stranded at rwanda

June 4
Wednesday I went back to St. Edwards to finish up the very last of the poster drawings. David went with me as well. We were fortunate enough to be asked to draw the hardest of any of the posters so far. Seriously, it was ridiculous. Anyway, we toughed that one out and then went back home. At 2 we all went to the secondary school club up at Lugazi Hillview. It’s a newer school started up by Stephen (from town council). At first the kids were very quiet and didn’t show much response. Then we played a game provided by Jackie. Sha boo ya role call! It was really fun and the kids thought it was hilarious. One of the things everybody had to say in it was what their favorite food is. As you can imagine, everyone of them said matoke. WEIRD. Anyway, then we came up with a club name which will from now on be known as light (but in the luganda language). Em and I are mentors together so we met with our group and that was fun. We have 5 in our group. Trent had me talk about the question box that I made. It went over really well and the kids ended up putting a lot of questions in the box. We told them not to put their name on the questions but apparently some of them don’t understand the word anonymous. Some of the questions were just the same questions we asked them on their “about me sheet”. The kids here aren’t really taught to think for themselves. In school they are told exactly what to put in their notes and everything. It’s frustrating!

June 5
Thursday I woke up feeling kind of sick with a sore throat and other stuff. The power was still out, too. I thought I would be ok to go to the persons with disabilities meeting anyway. The lesson was given by Natalie and Ashley and it was on the four stages of coping with a child with disabilities. Since they were teaching, the rest of the volunteers played with the children. Most of the time I sat with this really cute boy named Vincent and we threw a foam ball back and forth. He wore his cute little suit again and I am going to try and get a picture of him next week and put it up on the blog. Anyway, of course by the end of the meeting the children started going crazy again. Diana was hitting people-but at least she wasn’t tackling Vincent. Faith has a tendency to drag the meeting on and on so by the end we were just like “ok, we have to go now.” I was glad because throughout the meeting I started to feel worse. When I got home I took a nap and woke up feeling even worse. Thank goodness for the Theraflu that I brought! That pretty much has saved my life. I blame this sickness on Jeff, who has also been sick for the last few days. Later that night everybody watched Hotel Rwanda since that is where we are going on Saturday. I had a fever so I stayed in bed. I was pretty bummed because of all the movies that they’ve watched here, that has been the one that I have always asked to watch. During the movie Seren and Les came to the room to get something. They were awesome and totally just took care of me. Seren willingly gave up her two blankets for me, and her mom’s “hippie medicine”. It’s hard being sick in Africa but it definitely helped me to have their help.

June 6
Friday I was still sick. I stayed in bed or in the front room for most of the day listening to my IPOD or sleeping. It was super boring and I was sad that I missed going to Iganga. My voice sounded like a man.

June 7
Today we woke up at 4 in the morning in order to get ready. Since we didn’t get to bed until one the night before, we were all really tired. I was glad that I packed my bags the night before too because we had to leave the lights off in order for Natalie and Seren to be able to stay asleep. We also had to wake up the family behind us so that they could unlock the room with all our shoes in it. As we started to drive away Ashley realized she left her PB&J sandwiches home so we had the driver turn around and take us back. Since the driver was late we were also in a huge hurry to get to Kampala. Once we got the sandwiches we told him to drive as fast as he could-without killing us. Once we got to Kampala the driver asked us where he should drop us off. We all started freaking out at that point because we had no idea where it was that we had to go either. He finally got out to ask somebody and it ended up being right by where we were. We arrived to the taxi park right in time. As we got on the bus Emily and I sat down in some random seat because somebody was in ours. About five minutes later a couple got onto the bus and needed us to move. The bus started driving as Emily and I were trying to find another place to sit so we both just sat random places. Les spoke up for us and made the girl move from one of the seats, so we ended up sitting by each other after all.

Bathroom breaks were interesting. In America I would’ve complained about the nasty bathrooms they stop off at, but I have come to the conclusion that at least they drop you off at an actual bathroom. In Uganda they do it just a bit differently. They figure that nature proves to be a great bathroom so they randomly decide to pull off to the side of the road and let everyone hop right off. We were all a little surprised by this whole experience. None of the girls use toilet paper and everyone just takes a squat right by each other.

