"Student" Life

It’s crazy to think that we have consistently been back on campus for over a month since rural home stays – in some ways my time in Kapchurwa feels lifetimes ago and in another sense I still cannot believe we completed that.

Nonetheless, we have spent the last month studying at UCU…for the most part!

A typical school day is refreshingly similar to a school day in America (or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it) – classes for a couple hours each day, hanging out with friends during meals, finishing homework, writing papers etc.

I am learning a ton in my classes right now! We recently finished a unit about poverty (what it actually is, what are common misconceptions, effectiveness of alleviation efforts, and what our proper response should be, etc.), compassion, and now we are moving into a unit focusing on identity and faithful living in the US. A lot of my previous assumptions have been exposed and blown out of the water in the past couple months – it is awesome but not easy to sort through all the questions and implications of new information and perspectives.

We have gotten very creative with our food lately - rice twice a day has gotten pretty old by now, so we have begun capitalizing on local ingredients. Here are some of my favorite combinations:

-         -  Vanilla “yoghurt” mixed with “ottie butter” (peanut butter) with chunks of bananas

o   I also make yoghurt parfaits with fruit and cereal – yum!!

-         -  Chapatties (the tortilla-like food) with avocado  (ok… avocado on anything is great and hundreds are ripening on campus right now!)

-        -  Pineapple and papaya always – I think I could singlehandedly keep the fruit stand in business if I needed to!

Although we have been on campus during the weekdays, USP students have organized a couple weekend trips that have been a BLAST!

The first trip was to Jinja (about an hour away) to what is commonly considered the source of the Nile. We spent Saturday white water rafting and I loved it!! Before heading to the rapids we were briefed on following the guide’s commands and how to be safe when the boat flips – which it did! The rapids were big but thankfully the water was so deep we didn’t have to worry about rocks. We were rafting for about 5 hours and I loved every minute of it!

We spent the night at the company’s lodge right on the river. The next morning we began bungee jumping! There were 14 of us that jumped off the 144 foot platform over the water – I was tied by my ankles and once my toes were over the edge they had me wave to everyone, countdown, and literally dive out off the platform. Thankfully I took their advice and did not look down – I just shut off my brain and went for it! It was so scary and so fun!

2 weekends ago we went on a safari to Murchison Falls National Park! After 7 hours in the car, we had lunch at the lodge before heading out for the animal drive. We had two vans full of students which morphed into safari vans by popping the roof up – this allows you to stand inside the van and be in the shade while looking over the top of the vehicle. My favorite, though, was being able to sit on top of the van! It was an incredible view and the plains just enveloped me as we drove through the park. We got to see families of African elephants, antelopes, warthogs (they really are like Pumba in the Lion King!), water bucks, and giraffes! I kept needing to remind myself that it was real life and this was their actual habitat – it was amazing! The entire day we were praying we would see a lion but our guides told us they are often hard to find...BUT right when we were heading out of the park, the driver started speeding around (which made holding on kinda difficult.. but it was fun!). He drove us around a bush and right there –a couple feet away, was a LION! He was just hanging out in the bush. He was an unbelievable animal and he looked at us with piercing eyes that were incredible! All of the sudden our driver started speeding around again, and we got to see another lion out in the open who was chillin’ near a giraffe next to the water. It’s still hard to believe the experience was real!

The next morning we took a boat ride on the Nile – we saw a bunch of very pretty birds, big reptiles, crocodiles, and many hippos that looked just like big rocks until they moved! The boat took us to the bottom of Murchison Falls where we hiked to the top of the mountain. The view of the waterfall was so beautiful!
We “grabbed” (it took at least 2 hours) lunch before heading back to campus – it was quite the weekend adventure!

This past weekend we were “on campus,” although a couple of us are headed into Kampala for the day and went on a nice hike on Sunday. Next weekend we are going to Luwero (I don’t actually know the spelling) for my cross cultural ministry class. It’s hard to believe that we will be done with the UCU semester and headed to Rwanda in less than a month from now – I can hardly fathom we are at this point! More adventures to come!