Sarah: Oops...

So I posted that we arrived in San Diego on Sunday. But you might be wondering, "What have you guys been up to since you got there?" There is really only one answer to that question:

Looking for an apartment

It's not an easy task, let me tell you. When we first got to the city, we had to find a hotel to stay in for the night. We pulled into McDonald's to use their free wifi and we found a hotel. The next day, we went searching for a cheap, pay-by-the-week hotel/hostel-type-thing. No luck. We called so many places, walked all around, talked to managers, asked around--all to no avail. Well there was one room available, but it had one twin size bed, community bathrooms, and there was some kind of lingering, foul smell. At one point, Francis turned to me and said, "I didn't know places like this existed in America". So we're winging it in a legit hotel.

Now, we're looking for an apartment. We want to be near (or in) the city because we did the suburban thing and it didn't work out too well for us. I want to be able to ride my bike to work or walk out of my door and find people living their lives out in the world instead of staying in their isolated houses. Between that and our budget, we're pretty limited to options. On top of that, none of the people we're calling to view the apartments are calling us back. Awesome. We could really use your prayers on finding somewhere to live. Or if you're not into praying, you can send some of your positive energy or thoughts our way. I'm not picky. I'll take what I can get.

You know what I realized this morning? As I pulled out my last pair of clean underwear that I packed before we left, I realized that I had no more. All of my other underwear are still in the top right dresser drawer, taped shut, in Francis' van, with all our other stuff packed around it. Oops. I hand washed the dirties today and I may or may not have to wear my bathing suit bottoms around all day. Way to go, Sarah.

washing by hand

By the way, I added some pictures to our About Us page. And when I say some I really mean a butt load.

Sarah: We have arrived

After packing up all of our stuff into our cars...

After traveling through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and part of California...

After sleeping in Joplin, Amarillo, and Flagstaff...

After driving 2183 miles...

After stopping 7 times for gas...

After over heating our engine and pulling over on the side of the road 11 times...

After receiving help from 3 different people...

After spending 35 hours in a car...

After breaking down in the Mojave desert...

After countless hours of praying that we make it (alive)....

Frank and I arrived in San Diego Sunday night. 

praise the lord.

Kelsey: Random

- The power outages have been crazy whacked out of control lately. Like 30 hours long. We got it back this morning and I am bingeing on electricity by watching a movie on one laptop and surfing on the other laptop. Denis is celebrating by watching Arsenal finally win! The thing about power cuts is they are normal but yet not scheduled. Like they have no pattern. I feel like a rat in some evil experiment and people are trying to test my reaction to intermittent rewards (electricity). It makes me edgy and leaves me in a state of constantly charging all of my electronics.

- The crazy witch who owns the property next door has gotten even crazier. Her tenants moved out in the middle of the night... strange. And the new people who moved in found a human skull and teeth hanging in a room that was previously unrented. Instead of calling the police (uh hello) they called the landlady and she came and picked up her human skull with extra teeth. This is not how we do things where I am from.

- I have been having bad headaches and wondered if I had malaria so I popped out the the pharmacy and got some malaria testing kits. I don't know why this is the first time I have done this. It is genius. They are finger prick kits and cost $2 each. They even come with an alcohol swab! Shocking. I don't have malaria. Hooray! But I will be packing these test kits and bring them home with me when I leave Uganda. Last time I left I brought malaria home with me and an idiot American doctor almost killed me. Not really. But he was an idiot and other people with malaria who were under his care have died. He told me that within the first 3 minutes of our meeting. Him having neglected me the first 24 hours I was in the hospital. When no one would even give me tylenol for my painful malaria headache.

Woah I still have some pent up anger about that one. Anyway test kits = amazing. No one in Uganda will ever tell you that you do not have malaria. I tell acquaintances all the time that they do not have malaria, because seriously they dont. But then at the hospital I literally treat every single pregnant woman for malaria at some point in her pregnancy. Oh you have a little bit of a headache? Have some pills woman. Doctors do not test people because it is cheaper to just treat them. That is sad to me. And I feel like it has created a culture where people constantly assume they have malaria and are very frequently taking pills for something they do not have.

Becky found this blog by an American in India. Shockingly similar to Uganda. Loved this post about when you think you have malaria. 

- I spent about an hour online trying to figure out how to get Cheetos delivered to me in Africa. There is no such thing as cheese in Uganda, but I dont understand why we can't at least have fake cheese! Ok so we can't have fresh delicious mozzarella. Why can't we have Cheetos? One of the greatest injustices of Africa.

