Week 1
It has been a long time, but there have been many adventures!

First- London: It was OK, but I  much preferred Kenya and Uganda.  It was beautiful and wonderful, but the Queen was giving a speech so there were police everywhere and it took forever to get anywhere.  We took pictures at Big Ben, the palace, and many others, but of course platform 9 3/4! = )  We rode metros and saw the beautiful landscape surrounding the city since that was better than the cramped city.  We had fish and chips for Lunch and stopped for a chocolate snack!  This is where I remembered that I forgot my yellow fever card-something necessary to enter Uganda.

Second-Kenya: Artwork was fantastic!  Landscape was beautiful on the flight down there and we even got to see Kilimanjaro.  We weren't there for long.  This is where they lost my bag.

Third-Airport, Uganda at last!  After two red eyes across oceans, seas, and continents, we finally arrived!  It was a breathtaking sight!  We flew low and slow for the last 30 min. of our flight.  It was gorgeous.  We crossed Lake Victoria coming from Kenya and saw the beaches turn into either lush rainforest, populated areas, or savannah.  Once in the airport, Becca had gotten a 2001 series 50 dollar bill to go into the country with, but it wasn't recent enough for their customs.  I was the only one who had a bill big enough and recent enough to cover us.  So, proving that Heavenly Father loves his children, I walked up to help her and the person let us both through after glancing at my passport after I suggested it.  She didn't ask to see anything of mine-including my yellow fever card!  I was like "Did you want to see this?"  and handed her my passport so she glanced at it, but she wasn't interested in looking at mine even though she'd been taking 20 min. with everyone else.  I was so grateful.  Of course she had no idea why I was so grateful, but I am so thankful to my Father in Heaven.  Once I got through security, I looked and looked and looked for my bags and finally I found all but one.  I asked someone about it and they were very rude at first, but when they saw that I wasn't trying to cause a fuss and that I genuinely wanted my stuff and I was willing to be respectful, unlike the Scottish businessman next to me, then they were more than willing to help me-one woman in particular.  Everyone was freaking out about it, except me.  Of course I want my stuff, but there's no point in freaking out.  I found out who would make good friends right off-and they're both staying all three waves.  I got to know my group partially in Dallas, more in England, and most of us were together by the time we got to Kenya.  There were only 5ish people who weren't with us.  When the baggage claim was filed, we left the airport and got into a "taxi"-meaning something about the size of a 15 passenger van that 21 of us and all our stuff crammed into.  It was a couple hours by "taxi" to Lugazi.  This is where God blessed me greatly with wonderful friends, a beautiful country, and great excitement!

Fourth- Lugazi, Uganda-YAY!!!  We have the best house in town!  It is great!  It has four bedrooms if you count the garage as a bedroom-the guys took that one-, a kitchen with water that runs when we have it-otherwise you do the dishes outside in buckets, a LIVING ROOM-they don't really exist here so it's pretty amazing, a veranda, a back porch that we share with the landlord and her son and their families and their houses, a gate, and two guards-a night guard, Sam, and a day guard, Joseph.  They are wonderful and always giving us tips and local prices for things so that we don't get muzungu prices.  Speaking of muzungus, we are celebrities around here!  You wouldn't believe how crazy it is.  As we walk down the street the kids will come out and shout, "Muzungus, muzungus, muzungus!"  They run up and pound it (called "bongo" here), hug us, hang on our arms, hold our hands, run inside to get their siblings, etc.  ...and then we promptly hand sanitize. = )  They are the cutest things ever!  Our cooks, Eve and Rosette, have been making the most wonderful food!  Pumpkin, potatoes, mango, pineapple, rice, cabbage, awesomeness....  really words cannot describe the party in my mouth!  Eve has a daughter, Nicole, who is only five months old.  She is so cute and we all adore her.  We've been working on several projects already.  As soon as we got here, Pastor Francis called and asked if we were too tired to get started right away because he had a couple projects for us.  Those of us who could still stand went down to his Ssanyu school where we laid flooring in one of the classrooms, fixed a bridge we had to cross to get there (which almost made me turn back on the way there), and played with the kids-and the group just kept getting bigger and bigger!  It started out with like five kids, but as word spread that muzungus were at the school from "Elep-intenatonal" (HELP-International) the kids just kept coming!  5, 15, 30, 50, 100, 200!  It was CRAZY!!!  That was our first experience as the muzungu heros/celebrities.  One of the kids successfully stole my watch while I was working on the bridge, but it eventually got returned to me-pretty sure Pastor Francis had something to do with that.  We had meetings for the eye camp yesterday and took a tour of the hospital here.  I will never call any another hospital in the US ghetto.  It was pretty sad.  A mother would have her child, only to be placed, with her baby, next to someone with TB.  This is where I got overwhelmed and excited beyond belief!