Last Blog Post In Africa

Wow.  I can't believe I'm actually at this point.  I knew I was going to study abroad in Uganda since about senior year of high school and it actually happened and now its basically over.  


I have had an amazing time here and I've learned so many things and had my eyes open to perspectives I never would have thought about.  I have formed amazing relationships with new American friends and with Ugandans, especially my family, that will never end or be broken. 


So after four months in this amazing country, I'm ready to go back home.  I'm excited to see my family, Logan, my friends and youth group people that I have been missing for this semester.  I'm excited to sleep in my own bed, use American toilets with toilet paper every time, and drive my car - but im scared I'll end up driving on the wrong side of the road! Its a little hard to picture driving right now actually... 


BUT, even though I'm excited, I think it will be way harder to adjust back to American life more than it was adjusting to Uganda.  For one, I wont encounter poverty on a daily basis.  I will have a million more choices to make every day, every hour even.  And everything will be easy, and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.  


So, it would really help me if would please avoid saying: 


- How Was Africa?  Because, if you knew me at all you would know I'm in Uganda and its a completely different country than all other African countries.  If you ask me this I'll just say great, and nothing else...


- I'm glad your back safe.  Because, I can't really think of a time when I felt unsafe. 


- Please don't make any comments about you being glad I'm not in a third world country.  Because yes, I'm in a developing country that has a lot of things holding it back, like corruption of government, etc.  But this place is amazing and there is so much beauty amidst the things like poverty that Americans could really learn from.  See blog post about presence!  


Those are the three things I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there is more.  All I am asking is to please be patient with me and realize that when I don't want to spend money doing certain things or I try and take a more simple approach to doing life that its just what I have been personally convicted about and I'm not trying to change all of you.  I know that no matter how hard I try you wont be able to fully understand my experience here, and thats totally fine.  


So if you like to hear more about my experience, there will be a lot more processing and understanding of my experience, plus hopefully some more summer adventures!  So thanks for sticking with me these past four months and sharing my journey with me.  Also, if you have any specific questions or things you have been wondering just let me know, I'll have a lot more time to answer questions and put up pictures, etc.  


Webale nyo bassebo ne bannyabo.  Weraba!  


P.S. Rwanda for the next 10 days, Mukono for a night (hopefully at home!), Entebbe for four days, and then I'm back on American soil May 4th - 2 weeks from today! 

Time Flies

How is it April already?  Time goes by so fast here I really lose track of the days...sorry its been forever since a blog post, to me I thought it had been about a week.  So, quick picture update: 


1) The weekend after rural homestays we went to visit Bridget at her boarding school because they had a visitation day.  It was a fun 4 hour drive there and back riding in the back with Alex and Megan.  I was really excited to see Jja Jja again.  I dont know if I have introduced her or not, but she is my grandmother who still lives in the village but was at our house because she was sick and needed to be close to Kampala. She is about 86 and a little ball of fire.  I wish we spoke the same language because I'm sure I would have pee-ed my pants laughing with her.  It was great to see Bridget too!  She is definitely growing up fast too. 

Me and Jja Jja

Sisters! 

2) So that was on a Saturday and then on Sunday, Rogers wanted to host all of the USP students for a "tea party".  Little did Megan and I know he meant like fried chicken and samosas, aka a big deal.  But it turned out great and everyone enjoyed it.  Kinda funny seeing that many people at my house though! 

22 Mzungus + 10 Ugandans = 1 Big Party

3) I just love Saturdays, because things like this happen: 

The Boys and Their Girls

:) 

4) Last Thursday the USP students lead community worship which was kind of hilarious because most of us really dislike community worship but it was actually great to have a comm. worship American style.  So we did all of these great songs and then Cody, who was leading asked Caitlyn Black and I to choreograph a dance to one of them... and I said yes, which right after, I wasnt sure why the heck I agreed.  But it turned out GREAT! Caitlyn and I were expecting it to take us hours to come up with something but we finished the whole dance in an hour.  And then, we never even had time to actually practice it and so we just did it up on stage and it was awesome.  I mean Ugandans dont really know/do anything close to ballet or contemporary but it was still awesome and I'm kind of proud of myself for doing it. Then I was interviewed by the school newspaper but I havent seen it come out yet... 

4) IMME had weekend travel to Luwero March 25-27.  Luwero is where the current President Museveni started his bush war to overthrow Obote II.  Basically it was just a place of death for years, and even though its been 26 years since it happened, it is very fresh in everyones minds.  The first place we went was a memorial site for all of the civilians who died in the midst of the guerrilla warfare.  It was just a big mass grave with almost 3000 people, and it was just one of 15 in Luwero.  

