The Blobs of Dirt That Once Was Eden and Kylee.

If you wonder what we do at night in Africa, I will tell you. When we are not passed out, or wondering what large creature is making those strange noises outside our window—which is wide open—we have instituted movie night. Turns out Mackie is a sucker for love stories and luckily I have just what she is looking for. Runaway Bride, Wedding Planner, Notting Hill, Somewhere In Time. Got ‘em. We all cuddled in our bed last night and watched Notting Hill on my laptop while sweating profusely. Eden and I figured out that our pillows and sheets are making us even hotter than we already are so we did a little TLC and last night we still were soaking. We got to sleep in late—9 o’clock—today. It would have been pretty restful if the whole housing staff wouldn’t have come in every 15 minutes wondering if we were sick and that’s why we weren’t up yet. I have Mackie hooked on The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society book. She just came flying in here thinking that she had just figured out the book… Keep reading Mackie. Keep reading. I think from now on Friday’s will be pretty restful. It is considered a club day so we don’t teach, but the kids don’t get home from school until five. So we have a mini spa day. We lay out, brush our hair, clean our nails, pluck our eyebrows, and talk about how gross we are getting. It is all very productive.
Shout out today goes to dear old Kealia Ohai. She is not reading this, but if she did I would only have one thing to say to her—watch your back. Eden and I played soccer with the kids today and although I thought I was going to black out when I headed the ball, we kicked butt. I think it’s a bit easier to find someone to pass it in to when there are two white girls buzzing around yelling, “I’m open! I’m open!” If only we could figure out what to do once they pass it to us. Hm….
On the account of bugs this week, we have had a relatively quiet week… Just kidding. If I ever say that, it is a boldfaced lie. Let me take you back on a little trip to the past. Me, being the responsible daughter that I am, thought that I would go give my mother a ‘buzz’ outside on the tele. It’s starting into rainy season so the mud is rampant and requires rain boots; I did not bring rain boots so I go to borrow Eden’s (what’s yours is mine baby..) and struggle to put my feet in while running out the door. I get one and a half of my feet in and just settle for limping to the corner of the backyard where we get service and feel a rock-like feeling in my shoe. Oh, well. I think to myself, “Self, that’s weird, Eden hasn’t worn these before how did she already get a rock in them…” Silly Eden….

Silly Kylee.

After a good 40 minute phone call to the States, I walk over to Eden and Mackie on the back porch and start taking off the boots because my foot seems to be swelling as we speak. So I struggle to take them off, and take a gander into my right foot (the only foot that made it in) and saw the biggest beetle just lying there. Almost dead. Almost dead—that means it was definitely alive and in the twitching death stage of dying. I killed a beetle. A massive beetle. Apparently rock = beetle. Next we have poor Mackie. We are all sitting at the dinner table enjoying some rice and beans, like always.. When out of nowhere Mackie starts to FREAK OUT. She does not freak out easily. In fact, she hates it when we say anything about bugs. But she is straight up head banging across the table yelling in the whiniest little girl voice, “Jane! There is a bug in my ear! Jane! Get it out! Oh my gosh Jane, there is a bug in my ear! Help!”. Eden and I could hardly pick our mouths up of the of the table, let alone help the 2 year old across the table. It goes without saying, whenever Mackie complains about anything, she gets a blast from the past in the form of, “Oh my gosh! Jane, there is a bug in my ear!” Oddly enough Eden has yet to have a traumatizing bug encounter this week.. I think it’s because the bug bites—which she has scratched into scabs—have begun to bleed. I think the bugs think that she is punishing herself enough. At night the bug kingdom comes out to form of symphony of sound outside of our window. Its almost like we have a wave machine set to the sound of the forest, only it’s gotten itself stuck on the loud setting. Very loud. The other night Eden and I turned on the light in the dining room to have dinner, and found ourselves severely outnumbered by a gang of moths. Eden flips, and charges it into our room and comes out with a book for me to wail on the moths with. Lets just say that the wall needs to be washed, and Eden won’t be teaching out of her grammar book for sometime…

We realized that we haven’t discussed where we are staying. If you would like to believe we are staying in a straw hut, please continue. It makes us seem a bit edgier. But if you would like the truth, we stay in a pleasant concrete guesthouse on the far side of the compound. There are 6 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and dining room. It’s all very basic and at night it’s all very creepy. Eden and I move in a pack from the hours of 6 p.m. until 8 a.m. We can see you dirtbag bugs even in the dark… But we have so many fun people that live and work in the house that we hardly need to leave to receive any entertainment. Judith is a handful enough. She doesn’t mind that whenever Eden gets within 20 yards of the house she begins to tear off her clothes in a fury because she is so hot. She doesn’t even mind when we make messes all over the house like 5 year olds, and she really doesn’t mind when we teach slash sing her American rap songs when she brings us our food. Yes we sing the cook Gold-digger. Whoops?

