The day-to-day

I've now been in Uganda for a week and a day, which is a little hard to believe-- feels like a lifetime. My computer is broken, which is both a good and a bad thing. We have wifi on the base, and if I had a functional computer I think I would likely spend way too much time on it. The way it is, I can use my iPod to read emails (and write short ones), and then I can borrow a computer from time to time to Skype, blog, and write lengthier emails. So it's the weekend, and most everyone else has headed into town, and I'm staying back here to catch up with the outside world. All this to say: get used to several blog updates in a couple days, and then nothing for a while.

I'll start with the easiest things to describe-- the day-to-day life.

5:30 a.m. Wake up, wash face & brush teeth, get dressed and bundle up a little-- it's been cold in the mornings!

6:00 a.m. Head outside for quiet time. It's still dark at this point, so I go and find a quiet spot to sit and pray and wait for the sun to rise. Lately I've been sitting on the edge of the (red dirt) basketball court, overlooking the soccer fields, forests, hills, villages, and Lake Victoria. I sit and pray for a half hour or so, watch the consistently breathtaking sunrise, listen to the monkeys and crickets and unfamiliar birds, and ask God what He has for the day. Once the sun is up, I read a bit-- I've been reading in John and Proverbs in the Bible, and My Utmost for His Highest. So good.

7:30 a.m. Breakfast. We have two white bread rolls, with either margarine or homemade peanut butter (my favorite), a banana or a hard-boiled egg, and a cup of spiced milk tea.

8:30 a.m. Worship or prayer time, either as a school or as a whole base. My favorite so far was when they had each nation represented (10 total) come forward and lead a worship song from their own country.

9:30 a.m. Lecture. We've had a speaker from America this week, but each week will be someone different. The lectures have been so good, so challenging and inspiring and informative. I feel like each day this week God has brought up something that has completely transformed my thinking and living in one area or another. It's so hard to believe it's only the first week!

11:00 a.m. Break tea. I don't know why it's called "break tea" and not "tea break", but it is what it is. We have another cup of milk tea or instant coffee and another roll or bread and butter or mandaazi (like a less-sweet donut) or something similar.

11:30 a.m. Lecture. There's so much information that it's really nice to have that break in the middle.

1:00 p.m. Lunch. Lunch and dinner are usually very similar, a combination of four or five of the following: rice, pasta, potatoes, posho (a mash of white corn flour cooked in water), matoke (cooked green bananas), beans, cooked cabbage, avocados, pineapple, watermelon, and very occasionally some sort of meat (I think we had lamb last night) or my favorite: chapati. Chapati is a fried flatbread, kind of like a thick, flavorful flour tortilla, only a thousand times better.

2:30 p.m. Group time. Later on, this will be small groups to discuss what we're learning in the lectures, but this first couple of weeks we're staying together as a large group. We sit in a big circle and each person takes a turn to share their life story. With 43 people ranging in age from 17 to about 40 years old, coming from the US, UK, Austria, Czech Republic, South Korea, Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, this is an amazing time of getting to hear such different stories. Wednesday was an especially powerful time. In many East African cultures, public displays of vulnerability or emotion are very uncommon, and people instead keep things to themselves and just say they are fine. But on Wednesday, several different Ugandans shared their full life stories, heartbreaking stories, even in tears. If we're starting a precedent of that kind of openness in the first week, I can't wait to see what God will be able to do with this group over the next five months of sharing life together.

3:30 p.m. Work duty. We haven't started this yet (we get one week as a guest), but we'll be helping clean or garden or cook or do anything else around the base that needs to be done. I've never hoed a garden in a skirt before-- it's an interesting prospect.

5:30 p.m. Free time. This can involve napping, singing, talking, reading the 10 chapters a day we're supposed to read from the Bible, playing basketball or soccer or frisbee, or teaching the Africans any of a number of great games such as spoons or Uno. Always a good time. I've been singing lots, and yesterday had a ukulele lesson with a Tanzanian guy (I was teaching him).

7:30 p.m. Dinner. Basically the same as lunch.

8:00 p.m. After-dinner activities... sometimes a social event (this week we played duck duck goose and bobbing for apples) or worship time, sometimes an unofficial dance party to the Lion King soundtrack, you really never know.

10:00 p.m. Lights out. However, it is on very rare occasions that I am still awake at 10. I generally end up falling asleep sometime between 8:30 and 9:30.