We also spent a day at a Compassion site (which I'll have a separate blog post about) and talked to and Anglican Bishop and Catholic Priest about the work they are doing in the area, especially in regards to HIV/AIDS because it is 7% higher than the national average (13%) in Luwero.  

Here is a picture of us with Father Gerrie: such an amazing man!  

Hes also a gentile giant.  The people who look the same height are standing on a step.  This is at his church that we went to on Sunday.  

5) We went on safari last weekend and it was awesome! Ill do a whole blog post about that one too hopefully, but here is a preview: 

He was just hanging out on the side of the road on the way into the park. Nbd. 

As for me, I have 2 hours of class left, an 8 page religion paper, a Luganda final and an discussion on simple living and then my time at UCU is donzo! 

Craziness.  At least I get a lot more down time before Rwanda.... 

Life is Unfair

So walking home yesterday I passed a boy on the street wearing a Boston Bruins shirt and I got so excited I really just wanted a picture to show all you Bostonians but I thought it would be way to weird to whip out my camera, so I didn’t.  But then as I was drinking my daily afternoon tea on the front porch, he came over to see Daniel (they must be friends from school or something), so I ran to get my camera to take their picture. 

            He was just a normal, growing and healthy boy like my little brothers… or so I thought.  My mom went on to tell me that he was born with HIV and that his mom has “the disease”.  WHAT?  Maama just told me like she was telling me how to eat matooke.  What am I supposed to do with this?  I just want to scream sometimes when I see things like this!  It just shows how much this world needs a redeemer.  This world is so broken and sometimes I just can’t process or deal with it. 

            I’m a fixer, if there is a problem I spend my time thinking of solutions and I don’t stop until the problem is done.  But what can I do about this? Nothing.  And its painful every time I think about it.   

Bag of Nasty & 3 Gallons of Milk: Rural Homestays.

From March 4-13th I lived in the district of Kapchorwa, which is considered rural/village life. It was great to see how 80% of the Ugandan population lives, but at the same time I hated it. There is so much I could talk about that this post could potentially be really long, I’ll try to keep it short and you can ask more questions if you’d like.

This is my house from the front, and Jona...right on the main road.




My host parents were Justine and Isaac Chelibei and I had an 18 year old sister and 15 year old brother (Naster and Phillip) who were both at boarding school so I never met them, then Benja (short for Benjamin) who was 8, Jona (short for Johnson) who was 6 (my mom’s nephew who’s mom couldn’t take care of him b/c she had him in high school), and Queen Esther (named Queen because she was born in 2007 when the Queen of England came to Uganda) who was 3.5. We lived in a small mud and timber house with a cow dung & ash floor (that you re-smear every week), then there was a mud and timber kitchen as well as Philip’s room. Then we also had a cow who just gave birth, a goat, a dog, and chickens. There was no electricity and I prayed everytime I went to the pit latrine b/c it was a nailed wood floor and I was scared I was going to fall through every time (I’ve heard some horror stories). I was just banking on the fact that my host mom was a very large woman…success.

My fam... except the 2 girls in the middle just showed up for the picture, they are neighbors.


Overall, my entire time there was really frustrating for many reasons:

1. I was homesick for my Mukono family and Logan the entire time.
2. I hated wearing long skirts the whole time, not being able to cross my legs, and sitting in the most uncomfortable, worst chairs ever made.
3. Communication was impossible. The don’t speak Luganda, they speak Kupsabiny which is a completely different style of language, I don’t know what you call it but its more similar to some tribes in Kenya than anywhere else, but because its not a Bantu language, not only could I not understand but I had to get used to all new sounds and another whole way of speaking English. When I would ask questions they would answer something completely different and when they asked me questions I usually had no idea what they meant or they had no idea what I was saying in my answers.
4. Mzungu. I thought it was hard to be white in Mukono but its impossible to just live in Kapchorwa as a mzungu unless you have an agenda. In one sense they thought I was completely incapable of anything, yet they treated me like royalty and they were ignorant animals. All they know about America is that Obama is our president (and they couldn’t understand why some people didn’t vote for him – policy means nothing, but his dad being Kenyan means everything) and that we have machines for everything. Every morning I would wash the dishes, and every morning my Baba (dad) asked if it was hard even though every morning I would tell him no, I wash dishes like this in America too. They also would only let me carry a 10L jerry can of water – which is usually reserved for kids. But I did carry it on my head (and its harder than you’d think).