I started thinking that a 7 ½ hour bus ride was bad, and then it got worse. The bus broke down on the side of the road and we spent 3 hours in the bus waiting for it to be fixed. I had the chance to read The Last Lecture and also The Peacegiver. Those are both really good books that I highly recommend. Anyway, it was a celebration once we were finally able to drive away. We all thought we were going to have to wait for another bus to have to drive from Kampala to pick us up. Thank goodness that’s not how it all worked out.

The group finally arrived in Rwanda at 6:30 at night. We met up with a man named Richard whom Peggy from town council got us in contact with. He is the secretary general for town councils in Rwanda, so that was pretty cool. He had the taxi driver drop us off at our motel first. We paid 9000 francs (about 18 dollars) per night and we got two beds to one room, a flushing toilet and a hot shower. Of course they didn’t look anything like a hotel at home, but it wasn’t what we have been living in for the past 5 weeks. I washed my hair for the first time in one week tonight because the water was actually warm!! It was amazing. Once we dropped our stuff off at the motel we then went to find a bank. We went to a few but none were international banks, so I wasn’t able to pull out any money. Then we went to dinner, so I had to mooch off of David. We were at the restaurant for a total of 2 ½ hours. The food took a very long time to come and so as we were leaving Heidi announced that we are never eating out again. Every time we eat out the wait time just gets upped. Anyway, the food was ok. Once we were done we went back home. Emily and I talked for a while and then went to sleep.

June 8
Today we woke up to a free breakfast. It was funny because yesterday when we heard we were getting a free breakfast Heidi said, “I bet it’s just bread. That’s what they did to us every day in London. What kind of person thinks that bread counts as breakfast?” Well Heidi, apparently Rwandans do. We sat down and instantly received 3 pieces of bread. They also had mini bananas, hot water for powdered milk, and if you wanted you could order some eggs. It wasn’t too bad. At least it was free?

After breakfast Richard came with the taxi to take us around Rwanda. We drove through the city for a little bit just to see what it was like. It was absolutely beautiful. There were hills everywhere and it was very very green. It was MUCH more developed than any of Uganda. After driving around the city we were taken to the Kigali Memorial Centre. This genocide memorial was very nice. It showed and talked about life before the genocide, during and after. I learned a lot about it. In the back of the memorial there were mass graves for the people. Help international put a big thing of flowers on one of the graves. After that we went inside to the memorial. I was surprised at how little the world did to help them during the genocide. The only people that came were from France, and they became allies with the Hutus. The Rwandans even informed the UN that there was something that would happen and they did absolutely nothing to stop it. Honestly, I knew hardly anything about it before going to the memorial. It made me sad that such a devastating thing could happen and yet it could be made into such a small deal. Over 1 million people were killed. One of the sections in the memorial was a children’s section, and it had pictures of children that were killed, how they died, and a few random facts about them. I almost started balling. It was so sad and it made me sick to hear about all the different ways they tortured these innocent people. They told us at the memorial that the Hutus targeted mostly women and children because they wanted to stop the tutsi generation completely. I can’t understand how you could hate somebody-let alone a whole race of people-so much that you would want to do things like this to them. The fact that it was in 1994 gets me even more. I was alive while all of this was going on. Anyway, after visiting the children’s section we went into the genocide section that told about the Jew genocide, Armenian genocide, etc. I have never even heard of the Armenian genocide before.

After visiting the Kigali memorial centre Richard had our driver take us to this buffet place to eat lunch. It was really good; they had fries, cole slaw and a cucumber salad thing. I was way excited. We filled our plates as full as we could get them.

