Days 8, 9 & 10

Woo! It's been awhile! I'm pretty sure there's no way I can remember everything that I want to say, but I will do my very best to share what I can.

Saturday morning we were each loaded up into a van and dropped off with our host families in Mukono. I was greeted by Resti (don't know if I spelled that right) who is the oldest daughter of my host mother and father. She has 3 kids. Isaac is 3 (he absolutely adores me and has a smile that can light up a room), Vivienne is 2 (she's a lot shyer than Isaac and is still warming up to the mzungu in the house, but she's cute as well). Marjorie is the youngest, and she's almost 7 months.

I haven't done a whole lot all weekend because they keep insisting on doing everything for me and won't let me help. So they stay outside doing chores and cooking and such and leave me alone in my room to occupy myself. I got a lot of homework done! They have a nice house, but no electricity or running water so once it gets dark out, the hurricane lamps come out and my host father sits in the living room and listens to the radio (in Luganda). The bathroom is a little building outside with a hole in the ground. I only peed once the entire weekend. The shower is actually in the house, next to my room (oh, I have my own room and it's a pretty nice size). It's just a small room with a pipe in the floor and I wash myself in a basin with water that they boil for me.

Sunday morning, I didn't go to Church. Church came to me. My family has a Pastor come to the house and my host father worships with him and two other women while my host mother prepares them lunch. It was a little awkward because the majority of the service was in Luganda, but Rev Patrick speaks English so he tried to translate most of it for me. After the service, he made me sing a song. The only one I could think of all the words to was 'Praise Adonai.' He said he really liked the song, but I was slightly mortified that he made me sing in front of everyone. The only reason I didn't stress too much was because singing constitutes so much of their worship here, so everyone does it.

After Church, the adults politely dismissed me so they could converse in Luganda without me sitting there awkwardly. I got the rest of my homework done and took a nap. I didn't do much at all, honestly. They served me tea around 7:00 and I bathed. They make me bathe at least twice a day and insist on feeding me sooo much food. I can never finish it, which is really rude in Ugandan culture, but I can't eat all of it! They also don't serve dinner until at least 9:00 pm and it's always a lot of heavy food, so I tried to go to sleep early so I wouldn't have to eat supper, but my sister came in and woke me up to eat. Darn!

After I ate dinner (which was a somewhat smaller portion than usual, maybe they're getting the hint) I sat in the living room with my host father, Isaac and one of the helper boys Andrew. Andrew is about 8 and does so much around the house it's insane! Most Ugandan families take in children to help them do chores, while the kids are provided with a place to stay they may not have otherwise. Andrew and Isaac were teachng me Luganda words for awhile, before I went to bed. I wasn't very good, but maybe with a little more practice I'll be a bilingual machine!

I apologize that this was so sporadic, but I was trying to fill you all in, in a limited amount of time. I'll be walking back home (about a 1/2 hour walk) in 30 or so minutes and am trying to get a lot of my work for tomorrow done before I leave.

Love you all. I put more minutes on my phone today so I'll try to give some of you a call.