Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!I have a kid’s choir song from Camp Koinania stuck in my head today, so thank you, Mr. Mike! My sweet friend Stephanie also tells me, that quote was originally from an African spiritual sung by American slaves, made famous by Dr. King in his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. It’s funny to think of how that relates to this past week…This week has flown by, but it also feels like we’ve been here for a whole month. After a lot of prayer, we’re moving to a new ministry site on Monday. I’ll share more about that later.It’s been a long first week, but here are 11 fun facts from week one in Uganda:Traffic in Kampala is worse than rush hour on I5. People drive on opposite side of the road. There are giant potholes, and the street stripes are just guidelines at best. If I ever pick our taxi, I’m counting the dents and scratches on the van before jumping in. Safely first y’all!Our coed team of 7 shared a bedroom for a week, and I’m going to miss it. Getting mosquito nets on day 3 was a bummer because we couldn’t see everyone anymore. I only used mine at night to protect me from the mosquitos and bats. Malaria and rabies? No, thank you!Twins are something special here. They call me Babrye Amanda because I’m the oldest female twin, and Matthew would be Kato Matteo if he was here too. We happen to have three twins on our team.It’s normal to have an entourage of children when I walk through town with Jovia because they don’t see Muzingu very often. I tried to tell them I’m not white, but they didn’t care. Theoretically, I’m a Muchina. I have been Japanese, Indian, and Korean this week. When a drunk village man waved his bottle of booze at us and rambled something in the tribal language, the only word we understood was Japan. We didn’t bother to correct him.Jovia, Baebae, and 7 other neighborhood children took Carson, Derek, and me on a “short walk” to Baebae’s family’s sugar cane plantation. It took an hour to get there and back, but sugar cane is delicious. I would never trust an American child with the giant knives the village children used to hack sugar cane down, but I haven’t seen anyone cut themself on it. We don’t utilize our children enough in the states. Children here seem very resourceful and resilient.Doing laundry here requires 5 pans of water and way more soap than I anticipated. Not all of the soap ever washes out, but I don’t think that’s the point. On that note, clothes lines are optional. Laying clothes in the grass works just as well if you don’t mind the dust.Toilet paper is 1200 shillings a roll, and 3360 shillings = 1USD. There’s no such thing as 3 ply here.Chipati is one of my new favorite foods. It’s like a cross between a tortilla and a pancake. A chewy pancake maybe? Anyways, we ate it for breakfast and dinner every night. Almost every day, breakfast was wet chipati and tea with milk, and dinner was tea and dry chipati with some kind of sauce or plain. Wet chipati is dipped in oil, and dry chipati is just fried with a little oil drizzled on each side. It’s wonderful. We bought wheat flour, baking powder, cooking oil and onions, and Juliet taught Derek and me how to make them. Measuring cups are unnecessary, and we used a glass bottle as rolling pin.We walked 2 miles to the nearest street to catch a taxi, and 2 miles back home. It’s hard to find a taxi with space for 8 people. On the way home, we fit 21 people in a taxi, and by taxi I mean a 14 passenger van. Taxi stories are the best. I probably laughed more in that taxi than anywhere else we’ve been so far. For the full story, check out Kris and James’ blog at:Half cakes are like doughnuts. They’re a snack or dessert for children, but we had them for breakfast this morning.This morning, stepping into the bathroom at the Sheraton hotel was like Christmas morning. I did a little dance for joy! They had mirrors, and my face still looked the same. We didn’t have to squat. I didn’t need my own toilet paper, and the toilet flushed! I washed my hands twice to make up for a week without running water or hand soap. Sorry Mom, I ate a lot of meals without washing my hands this week, but I’m faithfully taking my vitamins and malaria meds!Right now, we’re heading to Jinja to go white water rafting. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go rafting, but when in Africa, we’re doing ALL the things. Also, after this week, I think we can do anything.Pray for my team as we travel and transition to a new ministry on Monday!Love you all!
