Lugazi, UGANDA

Hello Everyone!
I have safely arrived in AFRICA! This has been an absolute incredible experience and we have only been here for one day. The plane rides were a little ridiculous at times, but for the most part okay because we got to watch movies and tv. We arrived in Uganda and the first thought I had was that it smelled like the reptile house at the zoo. Is that weird? Anyways, everyone was so kind and helpful. We got our visas and BOTH of my ridiculously heavy and awkwardly huge bags made it safely. One girl in our group is missing a bag but its okay. We got picked up by a bus ( the nicest bus I’ve seen here) and a driver that our Country Directors had found. It was so so good to see our directors. They told us all about their experiences here the past week during the two hour ride from the airport to our village. I fell asleep for about an hour of it. Our village is AMAZING. We are all so happy we moved locations. The village is called Lugazi and they do not have Muzugus (white people) here. We are like stars walking down the street (or a freak show). It is hilarious. Anyways, we got to our house and we were all soooooooooooo happy about it! The people living in our house gave up their home for us and live right behind us in their 2nd house now. We have a living room, a freezer, a microwave (don’t know if it works..), a toaster, 4 bedrooms, and one bathroom and one kind of random shower hole in the wall. Seriously, our house is so nice compared to everything else, and we love it. There is electricity too, except ten minutes after we got home the power died for the rest of the night. Not the best because we couldn’t see anything and right before the electricity died we saw a cockroach. So we all busted out our flashlights and had to kill about five cockroaches in the dark; barefoot. It was pretty hilarious. We all chilled for the night and headed to bed around 1am. I slept really well, but woke up when everyone else did around 6am. The roosters and screaming baby across the dirt road woke us up. I had a great night sleep, but I guess other people struggled. We then had a magnificent breakfast of mangos, pineapple, boiled eggs, bananas, and even toast. Then we headed out to explore the town. We got a tour of the town and people were just staring and saying hello. Ah! So much to say but I need to go to town right now…Okay, really quick my favorite part of the day was when we went into the hospital. They took us into EVERY SINGLE room. Womens ward, mens ward, maternity ward, children’s ward….it was a lot to handle, but by far my very very favorite part. I couldn’t believe they let us go into literally every room, but every one wanted us to come and say hello even though they were just had surgery or something. And they call the operation room ‘the big theatre.’ Strange, I thought. Well, right now Rylee and I have to go into town and buy supplies for our project tomorrow which is building a couple schools, adobe stoves, chicken pen, and a pig pen. It’s going to be pretty intense. And having me and rylee go into town is going to be ridiculous because we don’t know where anything is at all. AT ALL. And the people will laugh at us a lot because we are the only muzungu around. Anyways, it is so awesome so far!!! And it is pretty much what you would imagine a 3rd world country…absolutely unbelievable and overwhelming. Hope all is well back in America!
Love,
TOR
p.s. we have an armed guard from 7pm to 7am and our house is gated…anddddd, there are children all the time just standing at our gate waiting for us to come and talk to them/bring them candy. They are super funny. Please keep praying for us! We need it. J
p.p.s. I forgot to say that it downpoured and hailed for a bit while we were all walking home. Oh yes, and the humidity and weather last night was a lot like Chicago so that was cool. The Utah people are having a hard time, but this humidity is like home for me! Oh yeah, and we ate at a restaurant today (one of the nicest ones) annnnnnd, let me just say I am very glad I brought granola bars. I thought it wouldn’t be any big deal eating beans and makoote ( green banana before it is ripened…the texture is like mashed potatoes/squash.) but umm, I guess I’ll have to get used to it.