Christmas with Malaria

Hello Blog Friends,

All 12 of you who still look at this blog every month.....I wish I knew who you were so I could just tell you all this in person.  But I feel like I owe the world an explanation for why I quite blogging--in case there's anyone left out there who doesn't know, or in case someday someone stumbles upon this blog and are just dying to know what happened next, or perhaps for that someday when I print this off into a book for posterity.

What happened?

Well, the short version is this: I got malaria and came home.

The long version is as follows, but I warn you.....it is a LOOOOng version:  I felt a little sick exactly a week after I published that last post.  Charity came over to my house on Sunday to do a rapid test for malaria, just because it's a good idea to do that anytime you get a fever in Uganda.  I was pretty sure I just had a bacterial infection - I felt pretty much the same as I did the few other times I'd been sick.  Charity and I did a total hack job on the test, so even though I tested positive for malaria that night, I believed the clinic the next day when they told me I just had a bacterial infection and to go ahead and take some antibiotics and multivitamins and I'd be fine.  I didn't panic when I started peeing brown--I googled it--that's what happens sometimes when you take multivitamins.  The clinic did say to come back if I didn't feel better in three days.  So two days later, when walking to the bathroom in the morning was a near impossibility, when opening my eyes and talking were extremely painful, I thought maybe I should go to the hospital, not just back to that clinic.  At least that way my roommate could quit making me feel guilty for being in the house two days past my six-month contract mark.  I texted my friend Paul who came and picked me up, no questions asked and took me to the hospital.  I was honestly terrified to be admitted into that hospital.  I've just heard so many horror stories of people entering a Ugandan hospital for some rather routine reason and contracting some deadly disease FROM the hospital and dying.  That was the first time in my two years in Uganda that I stepped foot in a hospital.  I literally thought (now mind you, I was sort of delirious and not thinking very straight,) "So this is how I'm going to die.  Getting poked with an infected needle in Uganda.  At thirty."  And a few tears fell down my face.  But my fever hurt so bad I had no will to fight when they turned me on my side and shot something into my rear and hooked me up to an IV. Turns out I did in fact have malaria. 

They admitted me into the hospital and got me situated.  I remember that Paul helped me onto the bed and then I promptly fell asleep.  When I woke up, he said he was going out for just a minute, but would be back.  I fell asleep again, and when I woke up, he was sleeping in a chair next to my bed, with a newspaper and a copy of The Economist tucked under his arm.  That's when I realized he wasn't going back to work like I assumed.  He was sticking around for the long haul.  And he did.  He stayed the entire rest of the day.  Elizabeth came that night and convinced Paul he could go home - she would stay with me.  And then he was back the next day at 8:00 am to start taking care of me again.  I was in a bad way, and the hospitals over there can be kind of a joke.  I needed friends who would help fight to get me care.  That next day my fever kept spiking despite any drugs they'd give me.  That was scary moment number two.  I'd never felt pain in my head like I felt for about thirty minutes that day.  I kept squeezing my eyes shut and squeezing Paul's hand.  I kept asking him, "What if it doesn't get better?  What if my fever won't break?"  But Paul was so calm and reassuring, "It will, Morgan, of course it will."  And he made me believe it.  Of course it will.  And it did.  But of course, that wasn't all - I had stuff coming out of every orifice on my body.  I couldn't keep down the malaria pills.  Violent vomiting would take place every time I took one.  And my pee was still brown.....but I didn't pay it much mind even though I'd stopped the multivitamins.  And I had terrible diarrhea.  And I was on my period.  TMI?  Well, now you get the picture at least.

On day three they discharged me.  I still had a fever, but no more of the crazy head-exploding variety.  I was still super weak, but I felt better.  I did.  I emailed some family and friends to tell them what had been going on, why they hadn't heard from me, but that I was better.  And I was.  My strength was returning, Paul and Elizabeth were nursing me back to health.  I had a urine and stool culture test run, and it turned out I did have some sort of intestinal bacteria infection, and a fungal urinary infection.  On top of the malaria.  Needless to say, I was taking a LOT of drugs.

Despite what we think here in America, malaria is most often a very treatable disease.  We have lots of drugs for it.  Most people get some flu-like symptoms, take some pills, and it goes away.  There are four strains of malaria, three of which people generally survive.  One of which is fatal 75% of the time.  Lucky for me, I got the latter.

During this strange time of re-gaining strength, I was still feeling feverish every day.  Not bad, but just enough that I needed to sit and do nothing for a few hours.  Paul left for his Christmas vacation, Elizabeth left for a work assignment, and I thought I was fine.  Until I woke up one morning with several things I needed to do, but absolutely no energy to do them.  I called Lenox to see if he could come help me.  About 4:00 in the afternoon, I decided I needed to go back to the hospital for a check up.  I thought I probably just had a urinary tract infection.  It now hurt to pee, in addition to the brown color.  My dear friend Pascah met me at the hospital - she had just gone on holiday from lab technician school and wanted to see me.  I explained my situation and she immediately came across town to be with me in the hospital.  What I thought would be a 30 minute check-up turned into about five hours of re-running tests.  First, they told me I was anemic.  "No I'm not."

"Yes you are, you are jaundiced."

"No, I would know if I were anemic.  I'm not anemic."

"Your HB is at a six."

As if I had any idea what an HB was.  Thankfully, Pascah explained that HB is hemoglobin - red blood cell count.  Twelve is normal, I was at a six - my blood was really low.  Sometimes you can become anemic, temporarily, even if you aren't normally.  Thank heavens for Pascah - that particular doctor was worthless.  I finally realized why my pee was still colored--and getting redder every day.  I was hemorrhaging blood like crazy.  He sold me some drugs to help build my blood level back up.  But then another test came back......I still had malaria.  "No I don't, that's not possible."

"Yes you do, so you need to take these malaria pills - but they will counteract with the blood pills, so you can't take both.  Take the pills and come back in three days, we'll see how you are.  .....No, three days is Christmas.  Come back in five days."  And they sent me home.  That whole time I was in the hospital I was growing weaker, but I kept telling myself I was fine.  I didn't understand what it meant to have malaria in my system for that long, nor what having an HB of six really meant.  I remember getting off the boda from my ride home, and kneeling on the ground to get money from my purse because I couldn't stand up.  My boda driver looked at me like I was crazy and asked if I needed help.  I assured I was fine.  I finally made it in my gate and literally had to crawl the rest of the way to my door.  The doctor had told me to take the pills with fatty foods and dairy, so I ordered fries from Sankofa, and Lenox got me some yogurt.  I took one bite of the food and threw up - this time before I took any pills.  THAT's when I finally understood.  I was still really sick.  I had to go back to the hospital.  But I was not about to go back to that crazy doctor that had just sent me home after malaria had been in my body for two weeks and I had a hemoglobin level of six!!!!  So I called Charity who was now back in town after a trip to Nairobi (a trip I was supposed to have taken with her....)  This is just a few days before Christmas, so no one was around in Gulu.....luckily though, she had a Ugandan friend with a car that was wonderful enough to come pick me up and take me to Lacor Hospital - about a twenty minute's drive.

