Christmas in June!!!

Holy awesomeness!!! It's gonna be a great few months of eating and entertainment! Yay! I don't think I'll leave my house in the next few weeks :)

I am constantly amazed by my family and friends... not just because they can pack some fantastic care packages, but because of their thoughtfulness and love. I've been here for almost a year, and the goodness just keeps coming! It really means a lot that even though you're far away, I still feel connected through mail, email, etc. I can't wait to be back in the US, surrounded by such great people! I hope that I can be as good to you as you've been to me! Sending you tons of love from Uganda! 

Thanks to Morgan and John. You guys rock! I might be 500 lbs, but at least I'll have pretty nails and be up on my celeb gossip! I'm trying my best not to eat an entire box of g-scout cookies in one sitting. And thank you for those towels! They really are the best- quick drying and easy to pack when I travel. And thanks to you, one of my Ugandan friends experienced their first cupcake. They asked me if I could make them more : / And mama, thanks for the new bras!

Thanks to Mom and Jen. SO MUCH FUN. I told Denis that I'd make him Nachos for 4th of July. He doesn't know what they are, but I think he'll like them. I know I will. Oh, and I already devoured the twizzlers. Oops. Mom, the old navy shirts and great- thanks! And Jen, I really like the dress... I think it'll be a new staple. XOXOXOXO

How does your garden grow...

I know that I post a lot about the garden, but I'm still super excited about it. I think I found a new hobby. With more regular rain, everything has taken off. I was eating lettuce, kale and collards every day before I went out of town, and the trend will continue now that I'm back. Last night we had kale leaves stuffed with rice, raisins and spices topped with a tomato sauce. Yum!!!
The squash has started to bloom and the cucumber plants seem to be doing well. My tomatoes plants are still teeny, but hopefully they'll get there. Hope I can keep the lettuce going so that I'll have cucumbers and tomatoes to go with it!
A special thanks to Mary Traille for the wonderful greens and seeds- I've been sharing with the locals too! I can't wait until they see the striped and purple tomatoes! And dad, I have your 'Box Car Willy' tomatoes started. It'll be fun to eat one of your backyard tomatoes here!

Italian lettuce on left, quail spinach in back and heirloom bib lettuce on right, surrounded in front by a border of not-yet-bloomed marigolds

Georgia collard greens, Italian and Ethiopian kale... and a few small tomato plants

Two small pineapple plants (it'll be a while before they produce) with an unidentified Ugandan vine and a loofah vine (the lighter green veiny one is the loofah vine). Loofah vines produce pods that you can unwrap to discover great loofahs for bathing.

A passion fruit vine. It'll take quite some time before it starts producing fruit.

Radishes in front, followed by basil, tomatoes, cucumber and squash. On the far side is a watermelon plant and more kale and collards.

Squash blossoms and the beginning of a squash.

Weekend in the City

This past weekend, I traveled to the capital, Kampala, for a meeting, but also for some much-needed R&R outside of the village. It was a great time, full of pedicures, margaritas, movies and friends. Getting there and back is always a pretty awful adventure, but totally worth it to see my friends and do fun stuff. I didn't take many pictures, but here's the result of the few times I whipped out my camera...

Crossing the Victoria Nile at Karuma Falls, the unofficial division that separates 'the north' from the rest of the country

Yep, not in the north anymore. Look at all that good fruit!

My friend Khayla getting her very first pedicure. I got one too. Yay for Kampala!

Painted sign at a primary school. You're supposed to fill in the letters to finish the word. All the other words were in english, so I'm assuming this one is supposed to be too. There were other pictures of books, cows, etc. Any guesses as to what this should be k _ _ e?

Eating the first Mexican food I've had in Uganda. And it was good. And they had margaritas. With ice.
 We were celebrating my friend Susy's bday (she's in the middle).

RADISH

First one from the garden :)

This week's pics

Hooray! A fast internet connection! 

Students and guardians welcoming our embassy guest

 Guardians

The gang with embassy rep

random happy kiddos

Dorian and her friend shelling gnuts for planting

My friend Jennifer trying to hide because she'd just come from the garden

One of the women at the vocational center weaving a grass mat (part of my new secondary project)

Denis with son Herichen and PTU guardians (and student, Reagan) after a meeting

Ambrose (left) and Reagan in the office (2 of PTU's students)
Ambrose likes chemistry and Reagan likes reading and English class and is usually really smiley

Unexpected Goodness

It’s been a busy week in the ‘Jule.  I got out to the women’s vocational center 10 km away for some secondary project face-time. At PTU we conducted our quarterly board of directors meeting, had meetings with the guardians and students, had an ‘organization day’ planning session and welcomed a guest from the US Embassy.

Yep, that’s right, we’ve been shortlisted for the small grant we applied for back in January! It’s funded through PEPFAR and would be awarded in October. We’d be using the funds to purchase a tractor we’d use to open and cultivate PTU’s land, in addition to renting the tractor to 21 farmers groups (including our student’s guardians- all at a subsidized rate) and other community members and organizations at a higher price. Considering 95% of the locals are subsistence farmers, and most don’t have access to oxen and plows, we hope that the tractor will increase crop yields (and therefore food security during the dry seasons) while providing an additional source of sustainable income to PTU to help pay the student’s school fees. I think that the interview went well… keep your fingers crossed! We should find out if we got it in early Sept.

We were also paid a visit by Bosco Uganda (http://boscouganda.com/) who is potentially looking to set up in Pajule.  It would be great to have them in our area, especially since no public wireless or internet services exist currently the community. I think they’d be great to partner with and would provide our students with resources for computer literacy they don’t get access to in school.

When I got home today, I was greeted with another unexpected surprise. My neighbor, who lives in Kampala but does occasional work here in Pajule, was in town last week with a friend who is also doing some part-time work in Pajule. We were all chatting about life in the ‘Jule and the friend asked me what I had the hardest time with here… and I promptly replied by saying ‘the heat and the food.’ Anyway, they came back up from Kampala today and my neighbor’s friend brought me a big, beautiful loaf of grainy brown bread (we don’t have bread in Pajule), a jar of homemade feta cheese in herbs and oil (apparently he makes cheese!!!), and a jar of his farmer friend’s sun-dried tomatoes. I thought I was hallucinating. I mean, feta and sun-dried tomatoes!?! To ensure that I wasn’t dreaming, I promptly made a toasted sandwich with feta, sundried toms and a bit of kale (from my garden) for dinner and boy was it delish.  

It got me to thinking… through this experience I’m realizing that people can be really awesome. Not that I didn’t think that people were awesome before, but I’m often amazed with people’s awesomeness these days. Whether it’s my friends and fam from home sending me super care packages and great emails, or acquaintances that have shown interest in this adventure by following the blog or facebook, or my coworker’s wife who cleaned my house before I’d gotten home from a long trip, or little kids that run after you just to shake your hand and kneel (an Acholi tradition for greeting elders), or random people that are willing to give me a ride when I’m stuck on the road somewhere, or a neighbor’s friend that’s thoughtful enough to bring a stranger some treats… People. Are. Awesome.  And we can all use a little more awesomeness in our lives. A small act can really go a long way…

I’m sure friendly feta guy has no idea how much his gift will brighten my whole week. I hope to pay the goodness forward to someone in my community... even through a small act.

Getting Greener

We've finally been getting some decent rain! 

Cassava growing at the piggery 

The road to Pader

My basil is ready for transplainting

A baby radish in the garden

Some 'opegos' wondering around (too bad they're not ours!)

Kids being silly