Africa cannot make its mind up about what the weather should be. It’s like an indecisive woman looking to buy a new pair of shoes. One minute it will be 100+ degrees outside and the very next the streets turn to rivers in some of the craziest rainstorms you have ever seen. It’s like come on, Steve Maddens or Jeffrey Campbells. But when it is scorching and we have free time, we have taken to laying out in the grass on our woven mats in the backyard. I bet seeing a white person is strange enough, but seeing a white person trying to tan herself is mind blowing. Speaking of mind blowing, we are starting to run out of conversation topics between the three of us… And its not so much running out, its more like we revisit certain topics, but in depth. So little by little we are becoming very….. well-cultured.

As part of our internships, we are in charge of creating and maintaining incoming generating activities—or clubs. Club days are like the days of death around the orphanage. How do you convince 120 kids ages 14 and under that spending their Friday, Saturday, and Sundays making items to sell in America is fun? Try to make an optimistic can-do song about that one Barney. I dare you. I however am more than interested in the clubs that have already been created. They have sewing, knitting, and tailoring clubs waiting for projects to do. Kylee meet the fashion club of Asayo’s Wish. Hello, oh you like to make scarves and dresses? Hm, me too. I will say one thing; I do not belong on a farm. I don’t know who in their right mind would willfully join the poultry or the agriculture club. Yuck. I have a panic attack every time they try to get me to come into the chicken coup. And the turkeys just run around wild and mean. You never think a turkey could be mean, until you’re walking down the path to the guesthouse and stop dead in your tracks as a turkey looks you square in the eyes. Then it calls all it’s turkey friends, and at that moment you know that the only way to safety is to take off in the direction you came and find a child to save you.

Speaking of children, most of the older kids have gone off to boarding school for the semester. They left before Eden and I ever got to meet them, but Mackie sings praises to them every chance she gets. Because of the national holidays celebrated this week, they have come back for a visit. In order for you to understand just how funny this story is we have to tell you a bit more about Mackie. She is 23ish?, works at a bar in North Salt Lake, dates rock stars and has never been interested in anyone younger than 27.. So when we hear her say, cougar, we can’t help but laugh hysterically. We are on our way to a local fruit farm when we hear someone yell Mackie’s name. Confused, she turns around and immediately yells,”OH MY GOSH!” Turns back to us quickly wide-eyed and murmurs, “Cougar”, and proceeds to introduce us to Ronald. Hello Ronald, the boy of Mackie’s much younger fantasies… Dear Ronald is handsome, I’ll give him that… So after a warm hello, we depart on our walk into the forests (or abum—A BOOM—in Kumam). We get our fruit and are on our way back to the orphanage when we decide its an appropriate time to give Mackie some needed grief about her child-crush. We are not 30 seconds done with our harassment, when from around a corner comes Ronald on a bike. It was like a movie, he in a white button down shirt flapping in the wind and khakis, her in a red top and cut off jeans holding a pineapple. It’s Africa’s version of the knight in shining armor—only change the knight to a boy, the blonde hair to a trimmed afro, and the black stallion to a rusting bike. Romantic eh? I half expected Mackie to drop her pineapple on the spot and hop on the back to be whisked away into the sunset. But instead she settled for tripping, asking where he was going, wistfully watching him continue on the path, and then yelling, “Safe Journey!” Safe journey?? No more Somewhere in Time for you Mackie Ballard…

The generator is broken again, so we won’t have power or running water until it gets fixed. There goes showering… Actually, Eden has taken a liking to the bucket shower. Although she makes me hold the light and suddenly I’m a towel rack.. She says it feels good, but I’ll just stick it out until I can do more than just haphazardly throw dark water at myself in the pitch black. We have also adopted a no-shave policy (sorry to those who find that disgusting). It goes without saying, we are beginning to look like the pet apes instead of the interns. Eden is convinced that although it doesn’t look like we are getting tan, it is because we are surrounded by people who really needn’t worry about tans (if you get what I’m saying). So we may or may not be getting tan, we really cannot decide.

This week in Uganda they celebrate Women’s Day. Let me break it down for you in a recipe-like manner in case you would like to recreate it. All you must do is get you and 500 of you closest friends and march right on down to the Alta football field. Once you are there, hand out guns (real or fake, we really couldn’t decide) to all of them and have them stand in a line. Then add the marching band you keep in the back of the pantry in the center of the field. Invite people to watch, and don’t warn them that it’s going to be in the dead of July. Then after a group of your Grandmother and a few of her pals perform a melodrama in another language, start the band and begin to march the army around the football field in a continuous box. Bake at 150 degrees for 8 hours and serve.

Enjoy!