I was admitted there, and had even worse care than when I was in the first hospital.  It was Christmastime, see?  There was very little staff.  I only had malaria.  It didn't really matter.  There was finally a physician I talked to after have been there two days with no improvement and very little care.  I told him I had to go home.  I was so stressed out there, I couldn't get better in a place where they wouldn't come clean my vomit up off the floor, neglected to check on me for hours, and weren't treating me like there was anything wrong.  He finally consented to letting me go home to sleep at night, but not to discharging me from the hospital--I still had to come back for treatment.  They were now giving me the most aggressive malaria drug they had - one they shot directly into my veins.  So this wonderful senior missionary couple - the Woods - came and picked me up in their truck and took me home.  It was Christmas Eve, and Charity and Elizabeth came and sat on my bed and made me laugh.  It felt so good to be in that home.  Sister Woods made me a wonderful stew dinner and the best fluffy, white, home-made rolls I'd had in two years.  Malaria was an appetite killer, but I ate that evening.  That night, all eight of the Mormon missionaries came over to the Woods' house for a Christmas program.  They each shared a Christmas message - only small clips of which I could hear from my room - and then sang their favorite carol.  I listened hard and tried to sing along even though I could barely make any noise.  It was my first Christmas away from home, and I felt so awful.  But there was a great sense of peace in that home.  I'll never forget it.

The next morning - Christmas day - the Woods packed me into the backseat of their truck and drove me back out to the hospital for my next malaria treatment.  I passed out in the process of moving from my wheelchair to the hospital bed.  They ran a few more tests.  My HB was now down to five, my blood pressure was sky rocketing above 100, things were bad.  The physician insisted that I absolutely must get a blood transfusion - there was no other choice.  This was something he had tried to suggest the day before, but I was adamant that I would not - not in Uganda, not where the HIV/AIDS rate is at 9%.  But Elizabeth had told me the night before that she is A+, same as me.  And there were several squeaky-clean American missionaries there - surely one of them would be compatible, right?  And there was - Elder Winters.  And he was so happy to help me.  So Christmas morning, two wonderful people gave me the most beautiful gift.  I realize I can never repay them for what they did.  I can't even respond in-kind for someone else.  But I am so very, very grateful to them.

Me on Christmas morning, getting my first blood transfusion. 

Two days later my malaria treatments were done and my HB level was back up to 6.4.  A positive sign.  So I was discharged from hospital number two.  I felt so much better.  I'd been passing out left and right, but didn't feel that way anymore.  I did, however, wake up with a severe panicky feeling in my chest the next morning. That may have had something to with the fact that on Christmas day I had been able to talk to a friend of mine who is a doctor.  He was appalled that they let me go home at night.  He was appalled that they only gave me two blood transfusions.  He nearly choked when I told him about that doctor who sent me home with an HB of six.  He said if I had walked into his hospital with a six, I would have been admitted into intensive care.  They start giving transfusions at an eight.  So, yeah, I guess I panicked.  I had Elder Woods drive me to a nearby clinic - just to check my HB - just to be sure.  It was back down to 5.4.  That's when I got scared for the third time.  And that's when I decided to stop messing around with Gulu hospitals and go somewhere they could figure out what was really wrong and get me better.  I called my insurance about getting a life-flight out of there.  To somewhere with a real medical system - Nairobi or Johannesburg.  My insurance required me to be checked over by a physician that day before they could approve anything.  So I went back to Gulu Independent - hospital number one.  The better of the two doctors was there that day, he was very concerned with how pale I was.  He said he would only sign off on my transfer if I would get more blood transfusions.  There was also a Serbian doctor there who had taken care of me the first time.  He came up to me in the emergency room and got really close to my ear and said, "You get this blood, then you get out of here and get help.  And then you go home to America.  Don't mess around with Africa anymore."  And then he donated blood to help me on my way.  Wow, what a doctor.  I also got a pint from another close friend named Harry.  How could I ever possibly thank these people enough? 

Thirteen hours after my initial contact with my insurance about getting a life-flight, they finally consented.  Really insurance?  Thanks a lot.  It's just good I wasn't in a worse state.  By this time it was midnight though, so they said I had two options: 1. I stayed in the hospital until morning and got a helicopter from Kampala in the morning, or 2. I take an ambulance and leave right then for Kampala.  I was delirious, but I still knew where I was.  I knew if I agreed to wait until morning for the helicopter it would turn into evening before one ever came.  So I went with the ambulance.  They wheeled me out to a taxi-van-turned-ambulance and made me crawl in and up onto the stretcher.  Paul climbed in the back and asked where my straps were?

"Straps?"

"Yes, where are the belts to keep her in place in case of an accident?"

"Hahahaha, we won't be in an accident.  Don't worry."  And with that they shut the doors and we were on our way.  I started off being very frightened.  What if things weren't better in Kampala?  What if I worsened fast during the drive?  But about an hour in, something happened and I felt intense peace that I was going to be fine.  I was extremely out of it for the whole drive, but I do remember the ambulance stopping and starting an awful lot.  And I remember about halfway through the drive realizing Paul's hand was no longer there for me to squeeze.  I woke up in the morning surprised that it was daylight and we were still driving.  I asked the useless nurse (I know that sounds harsh, but she didn't even know what was wrong with me and had absolutely zero equipment to even take my vitals,) where Paul was.  She pointed to the front seat.  Huh, he must be keeping the driver awake.

"Can you get my phone from him?"  I looked at the clock.  It was 8:30am.  We should have arrived three hours ago.  What in the world was happening?  I focused a bit harder, and remembered what country I was in, and that Paul wasn't sitting in the passenger seat, he was driving.  "Is everything OK Paul?"

"We're nearly there Morgan, just another 30 minutes."  Our ridiculous driver had kept pulling over to sleep, buying himself Cokes and asked the nurse for a gluten packet to wake himself up.  Paul finally yelled at him, said, "My friend is very sick!  She has to get to Kampala!  Move over, I'm driving!"  You should know, Paul is Irish, and is the most mild-mannered, polite and quiet person I've met.  But he's got Character with a capital C.  He gets the job done when it needs doing.

We finally arrived at IHK (International Hospital Kampala)  They wheeled me into the emergency room and once again began running all sorts of tests to see what was wrong with me and if I should be admitted into the hospital.  The ER physician came back a few hours later and told me there was definitely something wrong with me.  But she had no idea what it was.  My test results were really odd and possibly skewed by all the drugs I'd been taking.  So they were admitting me, and taking me off all the drugs until further notice.  She did say, "My prevailing thought in going over all your paper work is 'This is one very strong woman.'"  For some reason that made me feel better.  I wasn't crazy, all those crappy nurses who laughed at me for being scared and treated me like there was nothing wrong - they were wrong.  Late that night I had this thought:  What if I was fine?  What if I was getting better now?  What if the malaria was gone and my blood just needed a little extra help to give it a fighting chance?

