Indian Africa. . . . . .

Well. . . I am sitting here and for the life of me, I can't remember what I did on Friday . . . so I will begin with Saturday. We didn't have any set weekend plans for our days off, so we just decided to wing it and head to Jinja and figure something out. So we hopped on a taxi and went on our way! I still love just driving in the taxi's and watching all the amazing Uganda sights, sounds, and smells pass by! We told our taxi driver to take us to the source of the nile because we heard that it was a cool place from a guide book, but we didn't really know what to expect. When we got there, we saw tons of little shops that were in traditional African huts and little boats floating in the Nile and we decided that we would just go on a little boat ride! It was very chido ;) But it was kind of weird in a way because I have heard about the Nile my whole life, and now that I was there touching it, I just couldn't believe it! But it was beautiful! It seemed like a jungle and we even stopped on a few little islands along the way that we name Gilligan's Island! O and we saw monkey's hanging out in the trees for the first time since we have been here! So in case you are curious, the Nile river is 4000 miles long. It begins in Lake Victoria where 90% of it's water comes from. The other 10% comes from an underground spring. The water (where we were at least) was moving very slow and we found out that it takes 3 months for it to make it all the way to the Mediterranean Sea! After our little boating excursion, we were all hungry and so we separated into different groups to go find food. The only problem was 1. we didn't know where we were in Jinja and 2. there was no public transportation nearby. So we did the only thing we could do, started walking! ha ha we didn't even know if we were going the right direction! Soon we just started flagging down bodas one by one to pick us up! You know, it still seems so odd to me that to get around in Uganda, you go up to some random guy on a motercycle and ask him to take you somewhere and hop on! But that's what we did!
Random fact about Jinja, although it is obviously majority Ugandan, there is a large percent of Indian people here that work in the sugar factories so it is rumor that the Indian food is amazing! So we decided to check it out! So four of us told our boda drivers to take us to this random Indian food place and it was super small! But we were excited becuase everyone in there was Indian so we figured that was a good sign! We ordered our food and waited. Now it seemed logical to us that when you order Indian food it would come with rice to put the sauce on. Apparently that isn't so! So they brought us out little bowls of sauce and we were so excited to eat it because it smelled delicious! After a few minutes of staring at it we asked if we were getting rice too and they laughed and said. . um no! ha ha so we had to order some, but it was so worth it because it was amazing!!! We will definiately be going back there before we get home! After we ate, we decided to continue our Indian Africa adventure and head over to the Hindu temple. It was awesome! we talked with the Hindu priest and the care taker and they were telling us about the way they worship and everything. Then the priest came over with the bowl of the most disgusting cheese looking chunks and offered it to us! I definately hesitated a bit before putting it in my mouth, but was pleasantly surprised when I discovered it was practically pure sugar! Then we decided that since we were in a bigger city we would spoil ourselves and go to the supermarket before heading back to Lugazi.
Sunday we were back in Jinja for church. A few of us have been going to young womens lately because they invited us the first day and we have loved going ever since! We had the manual and weren't exactly sure if we were teaching or not but didn't worry too much about it! Well I walked into the room and it said next to lesson Sister Kate! So I had Ally come teach with me too and we tried to teach a decent lesson about sharing the gospel. It went alright, we talked about all the ways that we can share the gospel. However, it never occured to me that maybe we missed part of the point of the lesson. Once we finished one of the young women got up and said, "It is important for us to share the gospel because Heavenly Father wants us to to bring souls back to him." I just sat there for a minute and thought, ya know, that statement alone was more meaningful then our entire lesson! All I can say is that the young women in that branch are awesome! I look up to them so much! That night, we had a team meeting about planning out our projects. We were reminded that we need to be searching out different ways to help among the people instead of taking our western world beliefs and trying to implement them here. But after we finished, we watched a documentary called War Dance and it talked about all the kids in Uganda who have been victoms of the war in Northern Uganda and how they cope with it through music and dance. It was incredible!
Today is Monday and it has been a great start to the week! I began it by heading to the Buikwe district this morning where we visited some school who we are thinking about helping. The people who work there are so amazing! There was a school that had 87 students who were either orphans or were being raised in single family homes. We wanted to see if they had a mucic curriculum since me and Ally are interested in doing that and whenever we asked the schools they would say yup we have a choir and go round up all the students! The students would sing us songs and they are so adorable!! There is one song that they love and it goes, "Jesus is a winner man, a winner man, a winner man. A winner man, a winner man, a winner man. . etc." With a second verse that goes, "Satan is a loser man, a loser man, a loser man. A loser man, a loser man, etc." They all were so happy!! Then they had us sing for them! ha ha believe it or not, we sang "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" and "popcorn popping". Yes they looked us like we were crazy mzungus but. . I like to think they secretly enjoyed watching us humiliate ourselves! We all laughed together and it was so hard to leave! The kids actually chased us down the street and the pastor had to go tell them to go back to the school! But, the teachers there are all volunteers!!! Then we had a teacher training and I could just see how much the teachers there love their students!! They were all experienced teachers and were asking us such hard questions about what they should do. I felt so inadequete!!! I tried to answer best I could. Part of me wanted to just say, you know so much more than I do about teaching, can you just teach me instead? But seeing the hope they had that we could help them, I just tried to answer the best I could. I just felt so much love for them and their determination to better the lives of their students! Through today's experience, I know without a doubt that I want to be a teacher and the teachers I met today will always be some of my role models.

