Oh, the Places We'll Go: Monkeys in my 1st African Adventure

6-11-12 The Relaxing Day

Auntie Fara started the day by giving Hadley another hand and arm massage. (It is a sign of respect for children to call everyone uncle or auntie. Karson is the only one that calls me Miss Fara.) We also painted toenails. Hadlee has rainbow toes.

Pierce wanted in on the fun.

Today we went into town. I haven’t exchanged my US money yet. I can’t wait until Ryan gets here so we can buy some artwork, if he wants. The prices are incredible. After we did some window shopping, we stopped in at a café. Megan and I split chapati. It is very popular here.

Megan, my roomie, until my men get here.

For lunch we had matooke with g-nut sauce. It is made by boiling small green bananas and mashing them like you would mashed potatoes. G-nuts are what they call peanuts here. It was quite tasty. I love tasting authentic dishes of all kinds. Kari says you can also steam the bananas or cook them over coals or buried (campfire style) wrapped in banana leaves.

This is a pic of Isaac and Pierce. Isaac has a great smile. He lives here through the summer. He is currently applying to universities for the fall semester.

We had a very relaxed day. I even had a nap. I am adjusted to Ugandan time since I didn’t take a nap yesterday and stayed up until a normal bed time here even though I was exhausted.

Tomorrow we have our first big adventure. We are visiting a camp for orphans owned by New Hope. The missionary training that Jason and Kari went through is also a part of New Hope. Jason and Kari are exploring whether the camp is something they should become involved in.

Oh - and tonight is my first of many nights to go to bed with an armed guard keeping watch over the house I am staying in.

6-12-12 The Big Adventure

To say today did not go as planned is the understatement of the year. We piled 10 people in the van for the outing. Here Megan, Karson, and I are in the back, back seat.

There was sugar cane growing along the drive. I love this pic. It came out nice even though taken out a dusty window.

On the way to the camp we stopped to stretch our legs. Beautiful!

Gorgeous Segner Family

Roommate Pic

Isaac taking in the view.

All was well and good when we reconvened our trip until we hit bad roads. Bad roads in Uganda apparently has an entirely different level of meaning than it does back home.

We had to get out of the car because we were bottoming out. We hoped reducing the weight in the car would help.

Everett "in" the road.

You never know what you are going to see on the side of the road.

Isaac directed Jason on the road. Instead of bottoming out, they call it diff sitting.

These are termite mounds. They are everywhere.

Just taking pics of the breathtaking scenery.

Jason and Kari decided driving to the camp was not worth ruining their van over. We turned around and had a picnic at the beautiful spot we stretched our legs. A local little guy joined us for a sandwich.

The heat and the bumpy roads wore us out!

Pierce needed to susu.

The kids were getting restless after a long day of driving to nowhere. And then we saw MONKEYS! Isaac had never seen people get so excited over monkeys before. We were silly happy over it. Jason parked for quite a while letting the kids and the big kids enjoy and take all the photos we wanted.

Happy girl on the drive home!

Many of us needed to susu on the drive home. We stopped at a school Jason and Kari are familiar with to use the facilities. Kids rushed the van as soon as we pulled in. I had 2 children holding my hands and another 3 holding my arms most of the time. They were very sweet!