And in the end, that was pretty much it.  They took ex-rays and ultra sounds and all my organs seemed to be OK.  My blood levels stopped dropping and a few days later it even began to slooooowly creep back up.  I had a private room with a guest bed and Paul stayed the whole time.  He completely gave up his holiday break to take care of me.  He made sure I ate plenty both before and after my appetite came back.  He wheeled me around the hospital grounds to get me out in the sunshine.  He called the nurses in at my every whim.  Paul saved my life.  Several times.  Charity, Lenox, Elizabeth, the Woods, my other blood donors, and even the mediocre medical staff saved my life.  I spent Christmas and New Years in hospitals.  But I'm alive to tell the story.  And I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have had such amazing friends who would help me and fight for me with such intensity for so long.  I was discharged from the hospital on January 3rd - a few days shy of a month from when I first felt the malaria in my system.  I stayed in Kampala for a little over a week to regain some strength, have some additional follow-up tests run, and make sure I was really OK this time.

I remember those days I was home between the first two hospital stays, Charity came home from Nairobi and came over to cook me dinner.  We sat in the kitchen and I told her all my big plans for Recycling for Hope's future.  I was so excited, so hopeful.  I knew things were going to be different than I'd originally planned, but I knew that was OK.  I liked where it was headed.  I believed it would make a positive difference.  When I just wasn't getting better, everyone told me to go home to America as soon as I could.  I heard what they said, but it made no impact.  Of course I wouldn't go home.  My project was nowhere close to being ready for me to leave.  I still needed another four to six months.  But sitting on a balcony in IHK with Paul, we discussed it for real for the first time.  He told me I had to go home.  That I had to make sure I was better.  Coming back could always be an option, but that if I didn't take care of myself, staying for Recycling for Hope's sake would do no good.  I didn't say much, but I did cry a lot.  I didn't make any definite decisions for a few days.  But I eventually I realized that while I was better, I had no energy.  Walking for five minutes was more than I could handle.  There was no way I could run after all the things that needed to be done for the project.  I would just be a drain and I would probably wind up severely depressed.  So I decided to go home and leave Recycling for Hope as it was.  Which was no where, really.  It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make.

I wish I could say after having been home for five months that I was at peace with all of this.  But I'm really not.  Mostly I just haven't dealt with it.  I finally, for the first time, about a month ago, just sat down and sobbed hardcore for a good five minutes out of gratitude for being alive.  Typing all this out is one of the only times I've let myself feel the heartache at loosing my project that meant so much to me.  Largely I've just focused on the future and haven't looked at the past.  I know I need to, and I know one day (hopefully soon) I will. 

I can say say that I am amazingly grateful to be alive.  I am so grateful to feel better.  June was the first month where I didn't feel the deep bone-exhaustion that malaria brought on.  I'm happy to be able to be active and capable.  Because of Recycling for Hope I've landed a great job with a recycling non-profit in Boulder, CO that I love.  I feel a lot of gratitude for where I've been and where it has led me.  I feel in many ways, all this has helped me to do just what I set out to, what I named my blog; Fill the Measure of My Creation.

The Run to Paradise

Whew, OK, I am squeaking by with my promised weekly update on a Saturday night.  But here I am!  I have had a whirlwind of a week.  It started on Thursday with the most international Thanksgiving I've ever participated in.  We had Brits, Germans, Canadians, Bolivians, Belgians, Ugandans and a few Americans.  My friend Vicki bought a turkey and had it butchered, so I could almost convince myself in this 95 degree weather it was the end of November and this was actually real Thanksgiving.  Thanks Vicki!

Friday morning I woke up and headed to Kampala with Elizabeth.  In a van full of nuns and priests.  And chickens.  We stopped a bazillion times for charcoal, for fruit, for livestock, for lunch, for random brochures, for tea....  It took us over eight hours altogether (should take between four and five) and once we hit the city it was dark and the dear Father that was driving the van got hopelessly lost.  So we drove around for a while longer. Let's just say both Elizabeth and I were overly ready to get out of that van by the time we reached the nuns and priests' destinations.....

Upon arriving at said destination, Elizabeth and I made our way to stay in a house with this guy (in the lower right corner):



Amazing, right?  I know, you're jealous.  I'm even a little jealous of myself.  His name is Isaac and he's the director of Kampala City Yange - the clean up organization I blogged about last week.  He's also a member of the Ugandan Christian Afro-Rock Hip Hop band called Limit X.  Well, he was.  They were big (biggest African Christian band, Isaac informed me,) back in the early 90s (as if there is any question when that photo was taken) and toured all throughout the UK and US.  He lived in the US for a while and just moved back to Uganda with his two daughters about five years ago.  When I called him Friday morning to confirm that I was heading to Kampala and wondering how to go about attending the clean up the next morning, he insisted that I stay with him.  Elizabeth was welcome as well.  He has an apartment in his basement for visitors, so.....you too can stay with Isaac of Limit X!!  How great is that?!  He is really just such a nice guy with a very charming family.  They fed us meals and everything.

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to a part of the city called Mengo for the clean up.  It wasn't quite as serious a clean up as some of the others because it was a neighborhood rather than a market.  But we still had a good 100 people show up, the arch bishop from the area and a few...other...bishops? came as well.  And I guess the mayor made an appearance, though I missed that one - busy hunting plastic out of the dirt.  

Anyway, we got LOADS of trash from this comparatively clean part of the city.  A few choice items I found:

1. The head of a spoon
2. A button
3. A tire sandal
4. Gold ribbon
5. A zillion bottle caps
6. One sock
7. So many gum and candy wrappers
8. Pen caps (several of these??)
9. Someone's phone number
10. AIRTIME

Cell phones out here are pay-as-you-go, which means you go to a little store, hand over a bit of money and get a small scratch card with a pin number to type into your phone and access airtime.  There were more of these dang little cards than any other item out there.  And they are little, so you couldn't see them until you paid attention.  But there were hundreds in the small area I was cleaning.  I wrote MTN (the largest phone provider out here) an email asking them what they were trying to do about reducing their waste and educate their customers on responsibly disposing of what waste had to be produced.  I have yet to hear back.....I'll let you know if I do.

Here's what really struck me though:  We are burying our world in a layer of plastic.  The 150-or-so Ugandans that set out to clean gutters and roads and fields picked up garbage all along the way.  But my meticulous personality forced me to lag a bit behind, go a bit slower, and pick up all that garbage the was missed.  It was hard to see unless you were really looking for it, but once you started, there was almost no end to it.  Just endless amounts of plastic bags being buried in the ground.  And the problem with that is, they don't biodegrade, but they start to photo-degrade - they get brittle and break down into thousands of little tiny pieces that become impossible to clean up.  So it just gets worked further into the earth where it will remain for the next.....no one knows how many hundreds of years.  So please folks, stop using plastic.  In every way possible.  It's not good for you, it's not good for the earth.  Use reusable bags, cups, cutlery, ink pens, bottles and jars, and anything that has an alternative to plastic.  Some people don't have a choice, some people aren't aware they need to make a choice, but if those of us who can, do, it will make it to those who can't much sooner.  Rant over.

