"Excuse me, I'm facing my fears."

My sister Shamim, me, Brother Joseph, and Sister Fatuma

My Ugandan Momma!

All of the girls at a sleep over at Amys house.

The whole clan at my house for my 23rd birthday!!

Me and Lestee on a trail in Mabira Forest (the largest forest in East Africa)

Me, Celestee, and Tine at the Source of the Nile in Jinjatown.

The name of this blog comes from a shirt I saw on one of our language trainers the other day. Fell in love with the quote and have been trying to use it as much as possible. I feel like it basically sums up my time here in Uganda so far. ha.

This week has been an interesting one. A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night to noises in my room. This is not unusual here so I turned on my flashlight to look around but found nothing. A few minutes later I heard the same noise and was fairly convinced it was cockroaches but I turned on my flashlight again to find a momma and baby mouse trying to gnaw their way out of my room. I am not really all that scared of mice so I let them be, in fact as most of you know I love anything that is a baby so I watched them play together for a while thinking how cute and sweet this picture was. Then I tried to go back to sleep. An hour and a half later they were still going at it, gnawing on the door, running across my earrings, rustling my papers and so I decided to open the door of my room to let them out. I was convinced that this would solve the problem and I finally got back to sleep. I was out cold and suddenly felt four little tiny paws in my hair. We all know that I am a deep sleeper, but apparently if a rodent gets in my hair I am up in a heartbeat. So I flipped out, lifted up my mosquito net and got the thing out of my bed as fast as possible. Then I turned on my head lamp covered myself in a cocoon of blanket and read my book for the rest of the night. The next day Autumn and I searched diligently for the mice family but couldn't find them anywhere. I zipped up my suitcase so they wouldn't get in it and felt confident that I would get a good nights sleep the following evening. This was my fatal flaw.

Fast forward 24 hours. I am laying in bed the following evening and yet again hear scratching, only this time I cant find them. It takes about 15 minutes of searching but I finally realize that they are INSIDE of my suitcase. The zipped one. That I zipped up the DAY BEFORE! At this point I am thoroughly convinced that all of my clothes will be eaten through and destroyed, so I wake up my mom and dad to come get the little rascals. They don't believe me but finally find the perpetrators chilling in a bag of delicious cookies I had purchased and put in my suitcase specifically so the mice would not eat them. That's what I get. So my mom takes the bag outside, kills the mouse, and then says that if I want to see the dead mouse I can go outside and see it. Mind you its 3 AM and i am exhausted from not sleeping for a good 48 hours. I pass on the invite and head back to bed for a sweet night of sleep.

On a totally different note, the kids here are crazy strong. A few days ago I was running (running seems to always create the best stories) and I was on the last 800 meters of my run which is basically a huge hill. I start up the hill and see a kid, probably 15 years old carrying a 25 liter jerry can up the hill. 25 liters. I can't even lift up a 25 liter jerry can and this kid is carrying it up a hill like its nothing. But wait it gets better. Then we make eye contact as I pass him, I smile at him, thinking "What a strong kid" and he seems so understand this and begins to run. Up the hill. As fast as I am running. Then I find myself thinking "Either this kid is the worlds strongest Ugandan child, or I suck at running." So I pick up the pace. His pace increases at about the same pace that my confidence in my running abilities are decreasing. We continue this running battle, or at least it was a battle in my mind (as most things are) for a good 400 meters and then he becomes exhausted and stops. I win!!! ... I guess except then I remember that I can't even pick up a 25 liter jerry can. He wins.

We have been visiting schools lately and they have this amazing project called PIASCY that is supposed to be implemented at every school. It stands for Presidential Initiative for Aids ______. It is a really neat way to get the students aware of HIV/AIDS and excited about learning at the same time. One morning a week a group of students will put on a play/skit/song about HIV/AIDS, its causes, symptoms, reasons, and ways to avoid it. We visited a school where this was happening and were blown away. The kids here are so animated and excited to be on stage and it was great to see something happening other than just rote memorization. Along with this are messages that are written all over the school to promote safety. Some of them are really funny so I thought I should include a few on here:

* Don't be alone in lonely places
* Bad touches, Bad friends
* Always walk with a security friend
Cant remember anymore right now, but they are humorous to say the least.

Yesterday we went on a "field trip" to Jinja. It is "the source of the Nile" and we were able to put our feet in the Nile :) We also stopped along the way to hike to a waterfall and then went to the Mabira Forest (picture above). Lestee and I walked around for a good hour on the nature trails chasing butterflies and whatnot. We even saw a few monkeys, which was sweet. Well, time is almost up here so... hope everything is wonderful at home. I will be in Kampala again in 8 days because we will be heading to our sites then, so make sure and shoot me an e mail in between now and then so I know that you love me... because I love you all!!