This is my saga about one of my unusual "extra, extra curricular" activities at Mt. St. Mary Namagunga, Uganda, the school where I was assigned in 1961.

Soon after my arrival at the school, my students had many questions about "Americana" to which I responded that, no, I was not Chinese. Yes, I could actually learn to distinguish, as well as properly pronounce, d’s and t’s. And, as an American, I enjoyed eating cooked pineapple. Apparently, I neither looked nor sounded like anything they'd ever seen before. And, I must say, my Baltimore accent didn't help the situation one bit. To me, their questions and my responses were important in our bonding process. However, they were nowhere near as important as an event that occurred during my walk home one day in the company of some students during a lunch break.

It was a peaceful, sunny day, but, curiously, as we were happily walking along, the sun disappeared; the sky turned jet black; and the normally quiet campus began to hum with the sound of millions of bees—on everything, everywhere. They weighed down tree branches and every leaf in sight.  Immediately, the lot of us went on autopilot.

My students cowered, cringed, and cried. I myself became almost catatonic but managed to gather them together, ran with them to the house, opened the door, pushed them to floor in the back room, and covered them with one of my bed sheets. They were great: they followed my directions and stayed put while I surveyed the outside —through the window, of course. Every inch of every banana tree was weighted down with black bees, for whatever reason they do such things. I joined the students. The bees just "hung out" on the banana leaves, ostensibly until it was time for them to move on. We stayed put too and emerged safe and sound.

That event proved to the students and me that we shared a very important quality: the sheer will to work together to survive. We had the "right stuff." We emerged with not a broken bone among us, not a hair out of place, could still walk and talk, and none was found to be allergic to bee stings. So, heh, we returned for afternoon classes. 
  
Me? I later baked them a pineapple upside down cake which didn't even begin to change their minds that Americans had some weird eating habits. But, we could bond, though.