This is what I'm talking about.  Impossible to remove, forever buried in our earth.  Sigh.  

I had two revelations of the day.  First:  I can do this same thing up here in Gulu.  It's totally going to be possible and it's going to be fun, and the District Chairman is in my corner and I have KCY on call.  I'm pretty pumped about it. I'm planning for late January - it would be pointless to try to get it in before Christmas, so January it is.  Second: I'm adopting a highway as soon as I get settled somewhere back in the US.  Picking up the garbage on Saturday was just a really wonderful way to connect me to earth and to the problems it's facing.  Here in Uganda it's really easy to see the waste and the seemingly insurmountable environmental issues it's posing.  In the US, we face many of the same problems, we've just gotten better at putting it out of our sight.  But going out to clean litter will bring it all back to forefront.  It will keep the problems real so I won't forget.  So you'll be able to catch me cleaning up the roadside monthly along with anyone who will come.  You're all invited.

Me and the directors of KCY - Grown up Limit X Isaac is the one in the red shirt :-)

Just a smattering of what we gathered - mine is the bag in the bottom right corner - several hours' worth of tiny pieces of garbage overlooked by everyone else....

The next morning I woke up at the awful hour of 5:00 am and went to run my first 10K.  It was kind of hard.....because, well, because there were hills, because I've never run that far before, and because there were TWENTY THOUSAND of us trying to run down the street together.  Literally.  I couldn't believe that many people came out.  It was nuts.  I finished at 1:17:10, which is not awesome, but not too terrible for my first race, right?  Particularly when I couldn't run because of the mass of people smooshed together for the first mile.  But I have to say, it was really just a lot of fun to be part of the sea of yellow crashing down the streets of Kampala.  I'd do it again.

I was in that mass somewhere.....

The victors!

Monday I ended up heading to a little paradise Island called The Hairy Lemon (I know, what a name, right?)   for a couple days.  This old South African hippie guy named Paul bought this island a few years ago and has turned it into a kayaker's haven.  It's right next to some spectacular waves and rapids, and all the water on the island is pumped by a water wheel in the river, the only electricity is solar powered, and the toilets were self-composting.  Plus the weather was perfect, the people were wonderful, and I had no internet or phone service.  It was, as I said, paradise.  I swung in the hammock and read my book, I ate three meals a day that just appeared before me, it's off-season for tourism, so I had the dorm all to myself, I played frisbee golf and got to kayak a little bit.  Oh and I swam through the rapids.  Yes, you read that right, I swam through these big, fat, kayak-competition-worthy rapids.  I went with someone who knows the river really well, but still, just as I was getting ready to push off into the river and swim to the middle so I could be carried down the rapids, I had this moment where I thought, "I'm about to voluntarily plunge myself into the middle of white-water rapids.  I think I've lost it."  But then I jumped in and it was AWESOME.  And scary.  And then I did it again.  What's paradise without a little awesome/scary?  Surely not paradise.

(Check out this video to see the waves I swam through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkXRpBxxd9k)

OK, last thing before I hit publish:  My super-amazing, beautiful best friend Sarah has volunteered to do a jewelry sale for me.  I have about 20 pieces of jewelry that the women I worked with last year made and I'm putting them on sale.  All the proceeds are coming back to me for RFH.  At this point it looks like the funds will go towards the town clean up and an environmental class I'm going to be teaching to 4th graders starting in January.  So if you're looking for a beautiful, meaningful gift to buy for Christmas, this just might be the one for you!  Check out her etsy page at the least, and carry a piece of my favorite beautiful Ugandan women with you wherever you go!!

Just a sample of what could be yours!

Adoption

Meet my brother James and his beautiful wife, Erin:



And meet their four darling children:



They are very soon adding to this family; they're adopting two children out of the Congo.  I know, four children already and they're adopting TWO more?  Are they crazy?  Maybe.  But let me assure you, if anyone can handle it, it's this family right here.  They are incredible and have so much love to give.  So I'm all for them sharing that love with a couple children who so desperately need it.

So here's the thing - James and Erin have to take a total of ten international flights between them and the little Congo-kids before they're all together as a family, and that's not touching the cost of the actual adoption.  So I'm throwing them a little virtual baby shower - a shower where you think of a gift you would like to buy for each of these girls, and then instead of buying the gift, you donate the money to this YouCaring website we set up for the purpose.



I would sure be exceedingly grateful (as would my brother and family!) if I had some blog followers who would be willing to donate a few bucks.  It doesn't need to be much - a lot of little donations can go a long way, as I well learned earlier this year.  So if you have a special place in your heart for adoption, for The Congo, for me, please donate to this cause!



If you want to learn more about their family, feel free to visit their blog at http://neverlandfound.blogspot.com/  Also, I asked them some questions pertaining specifically to this adoption that I'll post below, so peruse that at your leisure.  And feel free to ask any questions of your own you might have!



Thanks all!!  (Oh, and here's their website you can donate to one more time!  Go there!!  http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/Fly-the-Olsen-Girlies-Home-/29619)

You have four biological children of your own already, why are you choosing to adopt not just one, but two more children?

Erin was told when she was 15 that she would not be able to have children of her own body. So, we went into marriage excited about adoption down the road once we were done with our PhD’s, traveled the world a couple turns, and become published fantasy authors—a penning team with a brilliant pseudonym like Olsendore or Galadriolsen or St’Ols-en (we had chatted about combining our last names to form that final one. So much fun for bubble sheets that would have been).

Then, surprise, a few months into our marriage, Gaebriel was on his way. Who doesn't have a story of a doctor being wrong, ours just happens to be a very happy story of 4 miraculous children.

A lot of people who adopt say that they didn’t choose adoption, but adoption chose them. They say that they were “called” to adopt. We never really felt like that, we feel like adopting is simply something that we have known was coming. It was a commitment we made early on in our marriage, and we just wanted to, but didn’t know how it would ever be financially possible. We took this job in Qatar because we were promised a December travel fund (to go back to the US for Christmas) and we knew that those funds would cover part of the adoption if we would just stay here and holiday in the sand. We have been blessed with 4 healthy children and when you are given a gift like that you can’t just turn your back on the millions of other kids who have no option for health with the environment that they are placed in. It was time to make this adoption adventure happen.

And we feel our family is not complete. Looking around at dinnertime and it feels like people are missing. I guess it’s not really choosing adoption, it’s choosing to welcome in members of your family who are out there walking around on other points on the earth. They already feel like members, we’re just not going to leave them out in the cold (or the hot as it is here in Qatar and there in Kinshasa).

And as for adopting 2 instead of 1. Well, they’re sisters, maybe even twins. So you don’t consider separating them. But it also occurs to us that probably during teenage-dom, if not sooner, they will question their identity and yearn for something of their homeland. We hope that it will help them that they have one another and that they aren’t alone as the only adopted child in our family.

