Sunrise

My camera broke so I'm at the mercy of the others for pix. Let's see
if I can paint a pix with words. Leaving at 6 am means we got to see
the most amazing sunrise we departed Gulu. Crazy green landscape with
tree tops just peeking up from the low lying fog to touch a sky blue
sky (yep, I said sky blue sky - they call that color sky blue for a
reason, but I digress). Anyhow the sky is scattered with white clouds
dipped in cotton candy pink. All this coupled with that incredible
first-thing-in-the-morning weather reel. Baboons crossing the road up
ahead and Ryan just spotted the first giraffe.

AND HOLY CRAP WE JUST SAW FOUR LIONESSES and we haven't even started
the official safari yet!!! n'

What, What? Holla!!!

Make that a total of FIVE lions, just saw a giant male about 20 feet
from the van.

Gonna be a GREAT day!

Typos

Dude! I just re-read the blog and realized that there were a ton of typos in there. Please forgive the mess. These bbry keys are tired and the eyes are heavy!!!
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Our Names Were Mud

My friend Meg won't believe me but I biked ~16 miles in two days over here. Meg, that's like over a half marathon in 48 hours!!! Holla!

Working on the Momento timeline, this is a flashback to last week.

In a scene that somehow freakishly resembled an African remix of that bike riding scene from The Sound of Music, we set off for the work site on an assortment of bikes. I will tell you that only one of our merry crew had a seat that did not result in severe bum discomfort after use. I will also inform you that the number of trips back and forth to the site totaled (we think, ish) the number quoted above.

Point of the story? We got to freaking mud a hut!!!

When our bike gang rolled up we found was a small, one room brick strucutre. The roof was a mess, but we left the fixing of that to the pros. Minor exception, Jon tossed (that's right tossed) the bricks up to the guys that were building up the roof section. Turns out, there's an art to lobbing a brick up to a guy that's sitting on some seriously sketch scaffolding in a way that is both useful and safe. Jon had a knack for it. Others, eh not so much.

So we turned the majority of our attention to out on the job hut midding training. It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that mud is required to do this task, but there wasn't any. Oh right, we make it. So we dig. Make a big ole pile o dirt. Boys bring water from the well. But how to mix? There's this scene in the movie A Walk in the Clouds (which is one of my alltime favorite movie scenes, despite the presence of Keanu Reeves, btw) where they're crushing grapes under their feet to make wine, dancing and everyones involved. Yep. Our feet. It was a party.

The mudding was super cool too bc you basically take a big ball of mud, break off fist sized chunks and just throw it at the structure til u get enough on there to spread around using your fingers and smoothing it out with water. I can't remember the last time I did something that was more cathartoc than dancing in the mud and throwing loads of it at a buidling for all you're worth!

So we got a workout and some great therapy and one of the village grandmas got a better roof and a stronger stricture to keep her cool and dry.

Oh, did I forget to mention that when we were moving bricks a cobra popped his head out and Jimmy (yes the very same Jimmy that saved us from last year's cobra) yelled, "COBRA!!!" and smashed the hell out of it with a stick. That's two times now that Jimmy has saved us.

One more thing, the cool well we helped fix last year and the hut project this year were only possible because we partnered with an amazing local organization in Nakasongola called African Hospitality Institute. Their founder, an American woman named Maggie, may be one of the strongest women I've ever met! Check out their story at www.ahi-ug.org
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Long Day

Hope you guys liked that movie, Momento, because this blog is a little like that. Digging back into last week for those stories but trying to keep up with the present as well makes for flip-floppy timelines. Thankfully, I don't have to tatoo my daily routines everywhere. ;-)

Remeber Gulu Regional Hospital?
Today we went to that hospital you may remeber as one of the toughest stops from last year's trip.

Gulu Regional. Just saying the name made me shiver at what I knew I would see there. At the implications of seeing such suffering and feeling so helpless to somehow improve the situation.

Last time I had a task. I'm good at tasks. Make tea. Give bread. This time it was a little different. More human to human interaction without some of the frills, sending me beyonfld the reaches of my comfort zone and asking me to get in there and simply love on and pray with the dying. Palliative care is a rough concept for me. It feels so trivial to hold their hand, only to walk away a moment later. And yet as hard as it was for me pick up that first hand, something beautiful stirred inside me sparking a human connection that simultaneously felt right and broke my heart.

A woman basically died in front of us. Our friend performed the last rights as the nurses drew the blankets up over her face.

I wanted to throw up and be a doctor all at the same time. Screaming at injustice also came to mind.

Today was one of those days where it feels like the stuff you did in the morning happened three days ago. Experiences like the hospital tend to overshadow all. Even the sky knew as the clouds grew dark and poured out rain. But we also did some things today that were kind of amazing and fun in their own right. In sum, today we also:

- Ate the most amazing meal in a mud hut.

- Witnessed inter NGO negotiations.

- Bartered in the marketplace for supplies to build a pit latrine.

- Drank a Stoney (this amazing ginger soda).

U know. A long day. Just like that.

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Kampala

As I mentioned before, the last week has been a bit of an introspective blur. So I figured I'd try and get out of my own head a little and bring you into what we've been up to. Day 1 rolling into Kamapala one week after the tragic bombings was a little daunting. Even the more seasoned of our veterans were on a higher level of alert. Thus we exercised an appropriate level of caution, avoiding crowded areas, etc. We talked with an older orphanage worker about the bombings. As tears began to fill his eyes he likened it to the way Americans felt about 9/11. Total shock at the reality of the attack. Crazy sadness for loss of loved ones. And fear. And most important of all, an overriding resilience to survive and move on.
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Order of things

So last time we did this, I was constantly thinking about what I could tell you all about and frantically banged out blog after blog on the oh-so-little blackberry keypad. This trip has been a little different. I've been a little inside my own head. Dealing with some heavy life issues of late and enjoying the experience as it came, attempting to be in the moment.

In many ways, the agenda is very similar to what we did last year, but the exception is that this time some of the faces are familiar and there is a sense of building upon a pre-laid foundation versus the shock and excitement that comes with that first time experience. But don't misunderstand me. This relationship building is exciting. Wonderful to see the faces of those you told that you'd come back register recognition as they realize you've kept your word. Thrill to start, not at zero, but now at one. Fascinating to peel back another tiny layer in understanding elements of the culture. Ugand is an incredibly relational country and things move to their own rhythms, oftentimes at a gentler tempo than those we Westerners might be more accustomed to back at home. And yet, there is such beauty in this culture that asks that we take time to build relationship and understand each other before we attack the task list with American fervor. So I guess that's where I've been thus far. In Uganda, learning a relational rhythm. Seeing old friends and taking a few precious days to be with the locals, my team, and even just myself in this green and gorgeous countryside. More soon!
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Tonic - Blogging for Good:

So, it's like this: Tonic is this amazing website that essentially is trying to be a connecting hub for cool philanthropic efforts going on across the globe. At any given time when you click on their site, you'll no doubt see some cool story or video about someone putting their money where their mouth is and trying something cool to help others. Thanks to a recommendation by a really great friend, Tonic just picked me up to be a featured columnist on their site, which is very exciting! (w00t!) I'll be posting two articles from Uganda and one pix extravaganza when I return. They'll be posting my pix and my ridiculous hipster-esque bio (I couldn't talk about work, so I had to get creative!) soon. Check out the site and love its awesomeness :-)

http://www.tonic.com/