Their questions were just really strange and about things so basic I don’t really even think about. But I guess it just shows how much we have been globalized and they haven’t even really even reached modernity in a sense. It was hard for them to understand that we all don’t have our own individual gardens/farms to sustain ourselves, but that we buy most all our food from stores.


So while I was viewed as physically incapable of anything, I was also treated like royalty. I heard many times that people were so thankful I came to visit and said that they were very honored that I would humble myself/lower myself to come to an African village. They way I was talked to was like it was still during colonial times/white man’s burden. They seemed to think that they were not worth as much, like I was superior to them – which I hated! Ive never felt so awkward, and not wanting to be white.

These kids just followed us/accompanied us to the cave. Also, rural homestays = dressing like grandmas.




There were some great things:

1.  I got to be at a Compassion International center all day Saturday because my mom taught cognitive lessons and both Benja and Jona are sponsored children… more on Compassion later because I’m going to another site this weekend with IMME. But, it was awesome.
2. My friend Amy’s house was close so we got to see each other a bunch, I even slept over at her house on Wednesday night which was so needed because we were both struggling with homestays and just needed to vent and have some solidarity.
3. We went on some hikes and I saw 2 caves and a waterfall/ the Kapchorwa scenery was gorgeous, hills/mountains and lots of green!
4. Everyone there was very nice and hospitable
5. I learned how to milk a cow and cook
6. I wasn’t in school

Finally: A Bag of Nasty and 3 Gallons of Milk


It is common when we go to the village that we have chicken for at least one meal, and most of the time the Americans are the ones who get to slaughter the chicken. I never got that chance, but we did have chicken at Amy’s house the night I slept over and the gizzard is considered a delicacy and always given to the guest of honor. Well, Amy and I ate some gizzard together… the taste wasn’t too bad but the texture was awful/impossible to chew. I call it the bag of nasty b/c when my apartment mates and I made Thanksgiving dinner together we labled the bag of turkey parts that you have to take of out the turkey the bag of nasty. Well I got to eat it – chicken style.


In Uganda, tea is very important. Everyone has tea at least twice a day, for breakfast and before bed, but then there is also break tea (b/w breakfast and lunch) and evening tea (b/w lunch and dinner). In Kapchorwa its all about the milk tea because everyone has cows. It tasted sooo good! Literally straight from the cow to the stove to your cup. I loved it, but having tea really means having 3 cups of tea or until the flask is empty. And if anyone visits, or you visit someone (which is alllllll the time), then you all stop and sit and have tea. So Amy and I calculated that in the span of 7 days, we each had about 3 gallons of milk to drink…. That’s disgusting! 3 gallons of milk all by myself in 7 days. By the end I felt like I was a cow needing to be milked.


Anyways, that was my rural homestay in a nut shell. I’m just so glad its done.

When Things Just Click

The greatest moments in life, especially here, are the ones that you connect with people. One of the biggest lessons we are learning here is what it means to be present. Life here is about community, its not what you get done in a day, how many trophies you have, how you are distinguished or you at all, its about how you relate to those around you. Like the saying you hear around Christmas, “its not about presents but about Jesus’ presence” it rings true here too.
An easy way to communicate your presence here is in greeting people. Greetings in Luganda and very important – there are many greetings and can be quite long. You can spend five minutes talking with someone and all you’ve said is hello! People expect that you can only speak English because you’re a muzungu but if you greet someone here in Luganda their whole demeanor changes and they are very appreciative of your humility to learn their language.
The best example of this happened to me Sunday afternoon as I was walking back home after our rafting trip. There is a woman I have greeted a few times as she has come to fetch water at our house, she is older and doesn’t speak any English so we have never had a conversation. But she was walking the opposite direction on the road I take home, saw me and had a giant grin on her face. Her whole face smiled, with her beautifully aged wrinkles emphasizing her joy. When we got close she stretched out her arms and gave me a giant embrace as I greeted her and then we went our separate ways.
Why would an older Ugandan women take time to acknowledge a young mzungu who could never understand fully her culture? Its all about presence. It has to be or there would be no other reason for me to receive a comforting embrace from an almost stranger on a lonely walk home.

Recognized By The World For What It Is. Special.

