The News:
J--
I would've liked to tell you on the telephone, but our connections have been so terrible. Do you call through the service using your cell phone? If so, try using the home phone. The connection to my parents has been fantastic for the most part and they use a land line in Oregon.
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I am taking fall quarter off and staying here through mid-December. My mother is working on changing my flight, and I'll be working for a different CBO starting September fifteenth. I'll still be living at the guesthouse in Mukono, but I'll be working at the Elizabeth House, which is a home for severely disabled kids. Most of them have either cerebral palsy or malaria-induced palsy, or we don't know what they have. Most of them can walk and talk a bit. Out of 16 who stay there permanently, only 4 or 5 are wheelchair/bed-bound. On Mondays through Wednesdays, about 15 more come from the neighboring villages and it's a madhouse. The women who work there are sweet but spend most of the day sitting around chatting and the kids don't get much love. I went on Thursday with my friend Tama and decided I had to work there, and I'm with my current school until mid-August. I still have August 15-September 15 free for school holidays--the kids at Elizabeth House also go home then.
Most of what I'll be doing is playing with the kids, helping them eat, and helping them go to the bathroom. Tama is trying to put together a log with information about each kid, and if he doesn't finish by August 1 when he leaves, I'll continue working on that. The Elizabeth House has only had 3 volunteers so far (in the past four years) because Leslie doesn't put people there unless they ask since it's a very different kind of placement than teaching or doing outreach. One of them was Kate, who is one of my favorite people ever. Luckily Leslie isn't charging me any living expenses, but my parents are still having to lend me donation money, flight changing money, and Ollie-boarding money. Which is a lot of money, but not more than making a whole other trip back here. And the fact is, I just want to stay. But I'll come home in December, I swear. That whole college thing does need to happen.
Also, I had a dream in which I tried to leave on September 14th, and I left my passport in Mukono and was forced to stay.
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Last night my puppy out at school died. This morning before I arrived they threw her body down the latrine. Apparently I'm supposed to be happy they waited until she died to throw her into the latrine, but I was still traumatized.