THIS IS MY LAST DAY!! At UCU anyways. But seriously, I don’t know what to do with myself it’s so weird. I still have a paper to write and have to be done packing by five so this will be a quick post.
Last week we said bye to our Off Tu kids, and it has definitely been the hardest goodbye yet. I really really miss them already, and can only hope that someday I will meet them again. We had a campfire, danced, sang, and played games. It was beautiful!
I also got sick last week. Fever, soar throat, and stomach everything (it finally happened, dang it!) After feeling awful for 3 days, I went to the Surgery (the doctor’s office) and got some meds and am feeling so much better!!
The rest of my week was spent finishing up my papers and working on getting my plane ticket figured out. I am no longer hiking Mount Elgon at the end of the semester, so I will be home a few days early! I’m so excited to be home, but can’t even imagine how much I will miss this place.
Tomorrow we leave UCU for Rwanda to study the genocide by going to different memorials, mass graves, museums, and by talking to various people about it. For those of you who don’t know much about the genocide, watch Hotel Rwanda. It’s about a 100-day genocide that happened between tribes in Rwanda in which 600,000 people were killed. I am really looking forward to learning about it, but I think it will also be a really difficult week emotionally. We will be there during their two-week mourning period, so it will be an incredibly unique experience. While there, we won’t have phones or internet, so there is a chance I won’t be writing again until home, but I will try if I get the chance!
Sorry my post is so short! I just don’t want to be attached to my computer on my last day at UCU! Thanks again for all you love and prayers! I can’t wait to see you all!
Well I thought this week was going to slow down a bit since classes are over, but that is not the case! My time is still seems to fill up, and I still struggle getting this blog written! But here it goes:
Last Tuesday for street ministry Hudson and Julius took us to the Katanga Slum in Kampala. It’s the biggest slum in Uganda, and is where a couple of the Off Tu kids are from. We did our usual program with the kids at the school there, and then they took us for a walk to the center of the slum. The homes, or rather the pieces of wood and tin thrown together, were small, close together, and hardly an okay place to live. There was a stream of sewage that ran through it, just feet from the houses, with little planks of wood forming the path to walk over it…and in places little kids had to be lifted over it so they wouldn’t fall in. But the most heartbreaking part was the children. Many had big, swollen bellies, with no shoes and clothes that were barely fit. There was one child in particular who couldn’t have been older than 2 years old who was sitting on the ground with crusties and dirt all over his face, and had flies buzzing around his eyes. He just sat there, expressionless, with no reaction when I tried to play with him. Definitely not okay. But the cool part about it all was that there was still so much life and joy in the people there. The men were out playing soccer, and the kids were running around singing. It was a really great experience, but I wish I would have had more time there.
On Friday I went to Luwero with my class and we attended a service that acted out the different scenes of the crucifixion for Good Friday. We started out at a church, then proceeded to walk through the town in a big procession of a couple hundrend people, following the cross in the cold rain. After 4 hours of wet clothes, umbrellas getting stuck in my hair, and getting my toes stepped on, I was ready to be done. Did I mention it was all in Luganda? It was really cool to see all the denominations together though. There were Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, and others all participated in Good Friday together, and it was beautiful.
Friday evening I almost stepped on a snake…the first snake I’ve seen in Africa! The guys I was with freaked out and then picked up rocks and literally stoned it to death! My friend, Mulo picked it up after it was dead and kept it, then the next day we went to check it out. We decided it wasn’t poisonous, and took turns holding it by the tail. Then, in honor of Ashton’s birthday, Mulo climbed the mango tree by the path, and threw it at people as they walked by. SO FUNNY! People here are extra scared of snakes because you never know if they’re poisonous or not, so we got some pretty good reactions! Some people thought it was funny, but there were a few who looked pretty angry. Oops!
On Easter I went for church, or for prayers as they say here, and then accidentally spent most the day sleeping instead of writing my paper. Probably the most uneventful Easter of my life, but oh well! That evening we had cake to celebrate Ashton’s birthday with our friends Moshan, Tonny, and Emma.
Yesterday I went to Kampala to go to the craft market one last time. I had a jumbo iced coffee at the mall first, and it had quite the effect of me. I’ve never been so shakey or felt so funny from caffeine before! It must be because I rarely have it here. Then I had my first pepperoni pizza in over 3 months and it was ohh soo good! Then we went downtown to the Old Taxi Park, where it’s super crowded and crazy, and my friend Sarah got her necklace literally ripped off her neck. Then the guy who took it ran into the busy traffic and there was no way to get it back. I’m so thankful none of my things got taken in all my times of being there.
Yesterday evening we went to Off Tu and had a water balloon war. The only person who was dry was Ashton because she had a camera. It was so fun! Then we had some fun with the tattoos I got in my care package…they were so happy. Today is our last day of our internship, and I’m really really sad about it. It will be so sad to leave the kids and all the staff too. We have formed some really good relationships there, and it’s hard to say goodbye. So tonight we are spending the night there, and are planning on playing Twister, having a campfire with smores, and doing crafts. We talk about the termination process in social work a lot, so we’ve been preparing for this for a while now, but it will still be strange to think I could never see them again.
