omg the ants

There are maybe a bazillion species of ants on this earth, I don't know, I'm not a scientist. I would guess that about three fourths of those live in Africa, and up until last week, three of them were battling it out with me over control of my house. Now, only two are.

Safari ants. If you have read Poisonwood Bible, you may remember a part where the ants come in the night and they have to escape across the river lest they be eaten alive. That is not too far from the truth, though my experiences have been thankfully less dramatic. The ants are migratory, and blind. Meaning they march right on through without a care to what they're marching through. Or, maybe they do care, I don't know. Either way, a few weeks ago I was finishing up doing a CRAP TON of laundry (it had been like a month and a half, at least) when I noticed that creepy spiders were swarming out of the rock piles near my door (totally safe to have rock piles around my house, nothing scary lives in those at all...) and up on to the sidewalk that runs the perimeter around my house. Confused by the sudden odd behavior, I went to find out the source of their terror - a basilisk perhaps? I was greeted by no less than 398,235,822 ants marching towards my house. My neighbors had spread ashes around their house that morning, so I should have known something was up, that's the traditional method for keeping ants out. Anyway, I got out my flip camera and started filming, though I don't think anything would be able to accurately portray the sheer numbers and determination with which these ants move. The single file line soon branched into several, which branched off even more. My yard was soon a black moving carpet of ants with jaws that can draw blood (not being dramatic) I sprayed Doom (Uganda's version of Raid) in front of my doors and hoped they wouldn't come in. Apparently they clean as they go, but I had just spent all day sweeping and mopping and wasn't in the need of a million army cleaning crew, but thanks. Of course, then the clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. It was about to storm. Can I pause here to remind you that my month and a half worth of laundry was on the line, almost dry? And that vicious biting insects were carpeting my yard? I quickly fashioned some waders out of garbage bags, taped them around my knees, and shuffled out into my yard, looking like a crazy person, to rescue my clothes. Upon returning to my steps, I saw that there were no less than 50 ants clamped onto the plastic bags. For the next week or so, the ants stuck around, though not in the same ferocious craze. They mostly stuck to the edge of the yard and my garbage pit, which means that walking around took careful planning and a watchful eye. About a week later, I saw a long line of them marching away from my house, each one of the billion ants was carrying an egg. Weird.

millllliiiions of ants. I wanted to see how fast they'd clean the jar

Trails of ants through my yard

Trash bag leggings!

Little red ants. These things are the bane of my existence, they are invasive to my life and they are ruining everything. Ok, that was all exaggerated, but I am super annoyed. Somehow, for the first 5 months I lived here, there were no ants. Then, all of the sudden, there are ants in everything. EVERYTHING. I brush my teeth, I have to pick ants out of my toothbrush first. I go to put on my retainer, I pick ants off that. I look at pictures on my wall, I see a line of ants marching up the wall. I shake amazing American Parmesan cheese that my mom sent me on to my pasta, and 50 ants come out with it. This morning I found that they had some how gotten up around the threads of my nutella (my NUTELLA!) over the top of the jar, and were stuck in the chocolaty goodness. What do I do when I find ants in every delicious food I have? I eat them. I am like a mean giant. Ants in my brown rice? Hang them in the sun, kill them, and eat them. Muahaha.. (Fe Fi Fo Fum?) I don't know if I could munch down as happily and with such gusto on the giant white ants that were brought to me upon my arrival, but the tiny red ones that are the most f*cking annoying things ever in my entire life? Yes. I will eat those. And I will do it with glee. (I don't pick them off the walls and eat them, just so you know, only if they're in the food already. I'm not that crazy...)

Little red ants in my american food. Of course I ate this. 

Regular ants. Lastly there is a colony or something of the normal black ants in my yard. They're not as organized, annoying, or invasive to my life as the safari ants or the little red ones, so I kind of just watch them sometimes if I'm on the phone outside and they're scurrying along the edge of the table. I think they were in my house a few weeks ago, I noticed a bunch that were all carrying a larvae. I quickly moved some furniture, sprayed, and swept, making sure to let them know this was not a place to set up home. They got the message and I haven't seen them inside since. Every now and then I'll watch the red ants marching up the wall outside meet a line of the haphazard black ones. They do battle sometimes and it's like the nature channel right on the wall of my house, it's a 15 minutes well spent, watching them go at it. Sometimes a spider gets involved and I have to text someone about it :)

*Edit* this evening when I was doing my dishes, I noticed an inordinate number of these black ants... doing a kung-fu battle royale on my steps. They were all scattered hither and thither, and were literally slinging one another around and clamping down with their jaws of death when they met one they didn't like. It was one of the oddest things I've ever seen ants do, I tried to get pictures but the battlefield and its warriors were much too little.

