Okay, so much has been going on here. Last Thursday I started my service project at CHAIN, which is an orphanage. We pretty much just played with the kids…board games, soccer, on the swing set. We were all playing when all of a sudden someone yelled, “SNAKE!” All the little kids freaked out (and I must admit I freaked a little too), but the teacher just used a stick and threw it out in the woods. One of the guys who is in the USP with me, Ben, asked the teacher if she would like him to kill it so that it wouldn’t come back. He found it and threw a brick at it…as soon as he did that all the kids ran down there and started throwing things at it…it was so funny. The kids are absolutely beautiful…I just kept looking at them all deciding which one I would want to adopt, but I could never take just one...I would want them all. They are all really well-behaved, too. I can’t wait to go back next Thursday.
Friday night Jessica and I cooked for our host family. We had to make everything from scratch, so I had mom send me some recipes for tomato sauce and chocolate chip cookies. We actually bought the vegetables for the tomato sauce at the market and we couldn’t find everything else we needed, so we just had to improvise. We borrowed the oven from the intern here and made the cookies, but the spaghetti sauce we made over an open fire. It tasted amazing! We also made garlic bread over the fire. Our family was so impressed that we could cook…I guess they think Americans just eat out every meal. Since we came back to campus on Saturday, we decided to give our family their gifts on Friday night. You would have thought it was Christmas if you saw how excited they got when we gave them their presents. We didn’t really give anything that great, just a couple t-shirts, some stuffed animals, jewelry, a bag…oh, and I burnt a cd of “American” music for my host brother. They sent us off on Saturday, but before we could leave they fed us tea, bread, noodles (with our left over sauce on them), and scrambled eggs! I didn’t think I was going to be able to walk back after all that. Our brothers, Brian and Mark, and our sister, Judith, walked us all the way back to campus. As Jess and I waved and watched them walk away we really felt like we were telling our family goodbye.
The girls and I had planned for Saturday to be a fun day in Kampala to relax from everything. We all rode in a matatu (which is pretty much like riding a bus, but it’s a van instead). The matatu dropped us off about a twenty minute walk from where it was supposed to and then tried to trick us into paying him again to take us back to where he was supposed to drop us off. We were smarter than that, we just walked. We went to Garden City, which is the closest thing they have to a mall here. They have a movie theater, so we went to see “Just My Luck”. It was amazing…for a second I forgot I was in Africa. The funny thing is that “Just My Luck” came out at the movie rental place the week that I left and we paid $5.50 in American dollars to see it in a theater, which is pretty expensive. After the movie we went to a store and I bought Q-tips, which I need SO bad…the dirt here collects in your ears and it is just disgusting. To top our trip off we got ice cream. I knew that I loved ice cream before I left, but now I realize that I was addicted to it. We hurried home because the director of the USP was holding a BBQ. We walked back and the gate that we came out of was locked. So, instead of walking around Bethany, Kate, and I decided to hop it. Now I’m sure you are thinking, “No big deal, just a little fence.” But you would be wrong in thinking that my friend. The gates here are made to keep people out. They are about 10 feet tall and have either glass shards or huge spikes at the top. Luckily this one just had spikes at the top, but as I climbed over the top I sat down on one of the spikes and punctured my pants…luckily it was just my pants and not my rear end. My pants weren’t too messed up and it made for a good story. The BBQ was a lot of fun…there were hamburgers, hot dogs, and ICE CREAM!! I had to leave the BBQ early because my stomach was not in agreement with all the American food I had consumed that day. Oh yeah, I forgot that I had a huge piece of chocolate cake in Kampala…so needless today say I spent a little quality time in the bathroom. A couple of us went to a talent show called “Survivor”, which was put on by the university. After that we headed up money hill, which is actually a hill that has monkey on it. We brought blankets and laid up there and looked at the stars and sang praise songs. It was pretty amazing.
Sunday I went to a Catholic church in Kampala with a girl from the USP named Holly and my law professor, Jeff Adams, and his family. My law professor’s wife, Carol, actually invited Holly and I to go with them. The church was beautiful and I didn’t quite get all of the service, but I liked the change of scenery. After church, the Adam’s treated us to lunch. Then we all went to a country club, where the kids rode horses and then we all swam. This would be a good time to introduce you to the Adam’s family: The dad is Jeff (he’s my teacher), the mom is Carol, and then they have Jane, Francis, Henry (who changes his name everyday…on this day he was both Scrat and Popeye), and John Paul. AND Carol is pregnant with their fifth child, which is due in December. They are the cutest family you will ever meet. I think their kids are smarter than me…I actually had a discussion about Peter Pan with Jane…she claimed to like the book better than the movie. The Adam’s really made Holly and I feel like we were part of the family and it was nice to have that feeling after not really having a family around for over a month now. After all the swimming we stopped by a restaurant for…you guessed it…ICE CREAM!
So I’m staying pretty busy here in Uganda. It’s amazing that life still goes on here and isn’t all that different from America. I’m really enjoying it here, but feeling the stress of school as a bunch of papers are coming due.
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