a breakdown

Do you ever just get frustrated with the way the world is?! I hate that Africans look at me and tell me that I’m supposed to help them. And it’s our own fault – my ancestors have come time and time again to say – white is superior and “here to help.” I hate that I don’t openly trust Africans as easily as I would a Muzungu. I hate what Americans think about Africans and I equally hate what Africans think about Americans. I feel like there is no winning. I’m just at wits end about how people treat one another and the social statuses and the competition – and all you can bring yourself to say is “I can’t take this.” We are so rotten, filled with this sin and that’s what we are. At the end of everyday we’re fallen people.
I have ever been shocked at mud huts and 3rd world countries. I have never gone into someone’s home – made out of palm branches and sticks – and thought, “wow they have nothing.” Is that wrong of me? - That I’ve never been moved by their situation that they have so little. We look at people see everything they don’t have. And somehow we think it’s our place to say that they should live to our standard. I’ve never left somewhere and said gosh – wow – that’s terrible. That sucks.
However, when I walk into the middle class home I think – wow – this sucks. I have been emotionally moved numerous times at these homes – thinking “wow they have so much they don’t need.” They are buying a new TV when they don’t need one – their dishwasher isn’t perfect because it leaves residue – and they have electric toothbrushes instead of the regular plastic ones. I look at that and feel bad. I judge the middle and upper classes just as harshly as they themselves judge the lower class. The oddity is that I’m not lower class. I was raised middle class and I fight it every single day of my life. It’s not easy to consciously decide everyday that I’m not going to pursue material possessions. It’s funny because this house I live in here in Jinja is a better house than the one I live in back home – minus the heating and air.
I can’t stand us - people being perfectionists about coffee, and clothing, and everything else under the sun. We are spoiled people. And I mean spoiled in the literal meaning of – this is rotten and sour. And I’m not saying I’m not the same way. Gosh – I love my avocados to be perfect and I’m a stickler about my paintbrushes. I’m exactly the same as everyone I’m talking about. But so often I stop to look around and realize that I’m the only one fighting it.
And at the end of the day we’re all people. We are all fighting sicknesses, and we never have enough money, and we deal with husbands leaving and babies dying and alcohol addictions and we’re the same! We are all humans everywhere we go and we struggle with the exact same things every single day. The question is not whether or not the human struggle is real. I think there is more question to whether or not the battle goes to the extent we perceive it to be.
How do I give back everything my ancestors have taken from these Africans for the past 600 years? Even just physically existing in this continent I’m reinforcing everything.
I can’t handle it. I really can’t. I feel so helpless and am so angry, frustrated, and disheartened by it all. I want it all to dissolve and Jesus to come back. He’s my only answer and my only peace. And at the end of the day – that’s all I have. That’s my only resolve. I will weep everyday until he comes back to restore us in full completeness.

baby sarah

So this is baby sarah two weeks after being taken in by Rene from Feeding His Children. She's 14 months old and two weeks ago weighed only 3 kilos. thats 6.6 pounds. She couldn't even sit up on her own. After two weeks she's gained 4 pounds and is sitting up as you can see in this picture! Her mother was poisoned by a friend and died two weeks before a family member brought Sarah to Rene. Sarah's 12 year old sister was her only caretaker for those two weeks.

She's going to live - and we're excited about it.

horton the hemorrhoid

so.... after a year of rectal bleeding and no answers.....

Africa came to the rescue!

My doctors in the states never gave me any answers or any close just "we didn't find anything...sorry" well, thanks to dr. debbie, i finally found out I have an internal hemorrhoid. I named him Horton, because it never hurts and has been mysteriously sending me messages from within my body for over a year. Like horton hears a who. but theres no flowers involved. He's kindred spirits with Helga - Hannah rae's ovarian cyst that was as big as a football.

i'm happy. & i was right - theres nothing to worry about and nothing i can do about it.

always keepin it real, love jackie.

