Stealing Time

Some Christmas Day fun with my "daughters" ... the 2 girls I am in charge of!

I was able to give them small gifts, which they were very grateful for!  :D

Harvest!!  This is my first harvest of Carrots... 15!  And 5 cucumbers.  The Cucumbers have been a huge success, though the plants are dying now.  I think they are being eaten by some bug. 

I am currently stealing time. I was told we had a meeting at 10:30. It is now 11 am, and I am in the room where the meeting was suppose to take place, and am totally alone. Welcome to Africa.

But I will take this moment to do a bit of updating about Christmas and New Years so that when the conference is over I won’t have to give you a millions posts!

On Christmas morning I slept in for a while, skipping breakfast with the Community. I was awakened by their very loud singing of a local Christmas carol at the end of breakfast. I rolled out of bed and went to help with wash up and cutting vegetables in the kitchen. I then had something to eat at the priest’s hosue and greeted Father and Sister Linda. Mass was a bit delayed, but eventually began. I sat outside under a shade off one side of the church. It is exponentially more comfortable and the view is great. The mass was unaccessabile for me, as it was all in Runyankore. But it was still good to celebrate.

We then had the most delious meet for lunch. I rested a bit and started watching Hairspray just as a fun treat. At 3 we met for a Christmas day football match. For some reason I randomly decided that I wanted to play. I managed to score on 2 of the students, but not during an actual game. I played barefoot, which is against every rule I have for myself in Africa! If I get any strange worms I’ll let you know. I was doing fine going barefoot (which is a great feeling), until I finished playing and managed to walk under a thorn tree, which sheds its thorns onto the ground below. Ouch.

I went to visit a friend who is pregnant who was staying with the principle of the school. I am friends with both (Jane and Agnes), so it was a nice visit. I helped peel matoke and we talked and just enjoyed. I think I watched some more Hairspray after that, and just chilled. I was tired from the football match! I haven’t run for an hour in a long time! It was really fun though.

Then at dinner we had a nice meal and entertainment. Each Ugandan tribe present ended up doing a traditional dance! It’s how they do things, their Christmas carol singing replacement. I joined the Bunyankores at the end and just pretended like I knew what I was doing. It was a lot of fun for sure. I then went to my room and video skyped with my family for an hour! It was lovely. It made me want Christmas cookies desperately. Then I went to sleep. All in all a good Christmas.

We had a few days of classes this week. We covered community and dating relationships, which went well. Now is when the DTS students are deciding what they will do when they leave here. Some of them will stay, others will go to different places. The week was very busy for the staff (including me) because we had to do evaluations for each student. It was a lot of work.

Then Friday we had a free day, and we prepared for overnight, as it is the last weekend of the month. I wasn’t excited about not really celebrating New Years and was feeling a bit down. But I decided just to enjoy as I could. We had a nice meal and then I decided to actually join in overnight, which I don’t usually do. It was fun to dance and sing around. I slept for an hour from 10:30 to 11:30, then we had mass to welcome the New Year. I sat in the far back corner and when New Years came, me and my friends around all started yelling really loudly and jumping up and down. It was fun.  Lots of big hugs and blessings for the New Year!

New Years day felt like a quiet Sunday, even though it was a Saturday. I FINALLY had a meeting with the Community leader about the upcoming planning retreat, on which I am giving Character development training! I am excited and nervous. The meeting was very productive. We’re on the same page, which is nice!

Then yesterday I moved from my house/room because of the conference. My motto for the next month is “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not break”… I am sure 2011 is going to be a year of incredible flexibility for me! I have no idea what to expect for the next 4 months as I begin my development work. We’ll see how it goes!

So things are really busy now, I am running into town today and then will get cracking on work around the place. I am working in Hospitality when I am not speaking/ helping with random conference things. Should be good and crazy!! I am hoping I don’t get malaria, I have no way to use a mosquito net in my new room!