Second Week in Jinja, Uganda

Our second week in Jinja was pretty similar to the first and thus the days had become somewhat routine; we would wake up in our Sleep Number© by Select Comfort® around 7:30 am, steam shower, enjoy a bountiful continental breakfast, then head off to the work site at the secondary school.

The work is hard and the sun is hot, but when the bricks start to get heavier and the mortar gets harder to churn, we just look to Tommy and Malcolm for support--their incredible strength combined with the work ethic and will to make a positive impact in Africa is simply inspiring. They, especially Tommy, have emerged as a beacon of guiding light and motivation that the entire group can use to find its way in the impenetrable dark that is Africa.

The work on the school is slow and steady, but it is good to see the fruits of our labour as the building steadily grows. It is infeasible to forsee how 750 students can cram into a building no bigger than 1,500 sf for 7 hours a day, but one small school is better than no school at all--or so we have been told.

Our homestay mother, Eva, has been quite hospitable welcoming us into her humble abode--notice that if you switch the b and the d, the word becomes adobe, which has a very different meaning. She speaks broken English, but fortunately she grew up in Kenya so she is a native Swahili speaker. Unfortunately, our knowledge of Swahili is very basic; so far we can greet someone and tell them that we are Canadian--Rome was not built in a day. Speaking of Rome, Tiberius and Caligula would have an awfully difficult time enjoying themselves in Uganda, a very conservative country as far as, well, everything goes.

At the house we are 0 for 2 on houseboys--the first one, Juma, was fired the first week for trying to break into our rooms, and Robert, the newer one, took off with 1000 shillings (60 cents) that Evelyn gave him to go buy water. Hopefully he was able to start a new, more financially stable, life for himself.

As a group we are excited for the next part of our adventure across Lake Victoria and into Tanzania, where we are sure to find more excitement and fun.

Jinja week 2 highlights:
-First "little person" (politically correct term??) spotted. (First time in Africa that we were more excited to see someone than he/she was to see us.)
-Good Indian restaurant found.
-Ben lost another 34 pounds.
-No one has been stabbed, yet.
-Tommy, to almost no one's astonishment, single handedly saved six infants using only his left hand.
-Swimming at the Nile River Resort=FUN! LOL! TTYL! OMG!
-First albino (politically correct term??) spotted. (Second time in Africa that we were more excited to see someone than he/she was to see us.)
-'Mzungu'--means white person in swahili--was heard for the 1,000,000. There were no balloons.
-Still no one has been robbed or shaken down by the 5-0 for a bribe.
-Or stabbed.

Tanzania is within reach and we all look forward to seeing a few more fantastic social blunders.

Quotes of the week:
"Ya Omega, it's not Greek, it's math." -Malcolm
"I just don't understand how two people could be so chiseled and still have such great hair."--Nicci (speaking about Ben and Tommy; not sarcastically)