Coordinators day off...

Thats right folks... a day OFF... Wednesday, January 26... NRM day here in Uganda... the day Museveni and his National Resistance Movement came into power in 1986. So not having to teach or be in the office, my coworker-upstairs neighbor-and good friend here, Gwyn and I decided to find a pool side to enjoy. And to boot, we've hit the dog days... things are drying up, mud or dirt has turned into clouds of blowing dust. And its hot. Good and HOT.

Gwyn: The smart one, enjoying the hot day from the safety of some dappled shade....

Rachel: the not-so-smart one, enjoying the full force of the equatorial sun... resulting in some toasty knee caps at the end of the day. (I THOUGHT I'd done a good job applying sunscreen....)
Ah, but no regrets. Especially when I hear from friends elsewhere of cold wet snow, trees breaking under the weight of ice, and hitting that point mid-winter when it is all just too much. Too cold. Too grey. Too dark and too tiresome. NO THANKS... so this is for you, all of you in the far north... I soaked up all the gloriously hot sunshine I possibly could JUST FOR YOU. And I'm beaming it to you now, straight from my screaming red kneecaps. Can you FEEEEEL it? :) If you can't, well then I just don't know...

Much LOVE!

Jinja and the new year

This christmas holiday has been way too short-- I'm just getting used to the idea of NOT going into work every day, and here we are Sunday afternoon staring into Monday morning and our first staff meeting of the year. Ah. But Meghan and I decided for one last hurrah-- to Jinja for some sunshine and a lot of nothing before it all hits. So Thursday we headed to a place called Kingfisher right where the Nile exits lake Victoria. Pretty spot. We spent the afternoon on the grass in the sunshine looking at this:

Doing this:
And this... lazy swimming, if you will. The pool was over run by kiddies... but we found this version also quite effective: every hour or couple of hours, you get up from your spot in the sun and splash around in the spigot a few feet away, cool off, and the return to your glorious spot in the sun...
And enjoyed a gentle sunset looking out towards The Source of the Nile. (Yes, by golly, I believe we've found it!)
We had big plans to wake up early Friday morning and stake out a prime spot by the pool-- beat out the pint-sized people, but woke to a dark cool morning and the sound of thunder and rain. Ah, the best laid plans... so we didn't quite get our stellar start-of-the-semester-tans... but spent a fun morning walking around Jinja town drinking iced coffees at The Source Cafe, specialty beverages by the golf course, eating Indian for lunch... and then hopped a matatu back to Mukono, where we rung in the new year over steaming mugs of tea, dutch blitz, my christmas tree going up in smoke with thanks for 2010, and fireworks shot off from the Colline! Whooohoo.

So today is Sunday, a sunny bright day, January 2nd (happy birthday Juan!). And I'm enjoying a day of being close to home after a couple weeks of go-go-going. I cleaned my water filter... which seemed impressive enough to share with you all:

And now I'm thinking about 2011... a whole new year. No idea what it holds... but hopefully I will perfect my tortilla making skills, get better at my job (weird that at this time last year, living and working in Uganda wasn't even remotely on my radar...), and send roots down deep into this good Ugandan soil and watch what comes up. (hopefully not matoke). Or maybe some matoke and some other goodies too... some good community, some contentment, belonging, and who knows really, maybe a few fun surprises along the way.

Hello 2011!