Happy 4th of July!

I missed going to the rodeo, barbeques, and firework shows, but I hope that everyone had a wonderful time celebrating at home! It's funny how I felt much more American and proud to be one when I was in africa than all the years that I've been in America combined. I guess I appreciate our freedom and lifestyle so much more now after living under other circumstances around the world. I'm not saying that America is better than Africa, or that I like it more, but I am very grateful for the life that we have in America and feel so blessed to be an American!

Happy 4th!

GULU

Gulu—land of the Invisible Children. If you don’t know anything about the history of Northern Uganda, start studying. It is fascinating and heartbreaking and unbelievable that such a thing could happen. I highly recommend watching the documentary Invisible Children and reading the book Girl Soldier. They will change your life.

Going to Gulu this weekend definitely changed my life. We were able to meet so many people who were affected by the catastrophe up there, to hear their stories, and to see how they are courageously pressing forward in life. Here’s a little summary of the history of Northern Uganda: During the past 20 years, Joseph Kony has been creating a rebel army called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to overthrow the government of Uganda. He abducted thousands of children from the bush, the rural outskirts of the villages, to serve as soldiers in his army. Rebels would burn down the straw huts of the villagers, steal their food, kill many, then chain the children together and force them to walk for mile carrying the stolen food and goods. Often the children were forced to kill their own family members or neighbors as a brainwashing tactic. Many of the young girls were given to army commanders as wives. Rape plagued the land of Northern Uganda. Abduction and violence were at their worst from 1994-1995. From this time up through 1998, none of the villagers dared to leave their homes. There was no where safe to go. At this time, the government down in Central Uganda was completely ignoring the issue, giving no aid or assistance to the Northerners. It wasn’t until 1999 that the government started creating Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps and sending soldiers to protect the people against Kony’s rebel army. This is when the night commuters started, the Invisible Children. Although the IDP camps were set up and the people all relocated to them, they were not much safer than the bush. In fact, they were almost worse. The mud huts of these camps were so close to one another that a fire started on one straw roof could easily jump to another and burn a thousand huts from one match. There were not enough soldiers set guard at the camps to adequately protect the people, and when the rebel army came, the soldiers usually ran away instead of defending the camp. There was no hiding in the camps like one could in the bush. Kony’s army had no trouble spotting them, so children were in even bigger danger of abduction and rape. This is why thousands of children would walk for miles every night into the main town of Gulu where they could sleep safe, or safer, than they could out in their villages and camps. This lasted up until about 2007, more and more people moving into camps that housed anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 people with terrible sanitation and lack of food or income and more and more children commuting each night into the city centers to sleep on the verandas of shops, churches, hospitals, and schools. Finally, in 2006 or 2007 Kony left Uganda and went to the Congo. Since that time, people have been leaving the camps, returning to their villages, and trying to start up the lives that they used to live.

My heart was touched as I walked along the streets where the Invisible Children once walked every night, as I saw remnants of IDP camps that were once the home to thousands of innocent individuals, and as I met personally with people who were child soldiers and survivors of the catastrophe that tore apart their lives. I was so impressed with the hope and courage that the Acholi tribe showed. The IDP camps were now nearly deserted and though the people had suffered so much tragedy and pain, they seemed to be happy. There were many organizations and NGOs in Gulu that offer counseling and skills training to child soldiers and they seem to be doing an excellent job. We visited one that I loved called Living Hope. They focused on restoring dignity to vulnerable women. What a great purpose! They offered such great services to the women there who were very deserving and in great need.

We met a man named James. He was the head teacher of a primary school that we visited. The school was once located in an IDP camp, but in the past few years has been relocated just outside of it. There were about 75 students at his school, but there were no classrooms or desks. They meet under a grass canopy roof and sit on the dirt floor every day at school. It is a government school, and they are in the process of building them a couple classrooms right now, but can you imagine going to school for three years sitting on the dirt floor? I complain about not having air conditioning. I was able to teach a dental hygiene lesson to the students at the school and to give them all tooth brushes. Of the 50 students who were there that ay, only 5 of them owned their own tooth brushes. The rest of them either used tree bark or nothing at all. Wow! That was a wake up call. Something so basic that I totally take for granted.

