July 24- Kampala

Angela and I spent last night hanging out with two of her good home friends: Timothy and Nelson. They had a good time trying to teach me Luganda, and we had some interesting conversations about the state of the world as seen from our different perspectives. Timothy is studying architecture (we had fun hearing our different pronunciations of that word) in Turkey, and Nelson is studying to be a minister in Tanzania, so we all had slightly different outlooks. Today we didn't have too much to do because we had originally thought we would be in Ddegeya, and it was raining very hard outside. We hung out with Timothy and Nelson more today and spent the beginning of the day obsessively checking our email for news on the crate, talking to our families on skype, and hanging out with Angela's friends. At 5:30 we still hadn't heard from anyone on the crates and the rain had stopped, so Angela, Timothy and I went out to a fancy mall in Kampala where we ate cake and drank fresh juice. Normally we don't go out at night, but we got back by 9:30 and the mall had tight security, so we felt safe.

Angela and I got back to the house (Timothy went home after our cake and juice adventure) and had dinner (after cake...). I emailed Helen and Bryan, asking whether they thought we should head to the village, or wait for the crates. We then watched 'She's Out of My League' while waiting for their response, which was a nice taste of the US (even though at one point in the movie, small silhouettes walked across the screen- it was filmed from a movie theater).

Helen responded after talking to Bryan saying that they thought we should go to Ddegeya. It's not worth putting our whole project on hold to wait for the panels to arrive and there is a FedEx holding facility in Kampala where the crates can wait if we're not back yet. At this point, the plan is for Angela and I to go to Ddegeya tomorrow at about 2 pm with John (the clinic manager) and stay there until probably Wednesday, but possibly Tuesday if it seems like there's a lot that we need in Kampala. Most of the team arrives on Thursday, and we will be there to greet them at the airport. Then the team and the crates will travel together, probably on Saturday.

Angela and I now have to go run around and pack up- we weren't sure what was happening, so we're not as prepared to leave as we could be. Tomorrow Angela is going to go to church and I am going to stay here and do laundry (by hand!) and pack up. Wish us luck!