Farewells

 Tuesday, I finished everything for my undergraduate degree. I have done all the presentations, turned in all the papers and taken all the tests. I'm amazed how quickly not only the four years have gone, but also how quick this semester has gone. I remember being picked up from the airport being sleep deprived and homesick for the first four nights. It's going to be hard to go through time zones and homesickness again.

Unfortunately, on Tuesday we found out that we will not being going to Rwanda. For those of you who don't follow the news Rwanda and Uganda are having some border issues. Nothing to be concerned about my safety but my program is going on the side of caution. Instead, we are going to Northern Uganda "to learn more about the history of northern Uganda and see and hear from some of the incredible efforts being done to rebuild individuals and communities after years of devastation and loss." I'm very excited to learn more about the history of the place that I have called home for four months.

On Tuesday, I went home to celebrate being free from being a student and also to "help" my family cook for the farewell dinner.  Tuesday night, I helped defeather one chicken while my brothers did like five or six each. I then helped wash out the inside of the chickens (30 chickens). I went to bed and I over slept, so I missed the whole butchering the pig thing. I'm not too upset about that for some reason (just so you know I woke up at like 7:30). The rest of the day, I helped take the garlic and grate it. I only got my finger once in the process so it's kind of a win. I then followed Alex around with whatever he was doing.

The farewell dinner is an event with lots of people and speeches. My family made incredible food and there was so much of it. There were over 250 people there. (28 students+ each student got 2 coworkers from their internship+ host families + staff). I was luck that I had another person interning at ROTOM so that I got to see four people from my practicum site. We got to celebrate that I got a certificate that says I completed a the Uganda Studies Program here at UCU and am now part of the alumni association. This is super cool since my supervisor graduated from UCU so it's like we're alumni together now.

My group of social workers (not everyone made it for the picture)

Supervisors and the supervised. ROTOM blessed both of us.

My ROTOM family

Babirye to my Nakato (It's a twin thing)

Today was my last day on UCU's campus as a student. The bus rolls out at 8:00 am and I'm going to miss this place.

Last Weekend in Uganda (As a USP student)

I am done with my internship- I ended with 409 hours. I learned so much through being here. I learned how to practice with clients through a translator, how to be okay with silence, how to connect with coworkers that are so very different from me, how to ask a million questions and still prove you are a competent social worker,  about power dynamics (being educated, white, a social worker) and how to try to balance the power I do have.  I also got to experience chickens sitting inside clients houses (I only got pecked once), dance parties with jjajja's, making a fool out of myself and being okay with it (I'm talking about the dance parties) and making relationships.

I finished all of my classes here at UCU, the only thing that I have left for my undergrad is a case study paper and presentation on Tuesday. It's super said to realize that my time is almost done. This week, I'm turning all of my stuff in and getting ready for our trip in Rwanda. We will be watching some educational movies and having orientation to prepare for it. We leave on Friday.

This past weekend, on Saturday I got to go to Kampala and do some last minute shopping with a good friend of mine. We took a taxi and accidentally got off on the wrong stop. Thankfully, Ugandan's are more than willing to give directions. We made it to craft Africa safe and sound. We were extremely impressive, we got all of our last minute shopping for people done and left in like two hours. We then went to Lugogo, which is a shopping mall. We went to a big super market than tends to have some American food and we found some American candy bars. We then stopped at Cafe Java's. It's a chain that I've mentioned before that has "white people" food (Ugandan's words, not mine). We treated ourselves to chicken alfredo and iced coffee. We got back at a decent time so I went home.

Alex taught me to make chapati, it's actually much easier than I thought. It's basically flour, water, salt and oil. You can add veggies in the mix: we added onions, peppers and carrots. It was super fun and I'm excited to make them at home for people to try. I stayed overnight and then went to church in the morning. After church, we were getting ready for the farewell dinner. There's going to be 300 some people there and my family is cooking for them. It's basically a way to say goodbye to our host families and people from our internships. So on Sunday, I helped dry plates and some 300 forks.