Our next stop was the Colline hotel. It looked a lot different then it was in the movie. We went inside and one of the workers-who was also a survivor of genocide and had stayed in that hotel during the whole thing-came to talk to us and tell us his story. He even had a son born in the hotel. He said that nobody staying in the hotel was harmed, but still wasn’t positive why. He thought it was because on the top of the hotel was the UN flag. It was interesting to hear a personal story, and one that wasn’t devastating. When we were finished looking at the hotel Ry and I looked across the street and saw some weird elephant things. We decided it would be fun to take a picture with it. Les made fun of us and told us we had no memory to go along with it so it was pointless. Well, we made a memory there.

After visiting the hotel we went home. Em and I had this great plan to get to bed early for once. We got talking while lying in our nets and ended up getting to bed really late. Funny how that happens.

All along we had planned to go home on June 9, but since the whole bus incident when we didn’t have time to do anything else that night we had decided to stay in Rwanda for one more day and use another vacation day. I was really glad we decided to do that.

June 9, 2008

Today we woke up to another free breakfast. Basically I have just grown to love the steamed milk. Without the sugar it smells and tastes terrible, but with the sugar it makes it taste great. In fact, I’m planning on making this little treat when I get back to America.

Richard came to pick us up but informed us that he had to work and so he had his friend and co-worker Nadine take us around. First we had her take us to the bank again. We FINALLY found one that was an international one. I took out 60,000 francs which was a bad idea because I should’ve taken out more. Anyway, while waiting for the rest of the group to take money out of their account, I went to the supermarket with some of the others. They had a bakery there and everyone was buying things from it. This is where my sweet tooth brought me to my downfall: I first asked how much it was for the cookies. The lady said to us, “1000 francs for one kilogram of cookies.” I was shocked at how cheap they were, so I ordered one kilogram. K, so one kilogram is A LOT of cookies for anyone who didn’t know that. She kept going and going until Trent came over and asked if I was really serious about buying that many cookies. The lady looked at me and said, “Do you want maybe just a half a kilo?” I said yes, so she stopped filling them up. Once she handed me the bag I was a little shocked to see the 6000 franc price tag. Apparently she said 12000 francs per kilogram and we all just didn’t hear her. So, I paid 12 US dollars for these cookies that ended up being the most disgusting things I’ve ever had. Seriously, I couldn’t even give them away.

Anyway, we waited in line in the coffee place for everyone to order their brownies, fruit cups and other things. It took quite a while to get everything and I ended up standing there for the longest time because Ashley decided she didn’t want to wait and so did David and Corbin, so they had me order their food and they just gave me money. I wasn’t too happy about it, especially since all I had to do was pay for a water.

After taking care of business we hit the road and headed to the Rwanda museum. It was about 2 ½ hours away. We made a quick stop half way there and bought some peace baskets and other fun things. All of the stuff they sold at this place was made by the local people, and it was really cheap. I found some fun presents for my family there and I am seriously considering just keeping it all for myself. Anyway, the museum was kind of boring, but there were a few cool things there. They sold the same things that the store sold, but it was about 4 times more expensive.

The next place we went to was the Murambi Memorial Site. Oh my gosh this was seriously a life changing experience. This was a school that was being built in 1994 when the genocide happened. The local government told all the people then that they couldn’t protect them because they were so spread out, so they had to gather at this school for more protection. All of them believed the government, so 50,000 people gathered there. What ended up happening was the people starved them for two weeks so that they would be weak. Then they came in and killed them all with guns and machetes. Of 50,000 people, only four escaped. We met two of them at the site and they told us their story. One of them was a Hutu, but she was married to a Tutsi. She barely escaped, but she also saved her son. We also met another man who had been shot in the head. After he was shot there were other people shot who fell on top of him. He hid under them until he could escape. He still has a hole in his head from being shot. Once all the people were killed the Tutsi people made mass graves and threw them all in. They covered the grave and with the French people, played volleyball on top of their graves. The mass grave wasn’t discovered until about six years ago. At the memorial site they took us into about ten different rooms filled with bodies found from the mass graves. They were covered in lime to preserve their bodies. The smell was terrible! Many of the rooms were filled with children’s bodies. Some people had clothes on, other had some jewelry. It was hard not to cry. I can’t even fathom how somebody could hate somebody so much that they could do something like that. I really can’t. It was a very humbling experience. Les even turned to me in the taxi ride home and said, “How did we get so lucky?” Really, how did we?
That night we went back to the buffet place to eat. I got to talk to mom right before I ate so that was awesome. The food was great once again, and it was fun to say goodbye to Nadine and Richard. They gave us a book and movie about the genocide. They were great people and I’m glad that we found them and had them take us around. We would’ve been lost without them.

