25 best things about Uganda

To wrap up my Uganda trip I figured it would be fitting to make a list of the top 25 things about Uganda and let everyone see them. Although I can't even begin to make a list of all of the things we did and saw, this one at least highlights the best of the best and the things that left an impact on me. Enjoy!

1. the PEOPLE-the most amazing, kind, giving people you will ever meet
2. the musana women
3. the musana grand opening ceremony and events
4. kampala health outreach
5. testing people for HIV
6. nabuti village needs assessment-one of the biggest successful needs assessments ever
7. observing schools all around Lugazi and Mukono
8. visiting with families with disabled children
9. teaching Proud to be a Girl
10. Masindi Troupe cultural dancing
11. safari
12. rafting the nile river
13. bungee jumping over the nile
14. sleeping in a legit hut
15. exploring all around uganda
16. cooking dinner with our cooks every night- these women became my family 
17. all our team parties and talent show
18. meeting a woman who had been taken by the LRA and hearing her story
19. giving away all of my clothes and supplies at the end of the trip
20. going to stake conference in uganda
21. all our church outings- truly the only place that makes you feel exactly at home even when you are 9000 miles away
22. serving people all day every day
23. deworming 860 kids
24. teaching people about sanitation and how to stay healthy and clean 
25. checking off my #1 bucket list item of all time!!!


Uganda all and all was the best experience of my life. There were times that were super hard but it was those little moments where I knew I was making a difference that made it all worth it. I am so beyond grateful for the opportunity I had to go travel the world and experience what I have. Hope everyone enjoyed reading my blog and following my journey along the way! It's good to be back and I am excited to see everyone soon!

time is running out

Well lots to tell everyone today! First off last weekend our entire team went on a safari in Murchison falls. It was absolutely beautiful and we had a blast. We drove 8 hours up to the park on Thursday, went on the safari Friday and then drove back to Lugazi on Saturday. Thursday was an interesting day to say the least though. Our first interesting part of the day was when we were driving through the out skirts of Kampala. All of the sudden we looked and everyone was running in the opposite direction that we were driving covering their mouths yelling. We all got a little freaked out and apparently there was a huge riot and tear gas was released so everyone was running trying to get away from it. Hopefully that is the first and last riot we will see here in Uganda. But our next adventure of the day was when we arrived at our “hostel” for the night. I am not sure if you could quite call it a hostel though. It was straight up a cement building with 4 rooms in the middle of the forest on an island. SKETCHY. The room that Liv, Kar, Maren, Elise and I had was coveredddd in bugs, spiders, rats, cockroaches, had a busted window, a missing ceiling panel and people’s random clothes they had left there.  We didn’t sleep that night simply because we were too afraid to fall asleep haha. Pathetic? Maybe but hey at least we made it through the night. (Come to find out there was actually a hippo outside of our room all night too.) Anyways we started the safari super early Friday morning and had an awesome drive. We saw elephants, giraffes, water buffalo, a lion, monkeys, waterbucks, impalas, and tons of other things. During the afternoon we went on a boat up to Murchison falls and we saw tons of hippos, crocs and other things. It was really amazing and now I have crossed off one of my bucket list items—go on a safari!

     Well after a great weekend we started off the week right yesterday teaching an I’m Proud to be a Girl assembly at a local school called Lugazi Homeland College. There were about 200 girls and Kar, Liv, Elise, Maren and I got to teach the entire thing. It was an experience I will never forget just because of how happy the girls were to learn and to hear from us. I have never met so many high school aged girls who are so excited to learn about feminine hygiene, HIV/AIDS, sex, relationships and self-confidence than these girls. Today we have been preparing all day for our big health outreach tomorrow. I am going to be teaching sanitation and showing them how to make a hand washing station using a jerry can, string and some sticks. After that I just have Thursday left and then I leave on Friday! I cannot believe how fast time has gone but I am excited to get back to my family too. I know when I get on that flight I will be sad to be leaving these beautiful wonderful people but it is time. Here are some pictures for every one of the safari and things going on! Enjoy and see you all soon! Thanks for all your support and love. Love and miss you all!

                                                                     sooo close

                                                               safari time

                                                     hut we stayed in on saturday night

                                                       murchison falls

grand opening day!