I thought I was dreaming. . . .

Oliotya! I can't believe that it has been another week here in Lugazi! As I see more and more of the scenery and people I continue to think it is more beautiful every day! It has been busy again just trying to get more projects set up and talking with partner organizations but it has also been very fun and eye opening. On Tuesday, chairman Livingston invited us to go on an outreach with him to some rural villages nearby. So eight of us hopped on board along with 2 nurses and 2 guys who recently graduated in clinical medicine. It took about an hour and a half to get there along a very bumpy road but as long as you looked out the window you didn't mind one bit! It was absolutely beautiful!! It was like a jungle, just like you would imagine the heart of Africa to be like and here and there there were little clay huts with straw roofs! Then as we pulled up to the first village, there was a huge crowd waiting for us. Now the plan was that since we had four villages and there were eight of us, at each village we would drop two of us off to spend the day. Knowing this I began panicking. Seeing all the people waiting for us to come and teach I felt so inadequate and immediately began wondering what I was going to do! But we all got out and began unloading supplies and we went into a little meeting building where the chairman spoke to the people and we all introduced ourselves. This was the first place I have been where hardly anyone speaks English. . . which made me even more nervous. But the chairman continued to talk and then they all stood up and sang the Ugandan national anthem. It was so awesome to see how much pride they had in their developing country! It turned out that they were really interested in agriculture here so one of the guys in my group stayed with them to talk so the rest of us loaded back into the bus.
The next stop was me and Ashley's stop. We had a very similar greeting, but they didn't have a building to go in. They were just sitting outside. It was interesting because the men and women were segregated on different sides and the men had the chairs. All the women were sitting on the ground. I found out they had been waiting for us for hours! This time when we introduced ourselves, we did it in Lugandan. "Nze Kate. Ndi Mumerika" ha ha they immediately busted out laughing! They love it when us Mzungu's try and speak their language! After the chairman spoke, the rest of our group left and me, Ashley, a Ugandan nurse and health worker stayed behind to get started. Since they mostly just speak Lugandan, the nurse and health worker began teaching them lessons about HIV as well as family planning etc. Once they finished they sent me with a man named Wilson to do some medical things and Ashley stayed with the nurse. I had no idea what we were going to be doing! It turned out that we just did more HIV/AIDS screening and I was in charge of doing all the paperwork for it. All I can say is I got very good at spelling African names! We also tested many children and I remember hoping so bad that none of them tested positive. It took a few hours, but once everyone was tested, Wilson and I began looking at the results and we discovered we had two men test positive. It was really sad and even though I couldn't understand what they were saying once they found out their results, I could tell it was heart breaking news for them.
We were doing all this in a woman's house and once we were done, she came out and brought us food! This was the first time I someone we were helping offer me food. Guess what it was? Yup Matoke and G-nut sauce! ha ha I had to laugh! Although it was a little strange, I manage to finish it up and we through the bumpy streets back home.
On Wednesday we went and built an adobe stove for a school that is near our house called Sky Way. It was so much fun to get all the supplies ready and build the stove! Especially because all the kids were there wanting to help. They worked so hard to help with the clay and everything! However, we ran out of clay when we were almost done and so we had to tell them we would come back the next day to finish. As we were getting ready to go, the headmaster came out and was thanking us and just asking if there was something he could give us. We told him no and he said, "how can you give us such an amazing gift and not want us to give you something in return?" It was so sweet of him and he eventually went and got us these papers that had information about their school on it and said that it was to help us remember their school when we go back to the USA. That is something I have noticed since being here. The people worry so much that after we spend the summer here with them, we will go back to America and forget all about them. It's really sad.
On Thursday, I didn't have much going on so I hopped on board with other commitee's projects. In the morning I went to a savings and loans meeting, then I wrote the proposals for a new design of handwashing stations, researched the prices for supplies, finished the stove and ended the day at this Children's Home in Lugazi. Our neighbor Dennis works there after school every day and on the weekends and he wanted to take us there. So we hopped on a Boda and had the most beautiful ride ever! It was amazing when we got there because the kids were all so happy! There were 47 of them and they had a farm with cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, pineapples, sweet potatoes, jack fruit, carrots, maiz, they were all taken care of so well it just made me so happy! We met all the kids and they did a little preformance for us with drums, singing, and dancing. Then we all just played with them for a little bit and talked. I talked with a girl named Jackline, Norah, and held a little boy named Mark. Dennis told us that if we can in our free time, come and spend some time with the kids to help them feel loved. We all fell in love with those kids and I'm sure that we will be back!
I had a little down time yesterday and so I was looking through some of the contacts from last year and I cam across a man named Jefferson and a lady named Sandra who each have run children's choirs in the past to help give youth something to do! I got so excited about it and I am trying to track them both down. Along with holding choir practices for the kids, they teach different health lessons about HIV/AIDS and other things and I can't wait to get involved. If it works out, I think it will be a project I work on for awhile!
Something I have noticed since being here is the incredible people in the community! We have met so many people who are my age, still in college who have seen that people in their community are struggling and so they give of their time to help! Some of these people are a mane named Wilson who is in college but also runs a non-profit organization for orphans called the Youth Outreach Mission, Sandra who runs a place for women called Musana, Dennis who we met yesterday who works at the Children's home, Kizza who spends his time building adobe stoves, mushroom houses and gardens for his friends and neighbors, along with so many other incredible people! It just helped me realized that you don't need to go abroad to find ways to serve people in the community. There are things that you can also do to make a difference!

