Threats. Grr. Then Bungee Jumping and Old People! Yay!

Greetings from Uganda, again.

Let’s start things off with a few NOT rhetorical questions. How are you? How is your life, on the other side of the world? What is going on in your portion of the United States? What’s new in your life? Now, the proper thing to do is to answer these questions below, where it says Post A Comment. I know that it is a struggle. I know that it is mildly inconvenient. However, what is also inconvenient is running across town to an internet café in which the internet is as fast as molasses in order to write a blog post that NO ONE IS COMMENTING ON! Seriously, guys! Comments are the only way I hear from people. Email is not really an option at this point, for a variety of reasons. I have no contact with anyone! Maybe the reason is that no one reads my blog. I’m going to hope that’s not the case because it makes me sad to think I’ve been writing to no one all this time. Please please please tell me if you’re reading this!

Okay. On to the cooler stuff.

Our work is going nicely, I think. I’m loving every minute of it! I’m working on a variety of projects, including the Eye Camp which I spoke of in my previous post (which virtually no one commented on…), meeting with groups of elderly people for games and lessons and good old fashioned old people fun, and an HIV research project which should be difficult, but totally worthwhile. I am heartbroken that I can’t linger any longer than I am; I wish I could stay here forever, with these people that I love. But at the same time, I can’t wait to get back home and see my family and friends. I am conflicted. Either way, I’ve only got about five weeks left… I think. Maybe less. Maybe more. Click on the little calendar thing on your computer and count for yourself! If you care, that is. If not, continue on to the next paragraph.

Uh... hello, I went bungee jumping! My friend Becca and I were the only ones out of all of us to go and she went first, which was a bad idea altogether. I had to watch her topple over the edge before I went! That was when I basically lost control of my bodily functions. Luckily I was still wet from rafting. Seriously, it was sooooo effing terrifying. I've never been that scared in my life, and I've done a few scary things. The guys who ran it were cute young Australians/New Zealanders so that was nice. They both flirted with me quite a lot, which helped with the distraction a little. Until I stepped to the edge and looked down 148 feet to the surface of the Nile below me. Then I began hyperventilating. I have no idea how I mentally convinced myself that I was cool to leap off the edge; I had to jump before I could think about it or I would have been too scared. So I jumped! ABSOLUTELY PETRIFYING. No question, hands down, THE scariest thing I've ever done. But soooo much freaking fun! Holy freak. It was the most exhilarating, liberating feeling I've ever felt. AH! I dunked into the water up to my waist (the cord was around my ankles) because I didn't jump properly. It was stellar.

Also, I went whitewater rafting before that. That was amazing too! Pretty dang horrifying, but way fun. I went through Class 5 rapids! Those are the biggest, scariest rapids you can go on in a raft, at least on the Nile. I saw some Class 6’s though, and essentially burst into tears. I peed a few times throughout that adventure as well, but I was submerged under surging water every time I lost it so it was no big deal. I went over a waterfall! I flipped headlong into churning water! I lost my paddle eighty-five times! I ate a half a pineapple while floating in the NILE RIVER! AMAZING!

The worst rapid I saw was called The Bad Place. Draw your own conclusions, based on that name. I was held underwater in this roiling vortex of terror for almost 15 seconds; I thought I was drowning. It was petrifying. But the whole adventure was abso-freaking-lutely phenomenal! It was the biggest thrill of my life! Up to that point, I mean. Bungee jumping surpassed that, a few hours later.

So in one day, I went whitewater rafting, bungee jumping, and watched the World Cup US vs England game in a bar packed with Americans and Brits. Easily the most thrilling day of my life.
There are lots of pictures of all these things, so I will show you when we are all reunite! A video of bungee jumping too. You'll like that.

I went to the zoo on Saturday. I know that the concept of a zoo in Africa is a little unusual, but trust me when I say that it was baller!! This zoo was sort of unzoolike. There were only low barriers between me and the animals. They could totally have barreled through them if they’d wanted to. I saw lions! Zebras! Giraffes! Crocs! And all over the zoo on handrails and tree branches there were freaking hand-sized spiders. I know I exaggerate sometimes when it comes to spiders, but I only speak the truth this time: They were colossal. I had Harry Potter flashbacks.

