On Friday we woke up and after breakfast headed in to Mulago hospital to see our friend Susan. Last year we stayed at Susan's house while she was living next door with her sister who was about to get married. Susan just delivered a baby by C-section on Thursday and we were able to go in and see her! Little Jasmine is a precious little baby and Susan is a proud new mom! She was still a little out of it from all the drugs that she was on for pain and infection, but she was doing well overall! We took a bunch of pictures on Angella's camera that I will post when I get them uploaded. It was great to go to Mulago and not be on our way to see really sick patients, which is often the case. It felt like we were visiting friends in Minnesota in the hospital after they had a baby a couple of weeks ago. Susan was even fortunate enough to get a private room for her recovery! She loved the clothes that my mom and I had bought for the baby and the jewelry that we picked out for her! Way to go mom!
After visiting with Susan, we took boda's to another friend, Gloria's house. She stays with her brother and his family in a two story house that is much bigger than my parents home in Minnesota. I am not used to being here and staying in "real" houses. Usually it's a guest house or we are visiting an orphanage with very small rooms and lots of kids crammed in. Sometimes I forget that people live fairly normal lives right next to the places where life isn't so easy! It was great to see Gloria and I think she was excited to see us too! We went to the Oasis mall for lunch at Java's. It's a favorite spot of Mzungu's....as we were driving up to the mall, I saw more white people than I had seen all day in other parts of town. I guess we all end up flocking to the places that feel most like home!
We left to pick up a SIM card for my phone and then found a place in an area called Wandegeya that sells internet connections. Luckily they were having a sale so I was able to purchase my modem (that looks like a Jump Drive) and a connection package that will last about a month, depending on how much I use it for just about $40. I was a little shocked when they asked for my contact information including a phone and email when they registered my account. I think it's the first time in four years of coming here that anybody has sold me something and cared who I was! I guess Uganda is moving forward!!
By the time we were finished with our errands and visits it was already after 5, and the jam was bad. We tried to take a back road, but that really wasn't much better. Halfway up a small street, we were completely blocked by a tow truck. It didn't have enough power to make it up the small hill. Can you imagine the truck that is supposed to help other vehicles was incapable of even the smallest hill? While we were waiting a boda ran into the back bumper. Not really surprising and luckily didn't do any damage. When we finally got home, I realized I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. Thanks jet lag! I ended up taking a nap for an hour, which is never a good idea, but sometimes its totally necessary! I woke up and ended up talking with Gloria, Angella, Gloria's brother George and his girlfriend Nora. The conversation was all over the place from very serious topics to extremely lighthearted ones, but there managed to be laughter the entire time. I think George has a way with words!
Today was an even more low key day. I had woken up in the middle of the night to finish some MPH assignments. It's not easy to keep up with them and as excited as I was about my Orange internet modem, it wasn't working well at all last night so the excitement went a little south. At 4 am though, it all of a sudden kicked in and now I have decently fast internet! Yay Orange! So I ended up staying up way to late and then sleeping in until 9:30! That's the latest I've slept in ages! We made some plans and some phone calls for where we are going to go each day and hopefully we will be able to make it all work out. Since Angella had bought a lot of vegetables, we decided to have a cooking adventure. We made amazing pasta complete with homemade sauce from fresh tomatoes and all kinds of random veggies. We were quite proud of our creation in the end! We even decided to document the momentous occasion with a picture. I think it's the first time I've been here and cooked a meal in a house. We've stayed at places without great cooking facilities before so this was a nice change!
We ended up spending most of the day watching silly American reality T.V. shows like Wipeout, Next, and some random new one about fixing people's relationships. We laughed a lot all day! I can't imagine what Ugandans think about us if this is what they generally see is "reality" They must think we are all a little crazy!
I convinced Angella that running would be fun and she agreed to go with! I was expecting it to be really hard because of the hills and the heat and I think we are at a bit of an altitude compared to Minnesota. It actually was a lot of fun. You have to really be aware of your surroundings with the traffic and the weird arrangement of the roads. I had to come up with random landmarks because it's not like there were street signs to guide my way! We tried to find another Susan's house, but we were totally not in the right place. On the way back with both saw it at different times and realized we had completely looked past it! I think I was so worried about making it up the hill that I saw in front of me that I didn't look off to the sides! We decided to come back another day and visit instead! Here are our before and after pictures! Haha!
When we got done, one of Angella's neighbors came up and asked her, "Doctor, why does this one not sweat?". Apparently my white skin was hiding all of my sweat! I wiped my face with my hand and assured him that I was not any different, and that I sweat too! I was so glad that Angella came with and that there weren't any falls on the slippery dust on the roads. My poor shoes are a little worse for the journey though! I don't think they will be coming home with me!
We spent the rest of the night watching the 3rd place game of the women's World Cup between Sweden and France! I wish I knew more about the sport! It's not easy to be excited about it when you don't know any of the players and the rules are still a mystery! I think I've picked up on quite a bit though and I was actually excited to watch it! Tomorrow is a must watch game between the US and Japan! I think I know who I'll cheer for in that game!
Okay, so the past two days were a lot of fun and relaxation which I think was needed but tomorrow starts working on a lot of things. We have to confirm contacts with a bunch of the orphanages, go to church (I can't wait for Watoto Church!), hopefully meet up with Troy's other traveling companions (Troy is stranded with Dennis somewhere between Paris, Nairobi, and here until Sunday night), try to meet up with our favorite cab driver, Joseph, and maybe make another trip to see Susan! I feel like I need to start doing the real work so we don't end up stressing out towards the end of the trip when we have to cram a lot into a few days!
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