Safari Ants, Slumber Parties, and Serious Talks

Sorry for the shorter post this week, and for the lack of pictures/videos. It's been a bit of a crazy week (after reading you'll understand why) so I didn't get much of a chance to take pictures or write that much. But next week I'll be putting up some photos from safari!! :)

8-8-12
Yesterday was one of the most interesting days I’ve had in Uganda so far. Our house got taken over by Safari Ants—they’re like fire ants, but much worse. They have been outside for a while, and our biggest fear was that they would eventually make it into our house, and yesterday was that day. We came home to our dining room and most of our kitchen filled with the little guys moving along in nice uniform lines everywhere. We decided that it would be best to sleep somewhere else last night because we figured they’d make it to our bedrooms pretty quickly. I, Rebecca, Ashley and Alicia packed a bag and went to Babies Home. At first I think we were all upset and frustrated with the whole situation, but by the end of the night our moods totally changed.
Basically once we got to Babies Home things weren’t as bad as we thought they would be. We were all so excited about having a “slumber party” that we didn’t care about the ants and having to leave the house. We got a bunch of chocolate, chips, fruit (not my first choice, but I let the roommates have itJ), hot chocolate, and watched One Tree Hill. We pulled out a couple mattresses that were in the storage room for Ashley and Alicia to sleep on and Rebecca and I decided to take the couches. We stayed up until around 11 eating and watching One Tree Hill—it was such a good night, definitely one of the best nights in Uganda.
Today our house is getting fumigated so we’re spending the night in the Watoto Guest House while the fumes die down. We all had to pack all our stuff up and move it out of the house while they do their thing, and hopefully we’ll be able to move our stuff back by tomorrow or Friday night. Today and tomorrow are my days off, and it’s been a very different day off. I’ve been in the Administration Building on the Watoto grounds (where we slept last night) writing my blog, checking my e-mail and watching One Tree Hill…and I will randomly go over to the Babies Home (a 20 second walk) and cuddle babies.
Daniella is finally out of isolation!! She’s back with her buddies in the 0-8week old room…she is SO cute! I totally fell in love with her.
At around 5:30 we all decided to go out to eat with Annie Duguid (The Babies Home team leader) and her kids (she fosters 5 Ugandan kids), Sarah (a nurse from Australia) and her foster daughter. We went to a local restaurant called Sankofa which is really good! We ordered at around 6pm because we were waiting for Rebecca and Alicia to come to the restaurant after finishing up some things at the Babies Home. While waiting for our food we played Phase 10—which I’ve really gotten in to over the past couple of days here. We waiting for at least two hours for our food, and by the time everyone got their food and finished with it, it was 8:30.
Rebecca, Alicia, Ashley, Sarah, Gift (Sarah’s foster daughter) and I then drove to the Watoto Gulu Guest House to spend the night (we figured it would be more comfortable than sleeping on the Babies Home couches again). The guest house is really nice and the bed I’m is SUPER comfortable when compared to the couch I slept on last night. And I got an actual shower! The last “shower” I took was a bucket shower, I can’t even remember the last time I had a legit shower, and even though the water was pretty darn cold at the end it was amazing!

8-9-12
Today we are moving back into the house in Gulu—the fumigation happened yesterday late morning and the house has had plenty of time to air out. Hopefully all the insects are taken care of. It’ll be so nice to get back home. It’s weird though…even though we’re still in Gulu staying at the Guest House it feels like we went on vacation in a different town. I’ve never been on this side of town before so it feels like I’m far away from Gulu, but it’s kinda nice…it makes my days off really feel like vacation J. Rebecca and I go on safari in 5 days!! I’m getting so amped to go!! It came here so quickly, and I know once safari is over the rest of my time in Gulu/Uganda is going to FLY by…which part of me is excited about, but another part of me is really sad about. Oh conflicting emotions, how fun.