Kelsey: How-to Friday! How to poop in Africa.

Don't lie. I know you have been waiting for this post. And I am very sorry to have kept you waiting but I could not post this before Sarah arrived. All who know Sarah know that she is very comfortable with all things bathroom related. She does not close the door when she poops and she will walk in on you to talk to you while you are pooping. Don't try to resist it

Before I came to Uganda for the first time I was very naive of very many things. I tried to research Africa but I think until you experience it you just can't grasp it from reading other people's stories (meaning you all need to come visit and experience it for yourselves! come on.) I was a little bit nervous about how the conditions would be. I wondered if I could handle life in Africa. One not so nice friend, who had never been to Africa, flat out told me I could not handle it. (Uh wrong.) Chief among my naive concerns about Africa was where to poop and will there be toilet paper? Why is that information not number one on the travel sights. Stupid Lonely Planet. I do not care about 'getting there and getting around' I care about bathrooms. 

Actually I would say toilet paper may have been my number one concern. And I know I am not alone in that. I saw fellow study abroad students who had packed some American toilet paper in their bags. These concerns were very naive on one hand, I mean we were not headed to the bush. We were living 45 minutes from the capital city. A city of one and a half million people, tall buildings, giant electronic billboards, and even toilet paper. But on the other hand I very often found myself in situations where either there was no toilet paper or no place to poop (really no place where I wanted to poop). 

First I think we need to talk about the wonder that is the pit latrine. I really wanted to take a picture and post one on the blog but I could not come up with a respectful way to photograph someone's pit latrine, darn Uganda and their culture of respect. I can think of MANY American friends who would be happy to have their toilets photographed for me to post on the internet for hundreds of people to see... Anyways this is a photo I stole from google.

This is a beautiful, pristine, basically adorable pit latrine. They do not all look like this... Picture a board with a hole cut out and crap all on it. 

Pit latrines or 'long drops' are very common here. In my orientation for my study abroad program one of the Ugandan staff demonstrated how to use a pit latrine. She got up in front of the class and showed us how to plant our feet and then how to squat and lean back a little so you don't pee on your pants. (Side note one of my friends once borrowed a pair of my pants and then peed on them while trying to use a pit latrine. She peed my pants. You know who you are. ) This Ugandan staff member was one of the most respectful women I have met and watching her squat to teach us how to use our toilets at home was one of the greatest things I have experienced in my life. 

The pit latrine is classified as "no place I want to poop". Mainly because pit latrines are full of cockroaches. I mean they don't smell great and they are kind of dirty (as in covered in crap) and I have heard horror stories of people falling in them! But primarily its the cockroaches. While in normal life I do not love my encounters with the cockroach, I certainly do not want to pull down my pants and stick my butt near a thousand of them. Why do people do that?

Ugandans do not like to talk about their poop. I mean I guess Americans don't really like to talk about their poop either. But groups of young adults traveling in Africa love to talk about their poop. And I am one of them. One of my favorite things about traveling with people is the freedom of getting to complain about how I have not pooped in days! And let me tell you I do not think anyone who went from an all American diet to an all Ugandan diet did not suffer in some way. People were taken to the doctor in groups. Doctor, these three cannot poop and these two cannot stop pooping. 

The best advice I can give on the subject is always carry toilet paper. We study abroad students stole tp from everywhere we went. As I write this there is half a roll in my purse, half a roll in my backpack, a few squares in my wallet and a handful in the pocket of a pair of pants. It was actually a really hard habit to break when I returned to America where the toilet paper flows freely and you dont have to rob every restaurant of its tp. Also you can carry newspaper, very effective toilet paper, or a smooth stone. I have never done that last one but one time I did use a sock. You also just kind of get used to pooping in strange places. The strangeness of the places you poop will directly correlate the the amount of adventure you are experiencing. In rural Uganda I once pooped in a bucket, inside the house. Still one of the grossest things I have ever done. Even worse than the time I slept in a tiny tent with two other Haitian women and we all peed into a bucket inside our tent literally right next to each other. 


And now you will all stop reading this blog forever wont you. Has 'how to friday' gotten too gross? One day I will cross the line. But this is just life in Africa. 

Sarah: Autumn

Autumn is my favorite season. By far. I love the crisp air, warm sunshine, pumpkins, football games (falling asleep during them, not watching them), the changing of leaves, and light layers. But for some reason, this year....I'm just not feeling it.

