Home, Sweet Home

Last Monday, I returned home safe and sound. I apologize to my faithful readers (all 5 of you, haha) that it has been so long since I last updated.

On the Saturday before I left, 35 of the babies were dedicated at the evening Watoto Church service. I was so thrilled that I got to be a part of it before I left. I got to hold and pray over David. Patience was held by another volunteer, Bjorg, but they were right next to us. All the babies were dressed in really sharp outfits, they all looked so good!

My flights...could have been worse. And I made it home, so that's all that matters. Haha. After my early arrival, my family and I went out to lunch at none other but WENDY'S!! I had been craving a Wendy's taco salad. Mmm, mmm!

This past week has been tough for me. A lot of adjusting. It's a strange and not fun feeling when home feels like a foreign place. But I am making slow progress back to a form of my normal life. Thank you all for your support and prayers!!

If anyone wants to get together for coffee or something to hear about my trip I am MORE THAN HAPPY to share my pictures and stories. But beware, I do LOVE to talk about this place :)

Lunch with the Woosters...AHHH!!

Today I was EXTREMELY BLESSED to spend an hour or so with some friends from back home. Aaron and Kacie Wooster, who have been traveling the world all summer, are in Uganda this week! I didn't think there would be a way for us to get together, but I figured that I would give them my cell phone number just in case. Turns out they had today off! They gave me a call and were able to come have a short tour of Baby Watoto and then we headed out for lunch at Garden City. It was so great to see familiar faces and we had some good conversation over lunch (that I was treated to, THANK YOU AARON AND KACIE!) After lunch it was like, "Oh yeah...I'm still in Uganda." Haha. It was a great day!
Photo Credit to Aaron and Kacie, I didn't have my camera on me so I stole the picture they posted on their blog :)

I only have 2 days left at the baby home...CRAZY!! It hit me on Wednesday that I was actually leaving. I had to choose some new people to look after DAVID and Patience (turns out there was a mis-communication and my boy's name is David, not Daniel), we got the new schedule and my name wasn't on there AND I got my volunteer exit evaluation form! It hit me hard and I just burst into tears during lunch. Oh goodness. I am excited to be coming home though. It is bittersweet for sure.

Prayer Requests: That I would have a peace about leaving and wouldn't get too upset these next 2 days and that I will adjust well into my life back home.

Update on Abdul

About three weeks ago, Abdul (the 4 year old boy I wrote about earlier, with the eating problems), was taken to Kenya to try and fix his eating problems once and for all. He had a scope go through his esophagus trying to reach his stomach. However the problem was found before reaching his stomach. Abdul's esophagus, mainly the part that connects to the stomach, was almost completely scar tissue. So essentially, nothing he was eating was making it to his stomach. He underwent a major operation, in which the end of his esophagus was taken out and a new "section" was reconstructed and put in its place. He had about 2 weeks of initial recovery, before heading back home to Kampala.

He came back home late Friday night (last Friday.) He is doing extremely well!! What a blessing it is to have been here to witness the transformation first hand!

The picture is of Abdul EATING his EGGS AND BISCUITS!!! Praise the Lord!

America, America, THIS IS YOU!

I, along with 6 other American volunteers, spent the 4th of July...wait for it...wait for it...
WHITE WATER RAFTING THE NILE!!!

It was absolutely incredible! We had such a great time! There's not much to blog about it. But I thought you would all want to know what I did to celebrate America's independence. I wore our colors proudly and we told everyone we were celebrating America's independence the best way we knew how here in Uganda.

I also had the theme song to "America's Funniest Home Videos" stuck in my head all day. So I kept singing, "You're the red, white and blue! Oh the funny things you do! America, America, this is you!!"

Prayer Requests: That I would make the most of my LAST WEEK, not wish it away. That I would learn to cope with doing everything in a group and not be grumpy with everyone...or that God would bless me with a little bit of "me time" everyday. And lastly, for Patience, who has gotten extremely sick.

Picture Update

Daniel, wearing a girl's sunglasses

I had a bad day a few days ago and decided it was time to bust out the Ghiradelli 60% cocoa caramel filled dark chocolate that my mom hide in my bag. Oh...it was heavenly. Thanks Mom!!

Patience. Is she not the most adorable thing?!

Krista, a volunteer from Kentucky, left a few days ago. We had a goodbye pj party with/for her. From left to right is Evie (my Aussie roommate), Krista, Ruth (who is from England) and myself.

This is Laura, a volunteer from Australia, and me in the rocking chairs outside Baby Watoto. There are now 34 volunteers here (yes, THIRTY FOUR) so they have PLENTY of time to just cuddle babies through out the day (I'm with Daniel and Patience, so it has made not much of a difference to my daily schedule). Anyways, Patience is sick so I have been just holding and rocking her lately, and Laura and some others have been able to join me in the cuddle time.

Fried Green Tomatoes...er, Grasshoppers

I had quite the eventful afternoon yesterday...it's not a very exciting story, but it ends with arriving "home" at 6:30. SIX THIRTY!!! My shift was done at 3:30. Ugh! But, to make the trip home somewhat exciting, I decided to finally buy some fried grasshoppers from someone selling on the side of the road. We paid 200 schillings per spoonful and got 5 spoonfuls. Which was more than enough for all of us (20 or so) to eat many.

Now, earlier in my blog, I had mentioned how the grasshoppers here were about 4 inches long. Which they are. However, the fried ones are much smaller. Before the grasshoppers are fried, their wings and legs are plucked off and their wings make up most of their body length. So the ones I ate were only about an inch long.

We (my roommates and I) brought them up for dinner to share with everyone as an after-dinner treat. After finishing our meal, we began to pass the bag around for everyone to take a look/whiff of our dessert. Just as we were about to dig-in, a live grasshopper flies through the window!! At the guesthouse that Jenna and I were staying at initially, there were bugs EVERYWHERE (mainly grasshoppers.) But here, I have only seen 2 cockroaches. A couple
of nights ago, I was telling one of my roommates, Evie, how thrilled I was to not have to see grasshoppers anymore. Sure enough, the moment we are about to crunch into a grasshopper, one comes to haunt me.

Goodness. Needless to say, I freaked out. We had to move our little adventure to the balcony off of my (well, our) room. Anyways, the grasshoppers were pretty good. They tasted kind of like
shrimp...or grease. Hahaha. They weren't nasty though. I actually ate quite a few.

Pictures of My Room

Here are the pictures of my "new" room. It's all girls living there and we don't have a wardrobe of any kind so that's why there are clothes everywhere!!


1. This is the view walking in the door. That's Evie in the pink on her bed and Lauren in the back corner, on her bed.
2. We pushed Marianne and mine's beds together to make more room. So we basically share a really huge bed, but still have our individual nets. It's funny.
3. My bed is the one closer to the wall, behind Marianne.
4. Our balcony, which is very useful after hand washing clothes :)