No weapon forged against me shall remain

My first purchase here: some shell earrings.


I also bought these sandals.


Right behind my dorm is Monkey Hill. Monkeys live there.


My friend Agatha who lives across the hall. She walked up to Monkey Hill with me.


This is me, on probably the first afternoon I left my hair down for any length of time.


The sun set as we walked back down Monkey Hill.


The view from the front porch of my dorm. To the right is Winfred Brown hall, to the left is Thelma Horsey, like a lounge/hangout-type deal, and straight down is Rachel Hal, one of the boys' dorms. The other boys' dorm, Florence, is below that.


Most of the USP on-campus girls.


Caroline with her soda bottle.


Our dance party in Thelma Horsey.


I never really know what to say, what I want people to know or what I want to remember about this time later on. I feel like I'll remember a lot, but I know that I probably won't. But there's so much going on, so much going through my head, so many things that are new or changing - it would take too much space and I don't have to patience to type out everything. I do write notes in my journal of things to include, so that I remember.
One of the side effects of my malaria medicine is vivid dreams. I was hoping to not have any of the negative side effects, but I've been having weird dreams for most of the last 5 or 6 nights. I have a lot of dreams every night and they're just...weird. They're a little closer to reality than my normal dreams so it generally takes me a little while to know that it's not real. The first night I had them, I had a dream that a tidal wave hit California. There was more to it, with escaping and some guys who I don't actually know dropped some sort of explosive into the ocean to start the tidal wave, but whatever. I woke up after it and later ha another dream that the tidal wave one was actually real. It's just bizarre.
I started my homestay on Saturday morning. I'm with Emily, who's from Maryland. She lives in the girls' dorm Sabiiti. Our house parents are Faith an Godfrey Bayinde. They have 5 kids, the oldest 4 are away in universities and the youngest is a 14-year old boy named Anok. There are a unch of kids in the neighborhood though and they really like Emily and I. They enjoy trying to teach us Lugandan and laughing when we try to say things. I wrote down a bunch of words in my journal. Our house does have electricity, but not running water. For our bathroom, we have a pit latrine. It's basically a hole in the ground. It's cement that we stand on and a rectangular hole in the ground that we squat over. It's very different. For our showers, they fill up a shallow basin/tub with water and take us out to the bathing room (like a stall with no door and 3 walls that go about up to my armpits). That's different also. I'm not sure what I think about my house parents. Faith just laughs at us a lot and Godfrey is pretty intimidating. I like the kids and one of their older sons Stanley was over yesterday and we talked with him for a while. We also got to talk to their oldest, Betty. She's an engineering major, like Emily. They were pretty cool. It was good to talk to someone here who's close to our own age. I am really glad that I'm with someone. I think I would be very overwhelmed if I was alone.
Our house is a few different buildings. The toilet/bathing room is separate - not far away, but not attached to the main house. Then there's the cooking house, and attached to that is what I think is where our parents sleep. In the main house, there's a living room, a dining room, the room where 2 girls, both named Faith, sleep (I don't know exactly how they're related but they're similar to maids, but are nieces or something), and our room. Our room has 1 really bright light bulb and no windows so it's really hot, all the time. Emily and I have to have mosquito nets. They basically look like a little tent that covers about the upper 2/3 of my body and they netting that drapes over to the end of my bed. Anok and another boy named David who lives there stay in a house across the street. Across the street, there's a bunch of banana trees and some chickens who wander around and a couple of pigs in cages.
We went to church yesterday and then sat around and rested alternately (which is basically what we did on Saturday too). I learned some clapping games from some of the girls, we played a board game for a while, and jumped rope. I had my camera out at one point and they all swarmed me. I put it away pretty quickly. Overall, it wasn't a bad weekend. I'm glad I'm with Emily - she's also in a relationship, so it's good to talk to her about different things. I don't know if I would have really gotten to talk to her if we weren't together in this. Someone nearby has a little baby named Eric and he's really cute. We liked holding him, but I think at some point he peed (they don't wear diapers), so that wasn't as awesome. I liked talking to Stanley and Betty, about Uganda and university and their government. It was really interesting. I like some of the kids too. I don't really like when they all crowd around us, but there are some really cute ones. Anok and David are funny. A couple of the younger kids (like 2 or 3) are really funny. They're scared of Emily and me, so they'll come up closer and wave at us and when we wave or say hi they laugh and run away. They like if I chase them, but not if I catch one of them. I am gad to be back at school. I think I might take a nap today. We don't have supper until about 9 or 10 and Emily and I basically go straight to sleep after that. I'll be glad to see other people from USP, other people my age and whatnot. I think that's all for today. There's a lot more I want to share, but maybe another day. Vaya con Dios.