No more Uganda, we are now in Kenya instead. That sentence was way easier to type than the process of actually getting here from Rwanda. We had a 13 hr travel day from Rwanda to Uganda, passing wild zebras along the way! Within minutes of arriving in Uganda that night, we found out that we would have to evacuate the following day due to the Ebola virus. For those who don’t know what Ebola is: it’s an incurable virus that kills within days and is spread like a cold, causing you to hemorrhage internally and bleed from your eyeballs. No kidding…Wikipedia it! This virus was spreading around Uganda, and had finally entered into the capital where our teams were to be located near by for the month.
The next morning it became clear that we wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon, if even that day. That’s when our imaginations started to run away with us.. well I’ll speak for myself at least. I’ve never felt so freaked out for so many hours straight. Trapped on our little compound with no way to see the news, no internet, and locals and squadmates were coming in and out of town, my mind immediately goes to terrible things. Thinking it’s going to become a scene from the movie Outbreak, that the borders are going to close us in, or we are going to be quarantined even if we do make it out….ok maybe I got a little carried away. But still! Luckily we had delicious food since Nicole and Bethany made the trip into town to pick up our live chickens for dinner.
Our men left for Southern Sudan that afternoon, and then later that night our amazing logistics team found a bus that would drive us over night to Kenya. The plan was to leave so that our group of white girls didn’t arrive at the border in the middle of the night, but of course nothing ever works as planned. We showed up at 3am, all us girls taking an hour and a half to walk across the border to Kenya. I knew it was going to be a long night when our first bus came to pick up 28 girls and 28 human-size backpacks from the compound, but had less seats than people.. quite the SQUEEZE! After 4 bus changes, 2 border crossings, and a total of 24 hrs on buses we made it to Kenya.
My favorite moment (or maybe the moment when I thought I’d finally lose it) was walking back to the bus at 4:30am after the border crossing. Heading from the bathroom back to the bus (I can’t even begin to describe the grossness of the bathrooms we use in Africa), running on no sleep all the while some man is yelling things at us about the environment in Africa; I walk back on to the bus to find a random African man curled up in my seat sleeping on my pillow! These are the moments when you FORCE yourself to find the humor of the situation.
I already mentioned passing zebras on our drive, but that was Uganda. Kenya had much more in store for our viewing pleasure: CEREMONIAL CIRCUMCISIONS! Yes. There would be groups of 50 people running down the side of the road chanting together. In the middle of all this you can see the naked 15 year old boy, covered from head to toe in mud, on his way to be circumcised. Ouch!
So after all that we set up our tents in Kitale, Kenya at a place called Challenge Farm. There are 16 of us girls living here working with the 120 street kids who now call this place a home and school. This week, my duty is math tutoring and craft classes. Somewhere in all of this chaos I turned 23 years old too! The girls I’m with made me feel really special and found a big chocolate bar for me…which I just finished eating while writing this blog. Please be praying for health as several people on the squad have gotten Malaria, one of the girls I’m living with has lymph-nodes the size of tennis balls, and there are suspected cases of Ebola continuing to spread throughout the region.
4 MONTHS LEFT! I can never decide whether time is flying or going really slowly..depends on the day. Month 8 is off to a crazy but awesome start; I think it’ll be one of my favorites. 
