Thursday Part 2

Well it is night now and we are all going to bed. The rest of the afternoon I just relaxed around camp getting some volunteer surveys done and hanging out with the other volunteers. At five Peter from JGI was suppose to come and give us a talk but he never showed up. So around 6:30 we decided to leave and go into Entebbe for some dinner, Chinese food to be exact. It was absolutely delicious. I have had little pieces of fried fish since I have been here so I ordered that and it was great. Of course my luck has followed me here and my food arrived about an hour after everyone elses. Oh well. We ended up going out to dinner instead of cooking at camp because the truck with the food had gone into Kampala with the leaders for a meeting and to visit the hospital to see Kate. They thought Kate would be able to come back to camp tonight but when they arrived they were doing a CT scan to double check everything was okay and not appendicitis. Well I guess the test came back unclear and now they are again confused as to what is ailing her and have decided to keep her in the hospital. We did hear that she has been cleared to fly though so hopefully she will catch a flight home or at least to Kenya so she can get better medical care. We are all very upset she is probably not going to come back on the trip, but just really want her to get better. It is quite scary that no one can figure out what is wrong with her and it’s just some mysterious disease in middle of Africa.

At dinner there was 12 volunteers and Peace. Peace is such an amazing women. She is always so kind and so happy. Tonight she told us of Idi Amin (sp?) reign when she was only four or five years old. Her father, a pilot, was against the President and the President knew this so wanted Peace’s father killed. He therefore escaped to Kenya while his wife and children stayed back in Uganda. The army came to the house looking for the father and her mother kept them occupied while Peace and the other children could escape. The mother then escaped with her life before the soldiers burnt the entire house down. They the began their trek to Kenya for exile. On their way there the soldiers caught them and were getting ready to rape Peace’s mother. She says she remembers the song the soldiers were singing to her mother to “seduce her” and they were holding on to her dress crying when they were ripping her clothes off and one soldier stopped the other soldiers and said don’t rape her “she has children”. Luckily because of that man they were saved and they then escaped and made it all the way to Kenya where they were lucky enough to meet back up with their father. They lived in Kenya for many years until Amin’s reign was over. Her whole life is just truly inspirational. We are all so lucky to have met her.

We arrived back to the bandas at around 10 and were told we had to have breakfast a 6:30 to catch the boat to the island at 7:30 so we all decided to call it an early night. We figured out there was a switch that turned the hot water on and off so we were all able to have hot showers this evening! So nice, it makes washing your hair (and brushing it afterwards) so much easier!

Well everyone is in bed now so I better stop keeping them up with my typing. Have a busy day tomorrow on the island for the celebration so I am sure I will have a lot to write about tomorrow night.

Good night!