Josh Crooks the Canadian Muzungu.

The fresh smells of Uganda: B.O. and burning trash. Mmm, mmm, makes me smile. Actually, Josh Crooks is sitting next to me and just criticized that comment. It really doesn't smell like that all the time, but it smells like that a lot. This is something my nose will have to become accustomed to.

However, physical contact is not a problem. They have a lot of that here too, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I was made to snuggle.

On Thursday, I used my first pit latrine. I also had my first cup of actual Ugandan tea, which is mostly hot milk. However, I like hot milk, so this is not a problem.  We went to a pastor's house out in a village, visited with him for a bit, explored a banana plantation, and met his mother. I now have a word to teach you. Muzeii = old person. It's respectful and really fun to say. We also ate a lot of bananas. I'm still not a huge fan of bananas, but seeing that they take up the majority of the food supply (actually, this isn't true, but sometimes it feels that way), I have to eat a lot of them.

That night, a lot of us went to youth group for a local Ugandan church and it was a BLAST. There were a ton of kids there and we played volleyball. I love volleyball. I like kids. This works out well. However, I did not eat the mitoke banana that was on my plate. Why? See above paragraph.

On Friday, we left for Queen Elizabeth National Park. I am now convinced that Uganda is the most beautiful country I've ever been to. The mountains are huge and everything is SO green. We got to ride on top of land rovers, which was pretty hardcore, but I did a lot of screaming and got cut by a prickle tree. Josh (mentioned earlier) kept me from flying off. We also got to walk to the edge of a cliff. Our hotel was really nice. Christina and I had a room/suite/little house all to ourselves overlooking Rift Valley, where the park was. However, nighttime brought a lot of spiders. And geckos. Both of which Christina is afraid of.

The next morning we got up at 5:30 in the morning to go on a lion hunt--minus the hunting part, or at least we only hunted with our eyes, not with guns--but didn't end up finding any. The ride, however, was fun. Christina, Josiah, and I shared a land rover. Josiah and I were as hyper as two-year-olds, and like obnoxious Americans, we listened to the Lion King soundtrack on the way into the park and he yelled at all the antelope we saw. He also kept me from flying off the vehicle. At 11, we went on a boat ride and got to see lkots of elephants (enjojo) and water buffalo (embogo) and crocodiles (gonya) and birds (I don't remember the word for those). Then we took a group nap--sort of. We finally went to get our lunch at a hotel nearby around 2, went back to our hotel to swim, and then went home exhausted. And really dusty.

Now to the homosexuality issue for those who are concerned: it's a big issue here and we've been talking a lot about it this week. American media makes it sound like American missionaries went over to Uganda and convinced all the people that homosexuals should be killed because they are an abomination against God. That is ridiculous. Homosexuality really didn't exist here until Ugandan youth started seeing it on American television. Understand, the structure of the culture here depends on the family unit. Homosexuality breaks down the family unit. That's why it's such a problem here. It's a cultural thing, not a church thing. It would be great if American media would present it in the correct light.

Josh Crooks is distracting me from writing anything else. He calls it "editing". I call it "tearing me down". Fortunately he's Canadian, so his English corrections don't really count.