I haven't fallen in the Nile

Holy long time without an update. To all those who have been bugging me about it, I'm sorry. I have no excuse other than... I am lame? Either way, here goes.

I've been back from IST for a little over a month now. We wrapped up the time off with a trip to Mbale and then an all-volunteer conference in the famed Ryder hotel, complete with hot tepid showers and tile floors. (I'm not sure why tile floors are such a big selling point for me, but I love love love them.) Being back was not as traumatic as I was expecting it to feel, being totally spoiled with all the company of my fellow PCVs. I was expecting to feel lonely and sad all the time, not unlike it felt when I first arrived. That could not be further from the reality of coming back up here. It felt really good sleeping in my own bed again, opening up my house and enjoying my yard, sweeping all the spiders out and making it clean again. People in the village and the college were happy to see me back, and the askari who keeps the compound clean told me "apoyo dwoggo", "thank you for returning". Someone told me she thought I had gone back to America, so I think they were a little surprised to see that I'm here to stay (at least for a while, haha.) I felt like a member of the community rather than an outsider, I don't know how to explain it other than it just felt like a change or a new phase of service had started. I go running now in the village and am less self conscious of being seen doing something so totally out of the norm. I am lucky in that my community in general seems to stare less and be less invasive to my privacy than other volunteers' are. I also fixed my issue of eating lunch at school :) I've received a lot of packages from home with taco seasoning, so I decided to pack a small zippy bag with envelopes of taco seasoning and taco bell sauce packs (thanks James!) and add them to my beans. I just use a spoonful of the seasoning and one sauce pack and instantly I have Mexican flavored posho and beans. I am an idiot for not having done that sooner. It was incredible the impact it made on everyone I work with. The comments the first few times were a bit embarrassing - "You're eating our food?!? We are SO happy, you have made us delighted to be breaking bread with us, we cannot express how happy you've made us!" Jeez. My principal asked what the seasoning was, and I explained and showed him. He asked if I just added water, if I'd get the tacos that were pictured on the front... I wish. (Someone, please invent that. Instant tacos complete with cheese, sour cream, shells, and lettuce.) Anyway, I now eat a plate of taco-flavored beans for lunch every day and all is right in the world of Canon Lawrence PTC. I still don't take tea though, which is unbelievable to them, but whatever.

I've spent the last few weeks preparing and then monitoring second year students on school practice. They had two weeks here at the college working with a co-teacher (another student) making schemes of work and lesson plans based on topics that were given to them by the classroom teachers. Then, the next three weeks were spent in surrounding communities, teaching in pairs. The tutors went out and observed them daily, making comments and giving feedback. Apparently the feedback I gave was very different from the other tutors... my comments were "very serious" while the others "joked around"... I'm not sure why jokes were made on final school practice feedback forms, but I guess they were. On Friday we went around and did a final "mop up", telling students to hang their posters higher or lower, to underline the subheadings in the lesson plans, make sure the time and dates are written across the tops of lesson plans, important things like that. A little part of my soul died when a student teacher was actually pulled from teaching a lesson to be lectured on the neatness of his handwriting. I tried explaining to the school practice officer that the things focused on in America are very different from the things focused on here, so it's not always easy for me to give feedback. What I have to say isn't necessarily understood by my students, because it might be addressing things they've never heard of or been taught. What they want feedback on seems irrelevant to me a lot of times. I drew a poster the other day, illustrating Bloom's Taxonomy and higher order thinking, to show that most of the assessment here only touches the "remember" level. The other tutors that watched me draw it could only comment on how straight my lines were, how neat my handwriting is, and how I must teach students to draw posters like this, so that they can become good teachers. Hmm.

