Journey Back to Kampala

Tuesday night we had our going away party in Kitgum. We all went to the Bombah Hotel and had a nice dinner. Unfortunately for me, they forgot my food and I didn't get it until an hour after everyone else had finished. Ugandans love speeches. Moses, the MC, entertained us with brain teasers, jokes and words of wisdom. He called on others to give speeches as well. When it was our turn to talk, the four of us students spoke for about 30seconds each. what we said was appreciative and sentimental, but concise. When Pius got up, he said "one thing we have learned from the Go Ed students is how to give a short speech!" When I finally got my food, I started feeling really sick. With my body, if I wait to long to eat I will feel sick when I finally do get to eat.

Back at the guest house for our last night in Kitgum, I amused myself with a box of matches. I rolled little logs out of napkins and set up a mini campfire in one of the metal candle holders. It was really pretty. I tucked my mosquito net in for the last time in that bed and slept soundly.

Wednesday morning we left Kitgum around 11am. It was sad saying goodbye to the people I had worked with. The drive to Mbale went well. I was able to sleep for most of it thanks to a motion sickness pill that I had gotten from Susan a month ago. We got to Mbale around 5pm and walked into town to find Susan and Nathan. It was so good to see them again!

We drove to their supervisor Moses's house. Moses has bleeding stomach ulcers, so we all went to pay our respects. I started getting queasy when his wife was telling us about his condition. Then we went into his room to see him. There were a lot of us crammed into a small room and I started getting hot. In the middle of our prayer for his recovery, I started feeling myself lose conciousness. my vision went black, so I sat down until the prayer ended. I was trying to sign the guestbook but my hand was shaking too hard, so I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. As I walked into the hall I collapsed on the floor. Moses's wife and another lady ran over and helped me walk outside where I started throwing up. It was not fun. I think I may have been dehydrated. When the others had finished with the visit, we all went home and I made sure to drink a lot of water. The Ugandans were convinced I had malaria, but I didn't want to go to a clinic and get tested, I was sure the problem was not drinking enough water.

Janae and Brittney were there when we got home. It was so fun to have our team reunited. We ate dinner, talked and then went to bed. The next morning we waited for our driver for an hour and finally called his cell to find out that he was just finishing up his breakfast. The ride to Kampala wasn't so bad. I am good at falling into a half conscious state so that I cant semi-sleep through long amounts of traveling.

We pulled into the Kampala guest house and were greeted by Kate, Grace Kibuye and Micheal Pucci. It was cool to see Michael because we started our journey with him in Phoenix, and now he is here to help us end the semester. I sprinted upstairs to take a shower. Then we had a wonderful lunch of fruit salad, macaroni and cheese, and salad! I was so happy to eat different foods again. We went over to the FH office and checked our email since the power in the guest house was off. We had Ciao-Ciaos and ate a wonderful dinner. At dinner we talked about our practicums with Kate.

I felt really sick after dinner so I went to bed early