Mukono Homestay!

So these past two weeks have been a challenge to say the least. We had not only four days to live in our dorms on campus when they moved us into our homestays in Mukono, the town nearby campus. We have been moved around so much and it has been quite a transition. So, I met my host family, consisting of Maama Faith, Taata Godfrey, host sister Tina, and a bunch of other siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles who I cannot even say I know how they are related. Families here are huge, and if you have just four kids, it is considered small! All my relatives are older, in secondary school (high school) or university. I was hoping for little kids in my family, but the closest thing I have is the children who live nearby and go to the school right by my house. So I have gotten to let out my urge to play with little black children by talking to them and playing hand games with them. There is also this little boy named Arnold, who lives near me (in the first picture), who is the cutest little thing I have ever seen. He calls himself “Arnold-D!” and loves to grab onto my hand as soon as I get home and never let go. He plays with my watch all the time, pressing the buttons so it beeps. And touches my white skin, which every kid seems fascinated by.

             While I am living at my host home, I have to shower out of a bucket, which, I have still have yet to figure out how to successfully wash my hair and get all the soap out. (i also realized that the same bucket my host sister pees in in the middle of the night, is the same one i use to wash my hair…) The bathrooms at my home are called latrines. They are literally just the typical outhouse, hole in the ground, that after dark you have to take a flashlight with you so you don’t step on cockroaches in the process. My walk to school is 45 minutes, mostly uphill. so needless to say, i am sweating and so exhausted by the time i get to school. and my feet are covered in the red dirt, no matter how hard i try to not step in things along the way. one day this week it poured on my way to school and that was definitely an experience. And food! Food has been a wide variety between things that I have absolutely loved and others that completely gross me out. The very first meal I had was a huge bowl of withered, cooked greens and plopped on top was a huge fish. Head, eyes, bones, tail, and all. It was interesting. Apparently the eyes are the best part, a specialty. Ugggh, completely gross! Other meals I have had are the typical rice and beans. Or rice and mtoke (smashed together cooked bananas). Or gnut sauce. Gnuts are called ground nuts here, pretty much just peanuts. So they top their rice with this pink looking gnut sauce that is pretty banging. And fruits are in full supply here. Anything from passion fruits. To papaya. To mango. To avocado (for like 50 cents!). to pineapple. To jackfruits, which are now my new favorite! it tastes like a mix between a banana and pineapple. Laundry is out of a bucket as well. it is incredibly hard to actually get bubbles to form, and then you have to ring it dry and hang it on the line (which will dry it in tops of four hours, because the sun here is so hot).
            I share a room with my sister Tina (the other one in the picture), who is 23. She is super funny and she is the person that I feel like I can talk to anything about. My mom seemed nice on the first couple days, but since then, I haven’t talked to her much, or should I say the other way around. I try to engage in conversation with her and she just barely answers me. My dad comes across as very abrasive and forward. One of the very first conversations I have ever had with him was him telling me how I should always bow down and kneel to him, every time I see him. That there is no exception, that is a cultural way of greeting your superior and showing respect, and that I need to do it in order to fit in here. With my history with dads, this did not go over so well. Also, with my values and beliefs, I have a huge problem with bowing down to anyone but my Creator, God. I had my time of freak out and crying it over, but it has gotten better at my host home, since the beginning.
            I am learning that living overseas is hard, let alone trying to not offend locals and learn about the culture in the process. In our classes we have been talking a lot about our specific experiences and figuring out how to handle them and what to take away from the lessons we are learning. I have had a lot of free time to get into my devotions and have good jesus times because everything in the African homes are very laid back. There is so much free time, more than you know what to do with. I have been praying for my future and the plans God has for me. All the promises He has laid out for me! It has been very refreshing and rejuvenating. He has been teaching me so many lessons already, ones that cannot be learned in a textbook. I cannot wait for the rest of the semester, even though it is going to be a challenging time, I am ready for the hard times to come. I wanted this semester to be something that makes me completely dependent and reliant on God, and that is exactly what it looks like is going to happen when all this is through!
            So thanks for all your prayers and support back home! It is definitely appreciated! I have some of the most encouraging family and friends I could ever ask for, so thank you so much for keeping up with everything I am doing! You guys are what makes it possible for me to be here, and stay emotionally stable! Love you all!