8-11-12
So, we never ended up moving back to the house. Apparently there were still live ants inside and outside. Yesterday they fumigated again so hopefully tonight we’ll be able to move back. The guest house has been a good experience, but we’re all ready to move back in to “our house”. Daniella is out of isolation and so for the past couple of days I’ve been taking care of a newborn baby named Denis. Denis is three weeks old and stays in the Pharmacy at Baby Watoto so that we can make sure he stays healthy for a little while longer before we move him into a room with other babies. He is such a cutie pie and I’ll hopefully be getting photos of him soon.
Yesterday Fred (one of the Watoto Volunteer staff in Kampala) called me yesterday to let me know about how Trauma Rehabilitation is going. I’ve been a little disappointed that I haven’t gotten to work with those guys yet, but it sounds like everything should be worked out soon. I’ll be taking 3 days a week to work with the Trauma Team, 2 days a week to work at Baby Watoto, and have 2 days off (which I may or may not use to work at either Trauma or Baby Watoto). I came to the conclusion today that I can either be disappointed with the time I didn’t get with the Trauma Team or I can be grateful and take full advantage of the time I will get—and if I end up not getting to work with the Trauma Team then I need to realize that wasn’t in God’s plan for this trip and be okay with it. Plus, I can always come back to Uganda J.
I can’t believe Rebecca and I leave for safari in 2 ½ days!! And when we leave it’ll be exactly three weeks until I get home. That is insane! I seriously can’t wrap my head around that fact. Last night all the roommates and I were talking about what it’s like going home (because a couple of them have been here before). They said to prepare to be sad/depressed for up to 6 months after I get back. They said that they would just cry sometimes without even really knowing why. I expected to be sad leaving here, but I never thought it would be for that long of a time, and who knows if it will be. But just knowing it’s a possibility is both scary and comforting; scary because I haven’t been sad for that long in…well, ever I think, and comforting because if I do end up being sad for that long I’ll know that I’m not crazy or anything J.

8-12-12
Today I took the day off because I wasn’t feeling very well, and I needed another “mental health day”. Yesterday I skyped with my parents and with Sarina again, and I also spent a lot of time thinking about how I was going to redo my bedroom once I get home…all of which made me more homesick then I’ve been in a while. I don’t even know if I would consider it homesickness necessarily, but it made me excited to go home. I think it’s been quite a long time since I’ve been more excited to go home than to stay in Uganda.  I’ve also just been thinking about how quickly my time here will be over, and I think that sadness my roommates were telling me about the other day is already starting.
My life when I get back home is going to be so different than it is here, both culturally and on a day to day basis. I’ll have so much to do/take care of once I get back, there’ll be a lot more responsibilities for me to deal with…not really exciting in some ways J. It’s cool to start another new chapter in my life, but I just hate not really knowing that I’m getting into. I don’t know what my job will be once I get back or whether or not I’ll like it. I don’t know what it’s going to be like living at home again after 4 years on my own. I don’t know how difficult it’ll be keeping in touch with all the people I’m used to seeing on a daily or weekly basis. I don’t know what graduate school I’m going to apply to—I haven’t even narrowed down the programs I like to just one. I don’t know if graduate school is going to happen next fall like I planned, because there’s so much to figure out before I can even apply, it seems like too much to handle. But hopefully if I take it one thing, one day, at a time it won’t seem so daunting. Plus, I need to get better at asking people for help instead of trying to do everything on my own.
I’m getting really excited for safari; I just have to work tomorrow (Monday) and then we leave Tuesday morning. Rebecca and I will head out at 6:15am to arrive at the Post Office in Gulu at 6:30 to take the Post Bus (it’s the cheapest way to get from Gulu to Kampala and then back from Kampala to Gulu). We’ll leave Gulu at 7am sharp and will probably get to Kampala at noon or 1pm. Then we’ll get photocopies of our passports (which we need for the safari) from the Watoto office in Kampala, and then we’ll have the afternoon/evening to spend in Kampala. Then Wednesday morning we’ll need to be at the safari office before 7am because we’ll head to safari at seven o’clock Wednesday morning, go on safari Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. There is a land and water safari; on land we’ll (possibly) see the following: giraffes, elephants, lions, gazelle, antelope, wart hogs, water buffalo, and other things, and on the water safari we’ll see crocodiles, hippos and other fun things. We’ll then head to Kampala on Friday night and spend the night there, and then Saturday morning we’ll take the Post Bus back to Gulu. I’m sure those 5 days will go by extremely fast, and then I only have one week left in Gulu because on August 28^th we leave for Kampala for the volunteers meeting, and then I’ll stay in Kampala until I leave on the 3^rd. CRAZY!!
I still need to get a souvenir for my dad…I thought shopping for him in the States was hard, but doing it in Africa is almost impossible J. I also want to pick a few things up for myself because all I bought for myself so far is a Ugandan Soccer team jersey—which I love. The roomies and I are thinking of going to a town called Jinga (in the southern part of Uganda, Jinga is where I went rafting earlier in my trip) to go souvenir shopping—apparently there are a lot of good souvenir shops down there, maybe I could find my dad (and myself) some cool things down there. But I need to be really smart with how I spend my money these next few weeks—I don’t really have that much left. There’s about $130US left in my checking account and I still need to take some money out to pay for Post Bus this week, and I think I’ll take extra money out for souvenirs and grocery shopping too so I don’t have to take money out (and get charged) again.
As of tomorrow I only have 21 days left in Uganda and 15 left in Gulu. Ugh, I can’t think about that anymore or I may not enjoy safari as much as I’d like. Maybe I’ll just try to occupy my time/thoughts with ideas for redoing my room in a few weeks…nothing like a little avoiding a problem to really help a person out right?....yeah…I didn’t think so.