Hey everyone! I hope you're all well in the US right now. Your emails have brought much encouragement and joy and nearly some tears...it's hard not to read the emails, hear your voices, and miss you! I am doing really well right now. I think with culture shock I will have good days and bad days...yesterday I was a bit sad, but talking to mom and dad, even if only for three minutes each was really nice.

I got to see the city of Mukono yesterday. It's the closest town to the University, so we just walked there and played a sort of scavenger hunt game. I bought a bottled coke and some laundry detergent (it's nearly time for my first round of handwashing clothes to take place) and a scrub brush--in Uganda, the red dirt/dust/mud gets everywhere, and the people and washing with your hands or a washcloth just isn't enough. There's no such thing as a high pressure shower, either. I take my baths out of a basin of water...it's a round basin maybe 6 inches high and a foot and a half across. A bath only involves a couple of inches of cold water poured into the basin. Then I wash my hair first, using a cup to pour water on my head and rinse the shampoo and conditioner out--which never seem to completely come out. Next I soap down my body and use my hands to scoop up water and pour it on myself--bathing with one's hands is quite a skill to have, because it takes talent to squat down, get a hand-full of water, stand up, and get the water dumped onto your back (over your shoulder) before all of the water has drained out. I haven't tackled shaving my legs yet...but it's coming in the next couple of days. My family has a bath-room, which is a room with a cement floor, clothes line, and a drain where you wash clothes or take a bath. After getting water over all the floor, you use this water-broom thing to sweep the water into the drain. The first night, while trying to dry off with my towel, I discovered what happens when you don't get all the water to the drain--you fall flat on your back on the cement floor...and then if you're me, you lie flat on your back, naked, on the floor and wonder what in the heck you are doing in Africa.

So that's bathing. Other interesting things include the food. We eat something called Matoke often. It's basically a yellow mash of a bitter banana they have here--the texture is really odd...but it passes as food when covered with some kind of a sauce. We have rice all of the time, and the dining hall on campus always has rice and beans. My family at home has better food than the campus. We mostly have rice or noodles, sometimes with Matoke and Potatoes, and then sometimes cabbage, and always some sort of sauce, the past couple of nights it's been a fish sauce of some sort. We also had some dried fish. That's lunch/dinner. My lunches are on campus, my dinners at home. I have breakfast at home as well, usually bread and butter, and tea, and the past couple of days we've had some form of egg (fried and boiled). We also drink tea in the afternoon between 7pm and dinner. Dinner here is not until between 9-10:30 pm, or in African language "whenever it is finished". I like most of the food, and am adjusting well to it. That's one thing I was worried about, but so far so good. American life centers around food--it's easy to spend the day looking forward to the next meal--here food can be important around holidays and special occassions, but it certaintly isn't a preoccupation of most people...you simply eat what you have when you have it, when it's ready. With all the walking I am doing, I would think I would lose weight, except the story here is that most girls gain weight--the portions here are huge, that's for sure. I feel forced to eat way beyond when I am full. It's rude not to have at least two portions of everything. So I am eating a lot of food at dinner especially, and then sleeping on it, but I am walking sooo much! My legs are very sore from walking so many miles on uneven, hilly roads, but it's a good muscle-building sort of sore and my knees seem to be doing well so far.

Dad, thank you for the humor of your email. It brightened my day. We do share a lot of good laughs. I remember being lost around Milligan and crying...may I never complain about being lost in the US again! Being lost in a car is nothing to being lost on foot in a foreign country, where everyone who sees you says "hey mzungu!" (white person!) and then, when you pass them for the 3rd time, says "welcome back mzungu" lol And I might have called you if I would have had a cell phone...though I doubt my village is on very many maps. It's very close to the town of Mukono, up on a hill that surrounds the city, behind the university somewhere. It's called upper Nabuuti, which is close to the correct spelling I think.

Mom, thanks for the encouragement. It was so good to hear your voice yesterday. I really liked the calendar quote. That's pretty cool. You're right about my quest for strategy, which is hard in a new culture. It drives me nuts sometimes here...I still haven't figured out the politest way to greet people, or how to make small talk--there are always lots of tiny strategies and ways of doing things in cultures, and I am doing my best here to find them. And yes, landmarks here are important. They told us it would be hard to ask directions from a Ugandan because they'll tell you to take a left at the big mango tree, a right at the grey outhouse, and another right at mayors house. And I dont know what a mango tree looks like, all outhouses seems to be gray cement, and who is the mayor anyway? :)

Alright. My posts get longer each time. As the semester picks up, with crazy amounts of homework to come, I won't have so much time to write. I love you all and thank you for the prayers!