Good Morning, Pumba

Though I haven't written for a while, not much has happened besides our weekend safari. Things are so normal and routine now - I love it! Ever since I returned from Kapchorwa I have felt so at home in Mukono. Everyday I feel like I reach a new level of comfort and openness with my host family. They are continually opening up more and more, so it makes it easy to do the same. I'm really finding myself here finally, feeling like I can be myself in a way that works in this culture. I've even picked up on so many of the phrases and the "Ugandan English" here...I wouldn't be surprised if I talk a lot different when I return to America, and I hope it doesn't get too confusing! There are so many things they say here that confused me at first - some examples:

-Words like "moving", "slopeing", "passing" are all terms for walking. It sort of throws you off when before you leave for a party your mom asks you, "Do you move with toilet paper?" meaning "are you bringing toilet paper with you as we go?"
-"...give us a push" means "can you give us a ride?"
-"it has refused" is said when something doesn't work.
-"Surely?" or "Sure?" means "really?" or "are you serious?
-My all-time favorite is when they stop in the middle of their sentence and say "what?" For example, "Me, I have eaten so much, but you, you have eaten like a what? Like a mosquito."

Anyways, we finally went on safari this weekend to Queen Elisabeth National Park in the Rift Valley - such a beautiful place. You know its gonna be good when you can't reach the main gate of the park because a family of elephants is blocking the road. We took into consideration the fact that there were baby elephants and a massive daddy elephant who was flapping his ears as a warning sign, and we decided to turn back and seek an alternate route. I can just remember the excitement in our bus at seeing elephants, followed by our driver's voice of reason, "Are we safe?" After turning back we found a guard and explained our situation. He laughed a lot but then said it was good of us to turn back because if we had gone forward, "they would have charged and killed all of you."

So we found a different gate to get into the park and thankfully there was someone to open it for us (a.k.a a man in the bushes with a gun). Once we were in we drove around for awhile looking for a campsite and stumbled across a group of Indians from the UN. Feeling intimidated by large group and tent mansions, we moved on to an open area to pitch our tents. My friend Holly did a great job directing our driver to the right area saying, "You see those people who look confused, the ones with the little flashlights? Those are our kind of people." It was actually my very first camping experience ever - quite exciting! I didn't sleep well however because of all the noise, you know, the hippos munching, the warthogs grunting and pushing on our tent. Yes, I've officially met Pumba now.

Saturday we set out for our game drive safari a little late. We didn't see as many animals as we would have if we would have gone early in the morning, but we still saw quite a few...more elephants, waterbucks, Kobs (my clan!), buffalo, warthogs, some crazy birds, mongooses (mongeese?). In the afternoon we went on a boat safari since the animals go for water during the day. This was pretty incredible...I can't really describe the experience of seeing animals like hippos and elephants in their natural habitat, no fences separating you, the Rwenzori mountains as a backdrop...it was awesome. Sunday morning we went out a little earlier and saw a lot of the same but also monkeys and finally, the lion! Sightings are rare in this park, and it was a female so it didn't have the exciting mane, but there's something exciting about sharing common territory with a lion.

Though we had opted to camp, this park had a beautiful high class lodge hotel that we spent some time at during the day just relaxing. I think we all experienced a little culture shock just being in the hotel lobby and other common areas...it was really like stepping back into America for a few hours. It made me realize this is going to be harder than I thought - coming back to America that is. March is flying by and all my weekends are booked from now on with trips and events. I honestly don't think I will be ready to leave my Mukono family in a month...part of me wishes I could change my ticket home to the end of July, but that's not really practical. I miss you all so much anyway.

So other than safari, the only mildly exciting things that happened were preaching at a secondary school last sunday, Enock dropping my phone in the basin of water as I was washing laundry, and getting all the clothes I had washed that afternoon stolen. A humbling experience for sure - having my already limited wardrobe diminished by half. I now have about the same amount of clothing that each of my family members have, and they survive just fine! I think when I go home to all the other clothes I left behind, I will be more than content with them for a long time.

Prayer Requests:
-School as usual (overwhelming)
-Rittah may have malaria
-Trying to make sense of my time here in Uganda - how best to use it since its going so fast