Well today was Musana’s grand opening and to sum things up real quick, it was a BIG success! We started setting up around 8:30 and of course nothing arrived until 10:30 because we are on Ugandan time here but oh well, what can ya do. We had a huge tent, tables, chairs, a “blue carpet” instead of a red carpet, confetti, drinks, snacks, a dj, SUPER loud music and a tonnn of people! It was awesome. Lutta, the in country manager of Musana, entertained everyone along with the DJ while we waited for all of the local government leaders and guests to arrive. The entertainment consisted of cross dressers dancing and singing (absolutely one of the funniest things i have ever seen in my life), Lutta’s jokes and the audience members dancing. It was a big hit and then when the major and town council members showed up Pastor Francis, one of our most prominent partners here in Lugazi, led the ceremony. We sang the Ugandan national anthem and then they had us “muzungus” sing our national anthem. It was hilarious i felt SO proud to be an American. It’s funny how when you are in another country you come to appreciate America sooooo much. But after that the major spoke, the town clerk, Pastor Francis, Melissa (one of the creators of Musana) and then we had a big ribbon cutting and it was done! Everyone bought jewelry and danced and it was a great day. These Musana women are so amazing and I cannot believe how much I am going to miss them when I leave Uganda. The pictures below are from today!

Other than that things are good! We have been busy preparing for the store opening and getting everyone better since our whole house has a parasite but besides that, Uganda is great. Time is going by fast. I truly can’t believe my six weeks is up next week but I am so grateful to have been here and for all my experiences. Hope all is well in America! Love and miss you all!

rosette-one of the musana women & our cook

the women dancing with the cross dressing DJ

local leaders cutting the ribbon

some of the volunteers with the major and women

beautiful betty

facing adversity

Well this week has definitely been an unexpected week of trials. First off, EVERYONE IS SICK! Sunday afternoon I started feeling not too hot and now there are about 10 of us in the house who are sick unfortunately. I guess you can’t expect to stay healthy when you live in a small room with 11 other people and some of those people are throwing up. But hey, its life, we are just hoping by tomorrow people will be feeling better so we can continue working! Our second trial of this week has been our Nabuti village project with Moses. We met with the village again and after a lottt of thought and heart ache decided that the village doesn’t have a clear idea of what they want to do to help themselves and therefore it is going to be hard for us to start a project that will be sustainable. With that all said we have scheduled a meeting with the community leaders to basically tell them that we really love their people and the village but until they decide what THEY want to do for their community and for themselves, and get started on it themselves, we can’t work with them anymore. Obviously it is bittersweet but two lessons I learned from this experience. One, you cant force a community to do something if they aren’t fully invested in helping themselves. Two, development work is FULL of disappointment. I have never done any sort of development work in the past so I had no idea how it went but with this project falling through I learned that doing a thorough needs assessment is a big success in itself and not all things will go in your favor but that is why we are here. If things were working perfectly and the community was doing well we would have no reason to be here! But with that all said, things will move on and now I am focusing on the Musana jewelry grand opening next Tuesday! We are really excited about the store opening and hoping all goes as planned for this project!

            Besides those two things all is well in Uganda! Its nuts that two weeks from Saturday I will be home but I am excited for that day to come too. I have learned SO much about myself already and learned that this experience is something I need to do. Whether I leave loving Uganda and wanting to come back or not, I have learned how to endure trials, how to live with no basic living necessities and how to deal with the circumstances you are placed in. I will forever be grateful for my time here but hope that things start speeding up just so we can enjoy the work before we have to leave!

            Hope all is well back home or wherever you all are. Love and miss you all!

where is time going!

This week has been a week of learning, eye-opening experiences, great service and amazing inspiring people. Just to give everyone an update on what I have been up to this week I will give you all a day-to-day run down on what has been going on.

