The deal I had worked out to get the really awesome place to live in didn’t end up working out. So goes it in Africa. There are no real estate rules or regulations here. Basically people charge whatever they want and do business however they want. For me this ended up causing problems because it seems the lady I gave 3 months rent to also rented it to another person. I’m not exactly sure what she was thinking, but at least I got my money back. No harm, no foul, right?
It ended up that Tyler was just moving into a new place the first of this month. Having me move in with him works out great for both of us. It helps him because he is leaving for a month this summer and I will be able to contribute half the rent for the entire summer. And he gets the pleasure of my company which obviously means that he is coming out way ahead. As you can see in the first photo the place is real nice.
Yesterday I took a few power tools to class for the boys to see. They really enjoyed messing around with them. None of them had ever used a power tool before which lead to much laughter for us all.
Today we went on a field trip. We traveled around Jinja and looked at different playgrounds. This was very beneficial because I don’t think they really understood what a playground was. I’m pretty sure most of them thought that a “football pitch” (soccer field) was a playground. I had them think about the positive and negative aspects of each playground and what they liked and didn’t like. They also were required to brainstorm about the different safety issues of each one. It went really well and we ended the day at a restaurant / resort for lunch. It was a really cool day due to some unusual cloud cover. The boys kept commenting on how nice a day it was. I think they really enjoyed eating a delicious dinner at a lake front resort on such a beautiful day. It was a great bonding experience and I can see progress in them every day.
There is also a picture of a group of kids. These are some village kids that I was able to chat with and give them some small trinkets (plastic rings and whistles). They were beaming with delight. Thanks Brian and Lisa for the gifts for the children. With the stuff you sent I promise that you are brightening hundreds of kids’ lives.
And lastly I acquired one of my top five storm stories. I don’t know about you all, but I have a list of five or so storm experiences that I remember so vividly that no matter how much time passes it seems like it was just yesterday and every detail is etched into my mind. I was at Katie’s place and it looked like rain. I knew that if I didn’t get home quick I wouldn’t be able to find a boda boda to give me a ride. It was just drizzling as I sprinted the 1/4 to 1/2 mile to the main road. By the time I got there is started coming down fairly hard. Somehow there was a boda boda just going by that willingly picked me up. It is probably 5 or so miles back to my new home. So, I’m on the back of this dude’s motorcycle and it honestly rains as hard as I can imagine. I actually put my hand out to try and catch the drops to see if it was hail because it was hitting my skin so hard that it felt like solid pebbles. I still have no idea how this man was able to navigate the distance that we drove. Every couple seconds I had to close my eyes to recover from getting hit by a rain bullet. I spent about 50% of the ride in prayer and the other 50% in laughter. Normally on this trip you would see one to two hundred other boda bodas. This time I saw not a one. We were honestly the only one on the road. Fantastic memory!! Upon arriving home Tyler said he thinks it was the hardest rain he had ever seen in Uganda which is not surprising to me since it rivaled any I had ever seen especially since I experienced it on the back of some random Ugandan’s motorcycle. Praise the Lord for life and all the joys that it brings.
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