Counterfeit money, winter coats, soccer, Ugandan music videos and dominos

On Friday, we didn't have much planned, but we needed to go and pick up some HIV/AIDS information from Emanuel. Our country directors were busy and so they told us to just go by ourselves. We were a little bit nervous because we had never did the whole boda thing alone. So we show up where all the boda drivers and we were too scared to just go up to them. It's funny now to think back on it, but eventually we hopped on and headed up to the Lugazi Univeristy. Once we got there however, we realized that we needed a jump drive to save all the information on. . . so we had to turn around and go back and get it. Needless to say we are now experienced boda boda travelers! Once we finally had everything we needed, Emanuel showed us all the info he had gathered for us (which was a ton) and now we have all the info we would ever need to know about HIV/AIDS! ha ha it was funny, after we got the info he started to show us all these Ugandan music videos!
On Saturday, we heard that there was a Kenya vs. Uganda soccer game at Mendela Stadium in Kampala! We were all super excited about it and so we decided to make a day out of it. Just like many other areas around the world, Ugandans LOVE soccer! The game didn't start until 4 and so we were able to stop in Kampala (which is the capital and so it's more like the western world) and we went to Dominos! ha ha it was a little (alot) different than it is in the US but it was a nice change from our usual matoke, bread, bananas and our newest invention banana sandwiches! However, after we had eaten and were heading back to the taxi, I started feeling kind of guilty. I was thinking about where we live in Lugazi where people are barely able to feed their families much more than one meal a day and here we were endulging ourselves in everything that we had missed while completely gorging ourself and it only ended up costing a little more than five dollars a person. It just helped to remind me of why I am here! Although it is an exciting adventure being in a completely new environment I am here to gain a better understanding of development and the role that I can take to help them change their lives for the better. It was just a little eye opening experience for me.
Once we got to the game, I immediately was able to take in all the enthusiasm the people have for the game! It was sooo loud and instead of cheerleaders, they had a group of people playing African drums and dancing. They came in at one point with the huge drums balanced on their heads while kicking their feet up to play them! It was awesome!! It was funny, before the game we were jokingly just wondering what the concessions would be like and we had to laugh when we got there are realized it was exactly like the "drive through"!
On Sunday, we went to church as usual in Jinja! During sacrament meeting, they had a few of the youth give talks. I was so impressed with them. They are so strong in their testimonies and their faith! Although they didn't have their talks written out on paper, they were completely confident and organized in their thoughts. They said exactly what they thought and felt and even though they were young, you could tell that they shared exactly what their branch needed to hear. After church, we were invited to stay for the baptism of two girls. We had to go and make sure that our driver was ok to wait and when we went out to talk to him, we ended up inviting him to come and watch it as well. It was awesome to come to a baptism because eventhough I live in Utah where people are baptized all the time, it had been awhile since I had been to one! It was amazing because almost the whole branch stayed after to show their support to the newly baptized members of the church. After the baptisms, we asked Godfrey (our driver) what he thought about it and if it was different than his church and he said that it was very different than his church but that it was just like it is written in the Bible, baptism by immersion. It made us so excited to hear him say that and he ended up giving his number to the missionaries!
Well that is the update of the weekend! O and about my title, the ATM randomly gives out fake money, if it gets below 70 degrees all the boda drivers put on ski coats and say that it is freezing outside, and people love taking pictures of us. . . it is kind of weird sometimes, especially since they aren't subtle about it. ha ha they just go stand by you and take your picture! But we take so many pictures of our surrounding here so I guess it is even!:)

Projects so far. . . . .