James told us his story of how he was abducted into the LRA. He was forced to walk for mile carrying heavy loads of food and supplies on his head. He walked until his feet were so swollen he couldn’t walk anymore, but they threatened to kill him if he didn’t keep walking, so he found the strength to get up and keep going. He was with the LRA for 3 months until he escaped during a crossfire. Now he has a beautiful wife and three young children. He is working to build a technical skills school in Gulu for child soldiers who never had the opportunity to go to school. He’s written a proposal for funding to build the school and purchased the land already. I am amazed when I see people like this who have gone through so much suffering themselves and are then able to use their trials to bless the lives of others. If anyone knows how to get sponsors for something like this, or is interested in donating to the cause, let me know.

I could write about Gulu for days, but I’m running out of time. We heard so many heart breaking stories from former child soldiers, but I was inspired by the way in which they were able to carry on with their lives with hope and happiness.

We found a little bakery in town that was amazing! I ate so many croissants, banana bread, carrot bread, and other sweets this weekend. I bet I gained at least 5 pounds. It tasted so good though! Practically homemade! And I miss home baked goods so much!

The bus ride home was long, but I read Hunger Games the whole ride. I've never read so much in one sitting in my whole life. Highly recommend the book! It's like the new Harry Potter!

Hippos and Warthogs and Crocs... OH MY!!!

SAFARI TIME!

We just got back from our safari to Murchison Falls yesterday. It was awesome! Murchison Falls is a national park up in North Western Uganda. It is an amazing waterfall in the Nile River and a huge game park full of giraffes, elephants, antelope, water buffalo, hippos, crocs, and more.

We had quite the drive to get up there, but it was worth every minute of it. On our way to the camp on Saturday, we took a short hike up to the top of the falls. The road to the falls was a narrow, bumpy, dirt road lined with trees and jungle life. We had to stop the vehicle multiple times to let the baboons cross the road. Haha, can you imagine a baboon crossing sign back home instead of deer crossing?! There are these devilish little flies called Teetsee Flies that swarm into the car through open windows and bite. They bite really hard! We had a pretty entertaining ride constantly rolling the windows up and down and up and down. Every time the van slowed down to go over a bump flies would come in so we had to hurry and shut the windows, but if they were closed for more than a minute we all suffocated from heat and lack of air, so in was a constant open, close, open, close, shoo the flies out... adventure.
"Teetse Attack! Close the windows! Can't breathe, open them! Attack! Close them, close them, close them!" Haha, we got some good laughs out of it!

The water falls were beautiful! It amazed me to see so much water cascading down such a small space. It had so much power, force, and beauty. I seriously love nature!



Back at the camp:

Our camp was in the middle of no where, but we ate some great food and actually had real toilets and running water. We slept in safari tents with two beds per tent. They were really nice, but not very noise proof when it poured during the night. At least they didn't leak! Our campsite was the home to about 30 warthogs. "They pretend to be domestic, but they're not!" -our guide. They warned us not to keep any food in our tents or else the warthogs and even hippos might try to steal it. Yikes! I don't want a hippo coming after me in the dark, or the light for that matter.



Day 2 of the Safari:

Wake up bright and early for the game drive. We set out before the sun was up to get out and see the animals. The sunrise this morning was probably the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. We watched it rise, reflecting off the Nile, as we took a ferry across the river and over to the park. Majestic!

The game drive was so cool! We rode in a fun little 10 passenger van with a pop-up roof. We stood up pretty much the whole 4 hours, peeking our heads out of the top to see all the way around us. We saw antelope, Ugandan cob, bush buck, water buffalo, elephants, giraffes, warthogs, birds... My favorite was probably coming withing 15 feet of two elephants. They were huge! The giraffes were really fun to see too! I didn't expect to see so many of them. Unfortunately we missed the lions, the first van saw two of them, but we were just a little bit too late. There weren't any zebras or gazelles in Murchison Falls either, but other than those, we saw just about everything.

