...worth remembering.

I wake up at 8:30 and have to be ready for work by 9. Sometimes I go through phases where I oversleep every day, for many days. Haha. At 9:00 I remember that today, the first Wednesday of the month, is the GBV and OVC committee meeting at child probation (my favorite place...),at 10:00. Call them to make sure it's on for today, get ready, and leave at 10. I am more than happy to leave the house because some neighbors are burning trash and I can't breathe anywhere in our compound. I catch a boda boda and make it to the meeting around 10:15. I am the 6th person to arrive.  I join the others who are sitting patiently, making small talk and waiting for the rest of the members to show up. Twenty minutes pass with no more arrivals. The child probation officer who chairs the meeting comes in and takes a vote for what we want to do. We haven't met the quorum so one man suggests that we abort the meeting. Everyone agrees. I'm thinking "Yes! I won't have to sit here for the next two hours!" But we end up sitting there for an hour anyway because someone suggests that we introduce ourselves, and every time someone introduces themselves and mentions what their organization does, someone brings up an issue to be discussed. The longest meeting I never went to. Finally we wrap up and I walk home via the ATM (I prefer going to the ATM when I'm walking, because taking a boda there is risky since they know that they are then carrying a mzungu who is carrying - possibly alot of - money.) Of course, the ATM is not working and will not let me withdraw, but only check my balance. My shoes are rubbing a giant blister in the back of my heel, but I continue walking home because it's not far enough to be worth paying a boda (and they would know I just came from the ATM, but not that it wasn't working and I don't actually have any money). I finally reach home, drink some coffee, and get some work done at the office. I check Facebook and am greeted with pictures of diamond rings and babies. Our guard collects mangos for me to take to the kids home. I call my regular boda to come and pick me but he doesn't answer his phone, so instead I lug my backpack and two giant plastic bags of heavy mangos down the dirt & trash road until finally a boda sees me and comes to get me (Jeffrey, another one that I use regularly). I have worn pants today so that I can sit like a man, and I rest the bags of mangos on my lap as we take off across the fairgrounds. Halfway to the house I realize that the bag has a few tiny wholes in it, and the mangos are squished so sticky, fly-attracting juice has leaked all over my pant leg. Lovely. I make it to the girls house and am greeted with a few hugs but many shrieks of "MANGOS!!!" The girls are watching TV but they don't complain when I say we have to turn it off and make cards for sponsors. The next hour and a half is a blur of stencils, markers, construction paper, and 5 people talking to me at once all wanting a different word spelled for them. I leave them and rush home, change clothes, and meet a friend for supper at a nice hotel. Somehow everything we order is actually there, and comes out in a reasonable amount of time. I have the rice and poached fish in a creamy mushroom sauce... it is nice. We see dark clouds coming and rush to pay and call bodas to come and pick us up. As we walk out to the road, giant raindrops start dropping. Of course I don't have a rain jacket or my hoodie, because when I left the house an hour earlier it was hot and the sky was bright blue. I do have my umbrella stashed in my purse so I stand outside the gate and wait as the rain grows heavier. Ten minutes later my boda calls me back and says "Should we wait for the rain or we go?" I am supposed to go to a friend's house later so I don't want to wait around..."If you can go, let's go." So he comes. His name is Samuel, and he is a leader in the Catholic church. Sometimes he talks about church, sometimes he talks about his opinions of the government, but today he just shouts through the rain that his wife is back from "digging" (gardening) in the village and he wants me to come and meet his family sometime. The rain is serious now and the thunder and lighting are almost constant. By the time we get home I look like I went swimming in my clothes. My contacts are blurry and I can barely see to pull out some money to pay Samuel. I run through the yard and into the house. Power is still on, which I note as strange since the thunder is so intense. Usually they've shut it off by now with a storm like this. Before I finish the thought, the power goes off. I realize I'm not going to make it to my friend's house for the evening, so I settle in and decide to make use of my computer's short battery to write this post. My friend beeps me, telling me that he needs to talk to me but doesn't have any airtime, so I call him back. He used to be a street kid but thanks to some good friends of mine he is doing well now...staying in school and working during the holidays to pay his school fees. He called to tell me he is worried about our friend who is hurting from something, and then to tell me thank you for being his friend. Now it's 9:06 and I'm already feeling sleepy. The rain hasn't stopped so I'm definitely not going anywhere else tonight. Goodnight Gulu, goodnight Africa, goodnight world!

