last week, my sister came up to me as I was sitting outside the house reading and said something about a fellowship. I assumed she was talking about some sort of scholarship i.e. applying for a fellowship so I said yes when she asked me to go with her. We walk along a winding dirt path past farms and banana fields until we get to a decent-sized house with a truck parked outside it. Rebecca tells me to take off my shoes before I go in, and we are greeted by three or four other families sitting around the living room. I sit down expectantly, waiting for someone to hand Rebecca some sort of form to fill out--perhaps these are her competitors for the grant. A man comes into the room and introduces himself to me as Fred. "Well," he says, "shall we start with a prayer?"

I think it's weird that we have to pray before Rebecca applies for her fellowship, but then again, this is Uganda, and every taxi in Kampala is emblazoned with slogans like "Jesus saves!" and "I <3 the Lord." Since no one in their right mind would offer car insurance in the web of chaos they call infrastructure (Uganda has the 2nd highest traffic accident rate in the world), cars have bumped stickers that say, "I'm covered...by the blood of Christ!"

So I sit there for a few minutes, awkwardly, with my eyes closed and hands folded in my lap until I sense that everyone around me has finished praying. Fred asks if there are any announcements. Rebecca answers, "this is my sister Courtney. She's a Presbyterian, so she might be able to follow along."

For the record, that is the second time I have been so naive about Christianity that I ended up signing myself up for the bible without knowing it. Freshman year I registered for a class called "The Romans," assuming it would be a course on Roman history rather than straight-up Sunday school and apparently unphazed by the description: "The Fifth Gospel." But there I was, on a wednesday night in someone's living room, attending a Born Again church service instead of helping my sister apply for a "fellowship" at a university. Fred asked if I would like to lead the people in song. I said, "uhh..." and stared in disbelief at the fact that I did not know the words to one single Christian song.

I got through it alright until everyone closed their eyes and started clutching the air and wailing outloud for ten straight minutes. Since my ability to pray in front of people on command was nonexistent, I mumbled about any thought that came into my mind, testing myself on the names of my cows and numbers in Luganda, reciting what I'd had for breakfast, talking about what I thought would happen on the next episode of "El Cuerpo del Deseo."

next time I lie and tell people I'm a presbyterian, I'll make sure I wikipedia "Jesus" beforehand.