The little time I have left here seems surreal. Every day is built on a clock which is ticking faster and faster each moment. Every time I open my eyes (which is getting earlier and earlier—3 a.m., 5 a.m., 6 am… weird!), I map out the approaching day.

In the final weeks, we’ve done several projects; building two rooms for a schoolhouse, building a chicken coop at an orphanage, doing teacher training at a school, finishing details about the agriculture school, hand-washing stations, and some little projects here and there.

Projects

CHICKEN COOP

The latest and greatest project we’ve done! So Carrie, a girl from our team, fundraised $1,500 to build this chicken coop out at an orphanage that we work with. But before the construction was started, she headed back to America, so we were there to begin and finish the construction with the remaining month left. We started crunching numbers, and found that instead of being able to build the $9,000 chicken castle that they were proposing, we most definitely had to downsize. The proposal was for a 15’-30’ chicken coop. The size of our pool rang in my mind—18’-33’. That thing is massive, so the thought of a chicken coop that size seems surreal to me. That’s a lot of chickens.

We met with Godfrey the carpenter Godfrey, who is HILARIOUS! But he is also very brilliant, and helped us draft a new proposal for a 200-chicken sized, $300, 12’-18’ coop, as well as offering his supervision in the building—free of charge. He would. (We paid him anyway for being a godsend who solved our problem and a peach in being so generous with his time.) The orphanage director, Paul , accepted it, telling us that because he was just starting out, he really didn’t know where to begin. Full-steam-ahead, we purchased the materials two days later, hired workers for the construction, and headed out at 6 in the early a.m. to build it. Yeah, we rode on the back of the truck bed, on top of the timbers IN the freezing cold morning. Oh, mom, I uh… took out my blanket with me that you made, and since it was fuh-reezing cold. It has already collected a lot of dirt and some little buggy friends from here and there, if you catch my drift. So… after the day as we were leaving on bodas, I didn’t want the hassle of carrying it, as well as the thought of how many times I’d have to wash it once I get home before I feel safe using it. So… the orphans will always remember me (as well as the spelling of my name), because I just sorta uh donated it to them. I hope that’s okay… “It’s for the children!”…

The chicken coop was kinda shoddy-looking at first to me. But then I realized that here, things are all about utility, not necessarily LOOKS. And it works. It’s a nicely done chicken coop—African-style.

I thought of dad the whole time as they were building—when we were packing up the timbers into the back of a truck and for ten feet it stuck out, the sand being dumped out of the back of that one kind of truck, nails, hammers, digging holes, leveling… all of it made me think of daddy. J I’m glad he taught me to work.

TEACHER TRAINING

Last Thursday and this Tuesday I went to a little village called Najja; in this village we started an agriculture school, where the school is keeping bee hives, then selling the honey; also, they acquired land for a commercial garden, which they’ll use for feeding the kids as well as for profit. Anyway, we were at a school in this village to do teacher training. At first, I wasn’t so sold on the idea of teacher training, because the curriculum we were using seemed to be common sense. The curriculum is from some organization in Kenya, and is on child handling. But surprisingly, the schools really could use some help; the way the classes are taught is repetition: the teacher speaks, the kids repeat. They don’t really write much down, they don’t have any activities or ways to really measure the knowledge they are acquiring. I haven’t spent too much time in the schools, but suffice to say that I now feel that my time is well-spent when I’m doing teacher training. I was out there last week doing one lesson on interpersonal/intrapersonal personalities, and how best to tailor lessons to the two types of learners. TUESDAY Chelsea (Wooten. Woot Woot!) went out to do one, but only half the teachers were there, so they asked if we could reschedule so the others could come. Well, we rescheduled; since we’d spent time and money to get out there, we figured we’d make the most bang for our buck and chill around for a bit longer. We sat on the grass, reading then talking about rock climbing. Ummm, I think I have a new hobby when I get home! Chelsea asked what I like to do, and I looked at her stupefied… umm? What do I do? I…write in my journal. I…go to class… and study sometimes… Yeah, I discovered my lameness today. I don’t have real people hobbies—not even FAKE people hobbies! I’m going to change THAT!!! Rock climbing, baby!!! J Clubs. Drugs. Ha ha jk on the drugs.

Anyway, we sat around for 30 minutes-1 hour, then decided to head back. As we were standing up, a taxi drove by, but we thought nothing of it, figuring we’d hop on the next one. We started walking. “Freakin’ far. That’s how far!” are Chelsea’s words to describe the distance. It probably turned to be about 3 miles, maybe 4. No water all day. Dying African sun. We were loving life. But really, we did enjoy the walk; everything was so pretty that we were occupied enough. We just chatted. A scooter squeaked to a stop by us and the nice fellow asked where we were going. We eyed the scooter, wondering how many feet it would make with just him on it before it met its death. We told him we were okay, that a taxi would surely pass soon.

Yeah, no.

You know how you’re not supposed to hitchhike? Yeah, well we did. A dump truck/work truck stopped and the guys asked if we wanted a ride; we told them we were going to the next village, Buikwe. (From there we’d hop bodas). So we rode with them, wondering if we’d be kidnapped and sold into prostitution. They took us all of about 500 feet up the hill, then said our journey was over; they were going to a different fork in the road. Thanks, dudes. You’re all peaches.

Ha ha they really were nice; now we were back on foot, laughing our butts off.

We burned a little under the sun, then a taxi drove by and our adventures ended. What fun they were, though!

GARDEN

We went to Najja, this beautiful, secluded school in a small village—and we carried bricks to a garden spot, where we lined the garden and transplanted yummalicious foods. Tell you what, a day after carrying all those bricks, I would LOVE an INTENSE back massage, because it is KILLING. Plus I’ve acquired scratches, bruises, etc., and have NO clue from where. Ha ha My feet are the most dangered part of me. Ha ha

HAND-WASHING STATIONs

Way back in the day with my side-kick Molly (or rather as HER side-kick) we started an elderly group that has been meeting every week; they are so precious cute! I really like them! Some people on our team are public health majors, and so we made hand-washing stations with the elderly. The “stations” are little tripods with a jerry can (the most common sight in Uganda) to hold the water; by stepping on a piece of wood, the water comes out. Don’t worry about it—I’ll put up pictures. Ha ha To see how GRATEFUL they were was just so touching! They are so precious!!

Thoughts

My mind is torn between Africa and America—I am trying to finalize things back home, but still physically here doing work. I am so excited to come home, though! I know I will miss being here, but so is life. C’est la vie! Life is all about moving on, change, new experiences. I am hoping to get a second part-time job during the off-hours of school. And save money. Then…? Who knows? I like the adventure of not having a definitive plan for more than the months right ahead of me. But those months right ahead of me were causing me STRESS!!! Especially because I am a trillion gazillion miles away on a different continent where the animals hate people, showering is not a necessity, shaving is even LESS so, cameras are gold, clothes are washed by hand, water is only on 1/3 of the time, people eat with hands (a hobby I’ve adopted), motorcycles are the most common form of transportation, dust is your new best friend, jeans are foreign, deodorant is running LOW!!!, breath smells like a sewer, trash lines the streets, kids play outside all day because inside holds nothing for them to do, as it is merely four walls around them with a roof overhead. I love all of it.