best years of my life.: where did time go?

I am sitting here wondering where my time here in Africa has gone. It is boggling my mind that I am leaving this country on Wednesday. I seriously can not believe it. Tay, Kar and Liv left today and it was the saddest thing. Watching them say goodbye to the Musana women was killing me. Seeing Eve and Rosette cry was killing me. These women have taught us so much about what it means to be strong, hardworking people and the fact that I will probably never see them again brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. It’s experiences like this that change our lives and I can truly say that I am changed forever.

Last weekend we went on our safari and it was quite the experience. One of the guys here is helping this Ugandan man get his business up and running and his business just happens to be a safari company. So Nate got all of us this sweet deal and we were able to get the whole safari for $170 with food included. The cheapest any of us could fine was $300 without food included. SO needless to say the safari was done the ghetto way. We stayed in these like student housing dorm style things and it was honestly the worst night ever. We were in the middle of nowhere in a room FILLED with bugs and mice, gross beds, sweating all night. OH... and a door that didn’t lock! I slept with one eye open the whole night. It was quite the experience and I feel like me explaining it doesn’t do the craziness justice. We all just kept looking at each other like “WHAT are we doing?” But it was fun and we made it through so I guess in the end it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. TIA. This Is Africa.

I want to share one story with you guys about a woman that I met this week. We had this huge health outreach on Wednesday in a village called Najjembe and we handed out 900 deworming pills to kids and taught about things like sanitation and malaria. I started talking to this woman and I realized she spoke amazing English for a person in Uganda. She was telling me about her and her son and how she just moved to this village from Gulu. Gulu is where Kony is from and where a ton of the involvement of the L.R.A. took place. Long story short... this woman was captured from 2000-2004, watched her husband die and got pregnant while she was captured and ended up having to put her in an orphanage. Her daughter is still in an orphanage in Gulu but she had to get out and somehow ended up in Najjembe. She starting balling telling us this story and begged us not to tell anyone. Can you imagine that? Having to leave your own daughter in an orphanage and not being able to see her because you can’t afford it? It was honestly the craziest experience listening to this woman talk about her life and not just hearing about stories in the news or from other people. It is people like this that make all the hard times in Africa worth it. I will never forget her and how strong she was. I feel so blessed that I will never have to go through anything even close to that. I feel so blessed to have the life I have. There are so many people here that have changed who I am and it is hard to believe my time here is coming to an end. These are the moments I love.