I had a great birthday a few weeks ago (yes it takes me that long to find time when the power is on and I’m not too exhausted to sit down and write an interesting post). Thanks to all who made it a special day! The staff and kids sang happy birthday to me and gave me sweet notes and gifts. I hadn’t expected anything, and it was so sweet of them to do that. In the evening, I went out for burgers and fries with some friends. Not a particularly African birthday! :) It was a good celebration though and I was happy to be surrounded by good friends.
I have now celebrated a birthday on 4 continents! As much as I’d like to make it to all 7, I don’t think they do tours to Antarctica in July, since it’s winter there now :( Oh well, for now 4 in 25 years (really, all 4 in the last 5 years!) isn’t too bad!
I also recently took a day trip to Jinja, a town about 2 hours east of Kampala. It’s Uganda’s second largest city, but it’s a completely different world from Kampala. It’s much smaller, cleaner, and quieter. The countryside around the town is simply stunning. Hilly and green, covered in crops like sugar cane, tea, coffee, maize, and banana trees.
I went with my friend Molly, who is another short-term missionary working at another ministry in Kampala. The source of the Nile is in Jinja, so we went there for a few touristy pictures, then met another short-term missionary, Sarah. She works at an orphanage outside of Jinja, and we wanted to go for a visit to see some of the other ministries in Uganda.
The orphanage was about 45 minutes outside of Jinja, and there’s not really a taxi route that way. So our mode of transport? The ever-trusty boda boda. We somehow managed to squeeze all 3 of us onto the boda-- so 4 people total including the driver! We must have been quite a sight!
The road there went through several small villages, and the scenery was by far the most beautiful I’ve seen in Uganda. Rolling hills of sugar can stretched for miles, and I couldn’t get enough of the view.
It was really interesting to see the work that is being done out there. The work they’re doing is somewhat similar to Dwelling Places, but the setting was so different in that it was very secluded and rural. The compound is almost like its own village. All of the staff and volunteers live on the compound with the kids. So different from my life in Kampala, where I work normal business hours, then either head to my apartment or into the city center to run errands or socialize.
Other than that, life is chugging along at a pretty steady pace. Learning lots at work and growing in a lot of different ways. Really starting to get attached to some of the kids here and not wanting to think that I’ll have to leave them in a few months!
I’ll write more about work soon. For now, enjoy some pictures, and I need to save my computer battery because the power is once again out!
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