African Paradise and SIPI FALLS> (AKA HEAVEN)

Hola family and friends! I have so much to write about that I am having trouble even knowing where to begin. Here goes!

Wednesday June 2:I went to volunteer at Kawolo Hospital for the morning. I initially brought children's books to read but all the children in the ward had parents there so that didn't work out. Some girls went to observe a surgery or examination of an expecting mother, but that wasn't quite up my ally haha. In Africa, by the way, the hospitals are run a little differently. There are no restricted areas. You can perform any kind of medical thing you want. Well, if you are mzungus like us i guess. Of course we didn't though. It's just crazy how we could go anywhere we wanted in the hospital. I ended up going to the premature babies and held a little boy while the mother rested. It was soooo tiny. Honestly the most precious thing I have ever seen. It probably weighed three pounds at most. He had a headful of dark black hair and was just perfect. Ah I just loved him so much. If he was an orphan I would take him home with me. Such a special experience. That's about all we did there.

Thursday June 3: Martyrs day!! National holiday! Awesome awesome day. So, here's a little history of Uganda for ya. On June 3, 1886, King Mwanga ordered the killing of 26 of his pages, 13 Anglicans and 12 Roman Catholics. 25 of these Christian converts were killed after a week long torture at Namugongo. The 26th martyr was killed at a later time. They were burned for rejecting the executioner's persuasion to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. Now, people walk from all over the country to commemorate the sacrifice and strong faith of the martyrs. People even come from Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda! People literally walk for days in advance to make it to Namugongo. We woke up at 6 am and had our trusted driver Godfrey take us! It was so cool, people were EVERYWHERE! I've never seen so many people lining the streets and in this huge open field area. Church choirs were singing, people selling religious things, etc. We went to the site and had a great history tour. It was so fun to celebrate with the Ugandans at a place that was so sacred to their religion.

Friday June 4: Hmm what did I do this day. Oh! I had a meeting with Wilson and we worked out all the kinks of the Annual Help Writing Contest we are sponsoring! Wilson is THE MAN. Have I written about him?? We all love him. Seriously, too much. He's 22 and started his own non profit organization called The Youth Outreach Mission(TYOM). It's been going for three years and he does SO MUCH for this community. He doesn't get money for doing it either. I spent all day with him but I'll write about it later. The meeting went great, then we did another teacher training at Skyway Primary School. Oh it was so cramped!! It was raining and so there wasn't an extra room for us to go with all the teachers. We squished into this tiny little dark room with about ten teachers and i wrote on the chalkboard. It was fun though! They skyway teachers need you to be a little overenthusiastic about everything, which was kind of fun for me in all honesty. Every group of teachers is different, and they just needed a little more encouragement to participate haha. They love it though. Our cultures are just different!
Oh yes!~! Friday night we went dancing at AFRICAN PARADISE!!! Hahaha it is a local dance club right by our house. We had Wilson, who I previously mentioned, as well as Godfrey, (not our driver, he's one of Wilson's friends who helps us alot and we love) and some of their other friends escorted us there! Actually, in Uganda they don't say escort. They say "PUSH". As in, "We are here to push you to the club." hahaha. Anyways it was quite the experience. We had a strategic circle of our African friends surrounding us the entire time we danced. When the other men at the club tried to dance with us, our "bodyguards" if you will, would talk to them and they'd back off. We had the best time! NOthing like an outdoor dance club/hut in Africa with a sweet DJ. Awesome night.

