6/26/11ish
Ish is becoming one of my new favorite adjectives. I should be exhausted, and I kind of am. It was a wonderful weekend. We went to Bushara Island in the middle of Lake Bunyoni. It’s a beautiful island with this fantastic resort kind of place with furnished tents and fantastic food and beautiful views of the lake and a ton of birds to look at. They’re much prettier to look at than they are waking you up in choruses at 5 am, but lovely nonetheless. Believe it or not, I think I can safely say we went camping. The tents were nice (even with 3 girls crammed into a tent for 2), but we still had to wash our hands and bathe out of a bucket, and we had to walk a mile to get food, so I’m counting it. We did have a beautiful view and an outdoor ‘patio’ for reading. It was a very peaceful place, and I’m grateful.
We left Friday afternoon, and when I say ‘we’ I mean Dani and Verity, my roommates, and Adam, a physician at the University hospital here. Adam is about 60 years old, brilliant, and very very kind. I was reminded of how nice it was to travel with a man (do not mistake that in any way for needing a man of any sort). Things happen faster, negotiating is shorter, and people here just deal differently with men than with women. Anyway, he made life easier. Also, he’d been there before and he helped us find our way. He also shared his box of wine with us at dinner, which was a nice treat. I felt a little out of my league with this crowd. He’s a medical professor from the UK and my roommates are med students, and they all discussed respiratory diseases like they were reciting a textbook I’d long forgotten from nursing school. I held my own, though, when it came to discussing universal healthcare, and the pitfalls of both of our nation’s systems. I also rocked the conversation about Stage IV Neuroblastoma, but I better have after 3 years. Anyway, other than the medical talk, I swam in my new bathing suit, read a lot of a book, napped on the dock, and basically just enjoyed a beautiful lazy weekend. Adam and Verity are also healthnuts, and one weekend with the two of them made me want to take up exercising a ridiculous amount every day and go vegan. I think those urges will pass, call me crazy.
We drove back today in a lightning storm (kinda scary), but it quit just in time for me to walk into town and find that the store that I needed was closed. So instead I walked back, figured out the issue with my Internet, but then we lost power with the second wave of the thunderstorm. We still had dinner, and tried to have “Film and Gin” night, but we skipped the gin and just watched Big Fish in the dark. Dani, Verity, and I have had quite a romantic weekend, ending it in a candlelight dinner and movie. Still a good day.
I enjoyed my weekend away from Mbarara, and my computer, especially at the urging of my big sister, Amy, who rightly told me that I was getting a little whiny, and I needed to be a little more present here in Uganda. I think she was right, but I’m still looking forward to home more than anything for a lot of different reasons other than warm showers, a normal feeling stomach, and junk food.
And my list. I’m thankful...
1. for Range Rovers. We hired a driver and car through a physician at the hospital, and while I will never EVER again in my life compliment such a gas guzzler, it was a comfortable ride, and pretty cheap split between four people.
2. for a sense of humor. I’m not at all outdoorsy (big surprise), but laughing at our ‘toilet’ and trying to hang bednets in a tent definitely not made for them was fun.
3. for people who are smarter than me. They always say to surround yourself with those, don’t they?
4. for a nice rain jacket. It came in handy since it was about half sunny and half rainy while we were there.
5. for real food! This place is actually a non-profit run by a nearby church, and the profits are given to use in the local community. It’s sustainable, beautiful, well run, and caters to lots of muzungus, so they had quesadillas, cinnamon buns, and real chocolate!
6. for sun bathing. It’s nice at a mountain lake when you’re not covered in sweat or sunburns.
7. for big fires. It got pretty cold at night, and the fire was huge and beautiful. Wish my dad could have been there, because he loves homemade fires (even if it’s just a pile of leaves in our backyard).
8. for rest. I rested most of last week, and now this weekend. I feel better, especially now that my stomach seems okay, and I’m ready to brave the clinic again tomorrow.
9. for a rainy lazy night. I love the sound of rain, I loved the conversations tonight, in real life and online, and I’ll love going to bed very very soon.
Goodnight all!
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