I have been requested to share with you all the happenings of my every day life. In case you were not aware, about a month ago I had to move out of my host family's home and move onto campus. That was a very emotional time for me because I came into this program expecting to spend all four months with my family. The concept of family is very close to my heart, and while my family in America is everything to me, I discovered I have been blessed with an amazing family in Uganda. It wasn't easy to move onto campus, but as always, God works all things out for the good.
I am living with a beautiful Ugandan woman named Hilda in Florence Dorm on campus. We're slowly learning about each other and I am getting to experience different aspects of Ugandan culture. The adjustment was more difficult than I imagined and campus life is completely different from life with a host family, but I am proud to say I have gotten the best of both worlds.
Every morning I wake up around 6:45, get myself dressed and head to the track with my friend Carissa to get a morning run in. As we struggle to wake ourselves up and fat kid jog around the track, we get to inhale the nice fresh Ugandan air, and by nice and fresh I mean the smell of the sanitation plant located near the far corner of the track. Mmmm! I also find myself getting dizzy as I have to keep my eyes on the ground for fear of falling in a hole or slipping on the red mud. For anyone watching us, we probably look like circus animals! All is good though..we get a lot of laughs each morning! After our run, we head to the dining hall, or the "DH," for some breakfast. Breakfast consists of milk tea and 2 slices of hard bread. Butter is spread only on one side of the bread, so I you just dip the other piece into the tea and add some flavor. Tuesdays and Thursdays we get a hard boiled egg and a roll..with no butter, but still, the egg is a nice treat! After breakfast, we head back to the dorms, take a cold breath-taking shower and get ready for class.Depending on the day I have anywhere from zero classes to three classes. In general the classes here are much easier than classes at Messiah, but I feel I am learning more during my semester here than I have during my time at Messiah. I am learning more about life as a whole rather than text book facts. Tuesdays and Thursdays there's community worship for about an hours starting around 12 (African time). At 1:00, lunch is served. Rice is served at every meal besides breakfast. Sometime there's mashed, cooked bananas at lunch, but not always. There's a food called posho which I find repulsive, but the Ugandans love it. It's basically flour and water and corn..I think. It looks like a white sponge. Sauce is also served at every meal. Sauce is either cow peas, meat sauce, beans or g-nuts. G-nuts are my personal favorite. They're very similar to peanuts, but they're red in color. They mash them up, add some water and it produces a nice purple mush of stuff! I have also learned to by spices at the market such as garlic or chili powder to add some flavor to the rice. After lunch, I spend most of my time doing homework or walking into town if I need to buy anything. There's also a nice little fruit stand on campus where I can buy a bag of the world's best fruit for 1,000 shillings (about 11cents). Once in a while I like to treat myself to that.
I finish doing work around 6:30 and head to dinner around 6:45. Dinner is usually the same as lunch. There's always rice and sauce. As an added bonus, there's usually either irish potatoes or sweet potatoes and a VEGSTABLE!! Praise God! After dinner, it's chill time. I hang around the dorms and spend time getting to know the other USP students the Ugandans living in my dorm. We have evening fellowships certain nights of the week and other nights we watch movies or just hang out. Anywhere from 10-12 I end up falling asleep.Everyday is a new day and a day in which I can open my eyes and see the bright blue sky. It has begun raining during the week and this past weekend on my way to a field trip with my art class I saw the most beautiful rainbow. The colors were so bright and in that moment I was reminded of where I am. I am presently in Africa where the colors of life are exploding in my soul. I would have never imagined that God would call me to Africa at such a time as this. Africa seemed so far in the future for me, but what's time in the kingdom of heaven? As I look out the window and look at the sky, I am so thankful for my everyday life here. While it may not sound so exciting, there's something new in each day that illuminates with God's magnificence. Eight two. Thirty five. One hundred and seventeen. They are just numbers to me now. I find that I'm mostly focusing on the colors of life rather than the hours, days, weeks and months. It will be a bitter sweet good-bye for me when April 30th rolls around and I come home. Until then, I am enjoying everyday life in Uganda and I hope you are able to get a little insight as to what that may look like.
As a heads up, my next blog topic will most likely discuss what to expect from me when I do return home. I am borrowing this idea from a friend: if you want to hear my stories, set up a coffee date with me. If you don't like coffee, you can drink something else, but I am so coffee deprived it's unreal! Anyone who wants to chat, I will make time to do so. What I mention in my blog and what you may see on facebook are only a slight reflections of my experiences. There's much more to be said and many emotions to share that are found behind the scene. I can't promise that I will tell you what you want to hear, and I can't really tell you all about Africa. What I can do I share with you about Mukono, Uganda and my journey over the last four months. I pray God's blessing over all of you and thank you for your support during my time here. Your thoughts and prayers have made my time here beyond anything I could have imagined.
SEVEN SECOND VERSION
I just raddled on about my everyday life here and explained that my life is revolving around colors rather than the ticking of the clock.
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