After eating dinner we went back to the hostel. We had to pay the taxi driver so everyone was trying to pull together their money. Since all of us spent all of it at the store in the random village, none of us had enough. Somehow we pulled together enough for all of us, but didn’t have enough to pay for the taxi in the morning. We pulled together some more shillings so that we could hurry and exchange them the next morning to pay. Em and I ended up getting to bed at 2 in the morning, and then we had to wake up at 4:30.

June 10, 2008

First I want to say that today is my ½ birthday. I am grateful for 20 ½ years of life, and also for my good friend Rylee (whose real birthday is today). It’s great to be alive and safe today. Once again, my life got shaken a bit.

We got to the taxi/bus park and they dropped us off. Ashley ran into the exchange place and we ran to the bus. It was driving away as we were getting in. We kept yelling for them to stop, and eventually they got the point. As we got on we told them that we had one more. They obviously didn’t understand or were in too big of a hurry, so they kept driving. We finally got them to stop for here as she was running after the bus.

We were driving for about an hour and a half and then we came to the Rwanda/Uganda border. We waited in lines for a while so that we could get our passports stamped, etc. Then we came to the Uganda side and they checked for Visas. Apparently none of us noticed that our visas were only one entry, so we all still had to pay 50 dollars to get back in. That became a problem, because even the night before we hardly had enough money to pay for the taxi. They also didn’t take credit cards, and didn’t have any international banks anywhere near the border. First we had everyone pay who had the 50 dollars, so that they wouldn’t miss the bus. Once they had paid, they pulled out all the money they had left-euros, shillings and American dollars. We found enough money to pay for everybody except 2 people. The bus was driving away and everyone was frantic. It quickly became apparent that some of us were going to have to miss the bus. I was among the people who didn’t have the money, and had to use others money. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to stay since I did have a visa (we needed two to stay who did have them so that they could cross the border and get to the nearest bank to get money and bring it back for the others waiting). At the very last second I ran after the bus with Jackie and Trent, leaving David, Corbin and Ashley at the border with 10 American dollars and 50 Euros. None of us knew how they would get back. As we were driving away Jackie realized that she had her phone as well as Ashley’s, which was supposed to be left with Ashley. We started panicking. Then we realized that Corbin had and Ashley’s phones were almost dead and we still had a long bus ride ahead of us. Anyway, we called Peggy and she tried to help as much as she could. We made it back to Kampala and Peggy had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the bus place and wait with us at the mall for the others to show up in Kampala. They ended up sending Ashley into Uganda to get some money. She got out enough and came back to buy David and Corbin their visas. Then they ended up getting on a bus that left Rwanda at 9. Their bus was really slow and made many stops, so they didn’t get back for about three hours after us. So while we were waiting we ate sandwiches at the Garden City Mall. Then we got on the internet (which was a normal speed, but kept cutting out). We weren’t able to relax until they we met up with them at the Garden City Mall that night. It was honestly the scariest thing ever! With everything that I have written I still don’t think that other people could understand how scary it was for all of us! But, we are alive so that’s a plus.

June 11, 2008

I didn’t write this day, so I don’t remember what we did. SORRY!

June 12, 2008

Today was the day the second wavers arrived. We have eight more additions: Tori, Kelsey, Lindsi, DJ, Katie, Kira, Steph and Ashley. That now brings us up to a total of 24 people. Although I was happy to have them come, I was even happier to get my malaria pills, basketball shorts, CREDIT CARD and PEANUT BUTTER GRANOLA BARS. Once I got the card I called my mom right away to activate it. She didn’t answer (of course-love you mom) so I tried texting Tyler a billion times. When he didn’t call I called the credit card place myself and got the bad news: The card can’t actually activate for 24 hours after you call, and they can’t give you the pin number over the phone, so they had to mail it to my mom. In seven days she will get it and can call me to give it to me. I’m frustrated that I’m still having issues with this.