Bujumbura, Burundi =]

more to come soon!

the nile

Americans.......

as a disclaimer i would like to say that in no way shape or form is it possible for me to be able to be specific about the certain population within america that i am talking about. I understand that most of you reading this strive to rise above this, and i don't mean to offend you or put you in a box. But as i have learned in college, when we decided to look at the world as a whole, we must look at each country as though they were one person. I understand that there are varying ethnic, religious, and economic groups in the U.S. but as a country we output a single image of America. I am describing the perception of America from an outside view.

Honestly, at the end of the day, I have to get this off my chest. These are raw and incomplete thoughts.

why do we as americans think that the entire world should live like us? that we should set this high standard and show it to the rest of the world to follow. we are arrogant. we are ignorant. we think that everyone should live like us. here's the thing - don't flaunt your life to people who know they can't ever have your life. we think we're setting a good standard, a good bar for people to aspire to. these people don't need inspiration. they don't need hope. is walking around, with all your jewelry on, fancy clothes, buying expensive food, and asking to be waited on hand and foot is a good idea? i think about the women i work with. if they had the chance, if they ever had the opportunity to live to a better standard they would and they try and they struggle. we're asking them to chase money and a lavish life. in the documentary The Lost Boys, we see that many of the boys who end up coming to america end up getting caught up in the disease of america. wanting things they can't have, nothing ever being good enough. that when we have the money the first thing we should do is remodel our bathroom that we just remodeled a year ago. it's in the nature of people. we are naturally and inherently selfish. we can't look at these boys and say that it's because they're sudanese. no - it's because we show them a life where we build multimillion dollar idols manifested in the form of sports arenas, homes, and savings accounts. I understand that i am part of the problem. here i am sitting on my macbook writing a blog about americans flaunting what they have. But i'm trying to promote equality the best i can. i know that i will never be equal as long as i am american and as long as i am white, but it's one thing to sit and flaunt, and to dwell and live with these women we're working with. It means eating their food that i don't like. It means helping them roll beads and clean their homes. it means showing them that i'm not too good for their lifestyle. These women go through trial after trial after trial. it's not just one problem. first their parents are slaughtered by the rebels, then they no longer have money for school, then their eldest brother beats them, so then they flee to a new land where they're alone, then they can't find a job because they couldn't finish school, then they marry to have a future, then that husband dies, then she's taking care of 6 children on her own, then her brother dies and she gets 2 more kids to take care of. then she's struggling to work and the ends don't meet, she can't afford a mosquito net, so her baby dies of malaria, and she can't afford rice so she has to feed her children posho to keep them from dying. she never sleeps and she is a relentless worker, doing absolutely everything she can for her family despite her situation. we look at them and judge them for not taking care of their kids, or brand their country as a hopeless cause when that country as a whole has more hope than all of the western world. and it's not a petty selfish hope. these women's dreams are to provide school fees and to feed their children, and to own a home so they can take in more orphans. I refuse to reinforce that the american way is the right way.

Before we decide what they should or shouldn't have - or what standard they should live up to -we need to go and live with them and dwell with them and listen to their stories. Lets not be so quick to tell them how they should live. because if they had a choice they would live to a different standard - and it wouldn't be the american one. it would be their own - one that is full of hope and love for one another.

one more thing - i'm sick of christians who say that they need to dress in expensive clothing and look presentable in order to be respected to effectively preach the world of god. kingdom of god - lets get our act together. this is not the gospel of jesus christ.

necklace class

baby patrick... we had a great time together laughing and playing. Some susu and smiles.
It took forever to get a photo of him laughing. I could make him giggle and coo all day but as soon as the camera came up, he would immediately stop. haha. you could see his face go blank through the lens as you took the shot. I took a million before i got this one.



below, jaja margaret threads her seabeads for the april showers necklace.

babu

Jenny and I have decided that we are in love with Babu. We call it the Oasis of Uganda. Generally no one goes to Babu. It's a small village right off of Walukuba. you take a right on the road to Danida at the big church. go about 200 or 300 feet and you're there. They say you know you're in Babu when the dirt turns black from the charcoal. When you walk the ground puffs up black soot. needless to say, you always come back dirty.