That afternoon, we went on a boat ride out to the base of the Falls. We saw hundreds of hippos and a few crocadiles along the way. They're both kind of creepy because they lurk right below the surface of the water and then pop up and scare you. One hippo popped up right next to our boat and sprayed us. Another, thankfully a little ways away, snapped his teeth at us. Other than that, they were pretty lazy animals and just sat around in the water all day.



Day 3 of the Safari:

Today was the last day of the safari. Most of the day was spent driving back home, but we made a little stop at the Rhino reserve park to track the rhinos. This part was a little different because we actually got out of the van and went looking after the animals on foot. Sweet! There are 9 rhinos in the reserve park. There used to be tons of rhinos in Uganda, but they have been poached to extinction for their horns. We found two of the rhinos in the park, one of which is named Obama. Yes, Ugandans are obsessed with Obama.

After the rhinos, we continued our nice, lengthy drive back home. Pretty stellar weekend!

I read Tuesdays with Morrie on the drive. Highly recommend it! It was such an inspirational book! What is the purpose of life and how can we live it to the fullest? Find out for yourself!



Now we're back to another great week of work! Trying to make the most of every minute!

Playing at the Orphanage

Yesterday we went to an orphanage out past Jinja. We had such an incredible day there. We sang songs with the children, listened to them present their little lessons on HIV/AIDs, sanitation, gardening, and bead making, played games, and then I taught a little dental hygeine lesson. The kids were so thrilled to get their own new tooth brushes and tubes of tooth paste. Thanks family for putting those together! I'm glad we were able to use them for a good cause since they didn't make it out to Haiti. It was so touching to see how happy and smart these kids were despite the challenges they face in life.

Nicole and I caked in dirt after our boda ride

We got so dirty on the boda ride back! If you can't tell, my face is caked in dirty! I love motorcycles though! They are so fun!

We're going on our safari this weekend and I can't wait! It's going to be quite the adventure!

Rafting Pics!

"THE BAD PLACE"

Waterfall!

Full House!

Last week was just another week in Paradise as usual. We got eight new volunteers for second wave last Sunday, including my friends Katie Liddiard and Jon Richards. It was so fun to see them again! There are now 24 of us living in our small three bedroom house. It's quite cozy and crowded, but the more the merrier, right?!

Work last week was pretty much the same as usual. I spent a couple mornings doing physical therapy with Grace at the hospital and am still really enjoying that. We visited the orphanage one afternoon and played with the children there--Duck Duck Goose, dancing and drums, tag... It's been fun to actually get to know these kids individually as we've gone to this same children's home a few times. I am in love with these two little boys Dan and Mark. They are seriously so cute I want to eat them up. I wish I could take them home with me.

Alex and I taught our back therapy lesson to the Musana Women's group again and to the hospital staff and both lessons went very well. Sometimes it's hard to read people's emotions here since their facial expressions and common phrases are so different from ours, but they were very active in participating and seemed genuinely interested in what we were teaching. One of the Musana women said that she wanted to help us teach our lesson to the women in more rural villages because what we were teaching was so important and they needed that education too. Wow! Things are getting pretty busy with projects and time running out here, so I don't know how much we'll be able to spread our lessons, but at least there's someone who cares and appreciates the knowledge we've shared and will be willing to pass on the things we've taught after we leave.



We stayed in town this weekend and hung out with our local friends from The Youth Outreach Mission, Wilson and Godfrey. They were our tour guides for the day and showed us all around town. We went to Sezziwa falls, some small waterfalls nearby that many Ugandans consider sacred. They worship the spirits of the trees and nature there with small offerings and reverence.

Then we went to the crazy city of Kampala, saw the national theater, the parliament building, and Garden City Mall. Getting lunch at the food court in the mall was one of the most stressful experiences ever, haha. We sat down at a table and within 10 seconds, waiters were swarming us and shoving menues in our faces. I would try to read one, but as soon as I got my eyes on it another one was shoved on top of it and then another, and another, and another, until I had 10 menues and 20 hands in my face and no clue what to order. I decided on Shwarma, a beef wrap sandwhich that we got all the time in Israel. Random for Africa, but it sounded like a nice change and I was too stressed to look at the menues any longer. Not a bad choice! I must say that I like food courts in America much more than Uganda. So much less pressure.

