This is Africa!
Everything is bright in Uganda: the colors, the sun, and the smiles. The dirt is very red, and the grass and trees are very lush and very green. The sky is huge; there are so many clouds during the day and so many stars at night. It really is beautiful here.
I have yet to see any giraffes or have a near-death experience with a lion, but there are cows, chickens, and goats aimlessly roaming the land. My favorite part of Eastern Africa is the large variety of insects. The bugs are huge! I love picking them up and housing them in our room…which my teammates love! There are also lots of lizards and toads everywhere! And I'd prefer to not talk about the spiders…
The vegetation is very tropical, and all of the trees grow exotic fruit, like pineapples, papayas, mangos, and guavas. The fruit here is absolutely amazing; it's so much more fresh and flavorful.
I am so thankful for the people of Uganda. They are so warm, generous, and hospitable. Collectively, they are also very laid-back. This means that they are neveer stressed or rushed, and it also means that the concept of time means very little to them. As someone who enjoys structure, this is something that I just have to embrace and learn to enjoy their chill and easy-going culture.
We stay at a compound called the Alpha Hotel, which is very safe and always protected with a guard, Kenneth, on duty day and night. We are so incredibly blessed enough to have running water and electricity (sometimes). Alpha has the sweetest, most servant-hearted workers I've ever met, and I have grown very close to all of these ladies, most of which are just a few years older than my teammates and me. One of the Alpha ladies, Cissy, took me to her hair salon in town this morning so I could get my hair braided like hers. With half of my head braided, I decided that my attempt to fit in with the Ugandan women was not worth the pain and the ripped out hair. So I think I'm going to keep my boring, straight hair and try to learn how to carry huge plates of pineapples on my head instead.
At Alpha, they prepare wonderful meals for us, which often include mandazi (sweet biscuits to be eaten with sugar or jam) for breakfast and chapati (thick tortilla-like bread), rice, and beans for lunch and dinner. Eating lunch at the church on most weekdays quickly taught us to not take our meals at Alpha for granted.
Eating utensils are a rarity here, which means that rice and beans are best when eaten with your fingers. The children at the primary schools laugh when they observe I haven't quite mastered the scooping technique yet. This also means that germs are nonexistent in Africa, right? If there is one thing God is teaching me about uncomfortability, it's that my lifelong germophobia will not be able to stand a chance here; I just need to learn to embrace the germs. Yum!