So the reason we love Babu so much is because, not only is it a small and simple village, but it's so lush and full of so many animals. There are also little porch areas of shade in the front yards - something you don't find in the other villages. Theres lots of water and lots of plants.No where else do you see ducks and little piggies. Theres a lot of water and little streams, which make it extra green. There are always a million ducks and chickens everywhere. The pink cocoas are from Babu - they're Boscos.

There is such bad water sanitation in Babu though, because the same water they drink is the same water the ducks and chickens and pigs are pooping in and peeing in. Not to mention a lot of them have toilet holes over streams. A lot of times, they try to not use the same water but use large areas of standing water, which is not much better. Sure it doesn't have duck poo in it, but it's also a breading ground for things like typhoid and malaria filled mosquitos.

Babu is also known as a more poor section of outside Jinja. A lot of children don't go to school in Babu. A lot of poorer villages have black soot on the ground, which, as far as I can figure out is because people with less money use smaller pieces of charcoal and have lower grades of waste management overall.

we love babu.



typical cooking area.




this is baby kenneth! he's the son of a Suubi woman named Bosco. I cared for him while Jenny was teaching Bosco a new necklace design. I even let him susu on me.





kids of babu! the one on the left is Joel, one of Edith's children, I don't know who the middle one is, but the one on the right is one of Bosco's kids, brother to baby kenneth!

oh varnish....

this is to document amberle learning to varnish beads at beading class. We are ordering necklaces that needed to be glittered so we mixed the glitter with the varnish. if you don't know, varnish never ever comes off. haha. it takes time, and numerous scrubbings. needless to say, amber did great, up until she dropped a string a newly varnished beads in the dirt, and yelled "what do i do what i do?! ahhhhh" and Christine goes, "parafin, parafin!" haha. it was a grand time.

just some pictures....

living as a sponge

There is so much to learn and so much to observe before you can really act in an effective manner that will benefit people in a righteous and positive way. This is what I believe.

This is not to say that we ever perfect the act of loving.
What is is to say is that we cannot love intimately and deeply without knowledge.

I have never been a minority. I certainly am now. People see the color of my skin and discriminate, cheat, and lie straight to my face every day. Almost every time I get on a bota to go to a village, I am told unfair prices. Muzungu prices when we know the Ugandan price. When I go to the market at night, they yell in luganda, saying things like, "I will offer you fair price if you come home with me" or "why do the muzungus shop at night? only poor people come to shop at night" They grab at us, and harass us physically and verbally demanding money. The other day, a man grabbed Jenny's arm so hard she starting crying. He got off his bota and chased after her. He wanted more money.

It is hard, because you want to remain safe. You also don't want to be known as the muzungu bitch, or else they'll give you rotten tomatoes, as amber says. But you also cannot reinforce the behavior some men have towards us. We cannot reinforce that physical force gives money to them.

Everyday is a battle.

The Suubi women are fantastic. But we must be cautious and a lot of ways towards them. We firmly believe in the Suubi community being unified. They are displaced acholi, they share traditions, and heritage. They are all a part of Suubi and they must all feel equally loved. We must try our hardest everyday to not show favor. We must go find the homes we do not know, instead of going to the same homes every week because we know where they are. It means we can't offer anything other than service and quality time. Buy school shoes for one child of a Suubi woman, and you better have enough money to buy school shoes for every Suubi child. Thats roughly 500 children.

Almost every decision made concerning the women is made only after we ask the entire group what is fair and what they would like. It is hard, because we must find balance.

Another situation is that none of us like mukene, or posho but we can't get up in front of the group and say - don't feed us these things, they hurt our muzungu tummies - because every woman who has personally served us either of those things (which is almost all) is then hurt and offended, and on top of that - embarrassed. Because we eat their food, no matter what they serve, and we thank them.

But there are things we can say. Such as don't buy us Soda. one soda is 600 shillings, yeah? lets say 3 of us come to visit. That is 1800 shillings. That is 10% of one weeks salary. They get paid 20,000 shillings a week. We hate to think that they feel as though they must spend that on us. We want to do everything to help their situations and to help them to provide more effectively for their families. And if we can plan ahead, and bring water, they can use that 1800 shillings to buy rice, instead of posho for their children, which has way better health benefits.