What is wrong with me??


Here's my theory:
I left America in August a sunny and warm 82 degrees to arrive in beautiful Uganda which has perfect weather all day, everyday. I think I forgot that we were coming back in the middle of September - aka autumn. I actually didn't think that much about coming home (escapism) I was shocked as I walked out of the international terminal to a chilly 50 degrees and tons of sunshine! What the heck kind of weather is this?!

I think I'm tired of the midwest and its fickle weather.

Tomorrow, we're leaving Elgin and heading to San Diego. Which by the way, is only 21 minutes from the Mexican border.

So midwesterners, once the beauty of fall is over and the bitter winter has set in and you're all freezing your butts off - come visit me in sunny San Diego.

Sarah: Packing

I hate it.

That is all.

Kelsey: A week in Instagram

Sarah messaged me from her layover and told me about her backpack being stolen. I was shocked to say the least. I have never heard of anything being stolen from that checkpoint. I have been through there many times and never had any incidence. I think the worst part is that there is nothing that could have been done. It isn't like Sar was careless and left her bag in a stupid spot. It is so ridiculous and makes me so angry about the corruption and the broken systems in this country. Very angry.

The back of a boda

About an hour after I heard from Sarah I was still in Kampala and Denis and I were trying to take a bus  to a restaurant to get lunch before we headed back to Jinja. We were hiking down a hill and one boda (motorcycle) came so Denis told me to take it to the bus station and he would grab the next one. As we were driving away Denis was talking to the boda man in luganda I assumed telling him where to take me. So we get down to the bottom of the hill and keep driving past the bus station. I tap the guy on the shoulder and am like um hello I think you missed it. He smiles and keeps driving. So I assume that Denis has told him to just take me right to the restaurant and we will skip the bus.

We finally get to a slow spot where the traffic noise isn't deafening and I ask him, where are you taking me? This whole time I have been getting a little bit more nervous and I started calling Denis who didn't pick up the phone. I am starting to get annoyed with Denis for changing the plan on me in another language. The boda man says, I am taking you to Garden City (a big mall downtown). I respond by asking, Did the man tell you to take me to Garden City? He stays silent and I jump off the boda. I ask him again and he stares at me blankly. I raise my voice and almost yell, Where did the man tell you to take me? The bus stop. So why are we going to Garden City? Blank look.

Why are we going to Garden City?

No words

I start yelling and muttering all at once and begin pacing. At this point 10 other boda drivers are surrounding us on the side of the road trying to figure out the situation and also trying to get me to come with them on their boda. My boda man starts asking me for money and I yell at him that he will never get any money unless he goes and finds my friend! At this point I am alone in a part of the city I do not know and I have 30 cents, exactly enough for what should have been a ride to the bus stop. I literally can not pay him but I also do not understand why I am supposed to pay this man who took me to the wrong place and is no basically leaving me stranded on the side of a road. He starts whining about how I am being unfair and I need to at least pay him half.

I might have called him a dumb ass.

Denis, genius man that he is, figures out what has happened. I guess he got on another boda and that boda man somehow knew we were heading to GC and not to the bus stop or to the restaurant. So Denis pulls up and finds me on the side of the road surrounded at this point by 20 bodas and yelling as loud as I can at my boda man, totally freaking out, losing my mind, crazy, overreacting to a situation which really isn't very out of the ordinary for Uganda.

Absolutely my proudest moment.

We did not end up paying the boda, which I later felt bad about. I may have been taking some of my anger about Sarah's backpack out on a mostly innocent boda man. And he didn't steal her backpack... nor did he know that someone in his country and just screwed over my best friend and that I, feeling powerless over that situation, was totally ready for a fight, any fight. He probably had heard that white people are pleasant and nice and they pay well. Now he knows better.

In more pleasant news here are some yummy looking instagram pics.

Blueberry ice cream. Blueberry. There are no berries in Uganda. There is also basically no decent ice cream in Uganda. So you you put them together and blamo! You really have something. We have discovered that all ice cream tastes good with chocolate syrup on it.

Goats. They always remind me of Erin Dermer. Also I always want to snuggle them.

Beautiful Sarah.

Making Pizza with Francis' sisters.

My new favorite restaurant has pink lemonade. Can you imagine?

Also there are cupcakes! They aren't good. But still.