Once that was done we split into groups and took the new volunteers for a tour around Lugazi. David and I were assigned to take Kira around. Kira is the volunteer who is just barely 16 and from Alaska. I thought back to when I was 16- all I cared about was boys……not saving people in Africa. It’s impressive that this is something she wanted to spend her time doing at her age. Anyway, it was fun to take her around. It’s weird to have this many people here! They all seem so awesome though and I am excited to get to know them.

June 13, 2008

Today Jackie, David, Emily and I spent all day preparing for our first teacher training. I was assigned the part where I talk about different ways for the teachers to make their lessons interactive. It sounds easy, but it was actually sort of difficult. The classrooms here are packed with a million kids, and are so tight that there are no rows, and no ways for the teacher to even walk around the classroom. They are very chaotic, so it became a task to try and figure out what I could talk to them about. This is something that I really love doing though. I was probably the least prepared of this group, but I wasn’t really nervous.

Em and I rode a boda to the meeting in order for us to get there on time. We got all set up and then Lindsi and Steph met us there. I had a lot of fun doing this. I showed the teacher a mobile, and had them play jeopardy. They didn’t understand jeopardy at first, but once they did they had so much fun playing it. They totally got into it! It made me laugh. They loved the training and we gave them sodas, glucose biscuits, a quote to hang in the office, teacher training certificates, etc. They were excited about it all and thanked us at the end for coming. They said that we had helped them to see things in a way they had never thought about it before. They said it completely sincere too. That comment alone just really made my day. It helped me to feel like we really are making a difference!

Tonight we did our second wave initiation. We had them wait inside the house while we got it ready. Then we gave them each a candle and Jackie and Ashley lit it as they were walking out the door to the front. They had to stand in a circle and repeat the same thing that we did when we had our initiation: “ I am __________. I am from __________. I am a part of the Mzungi tribe, and now I have spoken.” Then, they each blew out their candles and got blind folds. Trent went around and told them they had to, “embrace echinange and then eat the young.” We had them hold a fish (that is the whole fish, only cooked), and then eat a small fish out of the mouth of the big one. It looked like the sickest thing ever, but it was hilarious to watch. Kira was the only one who refused to do it. As this was going on we were recording it. When It was over we all went inside to watch it on the projector. Then we watched our initiation-oh good times.


June 14, 2008

Today we woke up at 5:30 and got ready to leave for Murchison Falls. The bus picked us up at 6:30 in the taxi park. It was funny because our bus was called, “The Struggle”. Anyway, we drove for 2 ½ hours to get to the place we were going to hike. On the way we stopped to pick up lunches.

Once we got there we started hiking. It wasn’t too hard, but it was really beautiful. There was this huge waterfall that could be seen for miles away. As we were hiking along the two guides stopped us and said, “Ok, here’s where we split up. If you don’t want a hard hike you can go with him, but if you want one that is a lot more challenging than what we have been doing, come with me.” Me, being the brilliant person that I am, decided I wanted to go on the hard one. About 15 minutes later I decided I had made a mistake. I sat down on the mountain and announced that I didn’t think I could keep going and that I was willing to walk back and find the other group. Tori and Kira were both behind me, and they were feeling the same was as I was. Dan was the lead of the group and he is 6’5, so the pace was just a little to fast for us. We couldn’t turn back, but luckily DJ was with us. He told us that we could do it and that he would stay back with us the whole time. He even took Tori’s backpack for her and carried it the rest of the way. The entire rest of the hike he was encouraging us, and stopping with us when we needed a break. He was the only boy that did that for us. The worst part about the whole thing was that there were children carrying things on their heads that were passing us. I was so happy once I had made it to the top of the mountain. I couldn’t believe that we had done it. Honestly, it was one of the hardest hikes I have ever done!