Every decision you make, every action - you're accountable to it. You're responsible.

I've been wondering lately about going to church. I would love to go to a service just to experience it. But at the same time - lets say I go to church with one woman, when i've been invited by 3 women to 3 different churches. And then lets say I don't go back to church with them. What does that say or not say about me?

It's like how at Snowbird, we have church on monday and wednesday, because on sunday we actually rest. We take the whole day to reenergize and rest. I feel as though the same goes here. We work 6 days a week. I pray, journal, and worship 7 days of the week on my own. So when day 7 comes. We do everything possible to encourage eachother not to work. We force eachother not to work. Because the days are long and it's hot as mess, and we get so worn down so quickly & needless to say, work for the day is never done. It is absolutely never done.

Boundaries are good. Boundaries are important. Adults make boundaries.

I've just been contemplating if this is a boundary that needs to be made, at least for the next two months.

Thats all I have to say for now. Love you all!

meet baby rachel

this is rachel with her momma. I got to hold her during beading class this past Monday, until she got hungry, then i had to give her back. =[

She's real fat, and has about 5 or 6 fat rolls on her arms alone. I love it. she's a little chunker.

needless to say she kinda stole my heart away that day.

pink cocoas!

So here in Uganda, they sometimes paint the baby cocoas bright colors to keep the bad birds from eating them while they're still so young. These just happen to be hot pink and purple!

We also have baby cocoas and Marayah and I want to paint them too, but we still have to find the paint powder they use.

did i mention......

so on the walk to danida from our house, we take a back way along the railroad tracks and then over to the giant water pipe lines.

So me and marayah, of course, walked across them, all the while amber is filming the ordeal. so as the path amber is taking dips down into the ground, the pipes obviously stay level, creating a 10 to 12 foot drop from water pipe to ground (which is wet and filled with snakes - yay) the pipes are about a foot to a foot and a half wide. and this goes on for like 120 yards. i regretted it, but there was nothing i could do.

sooooooo we have this hilarious video of me stopping every ten feet, getting nervous, building up my confidence a little, and the going another 10 feet. you can imagine how long this video is.

all the while, marayah is walking back and forth , stopping, sitting, picking at super long stalks of grass, like a little gymnast.


"can i monkey crawl this one?"

"can you what?"

"on all fours?"

"what, why would i do that? i mean, can i get on my crotch and inch my way across!"


sooo, one of many battles already won in uganda.

meet Agnus Angom

Agnus is one of my favorite Suubi women so far
She lives in the village of Walukuba.
She is 25, and looks more aged because of a sickness she has.
Her heart is not in good condition, and she also has a massive growth on her abdomen, which makes her look pregnant.
She is not married, and has no children.
Living by herself, she works for Suubi and also as a hair dresser from her home.
She makes the best faces
& she is extremely witty and sarcastic.
She's a big ball of fun.
I'm looking forward to getting to know her better and building a great relationship with her.

day 9

There is so much to say, it’s overwhelming. I opened my first soda with my teeth, which is a big success for it only being 9 days in. YES! Mothers – you are not allowed to call and patronize me about this one. Today was very cool, no sun and rainy which was a great break. No water currently in jinja and we have no clue when it will come back. It could be by tomorrow, or in a few weeks. 7 half-town power surges when I tried to get on the internet. I met two little twin girls today that were terrified of muzungus. They were crying terribly at our presence. Eh, it happens.

I ate mukene, which is small fish, whole, eyes staring you down.

Swim swimmies as I like to call them, because the day I had to eat a whole bowl of them I also was in multiple villages and it was my only meal I ate until late dinner. All I could think was swim swimmies in my belly all day. No bueno.

Speaking of Spanish, I had my first luo lesson. Went well, learned a lot.

But the one thing that doesn’t change much is my heart. It only operates in 3 capacities right now, and sometimes in multiple capacities at a time. The first being joy, gladness, and service. The second: sadness, an ache for Brendan to be with me. [Although he is not physically with me, he is with me, he is bearing with me and fighting for me in prayer, which has been amazing within itself] The third, exhaustion and being beyond tired and also includes craving American food. Every minute to the next, it’s trying to figure out the current status and trying to understand which is coming next. I’ve been getting good at knowing the second one is coming. I’m always trying to extend the time I’m operating in the first, and learning not to fight when the third one hits. My heart has been learning so much, and needless to say god is so good. He is stretching, growing, and teaching me. It really is so good.