Bujagali Falls. This is 15 minutes away from my house. I love the Nile. I am comforted by the fact that if for some reason (apocalypse) I have no access water or electricity I could head on over to the Nile and bathe, wash my clothes, and whip up a dam to make my own power. Or sail to Egypt.

I hit my head on a big stick. Or I got a wicked cool scar from that knife fight I was in last night.

Kids hanging out in a suitcase. They can almost all fit in there and still zip it shut. Skills.

After I took the first picture the whole neighborhood came over and tried to fit themselves into the suitcase. Good jobs guys.

Sarah: Where is my bookbag?

Ugandan police stole my bookbag.

Let me backup:

Frank, his sisters Tracy & Lina, and I packed into the car and headed to the airport. I slept on the way. We get to the airport, but we are stopped by the police at the checkpoint.* The passengers have to get out of the car, go to a separate "secure point" to get wanded down. Meanwhile, Tracy is in the drivers seat and the policeman is "searching" the car for any kind of threat to the tiny, tiny, seemingly unimportant to the rest of the world Entebbe airport. 

I suppose we were labeled safe by the policemen, because we were sent on our way. As we park in the parking lot, open the boot (the boot is the trunk) to get out our luggage, I ask Francis, "Honey, where's my bookbag?" I immediately saw the panic in his eyes. He asked me "What?" He came around the side of the car to get a better look at the suitcases. He said, "It was here! They took it. The police must have taken it at the checkpoint."

We piled back in the car and pull ahead to talk to the other policemen. These guys were really nice. They listened to us, they were really sympathetic, but then they called over their "supervisor" who was a whole other story. He wouldn't listen to us, he kept saying "No, that's not possible", and he was overly defensive. We didn't even tell him that we thought they stole it. We said that maybe he just took it out of the boot to get a better look at the other contents and forgot to put it back in. "That's not possible." Well sir, if that's not possible then where is my effing bookbag??? He even went so far as to tell me that I probably put it somewhere else and I should check the rest of the car. So I pulled out everything in the car (not in the boot) and I looked around. Was my bookbag there? No. No it was not.

Eventually, we go back to the checkpoint with Officer Defensive to chat with the guys there and take a look around. Those men were just like Officer defensive. They wouldn't listen to our story and they certainly were not helpful. Their final decision was that, in our rush to make it to the airport, we must have forgotten it at home. Yeah, make it my fault. I started crying. Hard. I wanted those policemen to see a mzungu cry, to feel guilty, maybe to apologize and give me back my stuff. But no. I just got stares.

I lost my new macbook pro, camera (a canon xsi), journal, ipod, and sleeping pillow. I have none of the pictures I took while in Uganda. I am in mourning.

Feel free to comment on the post. However, please refrain from talking to me about this face-to-face. I guarantee you, I will cry. 

*Why do they even need the checkpoint before people enter the airport?! People aren't driving their cars into the airport! And (supposedly) they don't even take anything out of the car! How is that effective? If I have a bomb in the car, you better be sure it's going to be under the four 50lb. suitcases just chilling in the boot. So let me ask you again: HOW IS THIS "SECURITY" EFFECTIVE?!

Kelsey: Alan Alda

While Sarah is here I have been traveling back and forth to Kampala to see her. I have many things to say about this but chief among them is I am fried. My brain cannot work well enough to write a full blog post, not until I am in Jinja for multiple days in a row, away from the traffic and the exhaust, then brain function will return. Also... when Sarah is here there is much less reason to blog... because I can talk to her... out loud, in person. Oh the luxury!

Until then I will leave you with this.

I have been watching the West Wing all summer long. I started in May and I have watched 5 full seasons. I am not super into it, I mean it isn't a bad show, but I am mainly watching for one reason. I heard Alan Alda appears.

Alan Alda, dreamboat.

My love for Alan Alda is deep and committed. I will watch 5 seasons of a show that I am not very into just to get to the Sixth season where he promises to appear!

Hello handsome!

I am 3 episodes into the Sixth season and he is not here.

Despair.

Soon I will have to resort to reruns of M*A*S*H.

Its hard times here in Africa.

Sarah: Boat Series

When Frank and I went to visit Kels in Jinja, we were super touristy. We got up before the sun to make it to Jinja early enough to fit it all in. We arrived at the source of the Nile before anyone else. As in, we were the first ones there. It was nice to be able to walk around without a bunch of annoying tourists around. We didn't take a boat ride because they wanted to charge us WAY too much to do it. Oh, you should also know that going to the source is a t o t a l ripoff. Do you know how much they charged Francis (a Ugandan) to get in? 2000 shillings. Would you like to know how much they charged me (the foreigner, aka the white girl)? 10,000 shillings. It was literally 5 times for me to get in than Francis. We tried to argue that I am Ugandan by marriage, but the guy was not buying it.

