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.