I think I’ll wrap up. I’ve got 12 minutes left and it takes about 15 to post… so we’ll see what happens. Bye, everyone! Remember to post, or I’ll start taking heads!

Tomorrow I Fly

Hello, all. I am quite annoyed with slow, slow, slow internet.

I’m not feeling particularly eloquent this afternoon, so I will type the updates and a few stories, then I will go home and eat some fat, oily food, enter my mosquito net/bed cave, and sleep for the rest of my life.

First of all, I’ve managed to injure myself. It’s pretty humiliating; here’s the tale: I was playing soccer with a local team of kids that the Youth Outreach Mission (one of our partner organizations, based here in Lugazi and composed of splendid secondary- and university-aged Ugandans) started along with a HELP International volunteer, a few years ago. Don’t ask me why I agreed to play against these kids. They’re ludicrously gifted at football. But play I did, and it was so much fun! Anyway, in the midst of getting my butt kicked by a twelve-year-old, I tripped over a mountain in the center of their field and annihilated my knee. I stayed on my feet, but all I could do was say, “Um…. I think I may have hurt myself.” It was discomfiting, to say the least. I had to be assisted off the field, while a million little African school kids stood on the sidelines and mocked me in Luganda. Great. Then Wilson, the Youth Outreach president who’d been playing with us, knelt by my foot and asked if he could give it a twist. My answer was a vehement no, of course. Why the eff would I want him to twist my throbbing appendage? No. No no no. Apparently that’s what they do here, when you hurt your legs. What a beneficial practice that is.

Anyway, the knee’s not so bad anymore, just rather tender and sore. I’m pretty sure it will improve with time.

Um… oh, I am going whitewater rafting on the Nile tomorrow. Class five rapids, I’m told. It should be terrifying; I’m quite looking forward to it! And later tomorrow afternoon I’m scheduled to have a leisurely bungee jump over the Nile. I’m sure I will be absolutely petrified, but if I don’t go for the rest of my life I will think, “Why the freak did I pass up an opportunity like that?” So I’m bungee jumping. If I stop updating, that means I’ve died.

That sounds rather severe, for those with weaker constitutions. I won’t die! The company is legit; run by Australians, I think. Maybe. I promise I will survive and tell my tale upon my next blog post! Woot!

On the work side of things, my life is going rather smoothly as well. A few other volunteers and myself are working on organizing the Eye Camp, which will give a ton of local people their eyesight back! I can’t wait; it’s going to be spectacular. Preparing is pretty tedious, but it must be done, I guess. Sometimes it gets discouraging, trying to arrange and organize and manage so much when there are so few of us and such little funding. But then something happens that completely validates what we’re doing! This afternoon I went to a business training with a group of widows. I only went because one of the volunteers needed to get there and she had no one to walk with, and I had helped to create the group in the first place, so I tagged along. Thus, I was draped over a teeny little chair in a primary school classroom, simmering in the boiling heat and trying not to lose consciousness… then our translator mentioned that the women were asking about my friend Cecilly’s glasses, and saying that many of them suffered from eye problems. They wondered if there was some way we could give them eyeglasses.

One thing that I’ll say, here in the middle of my story, is that, even though we’re here to help as much as we can, there is really very little that we can do, in the long run. We can help in our small ways, and give what little we have to give, but so frequently people ask us for help, and we have to say that we can’t. It’s truly heartbreaking. So when these women asked about their eye problems and I got to speak up and tell them, “Yes! We can help you!”, it was basically the most fulfilling little moment of my life. Yay!

I have to wrap this up, I think. Wilson, one of my very favorite Africans, just sat down next to me at the internet café. Yes, the same Wilson that wanted to twist my annihilated knee. Yeah, have African friends. I’m cool like that.

Bye everyone!