I did some planning for when my dad comes, we are going to have a full week! One of my favorite parts, is that ROTOM upon hearing my dad is coming offered to take him to a fellowship so he can actually experience what my internship was like. I originally was hesitant as I did not want to get in the way of the work that they are doing, but everyone was so excited! It will be a really fun time!

Final Stretch of USP

I'm filling out my timesheet for practicum and I have thirty hours left- on day one the goal of four hundred hours seemed insane. I'm looking at my calendar and realizing that I have my capstone, my end of semester paper, due in a week. I'm also realizing that my classmates have less than a month before they fly home to the United States. Huge shout out to my dad for coming and giving me extra time!

 My class schedule was a bit strange this week: on Monday I did not go to my internship site. Instead we had a social work class where we learned about the enneagram. This meant that I was done at 4 instead of 5:30. This does not sound like a super big deal, but when you have a curfew of seven, that extra hour and a half is really nice. I spent the afternoon with my friend where we found a place that sold milkshakes. The amount of syrup that they put in there is like a child's dream come true. It was a good way to spend the afternoon. Since we had extra time, we went to see if we could find some fabric to have my graduation dress made. (I'm arriving basically two full days before graduation and won't have time and/or energy for shopping). In Uganda, you can get clothes tailored to you. I didn't find the fabric that I wanted for my graduation dress, but I did find fabric for a skirt. I'm super excited that I get a skirt long enough, that has pockets and I paid only 30,000 shillings for. That's like $8.50.

The rest of the week was fun at my internship. I got to spend a lot of time with the jjajja's and they are the sweetest people ever. I'm forever amazed that when they start singing praise songs most of them get up and dance. Some of them need canes to get up, but that doesn't stop them from really praising the Lord.

Yesterday, I didn't have social work classes at 9:00 since we had class on Monday. This meant that I didn't have class until 3:30! I spent the morning sleeping in. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've done that since I've been here. I got a call from Alex at like 10:30 asking if I was busy today. He asked me to bring my camera and help him because he just got hired to take photos at this entrepreneur "fair." So I spent the afternoon being a "professional photographer."  They gave me lunch which was way better than food I would get at the DH. I also got to learn a lot about what starting a business means here in Uganda. There were so many ideas and business types. I had to leave early for class, so I missed a large portion of the presentations, but it was a good day anyway.

I don't think I have anything else interesting to add, besides it's 26 days until my dad comes! We're going to have so much fun.

I don't know how to title all this randomness

This is another short post about the most random things.

Saturday, I got to go shopping and I bought some more African wear. I honestly have so much, but it is inexpensive clothing that I really love the colors of. I went with a friend and afterwards we went to get smoothies at shop we haven't tried before. It was so cold, which hit the spot, but it was much smaller (and more expensive) than the smoothie place here on campus.
That afternoon, I got to watch Alex play football (read soccer). In the States, I loved supporting my brothers playing soccer. It was fun to get a chance to do that again. It was even more fun when they won the game like 5-0.  It was even greater that I got to go home afterwards. All in all a good day. I went to bed way too late again, but time flies when you are having fun.
Sunday, I went to church and then just hung out. It rained a little bit so we had a nice indoor game of UNO. There was a really bad flash of lighting (that scared me a little bit) and I later learned that it hit one of our neighbors. The man died. It was a horrible thing to have happened, but it reminded me the amazingness (is that a word) of the Ugandan culture. Once the news was discovered, everyone sprang to action. Mom went over and started caring for the baby. Someone went to go rent chairs so that visitors had some where to sit. They needed this because the whole community will go over to pay respects and give condolences. They don't just send them a card in the mail, everyone walks over there and sits with them. It was also mentioned that my family would start cooking something so that visitors would have enough to eat. It was incredible to watch how much the community cares. It is a tragic event that I'm sure prayers would be appreciated for, but it was also just really cool to see a community come together.
Today started uneventful, I went to class at 8:30-10:30. I then went to morning tea (which needs to be thing when I get back). I went to my internship (I only have 9 full days left- WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS SEMESTER!!). I typed translations to the letters sent to the donors, I would definitely recommend getting a senior friend. These letters are too cute to handle. The day was good, I was waiting to go home when my day became slightly more exciting. I got left at my internship site and had to wait an extra hour. I came back a wee bit grumpy, but it's a good thing that I was left. I was planning on getting a rolex to make up for the rough ending, but I ran into some homestay students who wanted to get what's called an eggroll at local place. An eggroll is definitely not what you would think. It is a hard boiled egg that is surrounded by mashed potatoes and then fried.  I would recommend. The company made up for a rough end to the day. I also bought myself a Novida, so some sugar therapy was pretty great.

