Student essay

Easter in Uganda does not involve the Easter Bunny nor colored eggs nor hunting for chocolate eggs in the garden. These things are unknown to the people here. Rather, the Easter Weekend focuses on serious church attendance to remember Christ’s death and his resurrection, with concerts, parties and beach outings thrown in for good measure. Most of my students went to church at least twice during the weekend and enjoyed the rare treat of meat or chicken & chips and soda while at a family party or at the beach (which is always a special occasion as most beaches have entrance fees).

But not everyone is so lucky. Here is a typical Easter in Uganda from the point of view of a Grade 6 boarding student:

On Friday it was a public holiday, Good Friday. On Good Friday, we remember the day when Jesus was killed. In the morning we woke up and went to bathe, we took our breakfast, tea and a bread. After we went to play. The bell rang for lunch, it was posho and groundnuts. I gave some to Ssemujju because I don’t like posho with groundnuts. After lunch metron told us to go and iron our uniform and we went to bathe in the evening after ironing. We ate our supper and went to class for preps. It was time for sleeping so we went to bed.

On Saturday, we didn’t do many things because we had already washed the clothes on Friday. We took tea and went in the class to revise our books. Headmistress gave us some papers to do and I am sure I will give it to you and you will mark the English paper. We ate our lunch, posho and beans mixed with cabbages. That day I didn’t give anyone my food because it was delicious. We went in the dormitory and Phoebe told us a movie called “Dog of War” but me I was not interest about it because we watched it together at home. After we went to bathe and we had our supper. After supper we went to sleep. At night I was scared because the movie Phoebe was telling was scaring. I prayed so that God could help me.

On Sunday morning, it was Easter Sunday and we remember the day when Jesus rose from dead. We went to church and the priest preached about “Jesus rises from the dead” in the book of Matthew 28: 1-10. We came back from the church and we took our breakfast and went in class to revise. After revising we ate our lunch. Although it was Easter, we ate posho, spinach and meat with soda. But I thank God because I ate and got satisfied. We went to the dormitory to rest for a moment. We woke up and went to bathe in the evening and ate our supper. On Monday, it was the same. On Tuesday we are going back to school from our weekend.

This is my Easter holiday story.

~Maureen, P.6