It was a lazy day here at Christ School. Students enjoyed morning fellowship (aka church) in the assembly hall then gathered for their afternoon movie and lunch. Football and volleyball filled out the day.

Gunfire erupted briefly late afternoon, sending students (some of whom have lost one or both parents to rebels) running for tall grasses and other shelters. Their dark bodies in reds and blues, hiding, reminded me of the sadness of growing in violent places. Students here don’t need drills, they know them. Hide quickly and quietly. Hide well. Interviewing one of our sponsored orphans yesterday, I learned that at age 11 he lost both of his parents and two of his three sisters in a single day . . . . They were in their gardens trying to dig up food when the rebels found them, five years ago.
These days we are not facing rebels, though. Turns out this gunfire was from police, firing over the heads of a mob that had gathered, intent on shedding the blood of a goat thief, just caught. Police saved his life with their two volleys and took him off to jail as the disappointed crowd dispersed. Weekends in town (now that we live so close to the central market) are always an adventure when men drink and smoke local drugs, prostitution abounds, and the simple violence of heavy fists is always near at hand – there is little more terrifying than watching a young boy head-beaten (literally, they beat people with the force of their heads!) by the unreasonably and senselessly angry man he has just stolen from.