Primary students greeting me on my observations 

Other things: My garden is somehow... there. I planted American sweet corn, zucchini, cantaloupes, lettuce, spinach, hot peppers, and watermelon. I feel like the dad in Poisonwood Bible who plants all these American things and doesn't understand why they're not all fourishing. I don't know if it's a lack of sunshine (there's a giant papaya tree in the middle which shades it all) or just that my seeds have no idea what to do in Ugandan soil, or that I have never gardened anything in my life, but I'm somewhat flummoxed by the lack of progress. I have a toad named Trevor who comes in my house almost daily. I'm not sure what his deal is, but he seems totally devoted to me and has taken to hiding in my dirty laundry. Gross. No matter how forcefully I sweep him out every evening, he always comes back for more. Rachel has convinced me that tossing him down the pit latrine would be cruel and heartless, so for now I just chase him out and yell at him. A stray dog also took up part time residence in my yard for a few weeks, but she has moved on to other homes, I think, as she doesn't come around as much recently. I'm fine with that as I really don't want a dog here. It was kind of nice having an animal to talk to, but she didn't really talk back (anyone who has a dog knows that, yes, they do talk back, in their own way. Eye contact, facial expressions, tail wags, interest in your movements, etc. She obviously wasn't that attached to me.) I've submitted my application for vacation leave to Peace Corps and am waiting to hear back so I can finally buy my plane ticket :D I'll be home sometime near the end of April through the middle of May, so everyone needs to start making plans to hang out with me! I'm excited beyond excited and counting down the days! (Odd, since I wasn't even planning on coming back to the states during my service.) It's almost the middle of October and the weather feels the EXACT same as it did when I arrived in Lira back in April, and the same as when I arrived in Uganda in February. The lack of change makes it feel like time isn't passing, so it's alarming (in a good way) to cross off months in my calendar and realize that things are moving along.

I have to check to make sure I don't squish him when I go running

Sad but totally true story: For my birthday back in July, my family (mom, brother, sister-in-law, and two adorable nephews) sent me the most glorious birthday box ever complete with preppy potholders, dark french roast coffee, and s'mores ingredients to act as a birthday cake. I hoarded the s'mores ingredients, knowing I was going on a camping trip and wanting to savor them around a campfire with my PCV friends. I thought it would be more enjoyable that way than me, alone, over my gas stove's flame. I trekked all over the country with a bag of the heaviest chocolate bars ever (how do you do it, Trader Joe? I'm impressed) marshmallows, a box of graham crackers, and a blueberry cliff bar. Every time I picked up my heavy as all get out backpack, I'd complain to whoever would listen that all I wanted to do was camp so that I could eat the food and not have to carry it around anymore. Well, the time finally came to set up camp. We pitched the tent and unloaded some crap, including a bottle of rum, sleeping bags, a the bag of goodies. We dragged the rest of the stuff up to the lodge and then came back to light a fire. The bag of candy and goodness was gone. Yes, gone. The bottle of rum was still there, along with the sleeping bags and thank GOD my stuffed elephant, too. We are pretty sure that vicious, cruel children stole it, given that they left the alcohol. I swore a lot, double and triple checked all of our bags, and then bitched incessantly for three days. To all my friends who were with me that weekend, Jacque, Stella, Rachel, Mike, and Chen, I apologize for not being able to get over it. I know that it was just s'mores, but I was REALLY bummed, and I still am. I hope those kids got the worst stomach ache of their lives after eating my delicious birthday s'mores. The End.

(I promise to be better about updating!)

we are who we are

IST is somehow winding down, and we are getting ready to move on to the next phase of this fantastic vacation on Saturday morning. It has been a little hilarious reconnecting with all of my PC friends, most of whom I had not seen in four months. A large chunk of the girls have some version of the same bracelets, shoes, and purses that we've bought at various markets around the country. Our bracelets are braided leather with seed beads sewn in, our shoes are flat flip-flops with amazing beaded designs across the top of the foot, and our purses are all beautifully colorful cloth hobo bags. We wear scarves and look like peace corps volunteers. It's nothing short of fantastic. All four things I want to buy for everyone I know back home, they're so much fun. We have the same Ugandan phrases that we've picked up, partly from living in the culture and actually picking them up, and partly because we find them funny and are being ironic. We joke about getting back to America and having no one understand that when we say "mzungu, how are you?" in an obnoxious nasally voice, it's actually in the top five funniest phrases ever. I'm so thankful for these people :D

In rebellion of our accommodations, we've been walking and taxiing to delicious restaurants in the surrounding communities. We've had legit pad thai, some sort of heavenly pasta bake, pizza, calzones, burgers with fried eggs on them, a buffet that literally brought tears to some peoples' eyes, red wine, tiramisu, and key lime pie. My bank account is not happy with me.

