Worship on TV (and also the Watchtower Study the same way). Then, you sit in your bedroom, living room, or whatever, in your underwear (would anyone even know?) working on a computer all day. By the way, you also have to cook your own lunch and dinner, because there is no dining room. And, like all other Bethelites, you have to do your own cleaning and laundry. Aside from your roommates, you may not see another soul all day. So...does this feel like Bethel?

There is a pantry at the apartment complex, where Bethelites can get vegetables, fruits, meat, etc. for cooking; and there is a commissary, where "luxury" items can be purchased (such as chocolate, for example), but even then, payment is on the "honor" system, because there is no accounting.

Well, Bethel has changed a lot since I was there.

I also visited a Chinese congregation in New Jersey, where I gave a public talk; and took a side trip to see the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. At this gallery, there is a Bethelite (actually, he was being reassigned to the field shortly thereafter) who gives very interesting tours that connect the artwork with Biblical or historical facts.

After this whirlwind tour of New York, I was ready to head out to California, where I had basically 3 objectives: (1) visit family and friends, (2) experience some cold weather, and (3) get fat. Yes. Every time I go to the States, I pick up about 7 kg (15 lbs.) in 2 months. The food there is too good! Not always the healthiest, however.

Though I spent most of the time in the Sacramento, California, area, I did get to the Monterey area for a long weekend. My roommate here in Rwanda has a dream of being a marine biologist, and I knew that he would be frothing at the mouth if he found out that I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. (Sorry, Jacques.) Monterey Bay is a gold mine for marine life, and the Aquarium has one of the best collections in existence.

There's not much more to say about my time in Sacramento, except that my parents are doing fine, we went out to dinner a lot (which explains the weight gain), and I did manage to preach with the Chinese congregation and a couple of English congregations.

Finally, the last week of my trip was spent in Kampala, Uganda, where I stayed with a family I knew. Not much has changed about Kampala since the last time I visited over 2 years ago (yes, it's still characterized by dirtiness and disorder and traffic jams), but the friends there are great to spend time with. I went to 5 parties in 5 days!

So, that's a summary of the last 2 months. But now it's back to the usual routine!