Saturday June 5: SIPI FALLS!!!!!!!!!! Okay, I cannot even begin to describe the amazingness of this place. WOWOWOWOW! So we left around 6 am saturday morning to catch a taxi to Sipi. It's about 4 hours away from Lugazi, my town. The best way I can describe it is HEAVEN ON EARTH. I'm completely convinced there is no place more beautiful on this earth. I thought Lugazi was green and tropical?? Sipi falls is up in the mountains, which was so awesome to be in! More like a plateau of jungle, but still a mountain nonetheless. Driving up this windy jungle road it overlooked a huge cliff. On this cliff we could see three GINOURMOUS waterfalls and it was honestly the coolest thing ever. I can't wait to put pictures on this blog when i get home and show you. ahhhh! it gets better. We drive up to our campsite and picture this: it is on the cliff's edge, trees everywhere, waterfalls within sight, the main lodge is a bamboo hut with a thatched stick roof with a huge deck to look out over the valley. Then they showed us our sleeping corridors and guess what they were? Our OWN tiny little bamboo stick/mud/thatched roof huts!!! We were dying. SOOOO AWESOME!!! I am feeling giddy with joy just remembering it. Did I mention there were monkeys just wandering around the campground? Yep. Tons. So mom and dad, I think I found my future place of residence=Moses's Campground?? haha coolest thing i've ever done! We proceeded to eat some beans for lunch, then head out with our trusty tour/weekend planner man Fred!! He was soo nice to us. He totally could have tried to rip us off but he was so helpful. He arranged all the meals, walked us around at night to make sure we were safe, took us on hikes, set up repelling, and just did it all. Love him! People are so friendly in Uganda. Honestly, they are the best people I know. Most of the help he did for us wasn't because he was getting paid. However, he did propose to Katelynn so there could have been underlying motivations there hahahaha. The hike was so beautiful (that word doesn't do it justice one bit) and we took tons of pictures and saw three huge awesome waterfalls. After hours of hiking up and down and all around cliffs and waterfalls, Fred took us to another huge hut lodge with a deck and we ate a candlelit dinner outside watching the sun go down. The day could not have been more perfect. It was delicious too, not 100% African which was a nice change. After dinner Fred walked us home in the dark, and the guys running Moses' campsite had started a bonfire for us on the edge of the cliff by the lodge. Moses is one of the guys uncle and they all were working there. They were so fun! All our age and we had a blast. We told stories, laughed, and the boys even sang songs for us. Don't worry that they were all sappy love songs they wrote themselves.. hahaha. It was great. We even talked to a girl from Italy who was volunteering in Gulu. Sweet!

Sunday June 6: I accomplished something that I never thought I would have the guts to do. Ready? I repelled down a 300 FOOT WATERFALL. IN AFRICA!! Yep, I did! I promise! I have pictures to prove it. Now, I will admit I have never been so scared in my life. My entire life! At the top I was panicking and the other 7 girls were just laughing away at me. I couldn't believe how high up we were, just on the edge of this straight down cliff with the waterfall crashing over the edge 30 feet away. But after watching Carrie go over the edge first, I knew I better go now or I'd chicken out! So off I went! I walked backwards over the edge of the tallest cliff ever with just some rope saving me from death! Haha it was so scary. Oh man. But once that initial over the edge moment happened, it was awesome! Looking down and seeing my little rope dangling with no one at the bottom, looking to my left and seeing this massive waterfall cascading next to me and hitting the mossy boulders below was the sweetest moment of my life and one that I'll not soon forget!! We had a blast and it was completely worth the 50 bucks I spent risking my life to do it. YES!
So that was my incredible weekend in Sipi. We got home at 8 sunday night, had a team meeting, and welcomed Mike from HELP in America! He is staying with us this week to see how things are going. We pretty much love him because he brought us a bag of chocolate. Yep. Good good weekend.

Monday.. Today! Me suzanne and ally spent all day with Wilson (lucky us) going around to schools and promoting our writing contest. Students are so excited about it! Which makes me so happy! I can't wait to read all the entries!! Ah! We're going to turn the winning pieces into a book and publish it back at home because Suzanne has connections. It's gonna rock. Wilson is such a good person. His heart is so big! He goes goes goes all day long to help his community and doesn't take breaks or do anything for himself! I made him stop and eat my crackers and had to buy him water because he didn't have any money. Oh wilson. We love you! We couldn't do it without him.

This week's gonna be a good one! Oh and I've hit my one month mark of living in Africa!! Here are some things you should know :)
-It smells like burning trash multiple times a day
-People wear puffy winter coats if it gets below 75 degrees. sooo funny!
-there are huge storks/cranes/freaky pteradactyl birds that sit on buildings and freak me out
-ugandans say "mmm" instead of "uh huh". we all do it now
-"please" is tacked onto random phrases like "thank you please". or "yes please" when asked if they like something
-pedestrians do NOT have the right of way! cars/bodas speed up and honk at you!
-for every five people, three are named godfrey
-women should sit sideways on bodas. we dont, therefore boda drivers think we are crazy
-the water and power go out all the time. as in, almost every day hahaha
-Ugandns laugh at you when you walk out in the rain
-cows, chickens and goats roam freely in streets and yards. ugandans are scared of cows and i know why! when they are charging at you it is terrifying!

Thats all for now! I love my life! It is honestly too good to be true. Welaba!