The hike was totally worth it though. It was amazingly beautiful. We ate our nasty lunches at the top of the mountain and it was great to have a rest. The man even taught us a lesson on circumcision and other great things. We looked at some of the houses around the top of the mountain too. I couldn’t believe people could actually live up there.

The way down was rough! It started pouring really really hard and because it was so steep everyone kept slipping. There was a part on the way down where I actually sat on my butt and just slid because it was easier. We were soaked completely! DJ was trying to help Tori and Rylee and he slipped off the mountain. Rylee and Tori thought he was dead, but he ended up not even getting hurt. It was a miracle. Once we got to the bottom of the mountain we had to run to the nearest hut and hide inside until it stopped raining. We walked for a long time and found the rest of the group who did the easier hike. They had us then walk to some random hut (while it was still pouring) for tea and to look at some women’s group crafts. The tea was amazing. It was lemongrass milk. I wanted to eat about 10 cups of it.

When we finished that we got back on the bus and drove for a while to the place that we were going to stay the night. When we got there I was amazed at how beautiful it was. We slept in these rad huts that were above a 300 foot waterfall that also had a look out. It was one of those places that resorts try and re-create, only this was the real deal-if that makes sense. It was honestly the most beautiful place I have ever seen. They had warm showers and the latrines had a place you could sit! Even the food was amazing. We had a 4 course meal and REAL cake. I was really excited. They had a bonfire for us after we ate. I was really tired, so I only sat around it for a little bit. My sleep that night was great too. I was sharing a room with Rylee and Lindsi. Lindsi is an elementary school teacher so I annoyed her as she was trying to sleep, by asking her a billion questions about her job. Thanks Lindsi.

June 15, 2008

Today we woke up to an amazing breakfast. We had toast, steamed milk, bananas, omelets, sausage, passion fruit juice and watermelon. They had American peanut butter on the table for us too. WOO HOO. Once we were done we left for a hike. Some of the group stayed behind for this hike too. I ended up being really glad that I went on this one. Holy waterfalls! I’ve never seen anything like them. When we came back we had spaghetti and chicken (and steamed milk). As we were getting ready to leave three of the girls from our group realized they were missing money. Somebody had stolen it, and we figured it was probably when we were eating the night before. We couldn’t believe it, but the owner of the resort was very nice and compensated them half of the money. Lindsi lost 100,000 shillings, Amber lost 150,000 shillings and Ashley lost 200,000 shillings. It had to have been the workers, which was sad because they all seemed so nice!

Once again the drive home was good because I got to sleep and listen to my IPOD. Even though I’m in a bus full of people I still feeling like that is my only time to be alone because with my IPOD in nobody tries to talk to me and I get to be “to myself” for once. That’s one thing I am looking forward to when I get home.

It was nice to arrive home to a nice meal cooked by Irene. She made the best chapati’s ever. I had to do the dishes with Les and Tori after. We started this new system where the people in charge have to set up buckets to wash our dishes in, and then once everyone washes their own dishes we go in and wash the dishes that held all the food. It’s not so bad anymore. Can you imagine having to do dishes for 24 people??? AH!

I went to bed with the phone next to me so that I would get woken up when my family called. I always look forward to those calls. I do miss my family a lot. It’s weird but with how much I miss everything from home, I still feel like one month is not going to be enough for me. I will miss being here in Africa!

June 16, 2008

This morning I went to observe at the Ssanyu primary school. We split up in twos, so Ry went into the primary one level with me. The teacher was an amazing teacher and so far one of the best that I have observed here. She used songs and objects to teach-something I haven’t seen yet. The only way I’ve seen a teacher teach here so far is by standing in front of the class and telling the class exactly what to write in their notebooks. It was funny because the teacher randomly left the classroom a few times and every time she did the kids would turn right around and just stare at us and giggle. I noticed about five of the kids out of the 28 that were in there were using a razor blade to sharpen their pencils. These are six year old kids using razor blades….I decided that the pencil sharpeners that Nancy donated would be put to great use right here. We only observed for two hours so I am planning on going back again on Wednesday. I love watching these teachers because I feel like it also helps me to realize how I want to be when I have my own classroom.