What are you naming your children and how did you come up with the names?

Tzyphorah is just a strange name (I wish I could hear all of you trying to say it just now). James has wanted to name a daughter this for years as she is such a powerful figure in the Bible. And it turns out that it is a common name in the DRC. Tzyphorah teaches Moses in the ways of the people of God while he is figuring out his difficult identity of part royalty and oppressor and part oppressed by birth. She leaves the comforts of her home to go and battle the Pharaoh and to rescue slaves of Egypt. It also means bird, which is such a symbol of freedom that it seems to fit a little girl starting a new life.

Shiloh is Erin’s choice. It was a place that she had a very powerful experience at when living in Jerusalem. Shiloh was the place that the wandering temple in the wilderness (the tabernacle of Moses and post-Pharaoh crowd) first came to rest in the Holy Land. Most people would probably guess that it was Jerusalem, but the Ark of the Covenant and everything else was there in the capital of Shiloh for a very long time while the temple in Jerusalem was built. So it is a place of rest, a place of peace, a place of spiritual gathering. Also, Shiloh is the only place Erin ever had stones chucked at her head.

What are you most excited to share with these children when you bring them into your home?

STARS! We hear in Kinshasa that people always burn their garbage and so the pollution is intense. We’re excited to take them out into the middle of our desert and show them the stars. And while we’re out there we might as well introduce them to roasted marshmallows.

Swings. We have 2 in our backyard, doubt that they have ever gone wheeeeeeeeee!

What are you most excited to learn from these children?

You know how children have this innocent way of seeing the world that makes them ask questions like, “Mommy, watch close, can you see me hovering?  It is from the rocket boosters in my feet?” And Gaebriel could really feel himself flying “just a tiny bit.” He had been reading a book about magic and flight. They see the world through a lens and their questions let you into the world in their head, and it is so much better than the world in my own head. Well, Tzyphorah and Shiloh will not only have that childhood element, but they will also come from a spot where there is no electricity, where their days have been filled with piles of other children who experience this life in a way we never have, where their minds have been filled with a million questions and concerns that our biological children have never had in their little spheres atop their necks. I’m so excited to hear of those questions and to come to understand how they perceive the world.

And songs. They sing often in the orphanage. We have a few lullaby CD’s from the DRC, and I’m thrilled to learn the songs that they love.

What did you think the first time you saw a picture of them?

We were laughing and laughing because Shiloh has our 5-year old, Myriam’s smile. Myri has this way of smiling where she opens up her mouth really wide and scrunches up her neck and her nose goes all wide and adorable (but she says, “don’t call me adorable!”). Well, Shiloh and Myri share that smile. They looked like they belonged in our family. James’ first thought was how beautiful they are.  A close second was, “Those girls are as skinny as sticks!” and Erin thought “They need to come home to us, to a home full of sisters who love them already and a brother who will be a fiercely devoted to them.”

Then we thought together, “how in the world are we gonna do this???”

Having chosen to adopt internationally, why did you choose the Democratic Republic of Congo? And why aren’t you adopting domestically?

James has felt a huge connection with DRC ever since he began study for international affairs a decade ago. He learned of the horrific multi-state war, a war many call WWIII although it is rarely noticed in anything more than the periphery. Every index for measuring a country’s well-being puts the DRC down at the bottom, often the very bottom of the list. It is a massive, beautiful, gushing with natural resources place, all of which serves as a foil for the incredible human tragedy that takes place there. There just isn’t a place of greater need. Most social and family scientists will tell you nowadays that the 12 million plus children who are classified as orphans throughout the world don’t need to be adopted out of country, they simply need their parents to be given a hand pulling them up out of a terrible situation. It is estimated that if only true orphans (having lost both parents to death) were numbered it would be more like 30,000 and not millions upon millions. Too many families simply can’t feed their children and so they put them in orphanages so they won’t die of hunger.

When experts talk about this they will give you a few regions that are an exception to this idea of “keep the kids in their own country and support the individual families.” (through things like microloans and agricultural development) The DRC is one of these exceptions. There are so very many orphans and such a shortage of food that the world at large needs to help through both adoption and significant aid to the millions who will never get a ticket out.

We don’t just want to adopt our children and run. We want to unite our family in solidarity and serve this region of the world as a lifelong endeavor for lifting up those who are suffering knowing that we are all in a position of being the beggar at some point in our lives.

The other thing to say here is that we don’t see orphans with nationalities carved into their foreheads. There are children suffering and children not suffering, there is not a greater moral obligation to children of your own nationality. That said, many people feel drawn to adopt from certain places. They feel that they are meant to be foster parents for their local section of child and family services or they feel that they should adopt from the country of their grandparents’ ethnic origin. We simply felt drawn here. It was a lot like when we were deciding which languages to study at university. We just went with our gut and the knowledge that we had. Unfortunately you can’t adopt Hebrew or Arabic speaking children, that would have been nice to use some language skills in building our family.

Obviously much of this can’t be predicted, but how do you plan to deal with having a multi-cultural and multi-racial family? 

We have lived all over the world because we wanted to learn from other cultures. And in so doing incorporated practices from those regions as part of our own unique family culture, not to mimic or to tote with us as a stolen souvenir, but as real aspects of what makes the word “us” that we learned and in turn became during those segments in life. Religiously every faith other than Sikhism and Hinduism is represented in our families—OK a little exaggeration, my uncle actually stopped practicing the Baha’i faith a few years back. Our extended families already include multiple races. So, we don’t really see the word “multi” as all that intimidating.

That’s not to say that race isn’t a very real thing that is important to identity and even biological development. Most people see it as a real problem and a real roadblock to a close relationship when races don’t match whereas we see it as contributing to the richness of our family’s experience. I feel I am more of the person I want to be through my relationships with friends of different races and from different regions of the world who have opened my eyes to new possibilities. So why would adding that dimension to our family be anything other than extraordinarily enriching? We are immersing ourselves in the food, art, languages, dress, music, history and perspectives through local popular publications of the DRC, so we’re not all that concerned about us not being sensitive to cultural considerations and being radically flexible in coming to understand their different viewpoints. Most of our concerns about being mismatched culturally have nothing to do with race and everything to do with the depravity that they have experienced for the last years and the instant material wealth that they will be brought into. Almost every Westerner lives opulently compared to an orphan in Kinshasa. That’s gonna be a really hard adjustment for them and we haven’t figured out all of the ways to support them through that yet.

What has been the hardest thing during this adoption process?

Well, losing Dieu, the first little boy that we were matched with. That took our breath away. Still does to type it. Myri just asked for a locket so she could put his picture along with hers, “so I will always have him with me a little bit.”

