Parties, hair, and hygiene

Oh goodness gracious, life is FLYING by here!! So fast, in fact, that I forget to shower sometimes. Until last night, I had not showered since either Friday NIGHT or Saturday MORNING. My lack of hygiene is not entirely due to busyness—part is my holding out for the water to be on; I don’t prefer bucket showers. However, last night I caved and finally stopped being able to draw pictures in the dirt caked on my arm. That was the longest interval of no shower I’ve ever had, thank goodness.

Mushroom House

The biggest project of the week has been building a mushroom house in a village called Lubanyi. Our partner in the project is Paul, a guy who I actually met at the internet back in May. I was more new to being here, and just started chatting up with him because he looked friendly. Turns out he worked with HELP in the past, but his name was nowhere in any of the past reports. Now he’s a key contact, and basically our favorite! I was so happy to be part in finding a new partner. Actually, cute story: the first time we went out to his village (Buikwe), I met his wife Rose. After that I guess she chummed up to the idea of me, because every time I have met with him since he tells me Rose misses me and wants to visit. I saw her again a week or so ago, and she is SO cool! She taught me that on the left hand, a ring means different things depending on which finger it is on: pinky is single and looking. Ring finger—married. Middle—engaged. Pointer—widowed under 60. Thumb—“retired widow:” widow over 60, so can’t remarry. She is gorgeous, too! And they have a li’l daughter, Patience. ANYWAY, Paul is our contact. (The picture, though, is with David, our temporary guard.)

Dad would be proud of me—all the building, digging, and manual labor reminds me of the various fences we built. When I say “we,” I mean dad and anyone who wasn’t loafing on the side of the house under the lean-to eating ice cream. J We rode up in the back of a dump-truck kind of truck that was hauling the materials: what mushroom houses are are long, narrow rooms where mushrooms are grown inside, then sold. Mushrooms are profitable around here because the market is new. From digging post holes to cutting wood, bamboo, and papyrus mats with a machete, I put in three days of good manual labor worth being proud of. Thanks for teaching me, daddio.

Women’s Groups

Lately I’ve taken a love for hosting/attending women’s groups. When I first heard of HELP and read about the women’s groups, I thought they were lame. And even two months in to being here, my mentality remained unchanged. I’ve come to see that meeting with these groups is useful for both: we get to learn more about everyday life and their knowledge level, and then they can learn from different lessons we have on nutrition, back therapy, business, personal finances, etc. I currently meet with about 4 different groups throughout the week, and some are my FAVORITE day. One has been meeting for 5 years. Some have never met before. I love, LOVE the jeja group—the elderly! They are so cute! I saw one of them in town, and I thought I’d given her my first-born child she was so delighted to see me and say, “Cecillia!”

(The picture is Molly & I with a flask of honey that one of our partners dumped into our hands to eat. Apparently it is medicinal...)

4^th of July!!!--and a new hairstyle

By far, one of my top FAVORITE vacations!! The U.S. Embassy hosted a party in Kampala, the capital city. The night prior, several of us (we?) girls did our hair in rag curls so that for the party we would have curly, cute hair. Someone ripped up an extra sheet, and we went to work--wet your hair, tie the fabric in like curlers. As I was in the midst of playing with hair, I had scissors in my hand and got a bit excited. I was ready for a change, so I went snip, snip, snip, and gave myself straight-across bangs. I LOVE 'em! Then, I was trying to thin them out as we sat outside doing someone's hair. Yeah, you should use a mirror when you do that. A minor catastrophe ensued, which was accompanied by the girls I was with screaming and laughing at it. We got it all sorted out, and now I have bangs--pretty short bangs, at that.

4th of July party. Embassy. Crazy to see so many muzungus. We carpooled there with 3 Alabama (I say "Abalama") people that are in Lugazi---(Ssssuuuchhh funny people! They are here volunteering in an orphanage, so Molly and I dropped by to see it/them, and we spent two hours talking about books, schooling, adventure sports, development, and cracking jokes about all that those topics entailed.) Back to Independence Day: The festivities were just like home! We did fake li'l American tattoos, had hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, and sodas while sitting on the lawn. I never thought I'd really MISS the celebrations from home, but I thought back onto the lazy days at the pool after we cotton candied the parade route the prior morning. The whole day was empty because the Embassy party didn't start till 5. But still, I was grateful for a celebration! I thought the fireworks would be a bit lame, since importing fireworks to Uganda isn't exactly SIMPLE. Holy cow, no! The fireworks were stellar! They even played the classic 4th of July song: "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died and gave that right to me..." Hearing that song as I'm sitting in Uganda really made me proud to be an American. We have so much more freedom that sometimes we forget to appreciate.

Mabira Forest

We live right next to a forest, which we call a rain forest but really is just a forest. We spent a day hiking it, and wow it was gorgeous! David, our new guard, accompanied us because he said that we shouldn't have 6 girls go hiking alone. We picnicked in the forest--Jif peanut butter! What a delicacy!

Mat—mine and David’s

So, after a bit of drama, our new and hopefully final guard is David. I finally learned how to start the reed mats. I knew how to DO it and have been working on it, so I tested myself and taught David how to make it. I bought materials to start a second one, and I love it! David is so funny as he sits working on his mat for his wife. Presh!