Pictures!!! FINALLY!!!

Dear Family, Friends and Love: Here they are! PICTURES! Picasa is a nightmare and only allows uploading of four at a time, so it took me a while to find a way around it. But it's done, and they are up! Let me know what you think!

The whole group minus Stacy who was taking the pic.

Chopping up elephant grass for our cow "Faith"

"Propaganda-mobile"

PCTs and Uganda's future, hard at work gathering bricks.

My beautiful mamma.

Chris, the walking billboard. (Mr. President, we just assumed. Sorry if we made an ass of ourselves.)

Lukas and I with our P7 boys after Life-Skills class. I am DRENCHED after an hour long game of football.

Forgot to flip this one. This is a picture of the latest headlines in Uganda... the burning of the Kasubi tombs. Truly devastating for for the Baganda people... I joined them in their mourning a week later by wearing a bark wrap around my arm with Kabaka (king) written on it.

Riddle: How do you get 30 Ugandan children into a tent? (read my previous blog post for the answer)

A great addition to any lesson on HIV/AIDs. Discuss the fluids that carry the HIV virus. Discuss those that don't. Discuss the paths of entry HIV can take into the body. Finally, have your students draw paths connecting each HIV carrier to the doorways they think can give you aids... (you'll have 4 or 5 lines). Now you take the chalk, and connect every single HIV-fluid/door pathway. And what do you get? A bunch of very silent children. "That's right kids. This is real. This is serious. This is scary. Remember what this board looks like the next time you think about 'playing sex.' "

This was taken during the game of soccer after the life skills class. If I was a casual first time observer the quote that would come to mind is, "AHHHHHHHH, IT'S A MUZUNGU!! RUNNNNNN!!!"

The market in Gayaza.

An interesting shot of a downtown Kampala sidewalk. Quote a scowl from the man in the foreground.

A Ugandan Carwash... and unfortunately, a place for children to fill jerry-cans.

This one is for my brother... we'll call him "Maniel Direnda." (You know who you are, you little cutie!! DDDDdddDDDDDdddDDDD*&^(&^&^!!!!111)

Lizzie emptied her unpopped kernels off her front porch, and a couple months later: I harvested these!

Obama-Love is everywhere.

The farm I live on at Host Stay. Banana's, Plantains, Casaava, Yams, Avacados, Mangos, Jackfruit, potatoes, aloe vera, pumpkin, do-do (spinach esque plant), pigs, a cow, and more!

The front of my house.

L to R: Devon (#2, MUAHAHA!), Alyssa, Pesh (my sis), Natalie, and Esther (my other sis). POOL FUN!!!

PCTs vs. Trainers. It was a massacre.

Our training center is the white building seen just to the right of center on this hazy photo.

The Kasubi Tomb. We visited just 2 weeks before it was burned down by... ? ... The response to this was riots where people were killed by police, and later, during the mourning, another person was killed by trampling. A miserable situation.

A jackfruit tree. The first food I have ever put into my mouth that made me say, "I think I like it, but... I also think I hate it." (fyi, I love it now... quite delicious)

The beauty of a banana leaf.

Carrying Casaava Ugandan-Style. (That is my brother in he far right)

Worth about 60 cents... maybe. Compliments of Robert Mugabe.

My little bro on day one of home stay. He walked right into my room, picked up my bike pump and proceeded to try to inflate his head. A very creative and stubborn little boy. I keep telling my mom about how I was when I was little. I tell her that his stubborn-ness will pay off. She isn't yet convinced, ha.

I was passed the note on the bottom during my first observation of a Ugandan school. This is VERY common. We are asked for money almost daily from children just a few years old up to adults over 50. It is quite frustrating, but it can also be comical. I once heard someone say, "Um, I'm a volunteer. You give ME money!"

Ejaaka (rutooro)/Fene (Luganda) feast. That is my language trainer, Anthony, on the right.

Super sweet food dehydrator. We descended on this thing like locusts, devouring every banana and enanaasi (pineapple) piece inside in a matter of minutes.

Celebrating my first piece of mail to arrive. A post card from a total stranger. Apparently, she teaches children in North Carolina, and while in class one day she had what she refers to as a "vision" that made her mail me. She wants to be friends. I'm just glad I am in africa so she can't truly stalk me... guess that comes later. She once taught for TFA, and I think it crazied her up right good.

Doomed.

Getting my arm wrapped in what I'll carry "mourning bark." Everywhere I walked, people smiled, gave me fist "pounds", shook my hand, thanked me for caring, and jostled those around them to look at most likely the only muzungu that, at least for the afternoon, had become a Baganda.

Methinks the power is out...

This picture may lose me exactly ONE beautiful girlfriend.

Proof that I made it down that tree safely, here the hill climbers are before heading back into town.

Hanging out with the gang in Gayaza during field training. I sincerely thought the plastic thingie was a shower cap (when actually it was a cover for the bread I was happily shoving into my mouth).

That's all for now. I'll try to get more up before heading out to site, but it is insanely difficult to post pictures without a wireless card borrowed from another volunteer. Rest assured, though, I will be picking one up after moving west, and the pictures will come more frequently. Thanks for your patience during he down-times!

I love you all.

Michelle, I love you MOST.

Devon