Two other things hop right into our minds, too. The first is the paperwork. The bureaucracy and the difficulty of following all the steps just right so you can bring your children home. They are tedious steps (but I have to say not as bad as I imagined. Complaining about adoption paperwork is so universal; I figured it would be much worse.) But the second thing that comes to our mind is the adverse reactions of those around us when they hear we are adopting; from fears that the adopted children will injure our biological children to disapproval of a larger family or comments of neocolonialism and perpetuating white paternalism. No one wants to hear anything other than trumpets and drums from a parade band when they are having a new baby, it is the same for parents preparing to adopt. Just as when we had biological children, we were fully aware of the many things that could go wrong in conception, gestation, delivery, and afterward. Our eyes are wide open in this process as well and we know the difficulties that will surely lie ahead, but a little joy at a new life (or lives!) is surely just as important. Thanks be to all of you who have and will continue to celebrate these two brave beautiful little girls.

Cricket Invasion

See, this is what happens.  I give myself an inch and I take a mile.  Rather, I give myself a week, and I take a month.  I remember I made a scrap book when I was in middle school.  I would get together with my friend Marianne, and we would cut pictures, and color borders and glue mementos.  I was rather proud of it when I was finished.  And for the next four-ish years I saved everything for my *next* scrapbook.  Only I never even started that next scrap book.  Didn't even cut one photo.  But I felt guilty all. the. time. for not doing it.  Until one day I declared, "I am not a scrap booker!  I don't want to do this anymore!  I'm no longer saving napkins and ticket stubs! Forget it!"  And it was like this weight was lifted, and I was free.  Glorious.

I've thought about doing that with my blog.  Except, truth be told, I actually really like blogging.  It's fun for me to record what I'm doing, share it with other people, and it's really fun to look back on old posts and see the personal progress I've made (which probably isn't visible to anyone but me.)  So I'm going to try really hard not to make that same I-hate-scrap-booking declaration.  (Man, now I'm kind of excited to go home and dig out that old scrap book that I haven't looked at in over a decade.....)

So I've had a few exciting things happen since I last wrote.  Not as much as I would have liked.  Honestly, this last six months of my life have just been one big lesson in "You Don't Get Your Own Way."  Even when all signs lead to it going my way, it just kind of hasn't.  BUT, things have happened.  Just not as much or as fast as I would like.

First, I had a great meeting with Sister Rosemary - the director of St. Monica's (where they make the water-bottle houses.)  They really do seem to want just as many water bottles as possible.  They're building a gas station halfway between here and Juba (there isn't one currently) and they would like to use as many water bottle bricks as possible.  We talked a lot about needing consistent pick-up efforts on their part in order for this to work.  She agreed, and we worked out a way - they have a nursery school, and they have a driver and a van that goes around to pick up the kids every morning, and then the driver and the van often don't have anything to do until he takes the kids home.  So Wednesday mornings, after he safely gets the kids to school, he's safely going to get a bunch of bottles to the compound as well.  Brilliant.  Before, we were counting on the St Monica's driver and van - which often had prior engagements or things that would take precedence.   Then Sister Rosemary came out with me to pick up some loads of bottles.  She was amazed at how many bottles we got in just a few places.

Next, I had a very exciting meeting with Gulu's District Chairman, Martin Mapenduzi.  I don't know what the equivalent is back home....maybe the governor?  Anyway, I told him what I wanted to do, what I'd been trying to do, and how I was feeling a bit frustrated by it.  Once I finished my spiel he said, "Let me encourage you not to give up.  Gulu needs this right now."  He told me what I was trying to do, my efforts, were actually someone's job in Gulu, and that it just wasn't being done.  He wants me to meet with the municipal council and talk to them about my project, about ideas for what the city can do.  I'm a bit intimidated and nervous about such a meeting, but I'm excited by it.  I think the first thing I'm going to pitch is a town-center clean up.  The idea for which I got from Kampala City Yange (KCY.)

I stole this photo from KCY's facebook page....hope they won't mind!  

KCY is this awesome organization down in Kampala that I got to meet with last week.  Every last Saturday of the month they go to a different part of the city and do a massive clean up.  They get local celebrities and politicians, they hand out free t-shirts and play loud music to get the locals out, excited and ready to work.  Then they provide shovels and rakes and wheelbarrows and trucks to overhaul the garbage problem in that area and haul all the trash away to the landfill.  I want to try this in Gulu.  And I think it can be done.  Gulu doesn't have a landfill - but that's OK.  I'm going to try to convince the government to loan me a small patch of land.  We'll sort the garbage and recycle what we can, compost what we can, and then find a way to dispose of the rest as responsibly as we can.  Oh man, I'm excited about this.  Probably more excited than I should be, given that I have yet to talk to the local government about it.  So keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

I'm heading back down to Kampala on Friday to participate in one of KCY's cleanups and experience just how it's all done.  Oh, and I'm going to run a 10K while I'm there.  I kind of hate running, but doing races is a lot more fun than just running, so why not?  So I'm making the promise right now that next week I'll post cleanup and race pictures.  PROMISE.

In other news, it has been attack of the crickets lately.  Thankfully it's getting much better, but for a while there, they came in droves.  They are big, they are black (so creepily spider-looking) and they are UGLY.  And they fly.  How does it get worse?  They try to get anywhere where there is light at nighttime.  And they fly aroung the room, circling like mad, jumping, flying at my head (they really like my hair for some reason.)    I will sit on my bed, under the mosquito net with the lights off and I can hear them flinging themselves into my windows.  The faint glow of my computer light is driving them mad.  I killed several before bed one night, killed about eight more in my room when I woke up the next morning, and then went into the bathroom and saw this.....Awesome.    

Walking to Kitgum

If you are a faithful blog follower of mine, you know I've taken a bit of an unannounced hiatus from blogging. This was somewhat unintentional, but I guess it was somewhat intentional as well.

Here's the thing: I feel like people reading my blog about my time in Uganda or my attempts to set up my own project want to hear about the sweeping progress I've made and my wonderful adventures in this land that is so vastly different from my home.  And to be honest, I have nothing to write about when it comes to those things, so I'm a bit scared to write.  I'm scared that if I write about how frustratingly slow things have been, all the wonderful and generous souls who donated their money will automatically assume I am squandering their money.  I'm afraid if I write about my frustrations and homesickness, people will tune out.  I'm afraid that if I write about being homesick or frustrated, people will mistake that for my being depressed or unhappy or not loving Uganda as much as I do.  

And maybe that's just what will happen, but I promised to blog, and I think facing my fears is important, so today I'm blogging honestly about my project and my frustrations. 

