I walked to Mbale one day from my house. It’s about 30 Kilometers! (that's about 17 miles) It was way too long, and once I arrived in town I felt like someone had taken a pole and beaten me down with it. Haha. Really though, the adventure was fun until the end… Along the way we (me and Julianna) stopped to eat some jack fruit on the side of the road, and the woman was so nice, she brought us a grain sack to sit on and water to wash our hands once we were finished. Very kind. We stopped for a few waters along the trading centers and everyone seemed to think we were crazy for "footing" to Mbale. About half way, my friend got a blister and had to go home. The rest of the way people would come up to me and walk for a few minutes, or even a few kilometers and we would talk... One man was on a usual walk, 5 km home, another woman I talked with was on the way to the hospital to see her sick sister, and I was reminded once again that God and prayers will save us all. Near the end, there were these 2 little girls, no older than 6 that follwed me for about 2km until they finally trailed off somewhere...

My neighbors live in one house with 5 teachers, which is actually 5 independent families in one house, probably the size of 2 of my living rooms back home. It is so small! Total, there are 5 teachers, 3 wives, and 9 children, which equals 17 people in one small house! The rooms are somehow divided by the walls that reach only a certain height because of course there are no ceilings, so surely you can hear everything, and if you wanted, you could throw something over and it would reach the other families room/house.

The kids here are so crafty, and I would love it if some of the kids back home would learn a few things from using creativity to make toys rather than spend tons of money on these things that are bad for the environment anyway... The kids here make jump ropes out of vines from trees (and they work rather well), they make toy guns from just about anything (one kid was using an aloe vera plant), they make balls from plastic bags people have thrown away, they use tops from bottles as wheels for cars they've made out of pieces of old wire, they were using old grain sacks like a sled and pulling each other across the lawn for fun... really, I always love to see what they will invent next.

I went to Soroti to work with some primary school girls on a psychosocial art therapy program. I really enjoyed working with them, and I think they had a lot of fun... at least I hope so. Getting to Soroti was an adventure... We took a taxi to begin our journey, and after riding for about 1 hour, the taxi came to a stop, but we were still 20km out from Soroti. Then we got on bicycle boda bodas (one man is driving the bike, and you sit on the back overtop of the back tire, but on a cushion), and they took us about 3km through about 6 inches of water covering the road. The next mode of transport was a wooden canoe that had to take us across the flooded road until we eventually reached a part of the road that wasn't completely flooded and we got back in a taxi to take us the rest of the way. It was fun.
On the way back, we decided to go the "faster way" according to some... however, we went around through a dirt road, and it ended up taking 4 hours! Way too long. The roads were so dirty that when I would wipe my face, literally you could see a layer of dirt come off and on to my hand. The inside of my ear looked like someone threw dirt at me, and oh, my nose, it definitely was loaded. haha. My friend said they could even see the dirt on my eyelashes and eye brows... beauty queen time.