Late Nights

 This is a short post with not a whole lot of interesting happenings. I just feel the need to be actually caught up on my blog.

This past weekend, I made plans to have a movie night with my brother and in general just hang out with the family. Friday night, I got there and surprised my mom and all my brothers (accept the one who said lets have a movie night- I thought he told mom I was coming/he thought I told mom). This is where I know they love me, I basically just showed up unannounced and they were still excited. On Friday night, I got the invitation to join them at an expo in which they were showing their family business of the rabbit farming on Saturday. We left pretty early in the morning and I went to bed fairly early that same morning....I think I got like four hours of sleep.

I was secretary (wrote receipts for whatever someone bought) for all of fifteen minutes before everyone (myself included) realized that knowing Luganda would be of some help. Mostly I just hung out.  However, I did learn that g-nuts and p-nuts are the same thing thanks to a different stand at the expo. This was pretty life changing information.

At the end I met some kids and we did cartwheels in the field by our stand.  I got to hold some rabbits and hold kids, it was a afternoon well spent. We ended up leaving late for my curfew so after a few phone calls it was decided that I would spend the night again. The traffic on the ride back was not fun, mad props to my brother for having no road rage, I would have lost it. However, staying over night turned into another movie night, which lead to another late night. However, it was totally worth it.

On that note, I seem to have caught a cold. That might be partially because lack of sleep.

Regardless of the cold, I toughed it out and got off campus on Sunday with a couple friends and ended up meeting a couple more. I got sunburned and a cold all on the same day.  It was a pretty fun adventure full of lots of laughter. Thankfully the traffic wasn't as bad Sunday as it was on Saturday night and we made it home safe and sound.

Playing Tourist

At this point I've been in Uganda for basically two and a half months. We talk a lot in my Faith and Action class (the one that I get to take instead of Core 399 for my Dordt friends) about how we aren't here to be tourists and instead we are here to learn from the locals and really grow while we are here. That being said, the first weekend of March I got to play tourist and go on a safari! It was a really great time to get off campus and hang out with a bunch of different people. We left on Saturday morning at 6 am and drove to Murchison Falls, a national park in Uganda, to start our safari. The first thing we did was see the top of the falls.

 It is absolutely beautiful, even though it is dry season and wasn't at full force. After that we went down to the loading dock at the bottom and took a cruise on the Nile. We were running late (African time), but they waited for us. Unfortunately, we did miss lunch because we had to basically run straight onto the boat, but totally worth it. It was super cool to be on the Nile and see crocodiles, hippos, elephants, birds...basically a lot of nature.

bottom of the falls and my friend Sarah.

After the Nile cruise, (on which I took like 400 pictures of hippos), we were heading back on the bus to go on what's called a game drive. One of the girls in our group was carrying bananas and a baboon ran up to her and tried to steal them. Baboons are so much bigger than I thought.

The Baboon that stole the bananas.

We were all laughing about the strange event on the bus when a man with a gun came on the the bus. We all were kind of frozen for a minute, but he said he was our tour guide (named George) and the gun was for scaring away elephants if needed. We then went on our game drive.

We saw a lot of really cool things and George was a great tour guide with so much information. We went back to the hotel and had supper. I was taking a shower and the power went off mid-shower. If you don't understand the irony, reread the blog post on Sipi Falls. I was rooming with the same friend who got stuck with me.