My favorite pair of shoes that I wear every day broke this week. It was almost tragic, until I took them to a shoe repairman sitting on the corner of the street right outside the gate and got them fixed for 1,000 shillings…the equivalent of 40 cents. Why don’t we have shoe repairmen on the streets in the U.S.?! So convenient!
So this is my last full week in Uganda before we got to Rwanda. I hate it!!! I’m trying to remember that there is a time for everything, and even though I won’t see most of my friends here ever again, I am blessed to have met them in the first place. With that, today is the exactly one-month-left–in-Africa mark. However, my flight home got pushed back 24 hours, which means there’s a good chance I won’t make it back for Corrie’s graduation. So I appreciate your prayers as we are trying to find different flights back…it’s something I really really don’t want to miss!
That’s all for this week! I just realized that I had my photo album locked on Facebook so I was the only one who could see it. It’s unlocked now, so feel free to check out all the pictures from my semester! There are a lot of them…so good luck! Thanks for your prayers!
I am finished with classes! Well, sort of. I have about six papers to write by the end of the week, but I am completely with the classroom part of it! So my time now is spent finishing up my work, and finishing up at Off Tu. We leave Mukono in only 2 weeks, and I’m really starting to get that sick feeling in my gut at the thought of it!! I have no idea where all the time went!
My week last week was pretty basic, so I don’t think there is anything too exciting to tell you about there. But this past weekend we went on a safari!! I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I can remember, and I was really really excited! So this is how it went:
A bus came and picked us up on campus, and I got ready for what I thought was a 4 or 5 hour ride to Queen Elizabeth’s park…but then was told by the guide that it was an 11 hour trip! 3 months ago I would definitely have freaked out about that…that’s longer than my drive from Olivet to home!!! But I think Uganda has made me a little more mellow, and we got as comfy as you can on a bus in Uganda and tried to enjoy the ride. We arrived at Queen Elizabeth’s and stayed in a beautiful safari lodge (with hot showers). The lodge was located in the park, at the edge of Lake George on the flat, bare planes below the beautiful western mountains. We were warned not to go near the lake between 7pm and 7am, because that’s when the hippos (which are one of the most dangerous animals in the world) are out grazing. Sure enough, I could hear the hippos snorting around in the grass all night not far from my hut.
The next morning we went on our first game drive in our bus and saw a ton of bush buck, water buck, Ugandan cob, African buffalo, warthogs, and a few elephants. Later on we saw a male lion in the bushes…which is pretty rare. Our guide told us we had a 0 to 20% chance of seeing one, much less a male! We couldn’t see it very well, but our guide threw a rock at it, then jumped back in the bus! It got up and was looking around so we could see it a lot better…it was pretty cool! Then later that day we went on a boat ride in the channel between Lake Edward and George and saw a ton of hippos, elephants, African buffalo, a few crocodiles, and a whole bunch of crazy birds! That was probably the best part of the Safari. It was so interesting to see the villages along the lake, and the children on water near all the animals! They guide said that there was usually at least one death in the park per month because the village children will get attacked by hippos or elephants. One village he showed us had 14 people killed by a lion within a couple months! It’s crazy to think how much different their lives are compared to mine. I walk out my front door at home and see corn. They walk out their front door and see elephants, hippos, buffalo, and an occasional lion. CRAZY!
We went on a couple more game drives that day, and then slept at another hostel within the park. It was fairly nice again, but when we were hanging out that night, I was dive bombed by a bat over and over. If you haven’t found out by now… I HATE BATS! I’ve come to the conclusion that they can sense my fear of them…so Ashton grabbed me and we ran back to our room! That night a couple lions walked through the compound where we were staying, and a bunch of the others said they heard them growling and rawring all night! I slept too hard to hear them, but our guide told us that he saw them pass through right through between all our rooms.
The next morning we left the park, but on our way we saw a few baboons, so we pulled over and someone threw a banana out at them. Then they started coming towards our bus from all different directions. I thought for sure they were going to jump in the window! They were standing right next to the bus waiting for more bananas, and then when we drove off, over 20 of them chased us…even the ones with babies hanging from the bellies! I guess they’re pretty vicious, so I’m glad they didn’t jump in! After that we proceeded on for the 11-hour drive back to campus! It was a long trip, but pretty worth it! I am a little disappointed we didn’t see any giraffes or zebras…but I guess those are mostly in Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. Maybe next time. =)
So it was a pretty exciting weekend. But somehow, I have been THE MOST forgetful person in the world lately!! I left my Bible, journal, and book at the first lodge we stayed at, and then before we left campus I had lost my dorm room key, water bottle, notebook, and I think I left my Kindle on the bus!! I’m working on finding all of them…especially my Kindle, journal, and Bible…so my week has been a little stressful so far!
I could use your prayers for a good ending for Ashton and I’s time at Off Tu as we only have a couple days left with the kids. Also prayers for the last couple weeks we have on campus would be appreciated! It will be so hard to leave the friends we have made here. And finally, prayers that I will find all my things…it would make life a lot less stressful! Thanks for everything, I’ll be home in just 5 ½ weeks and I am so excited to see you all!!
