Lists and Pictures

(above) This is at the Mulago hospital.

This was the orphanage/village we went to in the Invisible Children post. No, I didn't just catch her in a daze. They just looked like that.

Same place. This is them excited about the toys we gave them. Yeah. Excited. This is one of those times I wondered what I was really doing there. Eventually we got them up and talking and having some fun. (You might notice how muscular that little girl's arm is. Kids don't get to be kids in Africa--and that goes for orphans and kids with parents. They work. Hard. We saw one kid carrying two water jugs--huge water jugs I don't think I could have lifted with both arms. And I'm no wimp.)

On trips like these, if you don't create reasons to laugh, you will be depressed the whole time. So the three "Chicago girls" (we flew into London from Chicago) de-stressed ourselves by making lists about various things...here are a few of them:

Not recommended for consumption in Africa:

1) Rice crisps. Look like Pringles. Taste like cardboard.

2) Chips Ahoy. Packaged like Chips Ahoy. Taste like ??

3) Doritoes. Never again.

4) Coca Cola candy. They do get better the longer you suck on them. Or they just kill your taste buds...

5) Meat.

6) Milkshakes. I'm just going to say "powde

red milk" and leave the rest to the imagination.

7) Meat. I know it's on here twice. I just feel the need to reiterate. 

8) ketchup. don't be fooled by the red color...I don't believe it's made from tomatoes...

Sounds of Africa:

1) military men. Every morning we'd hear them working out.

2) cows mooing. random times. in the city, out of the city...always. cows.

3) roosters crowing. not even just in the morning.

4) Muslim call to prayer. Every morning at 5 am, there is a man

billowing out on a loudspeaker throughout  the city to remind all the Muslims to pray. Not really a good tool for converting people. And somedays, it would last a really long time. Or they just kept doing it over and over.

5) Our leader, Sherry, banging on our wall to wake us up. "CHICAGO GIRLS!" 

6) animal fights. I think a cat died right outside our window early one morning. it was scary.

7) the stupid clock outside our room. LOUD TICKING. and it didn't chime every hour, there was just a loud clunk.

8) Disney birds. You know how in Disney movies, the bird sound effects seem a little overdone? I think they just put a microphone next to Africa. It really does sound like that sometimes. (Outside the city.)

Yeah, those are probably the only two lists that are appropriate to broadcast to the whole world. The other ones probably 

aren't very nice :) Hey-we had some rough days...we had to vent somehow...

And just because I don't remember this at all but it turned up on my camera and it makes me laugh--

Me getting distracted by Jenny and my eye mask when I was supposed to be packing...

More to come later...once I  get them uploaded...