Week 3: Dead Lizards, The Nile, and Much More!

A lot has happened since I last updated. I've started getting in a routine, which involves waking up at 6:30 in the morning and trying to go to sleep by 10:30 at night. I'm pretty much adjusted to everything except academics. Since I was away this weekend on a trip, I didn't get the reading done for my class yesterday and then we had a quiz. We'll see what happens. I am getting used to my professors and the lectures don't seem as long which is great. I am getting better at ironing although i must have been too excited because I burnt my arm on it this weekend. Luckily, the burn was minor. It looks cool though. A random fact: dead lizards smell. We found one in our room last night and it had been smelling for two days. I thought i needed to share it.

As far as this weekend, we went to Jinja, which was about a 1 hour van ride away. The 12 of us IMME (Intercultural Mission/Ministry Emphasis) students went and had a blast. We stayed at a pretty nice hostel (group hotel type thing) and we were fed way too much American food (many of us had stomaches because we weren't used to it). Having running water and hot showers were great. Friday night we had two missionaries come talk to us. They were from Calvary Chapel Jinja and had been doing Prison Ministry for 10 years. They had some really great things to say.

On Saturday we went into town to a cafe/gift shop called the Source. It is also connected to the Church of Christ Jinja. They talked to us about cultural differences and told us about their ministries (clean water, save the trees, village church ministry). We ate lunch there and it was incredible. I also did a little shopping which was nice because i wanted to start getting gifts for people. Later that day, we went on a tour of Jinja which was pretty eye opening. He took us to the source of the nile, which was great to look at as we only really read about it in textbooks. Then we went to this place he called Ting-Ting, which is a group of mainly men who work at welding scrap metal into teapots, trunks, etc. He told us that this is the best work they can get and they only make 1-2 dollars a day. It was inspiring in that he told us to remember that we have opportunities to have great jobs with the ability to help others. Then we went to the hospital there and he told us to stop in. I felt uncomfortable because it seemed like he was making it a tourist attraction. When I went in, i was stunned at how poor the facilities were are knowing that people were dying from preventable causes. I froze and did not know how to react. It was valuable because it was so eye opening. Later that night, we got to go on a boat ride on the Nile and hang out at this nice resort. From the boat, we saw a Komoto dragon and monkeys. Then we went out to a fancy restaurant and i got Indian food and ice cream.
Sunday we went to a Baptist church (not common here) and one of the guys in our group gave a sermon on glorifying God. The service was very energetic and pretty fun in general. We had a ton of food and then we came back to campus.

One of the hardest things to get used to here is the lack of snacks. This is my number 1 thing i complain about here. Right now i'm eating honey teddy grahams and dipping them in peanut butter. I have to buy a lot at the grocery store because I do not eat much during the day. There are nice snack shops here on campus which helps too. I'm going to get smoothies every Wednesday. Hmm.. i can't think of much else to say. Life is good here and i can't wait to hear from everyone. As far as current events go, the riots in Kenya seem to still be pretty bad with lots of casualties. It does not affect us too much here in Uganda except for graphic TV/Newspaper pictures.

Also, i'm starting to really worry about finding a summer internship/job. I want to stay local but i also need experience. It's really challenging to find opportunities or even apply for internships from here. if you hear of anything, please let me know. It's also hard to keep up with the Koinonia Conference. I'm really hoping that it doesn't collapse before I get back. Thank goodness we have about a year left when I return.

A funny thing that happened here is that two other IMME students (Scott and Betsy) are engaged and they came together (obviously). 4 Ugandans in Scott's host family invited themselves to his wedding and they want to pay for the tickets and everything. It sounds awesome! I almost wish I was engaged so that I could invite Ugandans.