Recycling for Hope is limping along for a few reasons - first, I can't manage to get stencils made.  I'm now on to trying with my fourth business - and this time I'm trying to stay out of the process entirely until it comes to approving the quality.  I'm letting Lenox do all the work, hoping that my favorite Ugandan will have more success in dealing with his fellow Ugandans.  At this moment I'm not holding my breath as past experience has led me to accept that this just isn't a quick process.  And yes, I think the stencils are vital to the success of the project - if you want to know more, I'll happily explain why, but that would be an entire blog post itself.  Second, Living Hope is the organization that has been successfully making sanitary pads out of recycled paper and distributing them to school girls for about two years now.  I found out Thursday afternoon - just before heading out of town - they are no longer making them.  Haven't been for about a month, though no one told me and I've been dropping off loads of paper intermittently.  So I emailed the director to figure out why and haven't heard back.  I just got back to town and will be venturing that way in just a few hours to figure out just what the deal is.  From what I can gather, I was unaware of this, but Living Hope is the facilitator but not actually the owner of the project and there is a dispute over whose name goes on what.  Hopefully this is just a temporary problem, but as we're fond of saying here in Uganda, there's just no way of knowing.  Third, two of the largest NGOs out here - one under the UN and one under USAID - were both highly interested in participating in my project.  They were both supposed to be around for at least another year, and both have recently had major unexpected funding cuts and are soon going to be nearly nonexistent  While that isn't make or break for RFH by any means, it does feel like yet another chink in my armor.  They were great clout for getting other organizations to join, and I was counting on them sponsoring several schools' environmental programs.  Last, my website is down and I can't figure out why or how to fix it.   Again, not make or break, but severely annoying.   

All of this has left me frustrated and homesick.  I just often feel like I'm running in circles or on the other extreme - sitting stagnant.  I do have this dream of Recycling for Hope, and I think it's a really good dream, and I hope it comes into fruition, but I regularly fear that it won't.  I feel overwhelmed and second guess myself and wonder what in heaven's name I was thinking trying to do this on my own and with other people's money.  Consequently, I came to a conclusion a few weeks ago - I'm staying until March.  I determined to give it six more months and at that time I will go home.  By then, the project will either be ready to have Lenox running things full time, or it will be time to cut my losses and move on with my life.  I need a light at the end of the tunnel, and I need something to keep me going, so going home in March is playing that role.  

Let me transition to a quick story; one of my closets friends out here is Charity Watson.  She's a wild card - you just never know what she's going to do or what is about to come out of her mouth.  Last month when we were travelling on the bus to go kayaking, she started telling me about her plan to walk to a town called Kitgum.  I'm fairly certain I laughed out loud and said she was nuts when she told me.  I've been to Kitgum, and let me tell you, it is not paradise.  And it is over two hours away by car - so if one is going to walk that far for the fun of it, you better be walking somewhere like Zanzibar.  Elizabeth and I and everyone else she told gave her loads of crap for wanting to do this.  But she is a determined woman - one of the many qualities I admire about her.  So the Sunday after we got home, she set out.  Charity is a yoga instructor here in town, and I went to her class Monday, expecting a substitute instructor as I figured she would be nearing Kitgum right about then - but there she was, sitting on her yoga mat in front of the door.  "What are you doing here?" I asked in disbelief and she just laughed.  She told me she'd made it 55 kilometers (nearly 35 miles) the first day when she realized she wouldn't be able to wake up and do the same thing again the next day.  So at dusk she hitched a ride on the back of some kid's bike, who was also pumping his sister on the front bars to the next town.  From there she paid a boda to take her to the next big-ish town where she got into a mutatu (15-passenger taxi van) that took her the rest of the way into Kitgum.  She slept there that night and then rode the bus back to Gulu in the morning.  Before class started she talked a bit about the experience to everyone; as she walked it was an incredibly meditative experience.  She learned amazing things about herself, about the earth, about Uganda, and about the people - and none of it had to do with actually reaching Kitgum.  Things didn't turn out the way she planned, but in reality the experience wasn't about the plan, it was about the process - and the process was wildly successful.  

So what I really hope is that in this process of building RFH, I (and those interested in its success) can realize it's also about my life and the lives of those I'm hoping to affect.  And while things may not ever look quite like I want them to in the end, the road there has been amazing.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.   I'm not done yet, I still have faith that Recycling for Hope will pick up and become something wonderful.  But I feel like it won't be quite what I imagined and that it will take longer than I expected, so I may not be around for much of it.  But in the process, my life has changed.  I've learned so much about the environment and my responsibility as a citizen of the world.  I've learned untold amounts about accepting different cultures, about developing nations, about being committed to helping others.  I've learned where the limits of my patience lie, and I've seen those limits expand.  I've had my faith challenged by myself and others and come to terms with not having all the answers - and in fact feeling as though that is healthy.  I've read great books and gotten better at the guitar.  I've learned to cook crazy Ugandan foods and have embarked on endless DIY projects and made life-long friends.  Externally, I've helped get Patrisia's school fees paid for, I've helped Lenox start his own business, I've tried to teach 30+ girls on a weekly basis about how great their potential is, and I've saved several thousand bottles and loads of paper from being burned.  And by extension - you helped do all that as well.  I couldn't have done it with out help and support - financially and morally - both of which I've been incredibly blessed to receive.  It's certainly not all about quantifiable experiences, but sometimes it helps to recognize those things.  

I suppose the moral of this story is stay tuned.  It's not over yet, and I will try to be honest about what's going on and hope that you'll stick around for the good and the bad.  The next six months are sure to bring plenty of both.  

Happy Birthday to Me

I have arrived.  I am solidly 30 years old.  I honestly can't believe it's been a full decade since my twentieth birthday, but there you have it.  My week off was wonderful, I got so much done.  I got those curtains hung, I fixed and organized my closet,  I got Ivy's ear mites problem taken care of (hopefully!), I painted my toes and finished Modern Family Season 2.  I read another of the Anne books (finally reading Anne of Green Gables.  Still dreaming of my very own Gilbert Blythe.)  I had some capris mended and played plenty of guitar.  And I got really close to finishing knitting that baby sweater!  The whole week was full of doing those things that should be done, but never get done.  They're almost all done now!  Lovely.

My friends Charity, Elizabeth and I decided we should do my celebrate-Morgan's-twenties dinner the night before my birthday at KSP - it's a hotel here in town - one of the few four-story buildings in town - and they have a a rooftop restaurant.  It's not a popular restaurant for one reason only - notoriously slow service.  And if you are abandoning a place here in Gulu because of slow service, you know it's bad.  Fast food is a completely foreign concept in every way.  You just figure they really ARE killing the chicken out back.  But the rooftop has great atmosphere and the food at KSP really is quite good.  So I went in a few days in advance and asked them to prepare a few dishes for 12 people to eat, and really, they didn't do a bad job!  It was no slower than any other Gulu restaurant.  (No faster either, but we're not lookin' for a miracle here people.)  And the coconut curry chicken was delicious!!

Friends at dinner - Grace, Me, Elizabeth, Sarah, Hilary, Tom, Jon, Paul, Chris, and Charity.  

We headed to the pub for trivia night afterwards, and happy birthday to me!  We won!  First place team gets a crate of beer....which isn't all that exciting for me, but winning is always fun!

Yeah!  Free....beer?  Oh well.  

The next morning (my actual birthday) Charity, Elizabeth and I woke up early and headed down to Kampala via the Post Bus.  Correction, Elizabeth overslept and didn't make it to the Post Bus.  So she took another random bus down and met us in the city a few hours later.  First we got massages (full-body, hour-long massages for about $10.  Sometimes I do love Kampala) and then headed to a new Thai restaurant that had opened in town.  It was super nice, and the food was incredible.  Honestly, I felt like I could have been in any city anywhere in the world that evening.  Which is kind of exactly what I needed.

