DAY 5- May 22: Jinja

**Disclaimer: 1. I don't check my spelling or grammar.. well because I write a lot and I don't want to read through it again. So I am very sorry if I have mistakes! 2. Please feel free not to read all of this. Most of this is pointless. I just want to be thorough. 3. Thanks for being dedicated followers! 

So today I woke up at 7 am. Breakfast is always at 8 am and the café room is probably 5 steps from our door (or maybe like 2 steps if you are a little taller than me). We set our alarm for 8 am and just roll out of bed, but today I couldn’t fall back to sleep. At 7:30 am I got to talk to some friends on skype and updated my blog, which made me happy. For breakfast we had a similar food to what we had the previous day: toast, pineapple (YUM again), mango, granola, and jam (of course there is coffee, tea, and the orange/mango juice every morning). Then I got to do more skyping! Yay, friends and momma!

Next, it was time for textbook reading. Didn’t get too far because I started talking to Fish, Dr. Selby, and later the missionaries (Mark and Spencer). We were discussing the Island that we have the opportunity to go to in a few weeks (stay tuned for that post, I’m sure it will be amazing!). Mark said it is his favorite place.. on earth! Wow. Bold statement, right?

Since the religion class was finished we all decided to go to the main Gately and order some Thai food! We all heard it was really good, which seems slightly strange, because I don’t know if there are any Thai people in Uganda. Our food only took an hour to get to us…. But its okay because I had to opportunity to get to know some girls in our group better as well as just sit and enjoy God’s beauty- the view of the beautiful Lake Victoria, the lush greenery, and the pretty and colorful flowers. Basically it’s like sitting at a resort, except this is real… and not trying to imitate something else (it doesn’t need to). The food was pretty good. 14000 shillings ($7). Probably the most expensive place in all of Jinja.

After dinner we were late to meeting Bobby for our service learning portion at The Source. So we power walked into town. It takes about 10 minutes, but the heat slows you down a little. It was our first time walking to town.. and we kinda knew the way.. the point is, is that we DID make it, and we were the first ones from our group. And we did not get hit by any moving vehicle! Goal achieved.

Cultural difference #2: African timing. We got there..(late), but they told us they weren’t ready anyways so we had 30 minutes to kill. Which reminds me of the lunch we had, I feel like there is no such thing as time in Africa. Having dinner or lunch served at a certain time or meeting at a certain time doesn’t exist here. Everyone is more flexible and goes with the flow whenever things happen they happen, even if it takes a long long long time to them it doesn’t matter.

So after we waited for our 2 guides Roy and Abraham to come back from lunch, we split into our two groups. I’m in Roy’s group. He is a very well spoken and knowledgeable man. He told us about the Mvule project (he’s the one in charge of it). He explained to use that Ugandans don’t think ahead to the future. They live in the moment. They think about how they are going to survive today and maybe tomorrow, they don’t look to the future. But what Roy and his team wants to do is to get the Ugandans to look to the future. So this project deals with planting Mvule Trees, because although they take 150 to 200 years to fully mature, they will be very beneficial in the future. So what they do is tell people that every tree they plant (Roy and his team gives them the plant), they get a bar of soap. And if the tree is still living (so if the people take care of it) 3 months later from when they planted it, then the people get half a kilo of sugar. Now a bar of soap might not sound important to us especially since it costs about $6, but to these people, it is so much. It is an incredible reward. Roy spent a lot of time trying to explain to us how much of a prize the soap is to the people here. When the Ugandans see what they others are getting to plant the tree, they want to plant trees too.

The project is funded almost all by U.S. donors. In order for the people in the U.S. to see how they are making an impact in Africa. Roy and his team pin points the trees and takes a picture in order to upload it to google earth, so people can see a picture of a tree their money helped pay for. It sounds like a really awesome project, and I hope I can get involved somehow when I get back to the states, because what Roy and his team is doing is really positively impacting the people here, whether they realize it now or not.

He also told us the history on The Source Cafe, and how the missionaries renovated and changed it (like adding the church part) when they obtained the land. They have Bible study rooms, and even rooms and showers for people to use if needed. There is also a computer lab where they teach people to use the computer, as well as a craft store and library. Then the four of us who were staying at the Café got a tour of the place in more detail. We got to see the library. We learned that it will be one of two lending libraries in Uganda. Isn’t that crazy?! That means the other libraries don’t let the people choose the book from the shelves life we do. They have to ask the librarian, and he or she gets the book from the back. Then the person has to finished the book before he or she leaves. They obviously have a lot of trust issues, and probably think people will steal the books. Candace also told us about how Americans always think they can send any books they don’t want to places like Africa thinking that any book will be fine, at least it’s a book. However, books that are relevant to the people here will not do any good. So she finds herself having to go through all the books she gets and taking out lots of them.

Then we got to see the kitchen. We met Kuwaite (sp?)! He’s great! He makes all the good food. We helped wash dishes… for them it was really awkward that we wanted to help, because in African tradition they like to be the host. I was really surprised that such a small kitchen produces so many delicious foods. He even gave us aprons to wear! We had a good time.

When we finished, we walked home. We saw 4 boys hanging out in this grass field between stores. They looked dirty.. they were sitting in a pile of sticks or dirt or trash. We couldn’t really tell. They just kept looking at us. So we called them over. I brought out one of Meredith’s wonderful DG lime green slap bracelets. They loved them obviously! They just stuck out their arms, so we could slap it on them! Their smiles were my favorite. Such a small thing can make them so happy. Truly rewarding. Thanks Mer/DGs!

Once back to the Gately time for reading than dinner. (Chicken, rice, and vegetables! Yummy!) Then it was class.. after a long day, class from 7-9 pm is very very very long. Interesting Topic of the Class: It’s not an event itself that is hard, difficult, happy, bad, scary or sad, its just how we believe the event will turn out, happen, or be like. We bring our own perspectives to everything. Think about that!

Shower. Blog. Sleep.