TIA. This is Africa.

Things around here have been very.....hmm. African. We lose power sometimes at night, always while we are cooking dinner. We have to function by lanterns and flashlights. Guess what? I forgot my flashlight. Not even a flashlight, I have a snazzy headlight (yeah the ones that go around your head and you feel like you should be caving). We lose water on a regular basis in the kitchen. It's so fun when you have dishes from 12 people, plus whatever you used for cooking. We have a place outside where we have a water reserve so we always have water, but let me just tell you that taking a cold bucket shower is not my idea of fun. I would rather just not shower all together. Is that gross? TIA.

You don't really find public toilets anywhere. In fact they are just about non-existent. However, what you do find are things called squatty potties. They have them some places in Europe, but let me just assure you that they are dirtier here. It's literally just a semi toilet/basically a cut out square on the ground that is swarming with flys. I try not to drink anything on days when I know there won't be real toilets for fear of having to use these nasty things. TIA.

A couple weeks ago we had a girls night at the pork joint. Well it was supposed to be a girls night, but a couple guys showed up. Want to know their names?? Wait for it....wait for it.....Stalker and Cockroach. Of course those aren't their real names and they aren't creepy like they sound! Anyways, when I say pork joint I mean you go up to the counter and order how many kilos of meat you want for your table and which part of the body. They have a tree stump back there and they just butcher the meat up. Looks a little raunchy. When your food is almost ready they come around with a water pitcher, soap and a basin. They go around to each person and you wash your hands. They put the meat in the middle of the table and everyone just digs in. No plates, no silverwear. They cook the meat with seasoning, tomatoes and onions and then you get sides of cabbage and mootoke (sp?). Mootoke/Matoke (no idea on the proper spelling, but will find out) is one of he 4 types of bananas here and basically it tastes like potatoes. It' a huge staple in the Ugandan diet. The meat was sooo good. I was a little skeptical because they eat the fat here, but we asked them to trim it for us and they did just that. After dinner they come back around and you wash your hands again. Pork joint. TIA.

Homosexuality here is illegal. However, guys always hold hands with guys and girls hold hands with girls walking down the street. It's like a sign of friendship. find this a little odd, but have gotten used to someone wanting to hold my hand as we mosey the crowded streets of Uganda. TIA.

I have many more TIA moments, but am at a loss right now. Other recent events:

We had our EAC sponsor children over to write Christmas letters to their sponsors. We had about 80 kids show up, which is a pretty decent number. Especially since some of the families were told it was Sunday instead of the correct day, Saturday. Communication in Africa= huge fail. The kids had breakfast, music, wrote their letters and had a big lunch. I had the Primary 4 and 5, which is 4th and 5th grade. A few of them had really good English, but a couple not so much. It was fun to see all the kids that the organization supports.

I went on a SAFARI in Murchison Falls, which is about 4 hours from here in northwestern Uganda. We could see the mountains of the Congo from the national park. We got to see tons of giraffes, a male lion, a couple leopards, lots of buffalo, tons of hippopatomous'/hippopotomi (which ever is even slightly correct), some elephants, red tailed monkeys, baboons tons of random birds that I didn't pay attention to their names, antelope, crocs and warthogs. There were actually warthogs hanging out at our campsite. I got some reallt great pictures so I will try to get those up soon. the weather was really nice for us. Overcast and cool in the morning for the game drive. We got to sit on top of the safari van in these luggage looking racks on top of the car. Our guide was extremely helpful and told us a lot about the park and the animals, none of which I remember other than the fact that this national park is 4000 sqaure kilometers. WHOA. It took us over an hour once we entered the park just to get to the campsite. In the afternoon we went on the boat ride where we saw all the hippos. We went all the way down to the bottom of Murchison Falls. The day before on our way in we had gone to the top of the waterfall so it was cool to see it from both angles. The food at the campsite was really good too, best I have had. On the way back to Kampala we had lunch through the window. Literally. There are certain areas where you can stop and people surround you offering you all kinds of food. We got goat on a stick (incredible), grilled corn and grilled bananas. It was my favorite meal of the whole trip so far! SOO good.

I have a lot more to say, but I have to run because we will be leaving soon. I will try to finish catching up in the next couple days. Happy Turkey Day to you all!