Me and Charity in all our morning glory.  Elizabeth is conspicuously missing....  

At the Thai restaurant - post massage, sauna and food.  We are glowing!  

We woke up early again the next morning (Elizabeth in tow this time) and took the shuttle to Jinja - one of the towns located right on the Nile - for our kayaking extravaganza!!  You see, last year I went white-water rafting with some friends.  It was a perfect day on the river.  The rapids were a blast, there were long stretches of calm water where we could hop out and swim through the Nile - swimming in the Nile! - I felt like the coolest person alive.  Until I looked over and saw the kayakers, and I realized they were just a little bit cooler than me.  So this year I was not to be outdone.

We spent the morning learning how to wield our own personal kayaks, and then in the afternoon we hit the rapids.  Truthfully, it was just an amazing day.  Again, the weather was awesome, the water was so warm, we were all bad at kayaking but got better, we all managed to stay upright on some rapids and flipped on a few, and we just laughed and laughed and laughed.  I was so exhausted at the end of the day though that I literally almost face planted in my dinner.  I was back in my room ready for bed with lights out at 9:50pm.  For those who know me well, you know that has got to be some kind of personal early-to-bed record.

Yep, I got the purple kayak!  Don't we look so hardcore in our super-cool skirts?  

Charity is a yoga instructor, and a few weeks before she had been talking about wanting to do a grand mala - 108 Sun Salutations.  I didn't even really know what a Sun Salutation was, but I've been taking Charity's yoga classes the last few months and have really enjoyed it, so I decided Sunday morning was the perfect time to try doing this short series of poses 108 times in a row.  On the banks of the Nile.  Sounds murderous, I know, but in reality it was amazing.  I thought it took me just over an hour, but when we looked at the clock once we were done, we realize it was nearly three hours.  It was just medatative and relaxing with an incredible view and I had an awesome playlist on my iPod.  I just felt so settled about my age and my life (both of which I've suffered through more than one panic attack over in the last few months) and so grateful for that moment.

Starting the Sun Salutation together.  

The view we looked out on.  How could you not enjoy that?  

108 paper beads - made by the lovely women I worked with last year - so I could keep track of how may salutations I had done.  

All finished!  

All in all it was a perfect week.  Great friends, good food, beautiful surroundings and so much laughter.  If being 30 allows me to still have that much fun, I'll take it.

On the way back to Kampala from Jinja we hopped in a mutatu taxi - I got the front seat, but Charity and Elizabeth were squished in the back.  

The Final Stretch

Sometimes things just don't turn out.  Last year when my friend Pilgrim was here helping me get things started with Recycling for Hope, he brought our prototype boxes to this John guy at a friend's recommendation to get the stenciling/printing done.  John made it happen in a couple days, and they looked fantastic, with the promise that they would look even better when we were ready to make the real thing for a large amount of boxes.  It was such a relief to know when I got back here and was trying to get everything set in motion that I already knew who I could use for the stencils.  He was good at what he did, he was the friend of a friend, he worked quickly.  Only he doesn't work quickly.  He did once.  He doesn't now.  It's been two and a half months.  He's telling me this chemical he needs isn't around, he can't get it sent to him, blah blah blah.  I have a hard time believing NO one in Uganda has it.  And John (stencil guy) has just been SO unreliable.  He'll tell me he'll have my stuff tomorrow, and he doesn't have it.  He'll tell me he'll call me on Wedensday and I won't hear from him.  He'll say to meet at his shop and he won't be there.  So finally I got sick of it.  I gave him an ultimatum last Wednesday.

"John, I want you to tell me what day you can have this stuff ready for me.  And this is your last chance.  If it's not ready, I will go find someone else to make these stencils for me."

"Please madam, it's different cultures, I had to be in the village."

"I understand you had to be in the village, but you should have at least called.  So tell me what day I will hear from you."

"Let it be Monday."

"OK, Monday.  I will talk to you Monday.  And if I don't hear from you, I will take my business elsewhere."

"No, no.  You will hear from me."

But I didn't.  So Monday evening I called Tom (the friend that introduced Pilgrim to John last year) and asked for advice.  He said he would go to John's office and talk to him and see what the deal was.  He got back to me yesterday and told me I should just move on.  John was being stubborn and a bad business man and I should teach him a lesson.  But I decided to give him one more chance.  I went to his office yesterday afternoon and he was less than excited to see me.

"John, why didn't I hear from you on Monday?"

"Because I didn't have everything ready."

"But I told you if I didn't hear from you on Monday I would take my business elsewhere.  So when I didn't hear from you it sent a clear message that you didn't care about my business and that you want me to go somewhere else.  Is that the case?"

He didn't say much, and when I pressed him for an answer he told me I should probably go someplace else. So I walked away.

And now I'm tired of fighting, I'm tired of waiting.  I just want to get it done.  So I'm heading to Kampala to get it done.

BUT.  I am changing decades next week.  Yes, it is time for me to hit the big three-oh.  Wow, wow, wow.  How did that happen?  Where did the last five years go?  Anyway, I'm planning a trip to Kampala for the weekend to celebrate anyway, and I really don't want to spoil my birthday with arguing with people in Kampala, (it's always an argument in Kampala,) so I have decided to work on the stenciling the week after my birthday.  So what am I going to do the rest of next week?  Well, I will tell you.  I am going to take the week off.  The whole week.  I am going to celebrate the last week of my twenties and prepare to usher in my thirties.  I am going to get my curtains hung properly in my bedroom.  I am going to finish knitting the baby sweater for my friend.  I am going to go to the pool and lounge rather than just exercise and run away.   I'm going to finish reading my book.  And I don't know what else, but other great things.  And I'm going to do it all guilt free.  So anyone who thinks I am being lazy or unnecessarily indulgent, keep it to yourself please.  I am going to do this.  You probably won't hear from me on the blog until it's over.  So the next time I post, I will be a real adult who is 30 and ready to work hard and face challenges and have no more fun.  Because people who are 30 don't have fun, right?

Now since I have had a rather frustrating week, I have no pictures of progress to show.  But I organized an awesome sleepover with the teenage girls at my church last weekend, so I'll show you photos of that instead.

We started out with a swim party.  

Most the girls had never been in a pool before.  

They were all brave, they all got in, and they ALL had a blast.  

We came back to the church, ate pizza for dinner (a first for many as well,) and watched  my personal favorite Disney movie  - Aladdin.

Aladdin was also a first for all of them.  They chowed down on candy, popcorn , chips and soda as well.  I figured since they have an American handy, they might as well have a bit of an American experience.  That means unhealthy food, all around!  

Lights out at midnight.  They were pretty good and all fell asleep by 1:00am.  

I made them a pancake breakfast in the morning, complete with yummy Canadian maple syrup!

We ended things with a testimony meeting outside.  

18 of my all-time favorite girls, right here!  Such a fun weekend!