June 1

1I am not very good at blogging! Slash I am in Africa so I have an excuse. Anyway recap:
Last Friday we didn't have service learning so I spent a little bit of the afternoon walking around Jinja and checking out some of the little shops. They are pretty cool. I already try so hard in America not to buy things that I don't need and I know that is mostly what souvenirs are but I got a few cool things and didn't feel too bad because I felt like I was supporting the Source Cafe (where I bought all of it) which I hear is one of the only ethical businesses here who actually pays all their taxes. So that's good. Anyway, it was good to see more of Jinja. It started raining, so we took the matatu back to the Gately and got to relax for a little while.
On Saturday the village divided up into two groups. One group went to Kampala (the biggest city in Uganda) to visit an orphanage and a crafts fair, and my group went to a village to participate in this ongoing water project (the Water Source) that the Kibo Group (http://www.kibogroup.org) is working with. First of all, we drove out about 2 hours to this village. You should know that on the roads in Uganda, there are more potholes than there is actual road. So that's good. Anyway we got to the village and it was pretty cool. I might try to post some pictures depending on how long it takes me to write this blog. This village is apparently one of the villages that one of us will be staying in during our overnight bonding experience/village stay (which is coming up this weekend ahhhh) so that's neat. Anyway the point of us going was to sit in on a village meeting of the people who are planning to build another well soon. It was really interesting except for the fact that a guy who was translating was sitting a couple of rows behind me and talking very quietly so I didn't know what was going on for about 70% of the time. Still though it was so cool to see the village working together. The missionaries have explained to us that unless the Ugandans completely buy into projects like this, as soon as the missionaries leave then the Ugandans will go back to their old ways. This is why the source cafe is completely run by Ugandans, etc. It's pretty cool. By the end of the day everyone was so beat after being in either a busy city or in the village as well as being in the matatu for HOURS. So pretty much everyone went over to the Gately restaurant for desserts and south african red wine. Our group is so great! I cannot imagine being in Africa with anyone else! Also for the first like five days I probably said about ten words in all, because I was trying to get a feel for what everyone else was like and trying to take in the whole scenario of both being in Africa and being with all these people I didn't know. But now we are pretty much just all in love. Some of the missionaries were saying they wanted to pit us against each other right before we leave for Rwanda or something, to start some drama, because as of now we are all just way too un-cliqueish.
On Sunday, there was a 10k and marathon in Jinja. A couple of students had planned to do the 10k, but a little bit of sickness came over one or two people (however, any sickness at all so far on this trip has been very minor/cured by cypro and immodium, and g. selbs said this time last year they were halfway through a huge bottle of pepto, so that's a good sign). So Dr. Selby ended up being the only one who ran. We are at about 4,000 feet elevation, and it literally on the equator, so he said it was pretty tough, but he finished! When we were walking to church, we passed by a lot of the less serious runners (average men and women in jeans jogging down the road) and we saw a car pull up and and slow down and a woman got out of it and joined back in on the race. So that was pretty funny and all the Ugandans were laughing. So we went to church at the Jinja church of Christ. A couple other people and I walked up to the alley that leads to where the church meets at about 8:10 (the service starts at 8, so we were considering ourselves about 30 minutes early based on African time, which is CPT on steroids). The church service was reeeally long but I so enjoyed it. Two kids got baptized and that just made me so happy. I got part of it on video on my camera so that was so cool. Also it was so cool to take communion there. Every sunday in California I think of my friends at Highland in Memphis taking communion at the same time as well as the people at the Happy Ave church of Christ in Independence, Belize, and now I will definitely be thinking about Africa too. God is soo big and I just love thinking about that. After church everybody stays and eats lunch. We washed our hands with a bar of soap and a bucket of water (Belize style...anyone out there reading this? hi Adrianne) and then they handed us the biggest plate of food I have ever seen! Seriously a huge pile of rice and beef. Brittany was struggling and Tom said "keep the faith, clear the mountain." Literally best quote of the trip. Ok maybe not... Selbs is pretty quotable, as is his son. Anyway it was pretty good. We found a baby monitor lizard (which was like a foot long) outside and Tyler was so funny trying to save it. Anyway it was on it's way out so Fish picked it up and took it to a nice resting place under a bush.
Sunday night the Manrys (some of the missionaries) had us back over to their house again for chai tea and pumpkin muffins... soo good. Their family is great. And we played psychiatrist again, this time with Bobby, which was hilarious.
Today the two groups that split up the other day switched places. My group went to Kampala and the other group went to a village to work on the Mvule Project (a reforestation project). Kampala is soooo crazy. I cannot even explain how busy the streets are or how scary it would be to drive there. We went to the courthouse, which said "Temple of Justice" on the front of it and therefore really really looked like a Disneyland ride. We met up with some Pepperdine law students who are working there. We also sat and talked with one of the four biggest justices in Uganda, who was super nice to us. It was a really big contrast to Jinja and our perception of the tiny baby steps toward development there. I got to talk to one of the missionaries a lot in the matatu and she went to Harding to we figured out several mutual friends. If you are familiar with the strengthsfinder test, my number one strength is Connectedness, and I think that might be one of the reasons I am a fan of the church of christ. Soo easy to find connections. Oh, I forgot to mention that at church on Sunday morning our group got up in front of the church and sang Days of Elijah. There are four of us C of C kids out of about 17 of us so it was just real funny. It's on video for sure .
Anyway Kampala was good! But tomorrow morning we are all leaving for a 2 day camping trip on Hairy Lemon, which is an island in the Nile, and we have heard that it is Paradise slash heaven on earth. It will be a nice relaxing break from what I have found to be a pretty overwhelming week. I should be able to blog when I get back! Love.
Rachel