But right now I’m in capacity 3 and crashing hard. So goodnight muzungus. Love you.

day 5

welcome to jinja main:



today is sunday - the day of rest. I slept 12 hours and walked into jinja main to go to the internet cafe, flavours, which is where i am now.

yesterday was my first day of Suubi, and it was crazy but good. my job was to make sure the clasps work, and it was pretty easy and went well.

we also did acholi dancing yesterday both before and after suubi so maybe a good solid 3 or 4 hours of dancing like chickens, shaking our hips, and moving our feet ridiculously fast. I only watched the first time, but tried the dances the second time in the far back. It's like the whole village is surrounding the dancers, all of Danita watching and laughing as we muzungu (white people) people try to dance. One woman came and pulled me to the very front by the drums and gourds and made me do the butt shake from side to side. we definitely caught it on video and the women were hysterical. jaja margaret, or just jaja as we call her (jaja means grandmother) ran up and hugged me. She speaks very little english but probably one of the most expressive women out of the bunch, and most outspoken.

Our feet by the end of the day, kicking up all of the dirt, were red black from the ground. we were absolutely disgusting and all showered immediately when we got home.

although probably the best part of the day was getting home. Our van likes to hoot its horn randomly and was full on honking in varying decibels half of the way home. everyone was pointing, staring, laughing and shaking their heads at us. Crazy Muzungoos!

Betty surprised us with dinner when we got home, which was fantastic, my favorite part was the mashed matoke, and eggplant. I'm probably in love with the eggplant here. who knew i liked it so much.

OH speaking of food. omg, people set up stands all down main street and make rolex - which is probably the best thing ever. They're only 800 shillings (about 90 cents) and what they do is fry up egg and vegetables (generally cabbage, tomato, onion, & carrot, which if you have vegetables like avacado on you they will add it) and put it on top of this fried flat bread stuff - i do not remember the name of them right now - and then roll it up. they're great. they're cheap. they're fattening. they're the mcdonalds of uganda.

day 4

So I thought I would tell you what my time here looks like in a more concrete way. We just got out of community breakfast and week planning, and so here goes my calender:

Sunday – day of rest. We do absolutely no work related thing. Generally people go to the pool or to the nile, but I will be spending all of tomorrow doing schoolwork and laying in my hammock.

Monday – we are going to the market at 10am to find trunks to lock up belongings since we are hiring a new cleaning lady since betty will be in school full time starting in march or april for three months. There have been many incidences of people stealing, even people we trusted and that betty trusted. After that we’re going to walukuba (a neighboring village) from 11-2:30 to visit some suubi women and so I can get to know walukuba better. At 3 is necklace/beading class, where we teach the women the new product lines.

Tuesday – going with Andrea to see the Epoh tailors and meet them. Then we are off to see Zora, a suubi woman on our way to masese, to help with child feeding with renee. Then we hope to be moving the Epoh’s office.

Wednesday – We are going to Soweta at 11, which is an extremely poor village where some suubi women live. Their housing = huts, whereas most of the women have at least cement foundations. Then we are going to see / pick up Dorine. She is 20, and very intelligent. She was hit by a military vehicle when she was running from an LRA attack, which left her paralyzed when she was 9. We will be taking Dorine to English class with us at 3. That evening is volunteer bonding time where we have a movie night and make it a point not to do work.

Thursday – we are going to visit Getu, who lives in Babu. Then Christine has welcomed us over for chicken lunch (which is a big deal because meat is expensive) then we have community dinner with eachother and talk about goals and accomplishments.

Friday – Breakfast club in the morning. We take breakfast to a village of some of the suubi women, to have community time with them and promote community of the suubi women within their villages. The villages are on a cycle rotation, so we don’t go to the same women every week in a row. At 5pm are varnishing a desk at the tailors.