We got up at 6 am again to go on a mini game drive before going home. We got back at 7ish on Sunday. We crammed a lot of things in that short amount of time, but it was very fun.

Sipi Falls & COFFEE

After homestays, we went directly to Sipi Falls.
We got there Friday night, it was basically debrief, eat some supper and catch up with everybody.  It was great after a challenging week. I got to hang out with some of the off campus students that I don't get to see much. I had a real bonding experience with one of the girls. Her name is Sarah. We were told that there was hot showers, which I haven't had since January 1. We were super pumped, grabbed our stuff and each took a stall. We were enjoying the water and we were mid-shampoo when the water turned off. We weren't sure if the water would turn back on, but at that point we were wet, naked and in a drafty shower. We just decided after standing around for awhile that the water wouldn't turn back on and therefore we just dealt with shampoo in our hair.

 It was okay that our hair was absolutely gross because the following day we got absolutely disgusting on a nine mile hike to see three waterfalls. In case you missed me saying it four or five times the last post:  I am seriously out of shape.  I made it though.

We had fun with the cameleon. We played in the waterfall (It was a very long hike in wet jeans, but 100% worth it!) We completed 9 miles.

The path had loose dirt and some Ugandan boys helped us down the path. While this wasn't me, it had definitely been me multiple times.

The view from the "hotel." It's labeled the first waterfall we went to and the third. The second could not be seen. However, I totally walked that far and didn't die.

After the hike, we had like five minutes to change out of wet clothes and grab money and then we went on a coffee tour and then I had two and a half cups of Ugandan coffee. It was super interesting to see the process in African versus the process I have seen used when I did a tour of Kansas City roastery. It is so much less complicated, scientific and less machines. However, it's still a pretty good cup of joe.

Coffee Plant

Baby Coffee Plants

After beating the coffee to get the good part of the bean you have to thrash it. We were not good at it but I don't have an expert pictures and this one was too fun not to share.

Before being roasted & After

Hand ground is best, right?

Rural Homestays

March 1 (three days ago) marks two months since I left for Uganda. I have been here for two months and falling in love with Uganda (and the people) a little more everyday. I've been slacking so I'll catch you up. 

I was in Rural Uganda for 7 days living with a family.

We had about a six hour drive in that I spent with a majority of off-campus students. It was a great time to get to know people that I don't get to see very often. The van ride was full of Heads-up, laughter and ice cream we bought at a gas station (and shared with very tiny wooden spoons).


That week, I learned how to work incredibly hard. Ugandan women might be the strongest people I know. This past week, I was up before the sun every single day (I left my watch behind, I'm trying to truly embrace "African Time.") My host mom, Toto Helen, wanted me to learn everything in a week. I think we might have gotten close.

Some background to this experience. I was living in Serere, Uganda. I put in my last post that I would be staying in Soroti. I was wrong- Toto Helen told me that it has only been it's own district for about a year. My Ugandan geography/history education is a bit behind :) They speak a different tribal language than is spoken in the central region (where I am now).  They speak Ateso, if you want to greet in this language you say "yoga." That is about the extent of my Ateso. I lived on a compound- communal living is huge here. My two brothers and my uncle each had their own structure and my two sisters (19 and 10) had their own structure. I lived in a different structure with my host mother (fun fact she is a twin mother and was beyond excited to here I was a twin).

I was dropped off Saturday at probably around 10 or so. We got straight to work washing the dishes. This sounds like an easy enough task, until you realize there is no running water. You have to haul water in jerry cans to where ever you want to do dishes. This is a job. Ugandan's really dont have a need for a traditional gym. The bore hole  (where you get water) pump is basically a rowing machine. I felt it for the next couple of days let me tell you. After you get water from the bore hole you have to push the jerry cans in a wheel barrow over many bumps.

House that I lived in.

Always welcomed with open arms.