This past weekend we got to go on a little get-away to Jinga, home of the source of the Nile.  We were hosted by Adrift, an awesome rafting and bungee jumping company that really made the weekend.  They came to pick us up on Saturday morning, set us up with our accommodations for the night and then gave us a brief rafting intro, we separated into groups of 9, strapped on helmets and life jackets and hit the water.  I had the best raft, if I do say so myself, with our fearless leader from Canada, Josh.  At the beginning of our rafting trip we learned all of the commands we would need to know for the rest of the day and we practiced falling out, flipping over, and getting back in the raft.  In the calm we also enjoyed swimming and floating in the middle of the NILE. 

So the Nile is something you start learning about in Sunday school when you are like, 5 when you learn about Moses.  Not to mention learning about the amount of life it has provided for people since the beginning of history.  How intricately it supplied life when it would flood and then leave rich and nutritious silt to nourish crops and feed the Egyptians consistently over time (thank you Ms. Daly!).   Therefore, the whole day was basically filled with awe, not just because of the rapids but because of the fact that we were on the Nile. 

Anyways, we enjoyed some nice and big rapids in the morning, experienced our first flip in one of the rapids, which ended up being a little scary because I didn’t even think about the fact that I should probably hold my breath if I’m going into the water and I got a nice mouthful.  We then stopped for lunch at Lunch Island, where Adrift provided all the ingredients for the first, delicious, sandwich I’ve had since being in Uganda.  It was wonderful.  We then continued rafting and had 4 more rapids along with a couple hours of just rowing, floating, swimming, and getting to know each other and Josh a little more in the “down time”. 

The biggest action of the day was the last rapid, a class 5 called “50/50”.  50% chance you will flip, 50% you wont.  We flipped, big time.  The first part of the rapid we all went flying and I was under the water for what seemed like a really long time as the rapid churned me until I was out.  Kaylin, Megan and I were rescued by the safety kayaks and brought to another raft because ours had made it through the second part of the rapid.  That guide was crazy, and with 12 people on his raft he sent us in the perfect position to go out with a bang and the entire raft went flying.  I had hairy polish men in speedos land on me and use me as a ladder to get back to the surface of the water and keep me stuck under the raft for a little longer than I would have liked... but we made it back to our raft and finished the day nice and smoothly.  Overall, rafting on the Nile was ah-mazing and I would definitely recommend adding it to your bucket list!

That night we all spent time together, took nice hot SHOWERS, and had a fun dance party. 

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and climbed 144 ft to the top of the bungee jump tower!  I was terrified, but I was glad I was going tandem with Megan.  As I watched a couple of other people go first it didn’t seem so bad either.

When it came to our turn, we walked out to the end, sat down while the guys strapped our feet together, clipped us to the rope and gave us a little demo of what would happen.  We then stood up and had to inch together towards the end of the platform.  That was the scariest part of the whole experience because after a certain point we weren’t allowed to look down so we were basically trusting this guy with our life to stop us before we shuffled off the platform.  We wrapped our arms around each other, listened to everyone countdown 3, 2, 1...and leaned forward to fall 144ft!  We both screamed the entire way down and during the whole 6 bounces up and down.  After we stopped they lowered us down to a raft where two Ugandans unstrapped us and towed us to the shore.  That was definitely one of the scariest experiences of my life but also very exhilarating… bridge jumping at home will be nothing now J

Africa is so great and I wish I could share my experience with you in more than just words! 

p.s. Tried to up load the video but internet is obviously not working.... soon! 

Quick Updates before the weekend!

1.  A few weekends ago IMME went to Lira, which is a district up North affected by the war, including one of the IDP camps.  What surprised me the most was now that everyone has been moved back to their homes and the IDP camps are completely are gone is that the war is basically unmentioned now.  There are still visible and deep rooted consequences of the war, like many orphans, etc.  However, we saw 3 awesome ministries that were completely different and talked with peace corps volunteers.  It was awesome and I would love to talk about it more i just havnt had time to blog all my thoughts. 


2.  I LOVE my family.  Especially Alex, we are now in the process of recording our own version of Chasing Cars, by Snow Patrol.  Maybe I'll share it with you all since being here has made me used to not being embarrassed.  


3.  We have started playing volleyball on sundays with our ugandan siblings and its been super fun.  


4.  Today is election day!  It will be really interesting to see how things play out.  This is looking like it will be the first free and fair election Uganda has ever had... but then again, who knows.  Lots of people arnt voting and are fine with Museveni, but in my personal opinion, I think they need a change of leadership or Egypt is going to happen in another 5 years.




I have lots more to say but if you want to know more about these just comment and ask questions! Also, what are people interested in hearing about... let me know so i dont bore you!