Goodbye Survey

2011 In The Beginning......

Where did you bring in the New Year?:  Gulu Bible Community Church
Who were you with?:  Megan, Naomi, and the Congolese!
Did you kiss anyone at midnight?: Nope
Did you make any resolutions?:    I don't remember!

Did you change at all this year?: Always
Did you dye your hair?: Nope
Did you get your hair cut?:  Yep, once by Natalie outside Kristin's hut in Lukodi
Did you change your style?: Nope, still comfort above all, and of course cultural appropriateness
Did you get good grades?  Didn't take any classes, oddly enough
Did you have a job?: Full time missionary at Zion Project
Did you drive?:  Nope, I rode alot of bodas and busses
Did you own a car? Same car ... the Grey Goose
Did anyone close to you give birth?: Yes!!! Lane & Sara had Asher on Sept. 16th
Did you move at all?: Nope
Did you go on any vacations?: Yes, I went to Mto Moyoni in Jinja on the River Nile for a week-long retreat, and then Sippi Falls near Mbale for a long weekend with Naomi, Bre, Yvette, and Caylan. Super fun!
Did you leave the country at all?: Well, I had arrived in Uganda Dec of 2010, went home for part of April & May of 2011, and then went home for the holidays Nov 20th 2011. 

Would you change anything about yourself now?:  Yes

2011.....Wrap Up.
Is 2011 a good year?: It was both difficult and wonderful all at once.
Did 2011 bring any new insights?:    Oh yes...I learned alot about Ugandan culture, some that I wish I didn't know
Do you think 2012 will top 2011?:  Maybe! 
Do you have any goals for 2012?:  Follow God's guidance with all that I have
If you could relive any moment which would you choose?: Any moment with the Zion girls

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
 

passed out (visiting Jolly in the hospital).........
    
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't remember them.... I am making a new resolution on a daily basis for 2012.

3. Did anyone close to you die?

No

4. What countries did you visit?

Was based in Uganda, visited USA, layovers in the Netherlands :)

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

I don't know if I know what it means to lack

7. What date(s) from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

January - New Years with the Congolese

              -Mto Moyoni retreat

April - 5 new girls arrived in Zion home

July - had $500 stolen from my room

Sept - Sippi Falls trip

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

9.What was your biggest botch?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? 

Added African Tick Fever to my list of tropical diseases. June/July

11. What was the best thing you bought? 
 scarf!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Zion girls :)

14. Where did most of your money go?

rent, food, travel expenses, Zion girls/ministry

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2011?
The Civil Wars

Sleeping At Last 

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? 
Kept in touch with people better (always)

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? 
  being on facebook!

20. How will you be spending New Years Eve? 

spent it with my fam & Kelly & her gaming friends

22. Did you fall in love in 2011? 
Nope!

24. What was your favorite TV program? 
The Office, Outsourced

26. What was the best book you read? 

Re-read some old favorites, like Search for the Source

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? 
Civil Wars & Sleeping at Last

28. What did you want and get? 
a year in Uganda

29. What did you want and not get? 
a trip to Ethiopia, a trip to Sudan

30. What was your favorite film of this year? 
The Help

31. What did you do for your birthday? 
I was at home... went out to eat with the fam

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? 
accomplishing the license for the children's home (goal for 2012)

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011? 
COMFORT & cultural appropriateness

34. What kept you sane? 
other mzungus, coffee!

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? 

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

37. Who did you miss? 
Everyone!

38. Who was the best new person you met? 

 I have met SO many fun people, including Ugandans & other missionaries!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:

How difficult it can be to trust people...but how important it is...but how careful you have to be....but how much we need to trust each other..... still working on that one.

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure.

     This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

     This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

     At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

     Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest,

     and still there is room to fill.

~Rabindranath Tagore