We missed breakfast because we got up so early, so we stopped the Garden Hotel to grab a bite to eat.

DO NOT EVER EAT BREAKFAST THERE. EVER.

It was awful. First of all, the food was not good. Secondly, it was too expensive for the product being served. Thirdly (is thirdly a word?), the menu spelled maybe 4 words right. Sauce was spelled "souce". You can tell a lot about a restaurant by their menu.

After that we met up with Kels, went to Bujagali Falls (which is beautiful - if you ever visit Kels, make her take you there), had lunch at the Black Lantern, went swimming, I met Deno's family, and then we had fanta and went home. It was a loooong, but super fun day. It was great to see where Kels is living and to finally meet all of the people she blogs about. I told her she needs to do a more detailed tour blog post of the house/area where she's living. It's not anything like I thought it was!

Here is a photo series of boats that were just sitting in the water at the source of the Nile:

Kelsey: The college years

Yesterday I got to hang out all day with Sarah and Francis in Jinja! My favorite people in my favorite town. Being back with Sar has made me think about our time at Judson. You can read Sarah's collegiate reflections here.

I agree with what Sarah wrote. I had a lot of frustrations with Judson, mostly over bureaucracy types of things. I would definitely change the way they do advising. When I transferred in I had a temporary advisor who screwed me the way she transferred my credits and cost me at least one extra semester if not two. Which honestly is a REALLY costly mistake on her part. There were other times when I felt like people were purposefully making it impossible for me to graduate on time. I was a transfer student AND I chose to study abroad so I really shot myself in the foot in terms of getting out of their on time. But that should not be the way it is. I often felt that people weren't totally sure exactly which classes I had to take and when in doubt it was make her take more, stay longer, and pay more money. I once had the registrar tell me that I did not need a certain class so I chose to audit the class because I really wanted to take it but had a full load. A year later it turned out that I DID need that exact class and so I had to retake it for credit. Ridiculous.

But I did really appreciate a lot about my Judson experience. This is probably typical of most college experiences but I loved being taught how to think and not what to think. Before Judson most of the teaching I had heard on the Bible came from the pulpit. In church they do not tell you that there are two sides to what they preach. I once heard a sermon about how there is no such thing as "faith healing", or "healing by prayer". The pastor said that was an apostolic gift and was no longer available to followers of Jesus today. The pastor did not mention that many great minds disagree with him. Huge portions of the christian faith disagree with him. He was presenting his interpretation of scripture, thats what pastors do. But what if you are a person in the congregation who has witnessed healing prayer, or been healed by prayer? What do you do with a message like that? Presbyterians (I can pick on them because I am one) preach Presbyterian doctrine, they don't mention the other side of what they preach. And that makes sense because they do not believe the other side of what they preach. But I don't just want to hear what one portion of christianity thinks on any given subject or how one portion interprets the bible. I especially don't want to be taught that like it is a fact, like it the the "correct" way to interpret the Bible.

At Judson I was taught how to interpret the Bible for myself, not following along any one doctrine or belief system. I was taught Eastern theology, Western theology, even African theology. We studied what great minds have thought and written over thousands of years. We studied the great disagreements and debates between major sects of christianity. It was the most well rounded exposure I have ever had to the christian faith. I loved being taught by professors who disagreed with each other. Dr. Sanders and Dr. Mason challenged me the most. They pushed me to get out of my comfort zone in terms of what I had been taught in church about the Bible and about how to live faith. Any current Judson students reading this you should do whatever you can to take classes with both of these profs. Oh also Dr. Shannon. She didn't teach in my major so I almost forgot. I had her for Human Sexuality (was that the name of the class? we just called it sex class) she is basically a genius. Everyone go and take sex class. That is the best advice I can give a current student.

Also EVERYONE should study abroad. But that is for another post.

Let me leave you with this classic photo of Sandy-bear (Dr. Sanders). To repay him for all of his wisdom and guidance and keeping me sane through college and being the best mentor I have ever had, I give you this photo.

Kelsey: 30 years!!!!

A very happy labor day to all and a very happy anniversary to my parents!

Today my parents have been married for 30 years!