It has been a busy week setting up appointments with partner organizations and starting to get our projects figures out and everything! For the public health commitee our main projects for the next few months are going to be the eye camp and the HIV/AIDS extravaganza, but since those aren't until the end of June and July, we have been working on a few small things until them. On Monday, Emanual invited us to go to an HIV/AIDS screening. We didn't really know what we were going to be doing, but we went with the intention to just observe what was going on. Well. . . he had slightly different plans. When we got there, he took us to the room where there were about 40 college students waiting for us. He got out the equipement and began telling us about the test they did. There is a strip of paper and when you put a few drops of blood on the tip and wait, lines will appear. If there is just one line, the person is negative, but if there are two, someone's life is about to change forever. After he explained it all he was about to hand us needles. . . needless to say we panicked!!! We explained to him that we didn't have permission from our organization to work with needles, and he was like, "well I'm giving you permission." We finally convinced him that unfortunately we needed to talk to head office before we did that so he settled for us to assist him in everything else but the actually pricking.
My whole life I have known that HIV/AIDS is a serious disease, but I don't think it hit me how much it impacts people who actually deal with the reality of contracting it. The tension in the room was so so great and when people came to me, I would take down their names and I just felt so bad for them seeing them under so much mental stress. Once everyon had been tested, we waiting around for the results. The room was completely silent and we felt so uncomfortable. . . yet we were about to get even more so. Luckily, everyone we tested was negative. Emanual said that he had only had 6 people test positive since he has been testing at the University, yet you could tell he was very dissapointed because he knew that the reason everyone was so worried was because they had been pariticipating in risky behaviors that put them at risk. So rather than just tell everyone they were negative, he gave each person an individual counseling session on how to keep themselves HIV/AIDS free. He let us sit in and listen and after he had done a few counseling sessions, he was like, now Kate (that is what they call me since that can't say katelynn) is going to give you a lesson and reveal your results. ummm. . . not only did I only know a minimal amount about the virus I had someone absolutely terrified for their life looking to me for advice! I didn't do so great at first, but it was an incredible experience! Very eye opening!
After the screening, Emanuel invited us over to his house to have a coke! It was really good to try and get the mood a little lighter after that experience! We went over and just talked with him for a little bit and he was telling us that he hopes to come to the USA to go to medical school. He is incredibly smart and I hope he gets the opportunity because he would do awesome and I know that he could do so much good here! But he also told us that that morning he had tested two people that were HIV/AIDS positive. He said it just wears him down when he has to reveal that kind of news to someone. We are planning on helping him with more screening and testing and I hope that I never have to reveal that kind of news to anyone!
I also had my first boda-boda ride! FOr those of you that don't know, that is just a motorcycle basically! It is tradition that girls ride sitting side-ways since they are all wearing skirts, but I wasn't about to do that. . . I was already a little nervous! ha ha so I full on climbed on boy style and told them to go really slow and held on for my life!! I'm sure that the driver was just dying laughing and that everyone we passed by did the same but I felt much safer that way!
Yesterday, we were really excited because we were going to meet the mayor! however, time/meetings in Uganda, are not taken quite like they are in America. It is very normal to 1. be a few hours late or 2. not show up! So he didn't show up! But we finally just met with a lady named Peggy instead after a few no shows!
We are also getting ready to build a stove at a school next week. Me and another volunteer went and visited the school to try and get things ready. It was a boarding school and I found out that out of 200 kids staying there, 125 of them only get porridge in the morning and that is all they eat for the rest of the day! I just can't imagine how hungry they must be and how hard it must be to learn with so little food with hardly any nutrition. THe porridge here is called poscho and it is basically a paste made from corn flour stuff and water. We had it and it really isn't that good and is basically just meant to act as something to fill their stomachs since it is soooo heavy. We are thinking of building gardens at these schools to help the kids learn how to have a garden, practice math, provide better nutrition, and a little extra income.