The actual training has been interesting. All of our counterparts are here, so a lot of what we are talking about is how we're dealing with the differences between our cultures. We have addressed being called "mzungu" when walking around (which I don't think most Ugandans will ever understand why it bothers us), corporal punishment, and who is to blame for HIV transmission in the case studies we're reading (the wife who handed her salary over to her husband who then went and got drunk and slept with prostitutes? apparently yes, she is to blame for not being more responsible with her money... and then obviously the woman who had a drink with a guy, she's definitely to blame.*) Josh and I coordinated the session today on Women and HIV that sparked one of the more heated discussions we've had so far. Several people came up to us afterward and told us how much they appreciated the frank discussion on such a sensitive topic. It's a hard reminder of what we're facing when the honest opinions of our Ugandan friends are shared. That condoms have never been used, that women are to blame for rape if they drink alcohol, that godlessness within a marriage is the main cause of domestic abuse.

*note the sarcasm.

next purchase: hiking shoes

Still here, going strong. Myself and the other 43 volunteers in my group are currently stewing in annoyance at the venue for our In Service Training (from hereon out known as IST). Three months into service (four for us, to coincide with the break in school terms), PC Uganda holds this training to reconnect, process what we've done at site, and figure out where to go from here. Traditionally, it's held at a nice hotel outside Kampala to give us a little tiny bit of luxury in our otherwise grimy and besmirched lives. However, our group is staying at the same place we stayed at for PST; we live dorm style, eat food that keeps us from starving, and have no access to a pool. The hotel we had been originally promised had self-contained rooms, bread pudding, and tile floors. Needless to say, we were all a bit crestfallen when we received the text confirming that the venue had been changed. I need to stop complaining though, because there is hot water (sometimes) and monkeys that roam around and try to steal our food, which is entertaining if nothing else.

True story: last weekend I climbed a volcano and ended up in Rwanda. I traveled down through Mbarara and stayed with Jen a night, and then we made our way down to Kisoro with a decently sized gathering of our training group. We argued with a couple different conductors in the bus park, trying to get a fair price all the way to Kisoro, where a van from the hostel had agreed to pick us up.

Annoyed at a pitstop

We had to make a pit-stop in Kabale (get a map) to "grease the brakes" (warning sign #1). The road from Kabale to Kisoro is all through the mountains and absolutely breathtaking, and about half of it is still under construction.

Beginning of a seriously treacherous road, Sabinyo is the third mountain you can see 

 At one point we all smelled something burning so the driver stopped to check the brakes and saw they were smoking (warning sign #2). In the typical "it's ok, we go" fashion that I've become so accustomed to (but still find hilarious) we continued on our way until we came to a small trading center where we stopped again and the guy sitting next to me blurted out "Oh my god, the wheel is on fire!" and we all skittered to get out of the flaming matatu (final warning sign). Some of the locals who were standing around threw sand and mud on the wheel to put it out, but obviously we refused to get back in to continue down the mountain.

Flaming brakes

 We payed the driver for taking us, though not the full fare since we didn't actually make it all the way to Kisoro and had been in danger of being burned to a crisp. It was a slightly terrifying three minutes as he tried to rally the crowd against us in protest of our reasoning. We got it solved and no punches were thrown (thank GOD.. I was more scared of that than I was the flaming vehicle I'd just been sitting in.) The Ugandans standing around started shamlessly requesting money from us for helping put out the fire and keeping us company (seriously?). I have so many fewer qualms about flatly refusing these requests and calling someone out on their manners than I did six months ago and firmly told them to go to hell. Josh called the hostel and had them drive up the mountain to pick us up as our matatu went speeding off into the darkness. I have no idea how far they made it with burnt, mud filled brake pads, but we didn't see any evidence of a wreck on our way back a few days later.

Kisoro was freezing. We arrived suuuuper late at night after having been traveling for a good 45 hours or so (I left Lira at midnight on Thursday night, and this was now near midnight on Saturday night). There was a fireplace in the lodge and I felt like we were on a ski trip rather than a hiking one. We quickly ate what had been prepared for us and then settled down into our huts for a cold, brief night's sleep.

We woke up early and I tried to figure out exactly what to take on an 8 hour hike up a volcano that had been described as nothing less than gnarly by two incredibly athletic PCVs. These are the things that made the cut: a liter of water, little camera, big camera, two Clif bars, headlamp, steripen, roll of TP, change of socks, PC ID (to get the East African Resident park discount), a packed lunch, and a ziplock bag. Of these things, this is what would make it if I do the hike again: small camera, water, Clif Bars, maybe the socks.