On Tuesday, my brother (21) took me on a hike. I am out of shape (you will hear this at least 3 or four more times in this blog post....but I seriously need to start exercising and start eating less chapati and Rolex). We first went to a farm that was raising fish in a pond (and other random animals) We then went up this steep hill. I was breathing so heavy, but I made it. It was cool to see the landscape and get out of the compound for a bit. We took a detour on the way back and he showed me the prisoners gardens. The prisoners are used for manual labor in Uganda, so if you don't want to do something you hire prisoners. I asked Dan more questions on where the money goes and who gets it but he wasn't really sure. It was an interesting thing to see- they wear yellow shirts and shorts and are very rarely accompanied by guards. It was unsettling for me at first, but Dan assured me the punishment only gets worse  if they escape. I decided not to thing about it too much but rather just trust him.

I forget what day it was, but Toto Helen and I played a little bit of dress up while I was there. I was dressed in the two different types of gomesi (the traditional African wear- ps. don't judge my spelling I very rarely see Luganda written out).

This picture and the picture below are both the traditional style of dress. 

In general, I did a lot of cooking with my mom. I got to explore the gardens and see what they all planted. Also I did a lot of house chores and basically did whatever they were doing or what they would do on a normal day. 

This is sorghum. You must beat it with a stick and then thrash it in order to use it.

This photo is most definitely staged. I was so bad at thrashing. She took my picture and took over....which is definitely a good thing!

I learned a lot during homestays. It was a really long week in which I learned that I was not cut out to be an Ugandan housewife in rural Uganda (though I did have a couple guys imply they would love to marry me so I could stay there- I politely declined).  I'm all blogged out- but I'll soon post about my trip to Sipi Falls and my safari!

I couldn't figure out how to take a picture of the stars well. However, they were beautiful. Absolutely no light pollution what so ever. However I'm afraid you'll have to be okay with this picture of the moon.

Midterm:

After writing my midterm, I realized what I have learned this semester. Rather than retype it to be interesting/blog worthy, I decided to copy and paste it. Sorry for it not being the most interesting thing you will ever read, but it's what is on my heart right now.

