Monday, August 30th - International Marketing

Wowzers! Where did the week go! It's Monday Again!

It has been a rainy week - officially in rainy season! The rain is a great way to cool off the days, but makes for a very greasy mess!

I went to Kiwoko on Saturday for the market and sported the amazing Pioneer HiBred bag - I carried all my fruit and vegetable findings in it and I'm thinking - a promotion in International Marketing? I mean if I want to be fair to the classes I took on International Marketing, I would have to say that there really isn't a market for it now, but maybe with proper research, you never know.

We just had the longest power outage since I have been here - The power went out on Saturday of last week and officially came back on Friday - With little blips on and off ever since. I don't quite trust it yet, so I will hold off on buying anything that needs absolute freezing or refrigeration.

The vehicle situation that I mentioned last week turned out to be fine. The team made it back safe and sound, but they weren't able to go on all their scheduled safari events. But they definitely had an adventure of their own - regardless of the wild animals.

Tuesday, August 24th - Please power, please

We are going on day 3 without power - since I arrived in June, this is the longest we have been without electricity. My thoughts of getting solar power for my house are coming back.....contents in the freezer...please don't go bad!

The team is away on safari right now, but they have done some terrific work in the new Babyhouse. Hopefully they will have one more good day to work before their departure. The next team doesn't arrive until the end of September, so we are going to enjoy the month of silence before 3 teams come back to back to back.

No bats, rats, snakes or anything of the like lately - which I am grateful for. Sunday night, I did receive a lesson in Ugandan cooking. It wasn't truly traditional cooking, but it did include Royco - one of the main spices/beef stock in Uganda. It seems that you can put Royco into anything and make it into something.

As I finish this, still no power and a vehicle/team situation on my hands - If your are praying, please pray for the power and the team.

Thursday, August 19th - Dance Party!

The day has been a hot one - some may say, "well, duh!" but the past week has been so cold. "Cold" is relative, I know, but when you are sitting outside and are still shivering, then I think it is classified as cold - no matter where you are from. So, for the record, it does get very cold in Africa!

The team that is here is still working on the new Babyhouse - any little bit of progress makes such a difference. I just found out the other day that the team working on the babyhouse were the ones who did the ground breaking of the building back in 2008. 2 years later, it still is not finished, but with many factors - lack of funding, manpower, and other projects, we are so thankful to have some manpower and finances from this team and other places. Baby steps...

As I hear more of the stories of the children who are a part of my life and New Hope as a whole, I am so thankful for 1. the babyhouse, 2. family group parents, and 3. the early adulthood department, as well as so many more departments, people, and families. The stories and testimonies that I hear reveal how Awesome God's grace and mercy is toward children and how much He has been glorified through them all.

School holiday is winding down rather quickly for the secondary school students (the Primary school students continue their holiday until the 1st week in August.) At David Family tonight, one of the boys wanted to dance, and I happened to have my computer in my bag, so I tried to find a song that would be the right beat for him to dance to. I don't think I ever found "the one," but the other kids seemed to enjoy whatever I was playing - A dance party (my first one here) had erupted amongst the younger children and i brought back memories of college days - what fun it was!

Monday, August 16th

The past few days have been rather uneventful - no bats, rats, a few centipedes and spiders, but nothing too bizarre. On Saturday I bought a lawn mower - A 2 foot long metal shaft with a 7 inch blade on the bottom. I kind of resembles a short golf putter, but the arm motion is completely different. "Slashers" are what they are fondly known as and I used to be terrified of using one, with the fear of chopping a limb off - either one of my own, or someone else's - but I am slowly getting the hang of it. But a lawn mower for $1.25, I thought it was pretty good.

The power have been great for the days that it is on, and not so great the other times. We had a 2 day outage last week, which had people, including me, a tad bit stressed.

We watched a movie with David Family last night - The movie had many kinds of extreme sports in it, and it was fun to try and explain it all to them and hear the "wow! ooh!" as they were watching snowboarding, surfing and other sports that don't exist here.

The new Babyhouse is being worked on by a team that just arrived on Saturday. They have been accomplishing a lot so far and I can't wait to see how much is completed by the time they leave!

Tuesday, August 10 - "You Plow Like a Man"

I just got back from a bonfire and what fun we had! JetPuffed marshmallow, s'mores, firelight, hot chocolate, good conversation = a good evening! Having bonfires is something that I miss about not being back in North Dakota during the summer, but I had a little bit of home in Uganda tonight.

Plowing with David Family went well again - I am slowly getting the hang of it. I must have made a vast improvement since last time because as I was plowing, I received the comment, "You plow like a man." I guess I will take it as a compliment...

Friday evening, I came home to find that I had a roommate. I wasn't expecting this one, nor did I want to welcome it - A bat decided to perch itself on one of my screens and haunt me - bringing back the fear of my bat experience in 2008. I ran to my neighbors to see what I should do. Do I hit it from the outside? from the inside and risk being attacked? I had no idea. We formed a plan to hit the bat from the outside in order to stun the bat and then go in for the kill.

I hit the bat, sending it flying across my living room and then after much "You can do it Hannah" pep talk, I braved the fateful walk into my own house - where the bat (which was tiny) had taken over. I found the creature in the corner, behind a chair and had no choice but to give it a good lethal thwap. (It took me about 5 minutes to summon up enough guts to hit it) but I did and now I have another "First" to mark off my list. Rat killer - check. Bat killer - check. Snake killer - hopefully never.

Saturday morning, the children in the family group nearest to my house were wondering what was going on Friday night - We had been strategizing (rather loudly), laughing, screaming, taking pictures - all for this tiny bat.

When the new babyhouse gets finished (which is located next door to my house) I will have to keep my late-night animal hunting adventures to a minimum I guess.