Picturesque Experiences

I thought this would be a good time for an blog of pictures. So here we go.




This is Sabiti, the all-girls dorm where I live. My window is the 2nd from the right on the bottom floor.










This is my best friend here =] Her name is Darlene and she's from Rwanda. Here, she's sitting on my bed in my room.





This is the "d.h." (Short for dining hall) where we eat all of our meals, which consist of:
Breakfast - Two rolls and if we're lucky, one boiled egg.
Lunch - Rice, Beans, Posho (white corn meal mixed with water), G-Nut Sauce (sauce made out of peanuts, which in Uganda are called g-nuts or ground-nuts and are sketchily colored hot pink....I'm not even kidding. So the G-nut sauce is purple), lumonde (sweet potato), and abumonde (Irish potato). And if we're lucky, a slice of pineapple. And if we're really lucky, two bites of beef.
Dinner - See lunch ^. Except without the pineapple or beef.
Also. There are two "break teas" during the day, one at 10 am and one at 4 pm. During break tea we drink hot black tea or milk tea. Both are extremely sweet and delicious.

Okay so the pictures each take about 15 minutes to upload, and patience is not my forte haha. So I'm ditching the picture idea. So sorry. Maybe another time when I have hours and hours to spend on this process.....

But at least now you have an idea of where I live and what I eat. That said, this past weekend, the USP directors took all the American students to Jinga, which is about an hour northwest of Mukono. We thought we were going on some sort of "retreat", but we had no idea what that included. It turned out that they took us to a resort right on Lake Victoria. It was BEAUTIFUL and included all sorts of gorgeous palm trees and flowers and a swimming pool! With concrete bar stools built into the pool so they would serve you soda as you were swimming! We slept in huts that were furnished and had actual toilets with actual toilet paper provided (we don't have access to these things at school, or for that matter, most anywhere). The showers had hot water (another thing not available in most of Uganda). For meals, we had fresh fruits such as watermelon and pineapple and vegetables like avocado and tomato and meat such as pork and fish. I don't want to spend too much time describing the resort, but the point is, it was luxurious. We walked around with our mouths hanging open most of the weekend. So we spent time laying out (more like burning) and reading and relaxing. It was a great weekend of bonding with the other students and having a chance to get away. Then we took a boat ride out on to Lake Victoria and were shown where the Ugandans believe is the source of the Nile River. That was pretty cool. To the right is a picture of my friend Eliana and I at the sign marking the spot (yes, you get one last picture).

So we returned from Jinga and spent the rest of the week going to classes, doing a bunch of homework, hanging with our friends, etc.

Some new things. Yesterday I did laundry for the first time. They hand-wash and hang-dry everything. It was not necessarily overly difficult work, strenuous yes but managable. The problem is simply the amount of time it takes to wash even one article of clothing. I'm not looking forward to doing that the rest of the semester. So yesterday I washed and hung my clothes out on the public line..... and then completely forgot about them. Didn't cross my mind once all day until this morning. Earlier today I finally remembered my clothes and went to get them from the line only to find that they were missing. I couldn't find them anywhere! I asked around and people gave me sorry glances and told me they bet my clothes had been stolen. You're not supposed to leave them overnight or for long periods of time for that reason. Dejected at my first major blunder, I walked back to my dorm and decided to seek comfort from Darlene, my best friend here who lives across the hall (see photo above). I went to her room and the first thing she said to me was "Ahhhh Rachel how are you I have been looking everywhere for you because I have your clothes!" Darlene helped me wash yesterday and then, knowing that I would probably forget my clothes, had gone back to the line a few hours later and taken them down for me to ensure no one else took them. Her thoughtfulness and sincerity blows me away.

Other new things. Tomorrow I leave for a two-week home-stay. This means for two-weeks I will be living with a Ugandan family and walking to and from school. I am incredibly nervous, which I have been told is "okay". It will definitely be a different lifestyle than the one I have been living for the past two weeks, hanging out on campus at night. For these next two weeks, most of my time and meals will be spend with a single family. I have been told that for many, this is their favorite experience in Uganda. We'll see. This also means that my internet will be even more limited since I will not be on campus to access it at night and during the day it is pretty much unavailable since the classrooms (the only place we can get wifi) are in use.

Lastly. Tuesday I begin my internship, one of the main reasons I am in Uganda. I will be working at Chain Foundation, a home for orphaned, abandoned, and former street children in the Mukono area. Chain houses 106 children and also has a school on its premises that enrolls about 300 kids each semester, both from Chain itself and from the surrounding community. I'll be working with Dorothy, the head social-worker. Out of the 106 children Chain houses, 42 of them are blind or a Visually Impaired Person (VIP). I might be working closely with these kids. You can pray for discernment in choosing what I want my internship to look like as my responsibilities and work are completely up to me. You can check out the foundation's website at www.chainfoundationuganda.com.

That's all for now. Its 1:25 am Uganda time and I'm exhausted. Tonight the Honors College at the school hosted a welcome party for USP and after a formal dinner and introductions, we had a dance party. Not a "spontaneous 2-minute" dance party, but a full-fledged Bruno Mars and Shakira dance party. The Ugandans laughed at our dancing, which mostly consisted of the typical jumping up and down and waving our hands haha. Then they taught us some of their dances. Good times. My feet hurt.

Later.