If one asked about the characteristics of a social worker, ’relational’ would be bound to come up. As a senior social work major, relationships were something that I thought I had looked at from different viewpoints. I simplified all I  learned about relationships into talking, listening, and coming along side someone However, relationships are allowed to look different. It is not always about talking or even about listening. Sometimes relationships look like presence and showing up.
    There is an intentionality about Ugandan culture and the relationships that are formed here. Upon arriving at my Ugandan home, I am asked how I am in at least three different ways by everyone in the family. If one looks at the few greetings I have learned in Luganda, the intentionality is made even more clear. No one has taught me a simple “hi,” instead I was taught greet someone with “how are you?.” It is typically followed up by then asking them how their day has gone. While this occurs in the United States, we have the ability to greet and not invest in the relationship. We can say hello, not ask any questions and leave.
    There are many examples of the intentional nature of my Ugandan relationships. One of the main relationships that sticks out is my Ugandan roommate. I had gotten sick during the first month here and I was in the room sleeping. My roommate would wake me up to check that I was doing okay. She did not just ask how I was feeling only if she happened to make eye contact with me; she purposefully sought me out to ask how I was doing.
    I had an interesting conversation after that experience with my host mom about what it means to live with communal intentional relationships. Her point was why would you want to be alone when the worst is happening to you? She said, that for this reason mental health looks different in Africa because they do not let you suffer alone. Though I know mental health is bigger than not letting people be alone, it is a starting place. It reminds me of Compassion, where is says “what really counts is that in moments of pain and suffering someone stays with us (Nouwen, McNeill & Morrison 1983).” We study relationships in social work from the view point that we will not always have the answer or words to make them feel better. Through watching intensional relationships here, I  am realizing we have the start of an answer; it comes down to presence.
    Nothing has made this more clear than the time that I have spent with my host family. One Saturday, I went over to spend time with my family and learn about their catering business. I  was not helpful, if anything I  got in the way. Right before I left, my mom thanked me for my help that day. Once I expressed feelings of of being unhelpful, my mom disagreed and said that showing up was enough. My family valued the fact that I wanted to be part of the family, even though I  am not the most helpful member. I  have learned so much through the relationship with my family that I  could never have learned on my own. Growth happens through relationships, not being on my own. I  do not always learn about culture or my family by asking every question that I  have, though I  do ask a lot of questions. In contrast, I learn the most by being there and being present. My sister does not speak English, but I  have discovered that joy is a universal language. It’s a language that speaks volumes without ever saying a word; however, you need to show up to see it.
    Uganda and America are very different places and often we do not understand each other. Though despite the differences, there is a universal need to be a part of something and have people support you. Engaging makes you apart of something bigger. This has been the largest learning curve here. It is easy for me to stand back and observe. Though there is growth through observation, it will only get me so far. Being an observer will not help me build relationships and will leave my global education lacking.  The semester would be a waste if I just tried to gain as much head knowledge as I could in the short months I have left.  This semester is about being intentional with my learning and my relationships. This semester is about valuing the people who have come into my life. This semester is about being present and engage with the rich culture of Uganda.
     Though I have studied relationships for the past three and a half years, I  have room to grow. I will probably never feel comfortable waking up my roommate if she is sleeping, but I can to make the extra effort to ask her questions instead of running in the room, grabbing whatever I needed and leaving with only saying hello. Though I will probably never be an actual asset to my family when they are cooking, I can be present. I  can take steps in the right direction in growing my relationships while I  am here.  I  will also be able to carry these into my social work profession. In the International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, it shares that BSW students who study abroad have substantial shifts in perspective (2012). I  am noticing this already and am excited to see how much more I  can grow as a social worker this semester.
    God designed relationships across all the cultures. He is a relational God. He strives to have a personal relationship with us. I am learning through Ugandan’s how to have a relationship that is meaningful, valuable and intentional. These traits will also translate to my relationship with my heavenly Father. This is the biggest take away of all of them. I have learned that being present is import with people and even more important with God. It’s not about knowing exactly what he is telling me to do. It’s not about praying and asking him the right questions. It’s about seeking him first and growing within his presence

Calm before the storm

This week has been much calmer than most of the other weeks. I don't have terrible much to say.

I was incredibly blessed to not be sick this past week as so many of my social work friends. There are ten in my class and if I'm right I believe only two of us did not get sick. I was blessed to be one of the healthy ones, many thanks to my prayer warriors at home! I was sick during the first couple of weeks, but I'm so thankful it was literally a 24 hour bug and I was back to "normal" the next day.

This past week was full of meetings at ROTOM in which I learned how to take minutes. AKA I learned that being a secretary or a transcriber is most definitely not my calling. I learned a lot about the company and what goes into being a nonprofit.

Today (Sunday) was a very chill day with my family. I went to church and hung out at home. Unfortunately, a lot of the clan was busy and out of the house today. However, the one of the best parts of having a large family is there's still lots of people to love when people are gone. One of my brothers took me to see all the rabbits and I got to hold a baby rabbit that was literally born this morning.

Next week promises a very busy schedule- midterms are due (crazy right!?!), I'm heading to Kampala to get my visa and on Friday, I am leaving to rural home stays.  This is basically the equivalent to our spring break- I will have no classes or readings during this time. I will be living with a family for about 6 days in rural Soroti (the east part of Uganda).

Prayer Requests:

• Pray for midterms. There is a lot of papers due next week
• Pray for the family that I will be living with. I am so blessed by my Mukono family- pray that I have an experience just as amazing in Soroti.
• Pray for the health of the girls who got sick and pray that the rest of us continue to be healthy (especially over rural home stays). 

A Full Weekend

Friday I got to go home overnight. My brother came and picked me up (it was after our curfew so I couldn't walk home).  My cross cultural social work group running late and  I couldn't contact him to tell him I was going late, yet he waited over a half hour to make sure that I could come home.