I came back and did some laundry for a bit. That was LONG overdue. Doing laundry is such a pain. Seriously, it takes forever so I was only able to get a little bit of it done.

I came back inside a little later and Les and I worked on our goal setting lesson for the secondary school group that we are teaching at on Wednesday. We had already made our goal setting lesson plan for the PWD meeting, so we just changed it up a bit and made it more applicable to the secondary school kids. We made a lot of posters and some cool goal setting booklets to hand out. Making them reminded me of young woman’s again. Ha ha. Anyway, during the middle of all of this we both decided that we were hungry. We went to Patron Hotel to eat. We got fries, samozas and pineapple marindas. I love pineapple marindas by the way. I wish they had those back at home! I’m thinking about bringing those back in my suitcase with me. The food was good and it was nice to just get out of the house and be with Les to catch up. I’m sad she doesn’t live in the house with me anymore. It felt like we were at home doing one of our in-between-class lunch breaks. I thought of Michelle and how I wished that she was with us. (HOLLA MITCHELL!) After lunch we went back and worked on our goal setting thing again. Once that was finished Jackie, Emily and I went to the back room to organize our donation closet because we had to add all the second waver donations to the stash. It was such a mess and it took us a while to clean. I dumped a bag of sequins about three different times and wanted to chuck them right in the garbage. I decided as I was cleaning that before I leave, with the supplies that my family donated, I am going to put together little packet type things and give them to the children living around here who look like they could use them. Good idea??? Right now I just want to thank all my family for donating all of that stuff. I wish you could see how much these children really do need all of it.

June 17, 2008

This morning I woke up to my handy dandy alarm clock: Emily. It’s nice to not have to set an alarm. This kind of sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m really not. Moving on…I actually had time to get ready for the day this morning because I did wake up so early, it was great. I went to Mukono with Amber, Jackie, Leslie, Corbin, Trent, Natalie and Tori. We went to the bakery that is owned by the Mukono branch president’s wife. We had to clean out the back room which was nasty. Since there was so many people there and such a small space they assigned Les and I to sort through the raisins. We had to take the stems out of them and find out which ones would be too hard to use. It was great? It really was cool to watch the workers make the cakes though. They only make one kind of cake and they use fondant frosting. The cake is the driest stuff you can find here, but it has sugar in it so I think that’s why I will agree to eat it. Anyway, so while we were sorting raisins the rest of the group was finding a massive rat family in the back room. I was really glad that I didn’t have the cleaning job after all. It was frustrating because these people used to live in Provo and when they came back to Uganda they brought with them a whole bunch of things that the people from Provo had donated. That’s not the sad part, it’s the fact that they were in living in Provo two years ago and still had not done anything with the donations! There were boxes and boxes of books that could’ve easily been given to somebody who seriously could’ve used them, and yet they just sat there for the rats to chew up. It made us all a little bit upset. They gave us a cake to eat while we were working, so I guess that was cool.

When we came back Les and I went to the internet. It was somewhat fast today! I received an e-mail that said my mom had put money into Leslie’s account, so I was really happy about that. I had enough to pay everyone back and still some to use until my card gets working again. I never wrote about my card, but if you want to know you can ask me about it later. Probably one of the most frustrating things that has happened to me! So we stopped at the bank on the way home and then I got home and paid everyone back.

While home we talked about the secondary school’s questions and who would answer them. We made a birthday card for DJ, and also had our PWD meeting.

Tonight we went over to Mayor Deo’s house for the weekly team meeting and to celebrate DJ’s birthday. We met on his patio. It was a much better spot to meet because it was about three times the size of our room at the house. It’s also cool outside, unlike the cramped sweaty room. We talked about the armed robbery that happened to the group in El Salvador. My friend Britney Watts is there so I was wondering if she was part of that group? We had to talk about safety precautions and everything. We also planned out who was going to Murchison Falls for the safari, Tanzania and the Gulu District. Once all of that was discussed we ate the cake. I ate so much nasty cake that I felt like I was going to puke!