To start off, Monday we had a meeting with Moses and the Nabuti village I am working with to talk about how we are going to execute our plans of improving their education systems and implementing business and women empowerment classes into their community. It went well so we are currently working on the curriculums for those classes and anxious to get those started hopefully next week! Tuesday I spent the day gathering materials and supplies for a project that I am heading up with a few others called Musana. Musana jewelry is a local jewelry company that a HELP volunteer started in 2009 that employs 7 of the most amazing women from Lugazi. We are making them a store and planning a grand opening where we will be inviting the town members and local leaders to stop by and see their work. We are reallllyyy excited about it! Wednesday we visited a local hospital and got the chance to spend some time with some HIV positive women who have joined together to stand as a united front comforting HIV positive people and counseling with them about their lives and situations. It was truly one of the most humbling inspiring things watching these women talk. When they talk it makes you realize that the things that seem like “big problems” to us are absolutely NOTHING. We also had the chance to walk around that hospital and see women who had just given birth, chat with them and hear their stories. (I will NEVER complain when I am in the hospital again after seeing this hospital and where these people give birth, have surgery and stay while they are sick.) After the hospital we had the chance to go to a beautiful village about an hour and a half away to do a public health out reach. Basically what that means is we go and with the help of our partners educate people on HIV, AIDS, sanitation, hand out condoms and do tons of other really necessary things. Thursday we went and observed schools in the Nabuti village to see where we can make improvements. Friday we had one of the most amazing health clinics I have ever been to in my life. We met with a group called the Naguru Teenage Center and we talked about African culture, puberty, sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive health and so much more. It was amazing and eye opening to hear about the crazy things these children go through and to see the strength these young children have. LASTLY, yesterday we went to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and worked at a HELP sponsored dental and health camp. I was able to test people for HIV, literally prick them and wait for their results. It was super sad to see people test positive but also really neat seeing people getting tested and people interested in helping themselves.

            So with that all said, this week has been busy but AMAZING! The people here are so intelligent, hard working and beautiful. I love how they have nothing but rise above all odds and become these strong people, full of life and love. I have yet to meet someone who is not interested in hearing about my life and talking to me about theirs when we are sitting next to each other on a taxi or meet at the market or at a project. I am LOVING my time here and cannot believe how fast it is going by. Less than three weeks from today I will be home and it is starting to make me sad but I am sooo grateful for the time I have had here. These people are definitely changing me so my hope is that I can give a little bit back to them, and help them a little bit more over the next two and a half weeks before my time is up here!

            Hope all is well in America though. Love and miss everyone! 

now this is called living

holy crap has this weekend been a blast! saturday morning we woke up super early and got picked up to go to jinja for...bungee jumping and white water rafting on the nile river! i'll be honest when we got there i had decided i wasn't going to jump but when i saw it i knewwww i was doing it. we got suited up, climbed up to the top and after a 2 minute instruction i found myself jumping off a ledge, free falling over the nile river 125 feet in the air. it was absolutely NUTS. truly one of the most exhilarating, funnest things i have ever done in my entire life though. like let's be honest...how many people can say they have bungee jumped over the nile, not many. after bungee jumping we loaded onto a bus and went white water rafting on the nile. we were on the river for 16 miles and went through some of the craziest class 5 rapids i have ever seen in my life. we didn't see any crocs LUCKILY but our guide saw a 15 foot one last week which was a bit unsettling. alssso, lucky for us we were on the "team extreme" raft with just 6 people versus the usual 8-10 person raft soo basically team x had quite the ride. we flipped in our first rapid, the most dangerous one, and then managed to stay on board the rest of the day but it was the best. one of the best days of my life for sure! after a weekend like that i am ready to hit the road running this week and ready to serve a lot, work hard and then have another great weekend next weekend butttt all is well here in uganda. still missin america but soo grateful for my experiences i am having here and excited to be here! here are some pictures for everyone of this weekend. love and miss everyonee.

before bungee and rafting

rafting

view of where we stayed after our day...sooo beautiful

annnd here i go

10 things i have learned so far in africa

1. ugandans do NOT run for exercise or exercise at all for that matter. running here is simply a reason for them to laugh at you
2. never count on a ugandan being on time. they will be at least 45 minutes late to everything..sometimes more
3. ugandans LOVE jboog and american music which they call "country music"
4. ugandans have noooo idea what the phrase "how old are you" means. instead you have to say, "what is your age"
5. uganda has the BEST fruit in the world. pineapple is what we are currently living off of, no joke
6. ugandans love musungu's or white people because they think we are all this friendly (meaning saying hi to them and waving to every single person on the street..literally) when in all reality if they came to america that is not the case at all hah sadly
7. having power in uganda is a BIG maybe. we finally got our power back today for the first time since Friday night
8. africa NEEDS a target really really bad
9. kids here think that they can rub the white off our skin haha but once they figure out they can't, just love to hug you until you pull them off you
10. the word "good" is not in the people's vocabulary here. instead everyone says fine. if you ask someone how they are they say "hi i'm fine" or if you say hi to someone they will just say "fine" back instead of saying hi all together haha

BUT, with that all said. things are still great. here are some more new pictures for everyone!

our room with the mosquito nets covering our beds

one of the schools here in lugazi where we live

a little fruit stand here in town

the nasty meat they sell here that we refuse to eat...for obvious reasons