It was so good to go home and see my family again,. To my surprise, three more children are in the family. My mom says that she collects people like candy, if that doesn't describe her amazing heart I don't know what will.  I told her that her true calling is social work, she just laughed. They are my mother's nephews and nieces (yay more girls!). They stay at the house during school. Ugandan's have a very long holy days break. My brothers have to go back to school tomorrow. They have mixed opinions on whether or not that's a good thing. I told them Americans went back over a month ago, my brother said he wanted at least another month.  We played cards and talked, I'm always so blessed to be around my family.

Saturday morning started very early, by six o'clock almost the entire house was awake! We began the job of butchering the chickens for the catering event. If you do not want the details, please skip to the next paragraph. I got to help, which had a considering learning curve but my brothers were nothing but patient explaining what exactly I needed to do. I was offered the knife, but declined so I just held the chicken while my brother cut the head off. I would like to state that chicken with it's head cut off is very realistic. I really thought it was more of a joke but you really have to hold on tight for a good while after that. The next thing was to put them in hot water, this makes it much easier to take off the feathers. I am very slow at taking off the feathers, I'm also not incredible at it. My brothers would probably lie to you and tell you that I was very helpful, but I will be the first to admit I probably slowed them down. I then was given the knife and told that I had to cut off the feet at the "knee joint" (not really sure if this is accurate chicken anatomy). The next step was my brother  gutting the chicken. He would give me the gizzard, which I cut in half, emptied and cleaned. That was my morning, I think we did between 8-10 chickens. I'm not exactly sure.

The event we were catering for was a family get together. It was fun as the family hosted a USP friend. Once we started cooking, I was given the job of peeling potatoes (they call them Irish's). That was one thing I could do without much instruction :) After a bit of time, I started following my brother around so he would teach me things. I "helped" with frying the chicken. Namely I stood around and he let me stir once and take them off. Fun fact about cooking here, it was all done over a fire. It was so cool to watch them cook for that many people and they just used some bricks (to make the pots stay a good distance from the fire), long pieces of firework (as it would burn in the center they would move in inwards, kinda hard to explain) and really large metal pots. I also learned how to make rice, which again I mean I stood around and watched them.  An interesting part of the event was lunch was supposed to be made for one, but we didn't end up serving until five thirty. I got to serve the chapati.  I also got to sample everything- big fan.  I had to head back to UCU shortly after that so that I could make the seven o'clock curfew.  That wraps up Saturday, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.

Today, I went to Kampala for the first time. The first step is to find a taxi- this is not difficult when you are a muzungu. There were four of us on this adventure and none of us had been to Kampala before. It takes about an hour to get twelve miles because of traffic and road conditions. A taxi is not what you would think in the states- you flag it down the same, however it's basically a twelve passenger van that you stuff full of people along the route. It's a pretty good time had by all. We made it and then went to the African craft fair. It was pretty cool, but there is a lot of pressure to buy and to walk into the shops. I got a couple of cards for 2000 shillings, a skirt for 30,000 and a gift for a person...It sounds like a lot of money but a quick calculation is take off three zeros and divide by 4. It's not exact but it works well enough. Negation is not my strong suit, but you need to try it here or you will be WAY over charged. Even negotiating, I probably still got over charged.

We then found a coffee shop- the fast has finally been broken. It was legit the greatest thing.  We then headed to Cafe Java. It's basically an American restaurant. A great change of menu from rice and beans. I got a Philly cheese-steak and a chocolate milkshake. 10/10 would recommend.  Then we headed home in a taxi.

On our way back we hit a pothole, the trunk popped open and a lock box fell out. It was super funny, probably not to the person whose stuff feel out....but it was funny to us. We were laughing and talking the whole way home, we almost didn't get off the taxi on time. Luckily, Susanna caught it just in time.

It was an adventure filled weekend, but it has been one of my favorites here in Uganda. I got family time, I got to hang out with my new friends, I got American food, and I got coffee.  I also withdrew money for a safari, so I'm pretty pumped about that.

p.s. this is my home town