After lunch, we drove to Entebbe to see the zoo and Lake Victoria. That was the first time I've driven out to Entebbe since we first arrived at the airport, and it will probably be the last until we go home. I don't want to think about that last drive just yet. Time is flying by too fast. The zoo was so much fun! How can you go to the zoo and not have fun?! We got to feed monkeys (there were at least 20 running around the parking lot and stealing food out of our pockets and hands), ride camels, see zebras, giraffes, chimps, crocadiles, and rhinos, and even watch the lions play. That was Godfrey's first time going to the zoo and he's 23 years old. I never realized how spoiled I was to have gone to the zoo every summer as a child.

We stopped back in Kampala on our way home for some ice-cream and burgers (I do love ice-cream!) and then made it safely back home.



We went to church in Jinja again this Sunday. The branch here is so awesome. I'm going to miss the simpleness of church here and the love and unity that the small branch has. There has been a baptism almost every Sunday since we've gotten here. The church is growing so quickly! I wonder how long it will be until the church expands to Lugazi? I can't wait to see that day.



Well, I can't believe I'm on the downward slope. We've passed our half-way point and have less than a month left. It kind of makes me nervous. I'm scared to come home. Will I be able to be the person that I want to be and to apply all the things to my life that I've learned the past two months? Will I be able to finish up my projects in time and see a sustainable change in people's lives and accomplish all my goals? Time feels like it's slipping through my fingers faster than I can catch it. I hope I can make the most of every minute here. Life in Lugazi is great! Love you all tons!

THE BAD PLACE...

Last weekend we went rafting down the Nile! I can't even begin to express how fun/terrifying it was. If you know anything about rafting, they rate each rapid on a number scale according to it's intensity. Class 5 is pretty much the highest class possible to raft and make it out alive--that's what we were rafting. Our team was split up onto two rafts. One of our guides was from New Zealand (what ever jungle fever we were starting to get was definitely washed clean in the river when we met him ;) and the other guide, the one on my raft, was a Canadian who was in the process of adopting a Ugandan orphan and had to stay in the country for three years in order to get custody of the child in Canada. He was a really cool guy and had been a guide for 10 years in Canada which was comforting. The first 4 hours of the trip I was having the time of my life! We were joking and playing and getting a thrill out of each of the rapids and waterfalls we crashed through. Swam in the Nile, accidentally drank some of the Nile, peed in the Nile, ate Pineapple in the Nile... But then we hit "The Bad Place."

The last rapid was literally named "The Bad Place." How terrifying is that! My raft renamed it "The Fluffy Bunny" to alleviate some of our fears, but it didn't help much, and in hind site, "The Bad Place" is the only name that fits. "Hold on guys, we're approaching the bad place, and just so you know, I've never made it through this rapid without flipping the raft." Well that's just peachy. Our guide pretty much told us flat out that we were going to get wet and rocked by the rapid. No lie, we did. No more than three seconds into the rapid we had flipped over and gotten sucked into the waves. Paddles and limbs were flailing everywhere. I felt like a rag doll spinning in a washing machine. Thank goodness I didn't get sucked into a whirlpool like some of the others. They were under for so long that one of them contemplated breathing water. I think I would have gone into shock and died. Fortunately, I got tumbled around for a while, popped up and took a huge gasp of 1/2 air 1/2 Nile water right as another wave crushed me back under again. This happened for a few minutes until finally I had floated out of the rapids and back to the raft. Whew! I survived the bad place with nothing other than a small scar of fear.

We ended on a slightly scarring note, but it really was sooo fun! Despite the layers and layers of sunscreen we caked on, we all got varying degrees of sunburns on our lips and thighs. Luckily mine wasn't too bad, but it's still crumby. Some people got fever blisters though, and they look terrible. Man, this equator sun is intense!

After rafting, we stayed overnight in Jinja, watched two of our team members bungee jump into the Nile, ate delicious American burgers and chocolate cake, cheered on the USA in the world cup, and hit the sack. It was a stellar weekend. Wish you all could have been there!

PS: Just want to let you all know that as I was near to death in "The Bad Place" I was thinking about all of you and how much I love you all!