African Twisty Twists!

Good morning friends and family! its a beautiful rainy day here in lugazi. i love the rain! yesterday a bunch of us were walking home from a project and realized we were locked out of our front gate. so we took off to find the person with the keys when it started to downpour! it just comes out of nowhere, that african rain. so we ran for shelter under our good friend Alex's chipatti stand. its a tiny open hut with a stick roof and a tarp over it. so while we were somewhat covered, we definitely all got wet under there! It was fun though because we got to talk to him and watch him cook random things. Anyway we ended up having to run all the way home through the rain because it wasn't stopping. By the time we got home we were wetter than if we'd jumped in a pool!

Later in the day a few of us took off to Hope Orphanage and did some activities with the orphans there. I love those kids so much. Its really fun now because we actually know the kids and have become good friends with them. We brought bubbles that the boys just loved, and fingernail polish to paint the girls nails. They had so much fun! We even showed them how to do it and they painted each others. I brought picture books and we read them to the younger kids as well. We helped them read after a while and I was very impressed with their English for their young age.

There is one girl named Resty that is my best little buddy there. we hang out pretty much the whole time and talk about her life and what she likes and doesn't like. She is the happiest girl and is always smiliing. These kids make you feel like you can change the world and do anything you want. In america we have sooo many opportunities that these children just don't have. and it breaks my heart to listen to them talk about their plans for the future and know that they only see it as a dream. When i graduate from college and eventually become a teacher, that is one thing i will always be telling my students. You can be anything you want to be. Follow your dreams! There are so many opportunities in the world just waiting for you. Never let anyone tell you that you can't do something. You can. There will always be someone that will support you and help you achieve your dreams. Well that's all of my little -follow your dreams- tangent for now..

SOOO I have officially gotten an AFRICAN MAKEOVER. On wednesday afternoon I up and decided I wanted to get my hair plaited! Cecilly, a girl on my team, did it a couple weeks ago and it looked pretty sweet. So Molly went with me to walk around town finding an open salon to do it. Everyone was busy and we weren't having any luck... when we ran into Wilson and Godfrey!! YES! haha so i had them take me somewhere to get it done. So the lady, Sophie, doesn't really speak English I'm told. So wilson negotiates a price and takes off! I literally sat down and they just went to town. I didn't even know what they were goign to do. I ended up getting AFrican Twisty Twists!!! hahahaha. Oh my gosh. What they do, is take all this fake hair and twist it into tiny strands of my own hair. It took 5 hours!! oh my gosh. i have too much hair for these kinds of things. oh and i almost forgot, it is almost to my waist! soooo long! they did this cool curly thing to the ends of it... i'll have to put pictures on my blog of all of this when i get home. its hard to describe! just know that i look like an african now :) love it!

sorry i have been neglecting our projects lately. its been crazy with second wavers here this week. but good of course! we're transitioning to new schools for teacher training, and suz ally and i got the writing contest proposal passed yesterday!! we didn't even have to use any team funds because suzanne's amazing in-laws-to-be donated 200 dollars to the contest! they are so awesome. did i mention suzanne is engaged?? yep! she got engaged the DAY before she flew here! haha crazy girl. i love her though, we pretty much spend all day every day together doing education projects!
we are going to collect all the writing contest entries on monday and i can not wait any longer!! :)

***********We're also working really hard as a team to fundraise through home to get more money for the eye camp. we just need 1,000 more dollars and we'll be able to HELP TWICE AS MANY PEOPLE! so if anyone is reading this and would be willing to donate just a little more money to the camp, we would be so grateful.
To make sure the money gets to our team, you have to send it to HELP INTERNATIONAL and make it specifically towards the LUGAZI EYE CAMP. thank you so much to anyone who donates! our tipping bucket fundraiser worked so well and we just wish we could have anticipated the extra funds before so we could have gotten it earlier.

well i have to go, but i hope everyone at home is doing great! i love you all! so mom, should i leave my african hair in until we meet you in paris?? ;)
HAPPY FATHERS DAY ON SUNDAY DAD!!! I LOVE YOU!