"Dear lady..."

So, I think I need make an apology to all of Uganda, mostly in advance (since about 18 months of my 2 years is still yet to come) and some in hindsight (since I've been here 6 months) for all of the terrible cultural fopah's I've made (is that how you spell fopah?)...So, I was just telling Maria (she's declared herself my "mother' of sorts while I'm here in Kampala - she's in charge of accomodations here at the Center) this afternoon of how I'm always forgetting that it's customary to sit down before you greet someone (if you're not on the street or something of the sort)...I usually just launch into the list of greetings - since I'm so proud of myself for knowing how to say SOMETHING for goodness sakes - and then minutes later I realize, shoot, I should have sat down first...it's kind of strange, you can carry on a whole conversation and just not say "good afternoon", but wherever you are in the conversation, if you sit down, you then launch into "good afternoon, how's the day" etc...and then continue on with the conversation.

Well, then there's the Catholic culture, which I'm not all that familiar with in my own country let alone here in Uganda. I think I just insulted a priest in a major way...I'm sitting here at my computer and a man comes up behind me and hands me a piece of paper and walks away. On the paper is a not saying "Dear lady..." and then explaining to me that he's been here for 3 hours and needs me to help him with something. I read the note like 3 times and still didn't have any idea what it meant...and it's signed "Fr. [somebody-0r-another]". So, I walk over to where he's sitting at a computer already logged out of his time allottment and told him that I didn't understand what the letter meant. I still don't understand what he wanted me to do, even after asking him like 3 times to explain it to me again....something about he's really late and printing something and underlining something and numbers and sheesh, who knows. I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders and said, "I'm sorry I don't understand." He smiled and said "okay" as I handed the letter back and then he starts folding the letter emphatically and decisively and "hmmphf"ing and then dropping things loudly on the desk and shoving his chair around as I went back to my seat...sheesh...It really is frustrating to not even understand what someone is trying to tell me IN MY OWN LANGUAGE...obviously he was frustrated as well...darn protestant...