Sarah: Good News

I have some good news:

1). I am now an official resident of California! Woo! Now all we have to do is change our license plates.

2). Husband got a job! We're so thankful and in awe of God's timing.

3). We found a church. I feel so motivated and excited to get involved in this community. This past Sunday we heard an awesome message from the humorous and charismatic Donald Miller.

4). We are now members of the YMCA and I can't wait to start swimming laps again.

5). I got my new glasses! I decided on the Sinclairs [number two]. They rock. They came in a nice little box and the case is so sleek and colorful. The glasses are such good quality, I feel good when I wear them, and it's super nice to take a break from my contacts!

aren't they pretty?

6). I [finally] started decorating our apartment. It feels good to have our space, beginning to look like our space.

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:

How-to Friday: How to bucket bathe

When I first came to uganda we were taught certain things in order to be able to survive in our host homes. We had to learn to cook, to clean (mopping here is very different), to wash our clothes, to pee in a squatty (I will never forget Margaret demonstrating this for our class!) and how to bathe ourselves. I am pretty sure it was my teacher Gwyn who got up in front of our class and demonstrated how to bathe without running water, a luxury that few people have here. So I grabbed a couple of my sisters and had them demonstrate how to take a proper bucket bath.

Our tap

Gladys getting water

The bucket is an essential ingredient of a bucket bath. If you are lucky you will have a tap nearby (like we do!) otherwise you have to carry your water from a well, which is kind of a bummer. There are some days in America when I seriously can not get up the motivation to walk into the shower and turn the knob. I guess here it helps that there is serious cultural expectation to bathe frequently. Does that exist in America and I just choose to ignore it?

Getting good and dirty before the bath

Normally swimsuits are not worn for this.
She thought I was totally crazy for making her
wear one.

Dorkus and Gladys bathe in pairs. Bathing with friends is always more fun!

Step One: Splash water on your friend. Or if bathing alone splash water on yourself.

Step two: Soap up.

Scrubby scrub

I am pretty sure she was shivering by this point. I am not sure why
this activity happens outdoors. 

Scrub the toes. I always forget this part!

Step three: Add more water and keep scrubbing.

Step four: Rinse and if needed repeat. Having someone pour water on you is basically the same thing as a shower. I am pretty sure I would be fine with not having running water for years.

Reliable electricity is another thing though... That story still to come.