Friday Market is AMAZING!!!!!

Last night was a lot of fun. After our Owning Poverty session I hung out in my room with my five roommates and we spent hours just laughing and joking. It felt so good to laugh hysterically at ourselves and our difficulties getting used to using "squatty potties". I really love my new friends here. These girls are so great! They should all go to Messiah too!

I also found out something awesome. Susan who is my "travel buddy" (ie. we are responsible for each other when we travel) is from Georgia. When we get back to the states in May we are both on the same exact flight to Atlanta, where I will then fly to Boston! Yay! Now I will have someone to hang out with back in Phoenix and I wont have to say goodbye to all of my friends at once!

We were able to sleep in today because we didn't have morning class- nothing better than that!! After lunch we started walking to class. We immediately felt the heat. Normally it takes at least 5 minutes before we start sweating, but today was EXTRAORDINARILY hot. Our director, Grace, said that this is the hottest it ever gets here. I made a point of using my long stride to get ahead of everyone else so that I could get a seat next to the fan in class. We discussed one of our books for a while, but got let out early because we were hot and tired and everyone wanted to go to Friday market!!

When we got to the guest house I decided I didn't want to go to Friday market because I was really hot and I didn't want to walk 2miles to get there in this crazy heat. The girls convinced me that I should go, so we decided that we would try to find a matatu to ride there. We ended up walking the entire was to the market because for some reason not a single matatu drove past us. It wasn't so bad. At one point we walked passed a group of children who shouted "Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu!!!!" at us and followed us for a block. They were adorable.

Friday Market is set up around the train tracks. Tent after tent are laid out on the ground with crafts, clothes, jewelry and other wonderful things to buy. I literally went crazy. Everyone back home knows I LOVE to spend money. Well set me loose in Africa because even though I spent all the money I had on me and bought a ton of stuff, I still only spent about $25. Every person sitting on their mat would call out "Sister! Sister! You are welcome my dear! Come I will give you a good price". How do you resist that?? I bought a dress, necklaces, and some gifts for people at home. When I didn't have any money left I was ready to go back. So we hiked the 2 miles back home again and were late for dinner. Thankfully there was still food left. We sat around the table and talked about the deals we made and the haggling we did. Its funny that we feel the need to haggle things so much when they are still so much cheaper than those things would be sold for in the US.

It's Friday night. Susan is an absolute saint and not only bought Whip It for us all to watch, but also found out who sings our new favorite song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxZfjOh16UI . Check it out. We might chill out here or go to the Savannah Club to dance. It's been an amazing day in Uganda.