i am in africa! i am currently sitting at an internet cafe in lugazi, uganda. oh my gosh i love everything about our town! it's abotu two hours south of entebbe so the drive here on friday night was very interesting. we all were crammed into these van taxis going dangerously fast down small little roads barely missing people and other cars. it definitely was an introduction to african driving! we've been doing so much since we've arrived i don't even know where to begin! our house is great-two stories and one of the few in the whole town. it's surrounded by a twelve foot wall with broken glass on top and we have a security guard at night so we're definitely safe. there's six of us in the room i'm in and we have great bunk beds with mosquito nets to keep us healthy and strong! there's 28 of us in total staying in the house so it's always loud. we don't have running water yet so we have two squatters outsdie (basically out houses that smell...great). we use a well with a pump to shower ( something i haven't tried yet) and then also have a huge bucket with a spicket where we collect rain water. it rains almost everyday for about 45 minutes to an hour and no one moves in the rain. ugandans think that you'll get "the fever" if you move in the rain so everyone just stays where they are, no matter what!
walking through the village yesterday morning was so amazing. all of the little kids ran along side us yelling "mzungu mzungu" ( which means white person or foreigner and we are called that all day every day). the scenery is gorgeous. vibrant green trees with rolling hills in the back ground. it's about a ten minute walk into the center of the town where there's markets, a bank, a supermarket, and a few internet cafes.
yesterday, we got some money, used the internet, and then bought some AMAZING pineapple from the market. it's only about 50 cents and they cut it into four and put it into a bag for you and its the juciest thing i've ever eaten. then for lunch we had Rolex, which are chiapatti(greasy tortilla) rolled up with eggs, tomato, avocado, and vegetables inside. Rolex are so good but so filling. after that we headed up to jinja in some more scary vans to the source of the nile! after some driving around and negotiation we found a hotel that would let us park there and a guy who offered to take us in his boat to an island on the nile right where the source is. it was so amazing to actually be on the nile and see such amazing scenery! we all thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride and it was fun to get to know the group more. then, after a while we made our way back to Lugazi to eat the dinner our cook prepared for us. we have a cook that makes us dinner every night which is so convenient because we don't really eat much during the day. she had made rice, noodles, cut pineapples, potatoes, refried beans, and sweet potato yams. it was an interesting combination of things but it was so delicious! after we went to african paradise, the local club, and partied ugandan style. we stayed about two hours and had so much fun just dancing and getting to know the locals!
today is sunday and half of us went to a branch in jinja while the other half went to one in mukono. i went to the mukono branch and instantly fell in love with the people. we're going to keep going to the same branch the whole time we're here so hopefully they'll give us callings and we can really get to know the branch! it was so nice because it was a friendly reminder of home and really showed how the church is the same no matter where you go.
so far i love everything about uganda! it's everything everyone said it would be and more. i'm so excited to start working on our projects this week and really get to do what we came here for. more updates will come later and posibly pictures! love to you all, happiness and joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment