Week 1

It's been almost a week since I left home. But it feels like forever.

 

For Kaity: One of my pictures of Belgium.

  I left bright and early at 4am August 21, a Friday morning. My family drove me up to Portland and between a bag that was 11 pounds over the limit and a ticket issue, I was running late for my flight. I made it to the gate just as they were boarding and didn't get to really say goodbye to my family. 
From Portland to Washington D.C. was a 7 hour flight. I then had 2 hours in D.C. to get ready to fly to Brussels, Belgium. In the D.C. airport I met up with Alex, one of my fellow USP students. We talked for a bit until we boarded and flew another 8 hours to Brussels. There we added Courtney to our group. It was so nice to have people to travel with! From Brussels to Belgium was a 10 hour flight with a stop in Rwanda, but no plane change. After a LONG approximate 30 hours I was so ready to sleep.

As we walked out of the airport we were welcomed by two women with a sign that said, "Uganda Studies Program, Uganda Christian University."  Holding that sign were Andi and Jean, two of our program assistants who are quite awesome. We waited for about 20 minutes for some more people t show up. Leaving the airport around midnight, we drove 2 hours to Mukono. 

 My room in the dorms at UCU. 

The first day was kind of rough. We were exhausted! I was one of 3 who got up early enough to go to breakfast and experience church. Over the last four days we have done lots of orientation activites, including hiking up Monkey Hill to view Mukono, buying a Rolex from the street shop, venturing alone into Mukono on a scavenger hunt in the POURING rain, watching movies together, playing Dutch Blitz, and lots of Matooke(Plantains.) 

Whoever blessed the rains down in Africa obviously was never caught out in them....

The road we hiked up to Monkey Hill. Just imagine the mud when it rains on all that red dust....

 Me and my red face on top of Monkey Hill, overlooking Mukono.

Yesterday and today were spent learning about Rwanda and the genocide that happened there in 1994. This year is the 20th anniversary and tomorrow morning we leave at 4 am to go to Rwanda for 10 days. There we will learn about the genocide as well as experience Rwanda as a whole. We will participate in a work day, go to church, and listen to different speakers. 

I have met a few Ugandans. They are all so sweet! The campus is pretty empty for now. However, the sports players are here because of training and some of the honors college students are here. There are a few going on the trip with us actually. Charity, a junior majoring in languages and an honors college student, crashed in my room last night as well as tonight. We have had some fun times. I painted her nails, we went to the cobbler together, snapchatted, watched an Indian soap opera, and become buds. 

When we get back I will have a new, permanent roommate though. Her name is Namutebi Joanna. I am super excited to meet her! I'm going to leave her a little note and gift on her bed, because she arrives while I am gone. It will be strange to come back to a roommate, a full campus, and one day before school starts.

We registered for classes today and I am super pumped. My classes will be:
1) Faith and Action in the Ugandan Context
2) Kiswahili 1
3) Health and Wholeness
4) Religions in Contemporary Uganda
5) A Cross-Cultural Pracitcum- Location TBA

These classes really fit my calling and I am excited to see how God is going to use this semester. The friendships I am building are already starting out strong. I know that they will really be strengthened by the end and that there are many, many more friendships and adventures to come. And for that I am beyond excited.

 My lock box, kept in my closet, in which I keep all of valuables.

Some friendly monkeys on campus. A mother and her baby!