I'm Back!

(receiving their Ugandan knives and stabbing me with them)

For those of you that do not know, I'm back in the states!

I did not post it on here cause I was surprising part of my family. And I must say, it was QUITE the surprise.
You would have thought I came back from the dead for sure.

Priceless.

I just couldn't NOT be with my family over Christmas. Especially after the year we had last year.

Thank you to everyone who has kept up with my blog. You have been a huge encouragement to me.
I will continue to post things on here, they just won't be written while in Africa and they won't be as frequent.

I will probably be posting more pictures and follow-up thoughts about Uganda on here very soon so check back for that.

Mukono

A couple weeks ago, The Kisslings, Emily and I went to visit Jake (texas guy) in Mukono. About an hour from us. Their church just got a new building so we went for that and to give Jake some muzungu encouragement. It was a fun adventure in the awesome Ugandan taxis, good fellowship, and beautiful scenary!



You see this everywhere here. Everything is carried on your head. I've been wanting to get a picture of it but i always feel pretty awkward taking a picture of a random person walking. I just got over myself this time and did it!

I just thought this was crazy. This was the school is like in Mukono. Can you imagine?

Just hangin

Oh this precious girl, Eva. She has stolen my heart. Ask me about her please.

Looking good. ;)

We just sit on the side of the house a lot and hang out. Its the cool place to be.

We got sugar cane! Ah how i love this. Takes me back to when we used to live next to the sugar cane fields in Breaux Bridge!

yum!

Harvest time!

This precious child fell asleep on me at Speak day. I have no idea who she is or anything. But she sat on my lap, took her shirt off, and promptly fell asleep. And then sweated all over me. Awesome. =) it was worth it.

Time to harvest beans!!!


Aren't they beautiful?! I've been eating fresh beans for the past few weeks! mmmm!

A few more

This was from Speak day when the whole school performed! SOOO wonderful! and my Top class graduated!
e
h

A few at a time. ..

My baby graduated!!!

Hollow Eyes

The intensity of these children’s emotions is quite startling and overwhelming.

But that sentence does not really mean what it sounds like. I just have not figured out the best way to word it.

When they smile and laugh it is as if a bright light has just lit up a pitch black room. It must be because they are usually so stoic.
So serious.

So when that smile bursts through, it is different than the normal, smiley, Western children I’m around. It really does make your heart jump a step—as if the light switch just got flicked on.

On the other hand, when they are sad or in pain—hold on to your heart because it might just break into a thousand pieces. That normally stoic face turns into a hollow well. You may think, “how can a normally stoic person show much pain or sadness?” Very easily, I tell you.

It is as if their eyes hollow out.
It is as if they are staring right through you, as if you do not exist.

Because there’s no way you can help them.
No one can ever help them.
They are so accustomed to the pain or sadness, they’ve realized there’s no hope that this current situation of pain could get better.

So they look into your eyes.
But there is nothing you can do to break through the stoic wall, like you can usually do when they are happy yet stoic.
The stoic wall of hopelessness, or deep sadness or pain, is a metal wall that surrounds them.

And their eyes have a way of cutting into you, even though it seems as if they are looking right through you.
Cutting through you with pain, hopelessness, indifference to anything joyful.

And then when they cry. . .

Oh the pain, the deep pain inflicted upon the hearer of the silent cry. The quiet cry.

They either stare at you with those hollow eyes, tears lightly streaming down their face

Or they hide their face and you can hear the slight whimper; the quick in-take of air. And it tells you that they are crying but they do not want you to know. You do not see much open, blatant crying here for children that are older than toddler age, unless from a serious injury or beating.
So they hide themselves.
And you can just hear the cry-breathing.

And what can you do?

Jinja Vaca AND IJM #2

So as mentioned in the previous post, Coryn, Jamesdon, Randy, Emily, Jake, and I went to Jinja. We used this really sweet van where we could turn the seats around to face each other like we were having a conference. And there were sunroofs and microphones from front to back! I got to see some more beautiful countryside of Uganda. It truly is the pearl of Africa!

Roadtrip excitement!
Coryn likes to play it cool but Em knows how to have fun!

Here's our cute little tent we stayed in that overlooked the Nile rapids!

We went to Bujagali falls and paid some Ugandans to go down the falls holding only an empty bucket. (This is just something you do here apparently) It was quite interesting.

Totally got to watch people bungee jump over the Nile!

We went to Amani Baby Home to get some insight for our Baby home. It was really cool for us who volunteer at the home to see a well-functioning and established home with 52 babies and toddlers! This kid is showing Coryn the photo album of the family that is adopting him from the States! Precious! Another place to adopt from if you're interested!!

It was extremely relaxing, incredible beautiful, and perfectly delicious. =)

Then Emily, Nathan (emily’s friend from Nashville), and I ventured over to the International Justice Mission office in Kampala. As all of you know, I have been pretty involved with IJM for some time so this was a really cool experience for me. The staff there was incredibly friendly, of course, and we talked for a good while. Turns out, the area where they do all their work is in Mukono—where Jake lives and we got to visit. Talking to these people and hearing about their work really stirred my heart again for the work IJM is doing. And sort of in a different way this time, because I am actually living in Uganda. It was the first time I had the thought of, “I could totally live here in Uganda and work for this organization.” Who knows what will come of that, but it was there!

The week prior to this was almost as eventful as the weekend, so expect another post with more wonderful pictures very soon!

Jinja Vaca #1

I got to go to Jinja this past weekend. Someone had once described it to me as the "austin" of Uganda. I would definitely agree based on the places we went. I got one photo of this cool austin-like coffee shop we went to below. Above is the beautiful Nile River behind me. Don't I look cropped in? Jamesdon, Coryn, Radny (a friend of theirs), Emily, and I picked up Jake along the way and took a SWEET van along the countryside. It was exactly what I have been hoping for! Good friends, good food, cheap, BEAUTIFUL sights!

(more pics to come in the next post)
This was the place we stayed, below. And the beatiful view we had every morning, night, and dinner time! Emily and I stayed in this really nice tent, with beds and everything we needed, overlooking the Nile, where we could hear the rapids all night! Beautiful!

This was the amazing chipati we had right next door. Nutella and banana. Or egg, avocado and other great stuff!

Good eats!

This is Jamesdon and Coryn. They are the american couple that has taken such good care of me while in Gaba. I don't know what I would have done with out them this whole time. Seriously.

Yes, we got to feed monkeys!! They were great and came and got bananas out of our hands!

Jinja Beauty

Refer to the blog above for more information on my wonderful Jinja trip!
This is Bujagali Falls and the crazy awesome people rafting down them!


The view from the place we stayed.. . .

The view from where we fed the monkeys

The view from where we ate.

Incredible sunsets every day.
Just walking around the Nile!