Africa is a funny place

I think I have mentioned before, among the American students we have a saying "OIA" (Only In Africa). We say this often when things happen that can only be explained by using this saying. Let me share with you a few of these things.

1. This one is a little heavier but I promise it will be funny. Picture me 16 years ago. My mom calls Josh, Sean and I in from the sand box to watch Clinton's Inauguration. Here is what my 5 1/2 year old brain understands about him. I desperately wanted a baby sister, after praying for a year and a half my mom gets pregnant (she may not have planned it but I always knew I would get my sister). So she is a few months from being born and I know, somehow, that Clinton supported abortion. Throughout the whole inauguration I balled, then my mom noticed sand crawling in Sean's hear, wait sand doesn't crawl...we had lice!

So here I am 16 years later, in Africa, I'm 20, and we have no elected a president who has radical views on abortion. My dad and I had a small discussion on the topic so when I found out I cried again. I felt like I was 5 1/2 again, why does anyone kill babies? Give them to me! I had a small flashback to 16 years ago, I'm still sad but feeling more my age.

2. One thing that helps us through all the hard days is exercising. They really encourage those of us who exercise at home to exercise here as well, like my 4 miles of walking to and from school isn't enough. So my exercise partner Stephanie and I try to get out every morning to run, do abs and some arm stuff too. Well, I've been having the lung issues so a few weeks ago I decided not to run as much, but to do lunges, squats and other various exercises. So I decided I needed a little more weight, are there any normal free weights in Africa? Of course not…so what do you use? Picture this, I look around and there are numerous boulders. Yes, I started doing overhead presses and squats with a boulder. I will try it again and have Stephanie take a picture.

Oh, and another thing, running on the “track” which is often a muddy swamp, you can encounter many obstacles. I live 30 miles from the nearest lake yet there was a rotting fish on the side. Gross! Also, you can often encounter cars, cows and chickens. It is necessary for us to always keep our eyes open so as not to run into any livestock.

3. So in the United States we have apple seasons, orange seasons, etc…guess what kind of seasons Uganda has. Well, for starters, the white ant season has already passed. White ants are huge flying insects that they fry and eat. But, there is a new season that is just coming. It’s the grasshopper season!! And guess what, we eat them too!! After we run we go up to the dorms to take a shower in the sub-zero showers and they are infested with them. The first day I counted 21, today 27. Yep, tons of 2-3 inch green, grey or brown grasshoppers that make a screaming noise and run or fly at you. It’s super gross.

4. And lastly, you may laugh at this but at 4 am this morning I wasn’t laughing. We had 2 chickens yesterday that someone gave to my family. A hen and a cock. Well the hen was sick with a respiratory thing so we killed her right away to eat her. Yes that’s right, when a chicken gets sick the obvious answer is to just eat the sick chicken. They say I won’t get sick, let’s hope not! The cock gets to live until Sunday, unfortunately since he couldn’t be with the hen he got to hang out in the house. He decided to make his little home right in front of my bedroom door. Gross. Then when it was time to go to sleep I thought we would put him outside, that sounds logical right? Wrong! He “slept” inside. He was a very confused rooster though. He thought sunrise was at 3 am when it doesn’t actually happen till about 6:15. He crowed 10 crows every 20 minutes from 3 am until I finally left the house at about 6:10…my family had told me the day before I was the one responsible for killing, plucking and gutting him. I quickly declined but by about 4 am I was more than ready to slaughter that sucker!

Anyway, that is the funny happenings around here. I hope you are all doing wonderful. Gaze at a beautiful autumn tree for me. I’m missing autumn more than I thought I would. Have a wonderful Thursday! Love you all!