Jesus Christ Superstar

That "little town of Bethlehem" as it looks now

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According to wikipedia, the 1972 movie Jesus Christ Superstar was shot in the ruins of Avadat (or Ovdat or Obodat), Israel.  Avadat (in The Negev in map) was the most important historic city on the Incense Route after Petra, Jordan (see blog The Tale of 2 Maps).  The musical was about the last 7 days of Christ's life on earth.  Here in Gulu, Catholics observe the Ash Wednesday and the color of the ash is gray while back home

Marker to the Nativity

it is pitch black.  I have not been to Avadat but while here in Africa, I had the great chance to travel to the places where Jesus was born, suffered and was buried.  Here is a

Entrance to the manger

loose chronology in pictures. The actual places of the stations of the cross are marked in the many alleys where the shops are now located in Jerusalem.

Where the manger was

Where the Holy Sepulcher is

Can we listen to the rock of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice during the Holy Week? 

Map of the Way of the Cross

Find the markers in the shopping alleys of Jerusalem

Games volunteers play

Rejoicing at the completion of the puzzle

Squeezed somewhere

The bats

Tough, even for MENSAs

We were invited to visit the place of assignment of Debs, in Lira, Uganda.  It would not have been possible for me to go were it not for the availability of a small space in the private car that was to take us.  Debs is a social researcher, fluent in the local language, and lives in a VSO-rented bungalow by herself.  She got everybody to help prepare pancakes for breakfast, and steamed tilapia, and avocado salad for lunch.  As usual, I stayed with my expertise, which was washing the dishes and tidying up the kitchen.  We stayed overnight, and since there were 8 of us, some people gladly slept in tents in her backyard.  The following day, we went to a mazungu coffee shop for lunch and shakes while we watched the town below, and the bats above.  Debs has the biggest scrabble dictionary that I have seen.  I would have loved to play scrabble but it seems that the rest were more keen on completing the puzzle that arrived recently from the UK.  The skies were tough.

The puzzle, a port somewhere in the UK

Volunteers come and go and we only have pictures and memories of our shared experiences that will bind us through time.  It is a great coincidence that most VSO vols here in Uganda were born 1951.