we living in lugaziii

africa is the greatest place ever. everyone in uganda has the most genuine heart and kindest soul. they all look out for each other, they all look out for you, and they all are hopeful and optimistic for a brighter future. a few things i love about lugazi are first, the people. starting from the people we work with in the projects like agnes at the HIV center, wilson with youth out reach, kizza, with stove building, and pastor francis with teacher training. all of them are brilliant, generous, kind, patient, and understanding. the people in our everyday life, mary our cook, fiona the lady i buy pinapple from, nixon our rolex man, and everyone else who yells mzungu just makes the experience twenty times better. i love the atmosphere in lugazi. everyone is relaxed and accepting and looks out for one another. especially at church, they constantly compliment and uplift eachother. they seriously don't see the bad, they only focus on the good. africa has been an amazing learning experience, and it's only been two weeks. i am grateful for this experience to help me learn more about myself, how i work with others, and what i want in the future. our team's mission statement is "encourage ambition, inspire initiative and building strength and unity while on the road to self-discovery". i'll just detail out the last week and try to update more soon! love to you all, happiness and joy.

"week 2 has been amazing! we're all starting to feel more and more comfortable in the home, our village, and the rest of our surroundnigs. this week was a little rough because it seemed like everyone got sick! i had a little sinus infection, several volunteers had a 24 hour flu, and some other things. that affected the work we could do a little but we all did our best with working and accomplilshng what we needed to for the week! last weekend we took our first "trip" up to jinja to visit the tourist-y shops and eat some good american food. it was so refreshinhg to eat a burger and a chocolate milkshake and feel like a real tourist. we got to wear normal clothes and sunglasses and just relax. the ride to jinja was a little stressful. we stopped at the mbierea forest to check out some monkeys. sadly we didnt see any but we then decided it'd be a good idea to walk along the highway and try to get a taxi to take us to jinja. after twenty minutes of walkng along the side of the road we took a taxi to njembe(this insane market where people just surrund you and try to get you to buy stuff). we didn't want to stay in njembe too long because it was so insane so we found this worker's truck with nthing in the back seat and asked him if we could just ride in the back of that to jinja. basically, we rode in the back of a truck on the highway for 45 minutes. it definitely wasn't the safest decision but it's definitely something you can only do in africa! monday we had all been hit with sickness so about ten of us were home-ridden for the whole day. we did our best to keep ourselves entertained but the house gets pretty hot, and 15 sick volunteers definitely doesn't cool it down. tuesday we were able to meet with the key workers at the HIV center. they are all the most inspiring people. we're hoping to build an adobe stove, mushroom house, and implement a youth out reach program at their center. everyone in the group has the HIV virus and are looking for ways to prolong their life anmd live nutritiously.the rest of the day tuesday we spoke with the youth outreach group that is led by university students from kampala. this group is also members with HIV positive who try to better the community and improve the image of HIV. it's amazing how many people believe the myths here. people think you can get HIV by shaking an infected person's hand or getting a hair cut-our goal is to get rid of the myths and educate the truth. tuesday night we played great games at the house. our house really is amazing. in african standards-its a mansion. it's a great space for us to relax and get to know each other. it's been fun finding out why certain volunteers are here, how they found out about the group, and their goals for the summer. so far everyone gets along great and we all definitely laugh, a lot. wednesday was really the best day of the week. we finished an adobe stove in the morning at this school up on a hill. it was really frustrating at first because the clay was acting more like cement and the process was taking a lot longer than usual but eventually we got it done. then we got to take bodas( obviously obsessed with riding the motorcycles-its so much fun) out to the HIV center. we met with agnes and samuel and decided where we were going to build everything and when we culd start! im so excited that is working out because i think these people can really make a difference. this weekend we are going to jinja on friday night, staynig there, then going white water rafting on the nile!!! the rumor is there will be hot showers at the place we're staynig so let's just say-we're all pretty excited. projects are picking up and everyone's really figuring out what they want to do.
currently, i am the project lead over home visits from the hospital. the publich health chair, josephine, is the most organized woman and has a list of names and needs of people that we can visit twice a week until the end of june. this project would be an amazing opportunity to travel to remote locations in lugazi, get to know more people, and really make a difference ni the community. the only problem is, we don't have the fundnig. we cannot supply the necessary money needed for transporatino and the hospital has zero funding. if anynoe has any ideas for funding please let me know! it really is an amazing project. all we need is 400 dollars to make an amazing difference! hope everything is well in america! keep emailing!"
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