Congratulations mom and dad! I was reading some of the things that people are writing about them on Facebook and it made me think about how lucky I am to have such wonderful parents. They are extremely warm, welcoming, generous people who also manage to be very strange...

My dad seriously looks Asian here. They love adventure. On this trip I am pretty sure my mom drank wine with snakes in it.

They also raised some suuuper strange kids.

Why are we all frowning? These pictures are taken in an ice cream shop! See, its so strange! When I was a kid my babysitters always told me that my parents were big hippies. I think it was because they are super laid back and have a huge record collection. They always denied it and it wasn't until I was all grown up that I realized its totally true! They don't like to wear shoes. Sometimes my dad stays in pajama pants all day long. He also had an afro until he was like 30. And he had a huge beard. It was like afro on top beard on bottom, basically a lion mane. Oh they believe that having well organized home is boring. If things are messy then you never know what you are going to find! I saw this quote the other day and it made me think of my mom,  


"A perfectly kept house is a sign of a misspent life." -Mary Randolph Carter 


Also they don't like the government and they are not fans of "the man".  Crazy hippies. 

Congrats mom and dad! I wish all your kids could be at home with you today. We would make you a kick ass breakfast in bed. Hopefully Scotty represents us well. :) Making it 30 years in this day and age is really an accomplishment. I am so proud to have you for my parents. I love you guys!!!!!


ps. your anniversary present is coming... let the anticipation begin building.


pps. Sara and I thought it was your 25th anniversary for like a month. And then we remember I am 26. We thought we had quite a scandal going until we remembered that "Happy 25th Anniversary!" poster that hung on family room wall for like 3 years. 

Sarah: Eating Candy

Since I've been in UG, my posts have kind of been the same thing: I just tell you what I love about it. So, in the spirit of tradition, I'm going to stick with that theme : )

Perhaps the thing I love most about being here is that I get to experience my husband in his culture and around his family. Usually when people date (and especially before they get married!) you meet the future in-laws and get to see your significant other around their family. I think that could be really eye-opening. You get to see where they come from, who helped shaped them, and a possible shadow of what they could become in old age. I never got to experience that. So, within the past month or so, I had been preparing myself to see different sides of Francis that I've never seen before - the legit Ugandan/family side of him.

I expected that he would be different somehow and I wanted to mentally prepare myself to meet those differences. But they never came - and I should have known better. With Francis, what you see is what you get. It's one of the things I love most about him. He is no different around his family than he is around me.  He is no different in the States than he is here. Although, he does speak a different language most of the time and he's slightly more animated/outgoing.

So now to what I love about being in Uganda: Being with his family. Frank has already heard all the old, embarrassing stories (mostly from my mother) about me, and I was feeling a little left out of the fun. Well, let me tell you: his sisters have so many stories about Frank and I am eating them up like candy! Not to mention I get to see all his baby pictures! Seriously, look at him!!!

Frank in the middle with his twin friends
back in the day : )

oh.my.goodness. I die.

Sarah: How is Uganda?

Uganda is awesome. The weather is perfect (everyday), the people are lovely, the traffic is crazy, the food is delicious, and my family is better than I ever could have imagined. Here are some things I love about Uganda:

-People are friendly and polite. When you trip over your own feet, they say sorry.

-The weather is unbelievably gorgeous every. single. day. You have not experienced good weather until you come to Uganda.

-The food is to die for. I love me some chipati, pilau, and fresh fresh fresh pineapple. Yum.

-The last time I was in Africa, I felt like such an outsider looking in on African life. Now I feel like I am one - because I'm married to one.

-Everything is so green and lush. Even in the city. Prettiness all around me.

-Seeing Kelsey again has sucked. I don't know why we were ever friends. JUST KIDDING! I love that girl and the fact that I get to spend time with her in addition to my family and husband is a huge bonus.

-Speaking of my family - they are awesome. Yesterday Kels and I taught Grace (Frank's youngest sister) how to make pizza and it was such a great day. I have loved spending time with them and getting to know them : )

Because Frank's family was unable to attend our wedding, Frank and I decided to do a reception here in Uganda. His sisters planned the entire thing and it was so great. We had a thanksgiving service at the church with worship, a sermon (which was awesome), and prayers. Then we invited people to the reception at a Chinese restaurant. I could go on and on about the reception, but I'm just going to sum it up with this little nugget of gold: My womb was blessed by an auntie. She really wants twins.

I'm going to get on that right away.