Blast From the Past

I am SO far behind in blogging, because things are happening every day here and I haven't written in a month!
I've decided I'll try to write extra blogs this week, and by the end of the week you'll get to hear about my friend Shannon's visit here!! (she is here right now and it is sooo wonderful!)

In fact, I should just begin with what I did on Thanksgiving. I left at 5am Thursday morning on a bus called a Jaguar headed to Kampala, Uganda. I just won't write a detailed description because this blog shouldn't be 8 pages long. We arrived in Kampala and met a guy from a church there we were connected to who helped us go exchange money and hop on a little van to get to Jinja. We got in pretty late at night, but were starving, so we went to a restaurant- that had CHICKEN! it was pretty good, not like a good chicken breast in the states though. It was pretty tiny.
We ate a lot since it really was Thanksgiving.

The next morning we walked down the road to the rafting site, had breakfast and loaded up on the back of a large truck with the rest of the rafters. People were there from all over and for all different reasons. I was surprised with how many Europeans were just traveling Africa. Rafting was a blast!! I couldn't believe that I WAS REALLY ON THE NILE RIVER…that is just someone else's life ya know. The rapids
were pretty great, but there was quite a bit of time to relax as we floated down the river to the next rapid. We had fresh pineapple on our boats for lunch that was sweeter than it is in Rwanda…I loved that. And despite my doxycycline malaria medicine causing severe reaction from the sun, I think I reapplied sunscreen often enough because I really didn't get too burnt.

Saturday was an adventure. I feel bad not trying to explain it to you…but I just can't, so I'll just say that Kampala gave me crazy culture shock that made me nervous to go back to the States. If I was so surprised in Kampala, then I'm literally going to have a panic attack when I arrive back home. There were stores and a food court and a movie theater! (with 2 screens) It was just really weird the things I would notice. We ran into some guys we had rafted with and were able to show them around Kigali since they were heading to Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas. I loved the feeling of showing someone around Kigali, because it made me realize how acclimated I've become!

Later this week, you can expect updates that will come in relatively sequential order containing:
-concerts and thoughts on being a white
-the first semester of school coming to a close
-christmas season in rwanda
-plans for travel
-Shannon B's visit