Saturday – meeting at 11 to discuss the next week. Acholi dance is from 1-3, and then Suubi at 3. Suubi is when the women bring the necklaces they made that week, and we inspect them, and then pay them. Which is a great day.


Any free time we have we either spend trying to get items we need, building and establishing new programs such as budgeting class and healthcare class, which we hope to be starting soon which is so great. Luo literacy class should be beginning again on Tuesdays. Everything is pretty not structured for the most part. Besides Suubi on Saturday, and English class on Wednesday, nothing else is really too set in stone. I’m highly excited for the future plans and all of the freedom for work. This is probably the best work environment ever. I know it’s only the first week but I feel as though I could stay forever, if I had a real job. It’s just so affirming to know that the work environment I want to work in the rest of my life is now tangible, and more than possible. Yay for the future!

day 2

I’ve slept 11 hours since Monday morning and I have cried 4 times

So today I woke up at 2am, and then waited for the household to awaken, and in the meantime I listened to the rooster crowing, doing school work, and listening to some music.

Brendan and I finally got to talk this morning. I cried like a baby. Just the sound of his voice overwhelmed me. But I feel much better now having spoken to him since Monday. I made my first batch of French press Ugandan coffee, and had one of the best mugs of hot tea I’ve ever had. Betty made it for us the night before and put it in the thermos, and it was still steaming hot this morning. All I know is that it has ginger and a mess load of sugar in it, but it’s SO good.

Then we went to walukabu, which is a village outside of jinja made up of blocks of homes. I hear it’s the biggest estate in east Africa, so says Emily. Emily is one of the Suubi women. Suubi means hope, and we call the section of LGH’s bead crafters Suubi. It’s like a sub category. And everything that has to do with the bag making is called Epoh, which is just hope spelled backwards.

So anyways, as a volunteer I make house visits to the 93 Suubi women, in their different villages. We take botas generally out to their homes and just join them in whatever they are doing. Most of the women will make you food, and you will just talk for hours and help them with chores.

Emily is an older woman, who is feisty, bold, and speaks really clear English. She is married to an old man named Stanley, who is white and from London. Picture your 80-something year old grandfather and that’s him. They married just a few years ago. Bear – you would have called him a creeper and would want to investigate him. It was an odd visit. They played abba music videos and we had smoothies made from yogurt and bananas (which I didn’t like – mainly because they were warm – but Marayah loved them). Emily and Stanley’s house is nicer than ours, which is extremely not the case for any of the other women. On a last note about Stanley – his fly was open the entire time we were visiting. That is all.

We went to see Mama Santa after that which was my favorite moment ever so far. We sat out on a straw mat under jackfruit trees for a few hours where I helped sort her beads, and even got to roll my first acholi bead! I also had my first Jackfruit, which was good, very sticky, very sweet and reminded me of flour. Don’t ask. All I know is that the suckers are huge, and hang awkwardly on trees. I secretly wished one would fall off the tree and kill a chicken, but that never happened. Just so you know Allison, I asked Santa if she had ever seen a jackfruit fall on someone and she said never. It would be a super funny thing to see.

Best meal yet – mama santa came out with hot cubed matooke (type of plantain) in g-nut sauce. Which the sauce is made from peanuts but doesn’t takes like peanuts at all. They put red onions and seasonings in it. It was love at first bite. I don’t even know why. I also was gifted my first necklace from Jiji Margaret, Santa’s mother-in-law and fellow Suubi worker.

We then took a bota back towards jinja to a hospital where a 3 year old daughter of a former Suubi worker was having a blood transfusion. Her name is maria and she has sickle cell anemia. Poor thing just wanted people to stop messing with her IVs (her fluids weren’t flowing fast enough so they had to stimulate the veins by rubbing her forearm).

From there we jumped in a van with 4 Americans, one of which is permanent in Jinja, is 23, and takes in sick children. She feeds hungry children Tuesdays and Thursdays and people frequently drop of sick babies and children at her house, where she works them into better health. She doesn’t have any formal medical training, but has been self-taught and seems pretty legit. I mean, no one else is going to care for them, so why not give it a go?

