Since the last update a lot has gone on...I will begin by explaining the big illness scare and the amount of guilt I felt missing my second day of school. I woke up Wednesday morning freezing cold (chills is an understatement). It took me a moment to remember that even though it is winter here it is never cold sleeping in my cramped bottom bunk surrounded with mosquito net. My whole body hurt and my throat was definitely swollen. Catherine and Danielle took my temperature, a little over 100..."So, then it's not malaria?!" Suddenly all of our references to eating malaria, getting bit by malaria, or snorting malaria weren't so funny. Thankfully Andy came home from school with biscuits (cookies), tea, extra sheets, and African airborne. I slept the entire day on and off, still managing to go to bed early. Thursday morning I felt much better and headed out for school.
Elizabeth knew I didn't feel well (she was the 4th person to tell me "you don't look well", and you know what that means in the states). Our first class of the day began with impromptu speeches. I was immediately thankful I made the effort. I showed Elizabeth our section on impromptu speeches which she read thoroughly and excitedly pointed out what looked familiar. She wrote out topics before hand- much different than our choices- we had "mending a puncture (a bike tire), washing clothes, and playing football (soccer)". Much like I would do in class she asked the students the reasoning behind why an impromptu speech would be important. Surprisingly similar answers, "to help us talk in front of people, think on our feet", and a unique answer for me to hear, "to speak her language better". The students took their time and looked at me for head nods as they pronounced certain words (Elizabeth does a great job helping them with annunciation). They thanked me for my help and clapped for me...They also plugged their noses and said "byyyyyyeeee" in a very high pitched tone as I left ( "that is what munus sound like to them" Elizabeth said....I thought- "great, so I sound like a congested valley girl"...
Elizabeth then took me to the "sick bay" (nurse)...VERY interesting. She did not ask me how I felt or what my symptoms were; she scooped out a number of pills from an unmarked plastic container and said, "ummm, you take 3, 2 times day". I asked if they were penicillin... She said, "ummm, no, I think, no"...Obviously I gave the pills to Elizabeth and explained yet another one of my allergies to her. She is like a Uganda mom...She asks when I will have a family (I say hopefully soon, when I finish school), she asks about my family and thinks it's good I have enough cousins, and she has now hopped on the hair bandwagon ('They giggle at you because they want to know how a munu has so much hair and how it is so dark....Is it real?...And what about these white pieces in the front....Did you forget to color those?") I explained the coloring/highlighting process and she thinks she will find me "chemicals" to make her hair this color too. I left for the weekend with instructions to find pictures of aquariums...We will be covering aquariums and letter writing this week (lesson plans here are very spontaneous)...The children here do not know what aquariums are; I decided to make a powerpoint presentation to show them. We got on separate bodas to town and during my lunch she called to make sure "I arrived home safe"...Like I said, a Uganda mom.
Friday was a day off...Andy, Nathan, Julie, and I ran some errands and made it to the Acholi Inn by 11:30 am. That's right, we laid out by the pool! We did get in the pool, which seemed more like a lake, murky, a bit slimy, and filled with bugs...Still extremely refreshing in the heat near the equator. By the time we got back to the house we remembered that yes, we were just about on the equator, hence our wicked burns....No need to worry, we were savagely tan by the next morning.
I woke up in the middle of the night to Jenni's face in my mosquito net, "Mandy, can you wake up, there's a mouse in the toilet"...I got up to assess the situation....I stood outside the door contemplating what I could use to scoop it out and thought I should take a look at it...It was not a mouse, it was definitely a rat...A huge gray, furry, long-tailed rat in a toilet filled with pee (we let it "mellow" to save water), scampering on the side in an attempt to escape. After asking her if she was blind we starting asking like huge girls. Within minutes Catherine and Danielle came to see what was going on...I suggested the obvious solution, "We need to get Nathan, he'll touch it". And of course it went like a script. "Nathan, get up, we need you." Out of his mosquito net and bounding off the top bunk like something in Baywatch he came flying down the hall. He ran to get a cup and went to work...The rat was excited too, and I would estimate a weight of a few pounds as I heard it hit the bathroom floor..."Get another cup", Nathan says...By this point I'm on the chair in the hall while the other girls are curled on top of each other...I could only say, "Don't put the cups back after this"...Really intelligent comment in the state of urgency... So, with 2 cups Nathan had the rat trapped and on it's way out (except for the 6 inches of tail that was sticking out), back to bed we went.
Saturday we woke up and packed for our rhino expedition. I was unaware that the metatu ride there would be an adventure in itself. It was about a 3 hour drive, through small villages, through beautiful scenery, and back over the rushing Nile. The accommodations were amazing, it seemed like a small resort. AND flushing toilets?!?!....5 star for sure! We went out into the bush and found 3 rhinos...They seem to be chill animals and didn't move much as we all stood around taking pictures...We fought "swass, swack, and swalls" (imagine sweaty body parts) as we were in the direct sunlight for our journey. We got an amazing dinner of pasta with a cream sauce (with mushrooms that I accidentally ate), and REAL parmesan cheese that we all ate out of the bowl with our hands. We sat around a tiki hut bar and drank Clubs (favorite Uganda beer hands down) and had a relaxing night away. There were random rescued animals on site (African greys, and "deer-like things with horns", that took a liking to Andy)...Our ride home seemed much quicker as our metatus seemed to be weaving in and out of traffic, chimps, long-horned cows, and people averaging what seemed a very unsafe speed....Needless to say that even after one of the metatus pulled kind of over for a spontaneous short-call in a very public place (right on the street), we made it home safe...At this point the house is passing around what seems to be "a bit of a bug", and looking back I am thankful for my sore throat and runny nose in comparison to the beating that the pit latrines are taking outside.
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