Sunday, November 29, 2009

Published!!!!!!!!!!!!

WELL WE HAVE FINISHED OUR PROJECT!!!!

Our team has finished our project, published, and bound it.

Monday we go to Masaka to stake out places for the ministry to grade.


The cover and stack of printed copies.


Me with the bound copy

Oh and congrats to the Bulldogs! Egg Bowl Champions!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving with an Engagement - Ugandan Style

Hey all!

Hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving!

We did celebrate the US holiday here in Uganda. The staff and families got together at our director's house. We had turkey, stuffing, apple and pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce to name a few things.

It was a nice time and to top it all off, our office administrator, Semei, announced that he and his girlfriend are now engaged! Here are a few pics from it all:


The group that celebrated Thanksgiving


Brad carving the turkey.


Semei announcing his engagement to Winnie.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Cultural Lesson for the Day

I hope you are well. A little update for you:

My team has what we consider 90% of our project report complete. It is getting reviewed by other staff and the rest of our team. After we get back the comments and suggestions, we will then make some changes and then it is publishing time!

In the meantime, I got a quick cultural lesson today from Stephen, our head of security here at eMi EA, on how to de-wing and de-leg grasshoppers. You would then take the grasshoppers and fry them up and eat them. Anyway they taste like a really greasy potato chip. Most people love them and they are a particular favorite of Stephen's.

Taking off the wings!

Wingless grasshoppers waiting to be fried!

Friday, November 13, 2009

Eating Grasshoppers and My Last Month

Well I have been here a while and have a month left to go of being here in Uganda. Crazy to think that I have been here as long as I have been. Time has just flown by. Living here in Uganda is quite an adventure and everyday seems to bring something new.

I love worshiping with Ugandans. I feel like the best thing about being here is worshiping Jesus with a different nation of people. Its amazing! I love it.

I have developed a satisfaction in the killing of mosquitoes.

Riding on the back of a boda is definitely exhilarating.

Simple tasks can be quite challenging like walking half a kilometer across a pipe to go to the grocery store or washing clothes.

Trying to fix the office's binding machine.

I don't think I will ever get the red dirt of Uganda off my some clothes and shoes and I am okay with that.

The people here are extremely nice. I love waving to kids and I am pretty sure they like the fact that I wave back.

I don't think I could ever be a celebrity. Because I am a muzungu here, I get a lot of stares, I mean a lot! I guess growing up in the US, you are exposed to a lot of different skin colors. But here everyone is pretty much black. So I stick out like a sore thumb.

Anyway those are a few of my thoughts. We are about 2 weeks away from publishing our project and all the drawings. Please pray everything would go smoothly with printing and such.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Taming the White Nile

Well I had an exciting weekend of white water rafting on the White Nile as they call it. They say it is probably the best rafting in the world and in a couple of years will probably be extinct due to Uganda building another dam on the river to generate power. So I was enthralled to be able to go before I could not.

Rafting included going through 12 major rapids with names like Rib Cage, Bujugali Falls, 50/50, Silverback, Chop Suey, and The Bad Place just to name a few. Our raft went through five class 5 rapids which was pretty intense and the only raft out of 8 that went through Chop Suey. Needless to say our guide challenged us and we flipped out quite a bit. I flipped out on two rapids both class 5. The first was due to one of my fellow interns who body checked me out on Bujugali Falls and the other time when the entire raft got flipped going through Chop Suey. It was a blast and was completely worn out from the 30 km trip.


Banged up knuckles from a day of rafting on the Nile.

Bujugali Falls which is a class 5 rapid. I got body-checked out of the raft by Peter.

We stayed at a camp site that was really close to Bujugali Falls and so we got to walk down to it the next day and see it from outside the water.

Monday, November 2, 2009

No Shave November

Well............... Sunday began No Shave November for all the guy eMi interns around the world. I guess we wanted to feel closer to one another. I don't know. Anyway the last night of our orientation in Colorado Springs we came up with a written pact stating we all would not shave above our jawline for the entire month of November. So anyway we all signed it and now it has begun. I wish all who have embarked on this endeavor good luck and happy facial hair growing! We in East Africa have decided to document our progress with pictures on a wall in the office of each intern's face every week.


Blessings