We went to the market - which was fantastically chaotic and full of bartering and yelling. I can’t wait to go back and get some more good produce and beans and rice. Around here, people try to charge white people double, triple, or more than what they would charge a Ugandan. So it’s like a game. You gotta be smart and confident. I’m learning my conversion rate pretty well, and I can’t wait to go back. It’s kind of a guilty pleasure. All these years of bargaining and bartering on yard sale, thrift, and salvages put into the mega champion prize cup, which is also called day to day life at the Ugandan market.

Tonight was community dinner & food was great. And I got to start making some jewelry of my own from rejected beads and scraps, which was real fun. I’m wickedly tired and really hope I can sleep all the way through the night.

overall, an impressive second day and first fill day in jinja

day 1

Flower outside of my window =]



This is the room I stayed in at the hotel/inn

I woke up (and when I say woke up – I mean I was up since 4:30 am and the dawn finally broke) this morning to the sound of hundreds, even thousands of birds. You would have enjoyed it mom. The weather outside the house is wonderful. It is cool like water and feels good on my skin. It is warm in the rooms – muggy if you will. And the flowers, there are so many of them, of all different kinds. The house is very nice – it feels way nicer than our homes in the states. Everything is made out of sturdy, beautiful materials. Our homes feel so fake, with hollow doors and linoleum flooring. But here – everything is thick solid wood, cool smooth tile, and rod iron. It feels nice. It feels peaceful. However, I am anxious for breakfast, and for Marayah to get here.

welcome to yooganndah

this was my first ride in uganda. LGH's van is the almost same one - only shabbier =] we don't like to wash ours. which is find with me

So tonight is my first official night in Uganda. I’m staying at the Airport Guest House. My thoughts getting off the plane were, first – it’s humid, and second - Uganda smells real good. But as I continue on, I realize it smells like Haiti, but not as near as bad as Haiti. I was surprised to find that they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the “passenger” side. But then I realize that I’m retarded, I mean, why wouldn’t they?! They were colonized by Britain. I just hadn’t thought of it.

I totally love their vehicles though – bear I immediately thought of you. They got some LEGIT rides. Don’t worry I’ll bring you back one.

Turns out my bug spray completely busted – so I had the joy of washing a good section of my stuff out when I got to my room. I also showered without a shower curtain, which was kind of fun. It was just kind of like – hello bathroom! I can seeeeee youuuuuuuu. I am also sleeping under a full mosquito netting on a bed that’s definitiely not a full, but not just small enough to be a twin. I would say it’s a good cuddling bed.

I’m feeling a little lonely tonight. Probably because it’s my first night not sharing a bed in an outrageously long time, but I think it’s more because the driver said there was wireless internet, and when I got here – the modem was down. I kinda got my hopes up =[ I will learn quickly not to do that.

That’s all for now, I’m beat, which is great because I’m already right on track with the time zone here. It’s midnight and I’m going to bed. Although I must remind myself to tell you about the chaplain and the old man. Separate stories – but both mind-blowing and when I say mind-blowing I mean that from an anthropologist’s perspective, you’ll enjoy it tricia.

Much love family. You’re in my heart.

is this even real?

i'm not even on malaria meds yet, and i'm already having crazy dreams. haha
->for those of you who have taken some bad malaria meds, you understand completely.

last night i had a dream about my flight leaving for Uganda in 1 hour and I hadn't even started packing. It was terrible. i kept waking up with my arms flailing and then would immediately slip back into my dream right where i left off. it was torturous.

but the list making has officially begun and i have a designated "packing pile" in the living room. I have only a few more things to pick up and i'll be pretty set to go.

I'll be leaving Monday, Jan 25th at 8:30 p.m. and arriving into Entebbe, Uganda on Tuesday at 10 p.m, where i will then stay in a airport "guest house" which is basically a hotel with continental breakfast and then one of the LGH workers will arrive to come get me wednesday morning to take me to Jinja. It's a 2 hour trip and we'll spend the day learning the town.

I'm nervous, I'm excited, and overall looking forward to the journey. oh, and i found out today that i can go running and that i can text message from uganda for real cheap from an international phone. YAY!

thats all for now!