Weekend trip to Jinja

So, since we have the weekends off, we decided to take a trip to jinja which is the tourist destination in Uganda. It was so funny to go and see many other Mzungu's as well as places that sold hamburgers and pizzas! It was awesome! And the souvenier shops were so much fun too. It was quite different then anywhere else because most things are around one dollar! It's crazy! After we shopped for a bit, we headed over to this resort and went for a swim. It felt AMAZING after the week in the dirt and heat. So there is something very interesting here that we call the "drive through". What you do, is tell your taxi to pull over to the side of the road and immediately you are bombarded with vendors selling meat on sticks, water, pop, sambosas, and my personal favorite, gonjas which are roasted bananas. It's so fun, but kind of overwhelming. So this week since we already were introduced to many of our partner organizations, we selected commitee leads and began planning projects. Me and two other girls on my team are heading up public health and I am so excited about it. Today we went and met with sister Josaphine from the hospital as well as another man named Emanuel. We are planning some village outreach programs and a curriculum to teach HIV/AIDS awareness in the schools. I don't know why, but ever since we got here and learned about the problems HIV/AIDS has caused, I have wanted to spend my time in that area. We also met with a man named Wilson who is charge of the Youth Outreach Mission and he is going to help us teach about health and HIV in schools as well as help us plan an extravaganza for a community awareness day dealing with HIV/AIDS. Also, we will be planning things for our eye camps that will hopefully be starting up in June. That is just what has been going on with public health! There are five other commitees on our team who all have amazing projects they are planning. I am just so excited for all the work we are going to be doing this summer.

Oliotya!

