Merry Christmas!!!

I'm sitting here, freezing cold. I have jeans and socks on, and a long sleeve shirt and I'm still cold. And I bet it's only 60 degrees. These are the warmest clothes I have with me, but they're not helping. I'm in for it when I get back to AK.

Merry Christmas, from Uganda!

It feels so weird to say that...it definitely does not feel like the Holidays here. But I still love it. It was hard to be away from home, and people I love, but we also had a super amazing time here, we made spaghetti and exchanged gifts, listened to Christmas music and watched some movies. A couple friends from a couple other organizations here in Jinja came over Christmas Eve and we watched Rudolph and ate my Ugandan-ingrediant made Christmas sugar cookies with no icing, but cinamon sugar instead. They were pretty great, even if I do say so myself. haha

It's been forever since I've last written! I have been so busy and just haven't had the time or energy or right state of mind to sit down and write something out. I can hardly believe that I only have two and a half weeks left here...it's almost over, time has definitely flown. It feels like just the other day I was applying to come here, and now it's been another year. There have been instances lately, where I'm at a woman's house, and she will say to me, "You are leaving us!"...and before now that didn't really bother me...when they'd get on my tail for only staying 3 months and not one year...but now it makes me want to cry. I don't want to leave them...or their children, and the town, or this house...but at the same time, I am ready to go back to America. To Alaska.

I don't know if there's any way I can put into words (completely, though I've tried in this blog) my experiences here...or the people I've met, things I've seen, places I've been, food I've eaten, conversations I've had. It all seems to be tangled up in my mind, just a handful of a million memories that will stay with me forever, but stuff that I'll never be able to fully explain...except for in pictures, or in stories, but nothing will ever do it justice. Unless you were to come here for yourself.

I have made so many friends, Ugandan and Mzungu...I've learned new words, eaten new food, done new things...and most things I'll always remember...including the not-so-great things, like burning my leg right before my first boda ride. I have a scar to remember that by...and I don't really regret it. I'm going to miss certain women especially...like Sali and her daughters...Jacinta and her sons...Agnes and Annetti. I'm going to miss Betty and Kymbi insanely much. So many good times with them in their homes, laughing and just enjoying the other's company. Part of me is scared to leave them, because there's no way of knowing if I'll ever come back to this place...I want to, of course, but who knows?

Soon I'll be on a plane, flying over Africa, and then Europe, and then the Atlantic Ocean, and then the Continental US, and then Canada, and then I'll land in the frozen tundra that I love so stinking much. And I'll freeze to death, but I'll love it, because being cold is honestly something that I've missed while being here. The heat is nice, some of the time, just not when you take a shower in the morning and then an hour later it was completely pointless. But I'll miss that, too. I'm sure.

Rach and I went to visit Christine (one of many!)...the one with little Lucy, the other day at her home in Walukuba...we drank soda and mingled necklaces and talked with the TV going in the background...before now we didn't really know her story, but she opened up and told us all about her childhood in Gulu, and how at night they would walk to the town and sleep in the hospital on the floor, and one of many nights the Rebels came into town and were shooting up everything, so she slept under a bed that night hoping that maybe she wouldn't be killed in the chaos of it all. She was 12. Another night she was staying with her uncle (because some time before her father had been killed by the Rebels), aunt and her siblings (two of her older brothers had been taken by the rebels one night, out of their house, and she hasn't seen them since), and they came into town again, shooting at walls and houses and killing people and so she said they stayed under the bed for three hours until they were sure they were gone, and the next morning they found their neighbor, a single woman and her 2 year old daughter dead in their house...Christine says that sometimes at night she remembers these things and can't sleep. But whenever I am with her she is so happy and strong and full of life, and I can't even imagine going through half of what she has and just carrying on with life. She's beautiful. And I'm sure she's helped me more than I've helped her during my time here.