I still can't believe i'm in Africa...I must be in DE-NILE.

Who loves my joke??

Questions my mom emailed me…thought others would be interested as well:

What does the village look like?

Our village is nice. The way it works is that lugazi is the town and there are different wards and then different villages within the wards. There is so much garbage everywhere. There are trenches along the street. The market is fun to go to. Lots and lots of little stands for food and selling various things. It looks pretty much like what you would imagine a third world country… except oh my gosh it is beautiful. The town is surrounded by sugar cane fields. A man from India came years ago (his name is meta) and created all the sugar cane fields. He is freaking rich now.

Have you learned of any unusual custom?

Customs? Ummm, nothing really. They are so funny when they talk. I talk like them now too. Thank you come again.
Do most of the houses look like the one you live in?

We are in a nice house compared to most in the area. A verrry nice house. Most of the houses are huts or rundown buildings. Except there are two on our road that are very nice as well.

Are there paved roads, or just dirt?

The roads are red dirt with one main road paved and one round about at the end of town . Most of it is dirt, dirt, dirt, mixed with garbage and a lot of it.

How far are you from the store?

We are in a village so we just go out of the village up the road to the Simple Market. It is about a 5 minute walk. What kind of stores are there? The only store is the simple market and the rest of it is basically open market or little holes in the walls. How many? There are many markets and people selling things everywhere.

How many people in your town? So my country director says 35,000 are considered for lugazi but that includes a lot more than what we see. It is very very spread out.

What do they do for a living? The people here do whatever they can to survive. Many are boda-boda drivers/ taxi drivers, many work in the sugar cane fields, many many grow food and sell it in the market.

How do they like white people? They LOVE muzungus. We are like Hollywood stars here. They like us a lot. The US? Everything I’ve heard is positive.

What kind of furniture is in your house?

We have one couch and two arm chairs. We also have 5 or 6 lawn chair type things. We have bunk buds. What kind of flooring? The flooring is vinayl flooring I think. What are your house rules? The house rules are pretty chill except we do have a cleaning chart. We also have days when different people cook breakfast. If you make something you have to clean it up. Mostly all of our rules are being clean so we don’t get bugs. Also, now we have to keep our shoes inside or in the back b/c three of the boys got their really expensive tevas stolen. Oh yes, and no dating. Do you have a curfew? We have to be home before dark, but then we can go out again after dark , but we basically have to regroup at the house for dinner so everyone is accounted for. Actually, I have to update this part (may 15^th) we now no longer can go out at dark. If we have to then we must have at least two boys with us. . . kind of a long story w / that , but we are fine. Keep praying for safety and no more thieves! J

Who cleans your house? We clean our house, but this good friend of ours Edith who lives down the road cleans up after us also. How do you do laundry? Edith does our laundry, but we clean our underwear, because it is offensive to give it to her to wash.

Do you think you took everything you need? No, I didn’t take everything I need. I wish we could have found more skirts that were longer. I dunno where, but everyone has long skirts and I wish I did too. Leggings suck (yes, you were right. urs.) I think I will need more deet. I wish sooooooo much that I would have brought more granola bars for every single day. And fruit snacks. And mixed nuts. I wish I would have brought knee length shorts. ( I left them on my bed) I wish I would have brought more capris. I wish I would have brought more shirts-I sweat a lot. I wish I would have brought CANDY.

Where do the country directors live?

Our country directors live in the house with us. Do you they go with you on your projects? They so far have gone with us with the projects but it will be different when we have different projects

You have a cook for dinner?????

Yes, HELP provides a cook for dinner. Which is stinking nice otherwise we would rarely have a meal.

How many guys are going to show up? We have five boys right now. And they are all so incredibly awesome. Seriously. How many more girls? We are expecting three more girls tonight.