Oliotya! That is the greeting here in Uganda that just means "hello how are you?" which you them respond "Bolunji"! It has been so much fun to start picking up on more of the Ugandan phrases and words, and they love it when you try and use them. It has also been interesting because they speak very simple English and carefully pronunciate each consonant, I realized that in the USA we talk very slurred together and if you talk like that anywhere else in the word, no one will understand you. They also say "mmmmmmm" which is like saying "uh-huh". ANyways for the update here, we have been doing a TON and meeting with many different partners. We met with the womens group that makes Musana jewelry, went to the local hospital and school, and met many fun people along the way. It was really eye opening to go to the schools and the hospitals. I knew that they would obviously be different since this is a 3rd world country, I just didn't know how different. They way that the hospital is set up is that there are different buildings (women, men, children, natal care, etc) and also a lab and an out patient area. They had us just walk around through the giant rooms where all the patients are. I felt very bad just walking around because if I was sick in the hospital, the last thing I would want is to have people come through and stare at me. But we went into the area that the women go after they have their babies and there were three women in there and they let us see their babies who were only a few days old and they were so adorable (mom, you would have loved it!). We also were able to go into the lab and it was funny, they seriously showed us everything, even the collection of urine samples! But the man working in there had a blood sample of someone with malaria and he let us look through the microscope to see what the parasite looks like. It was very interesting and made me very grateful for my malaria medication. The lady who we are working with is named sister Josephine and she was awesome! So funny and friendly! They actually will let us do whatever we want. . which is kind of scary in a way! They asked us if we wanted to deliever babies and all these other things! When we told them that we didn't have any medical experience, we told them we would just be cheerleaders for the women to help and they thought it was so funny! Also, they will let us observe surgeries and everything!
Then we also had the opportunity to go visit the school. It was just a long building that had about ten really really small classrooms in them. I hope to spend lots of time helping out there. They have a bunch of ideas of ways that we can help them. I think one of the main things that they need help with is sustaining their school, making sure that there is enough money to pay the teachers and such. Right now, they are trying to support the school with about 23 chickens and when we calculated everything, we realized that they weren't making close to the profit that they need to sustain their school. We have many projects that we are working on to help this school.
We were also able to build another stove for a widow and her children. They were so excited about it and we had a blast building it. When we were almost finished, we began molding things out of the clay with some of the kids. I made a caterpillar that was rather obese! ha ha but the little boy I gave it to loved it and at first I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized that these kids don't grow up having toys like kids do in the US, so anything to play with was exciting for them. It was really sad to realize.
As far as more cultural things that we have experienced here, we had our first "rolex"! It was delicious! I can't wait to come home and make it for my family (family, be excited)! It is basically an omelet inside a tortilla. The man who runs the rolex stand is very happy that we moved in I think because people from our team get them every day now. I now know why they say that everyone gains weight when they come to Uganda. Also, it is completely normal for the water and power to go out all the time for long periods of time. So we wake up each morning and hope that we have running water, otherwise, we take showers in the rain, or bucket showers. But clean or muddy we are having a blast! I used to feel like 3 months was such a long time to be living in a 3rd world country, but being here and seeing all the things they want us to teach them, I feel like 3 months isn't enough time at all.

Lugazi: noun the most beautiful place on earth

I lied. I thought that Mukono was the most beautiful place every, but when we arrived to our house in Lugazi, I discovered that it was more beautiful! It is a much smaller town than Mukono and so it feel a little more relaxed since there are less things going on. But we live in a village called Nakasade and we are literally in a village. It is amazing! There are goats, chickens, cows all just running around with a ton of kids. The roads are all like little trails and when the Muzungo's (us) walk down the road for any reason, it is like a parade! Everyone comes out of their houses and yells to us or the children run up and grab your hands. Once we arrived at our house, we did a lot of cleaning to get everything set up. It is actually brand new, although you would never know it. We also were able to go to a restaurant for the first time, called the Patron. They gave us the VIP room and were so kind to us. I ordered fish and chips because I heard that it was good! I was suprised however when they literally brought me a whole fish, bones, scales, eyeballs, and all! People were eating their fins and I could hear them crunching. . . . but I did finally get the guts to pull off the fins and eat some! It actually wasn't bad at all! On sunday we had an amazing experience because we were able to travel to JInja to go to the branch there. I have never felt the Spirit like I did there. It was a beautiful building and they left all the doors open so throughout the meeting, you could hear tropical birds in the background and roosters crowing. IT was also amazing to talk to the missionaries who were there. Some of them were at BYU! We also had the opportunity to go to Young Womens. It was awesome! We had a lesson about family history and they took it from a different angle than we would in the states. I learned that each person in ugand belongs to a clan. Each clan also has an animal that they consider their sacred animal. It is important for them to know the name of their clan so that they won't marry anyone from their same clan, because that is considered disgraceful. It was awesome though because the Young Women remembered some people who I know who cam in the past and they were just asking about them. After the lesson, they actually asked us if we would prepare the lesson for next week. It is going to be quite the experience but I am excited! ha ha but it was funny to hear their leader hassle them about personal progress. . . . young women are the same everywhere! O also as we were driving to church we passed through this amazing forest (more like a jungle if you ask me) and we crossed the Nile river! That night, we had our first Ugandan feast! Our cook spent about 9 hours preparing it for us. We had chicken (which we walking around our yard that morning. . . I couldn't really handle that), matoke ( plantains that are cooked in bannana leaves all day) Irish potatoes (homeade tator totts) beans, noodle stuff, fresh fruit, cabbage and I can't even remember what else! But our cook Rose did an amazing job and tonight she is cooking us Chipatti which I am very excited about! Then today, we were able to go and do our first project. We buildt an adobe stove for a family! It was super fun!! by the time we got to the site, there were at least 20 kids following us and they were such good helpers. We had to get all this clay and pour water over it, take off our shoes and stamp it! The kids had a blast and so did we! It is just amazing to see the people who already have these stoves and see how much they have impacted their lives. It helps not only limit the amount of smoke they inhale, but allows them to boil their drinking water, cook breakfast ( because it shortens cooking time) and cook more than one thing at a time. With the time they save they are able to plant gardens or find other ways to help earn money. I really wish that I could upload picatures onto this blog for you all to see the amazing village we live in, but because of computer viruses, it isn't really possible! But the houses have cloth doors and are made from homemade bricks they make from the soil. We have some great plans for the week! Can't wait to share them!

Hello Uganda!

I made it! So far it has been the most amazing experience ever! Of course along the way, there were little pit falls, such as, one of my bags got lost, my shampoo exploded, and at customs in London, the passport checker held up my passport and asked said, "Doesn't she look crazy?" ha ha it was great! But once we landed in Uganda I was taken aback at how beautiful it is here! The people, the culture, and the scenery. There is just one main road and there are all these little shops along the sides that are completely outside. There are even furniture stores outside which I thought was interesting! It was really sad though, as we were driving (O the driving is INSANE here) we were stopped in a jam that happens quite frequently and this little boy runs up to my window and hold his hand up to me. He wasn't speaking English, but I knew that he was begging. Soon, some other children ran up as well and I didn't know what to do! I wished that I could give them everything, but I didn't have any coins and they told us that we shouldn't always hand out money. ANother thing that is very different here is that we stick out like a sore thumb times ten! Everywhere we go, you hear people muttering mzungu this and mzungu that which means white person in Lugandan. It is also interesting to see that the people all dress so nice. Eventhough they live in an area that isn't, they dress in collered shirts and skirts all the time. This made us stick out even more, you can only look so good after three days and two nights of traveling with no change of clothes or showers and no sleep. I have never been so tired! As we left the airport my eyes were glued open as my eyes poured over the sights and sounds of the cities we passed through, but eventually I had to give in to sleep and I was out! We also learned that sometimes they sell contaminated water in normal bottles. We learned this the hard way. . . we bought some water and our country director got this worried look on her face and ran over and told us that they drill holes on the bottom of some of them and sure enough. . ours had a hole! But (mom and dad) don't worry I am not sick! We are actually staying in Mukono tonight because our house is currently under construction. But it is new apparently, but very small. I'm so excited to see it and Lugazi! We are venturing there tomorrow and I can hardly wait! Lugazi is where I'll call home for the next two and a half months! Wahoo!

Goodbye USA!!!!

After months of preparing, researching, and getting excited, the day has finally come!! In just a few short hours, we will be leaving to start our Ugandan adventure! It takes us a few days to get there, but considering I haven't been to any of the places that we are stopping, I am excited to see them all! Our country directors have been keeping us updated about the different things they have experienced as they have started to become familiar with the Ugandan culture, people, and the beautiful country. They tell us over and over that we are going to love it! I'm just so excited about this opportunity that I have to not only experience a new country and culture, but to get to know the people and about their life stories and experiences while we serve them. Well . . . I'm off!