Hiking to the base of the mountain took like 3 hours

 I got some amazing pictures, but the giant camera was definitely too cumbersome to bring again. I did an awful job packing for these three plus weeks away from site and didn't bring my camera cords, so you'll have to wait to see pictures (but since the internet is so slow here, you'd have to wait anyway, so whatever.) The hike was gorgeous but difficult and I only made it to the first of three peaks, but still, I climbed a really big, 12,037 foot high mountain and I'm super pumped about that fact. Next time I'll have to be faster because there's no way I could have made it to the third and then back to the base before dark. The first and second peak straddle Rwanda and Uganda, the third wedges the DRC in there somehow. We sat and laughed and looked at the nonexistent view from inside a cloud and took the requisite "look I'm in two countries at the SAME TIME" pictures. There were some ridiculously precarious Ugandan ladders (read: tree trunks nailed together) leading our way up the ridge, and they were only more daunting when we had to descend them backwards in the rain. We stayed on the peak until it started thundering and lightning and we realized that we were indeed on the highest point around, so it wasn't smart to stay. The guards (yes we had guards, with guns.) were convinced that we'd be fine and wanted us to wait for the rest of our group to come back from the third peak, but we ignored such requests and started making our way down. It was terrifying, but a fun quote I read recently succinctly states that if you want to lead an interesting life, you should be prepared to spend half of it terrified, or something to that effect. The hike down took what felt like a miserable 7 hours (but was actually only a miserable 4), mostly because we kept having to stop in the freezing cold rain to wait for everyone. The guards told us that sometimes elephants or buffalo come out onto the trail in the evenings (oh how I wanted to see an elephant!) We made it back, soaked and worn out and sat again by the fire, drinking Nile beer. Life is good and my only regret is that I put off ordering a new rain jacket until last month and it hasn't arrived yet. That would have been nice. These will be my next purchase as I have now cemented in my mind that hiking up mountains is something I'd like to continue.

Seriously steep!

View of the second of three peaks from the first (where I crapped out)

The next three days were spent making our way slowly up to Lweza for IST. Nothing was dry for several days and it sucked having to pack up wet things and tote them all over the country, but whatever. We ate some amazing food and slept in an amazing hotel along the way, completely spoiling ourselves, knowing full well what our accommodation would be for the next two weeks. Jacque, Stella, Leah, and I are all sequestered in a dorm on the other side of the compound, away from the ruckus and fraternization that is going on in the big dorm, but we're moving tomorrow or the next day, so maybe we won't be so antisocial anymore. We walked up to the mall (yes, mall) today and got pizza and ice cream, and are going back tomorrow to get burgers because I found one with bacon and fried egg on it. I also ate macaroni and cheese pancakes at my hole-in-the-wall-Italian-place that I visit when traveling. There is a culinary genius somewhere out there who obviously sends me his love.

In catch-up news, I went to a malaria training, finished my first term of teaching in a Ugandan college, turned 28, painted my nails four times because people love me and sent me amazing packages, decided one of my goals here is to become a phenomenal packer, graded appallingly maddening exams, and got more than one glimpse of the incredibly brave and capable person I am, that this experience is slowly but surely revealing.

I miss and love you all, but it feels like time is finally starting to pick up and move more quickly. I've been here six months already, and it kind of feels like nothing most of the time, so I'm much less concerned about getting through than I was a few months ago. It's a test of my patience sometimes, exhausting and frustrating others, but mostly it's amazing and I have to pinch myself to see if it's real and then congratulate myself when I realize it is, and I'm living it.

Balancing & Vices

Two entries in two days? What the what? Truth is I wanted to write about all of this, but it didn't seem like the various topics went together, so I split them up. Internet was crap last night so I decided to wait. Either way, here is another entry for your reading pleasure.

I have been finding it very difficult lately to balance certain aspects of my service here, namely being able to eat my own cooking and not offending Ugandans by doing so. This has felt lately like it translates into a bigger issue of not being sure how much of my American-ness to insist on holding on to and how much to let go of. I will start by saying that Northern Ugandans are some of the most welcoming, kind, and happy people I have met before. They have made me feel at home since arriving here and seem to genuinely care about me, which I don't doubt at all, but I also don't want to take it for granted. They can also be pushy and have little tact about certain things. I will go on to say that I don't prefer Ugandan food to, say, my own cooking. During homestay I was pretty miserable on the food front and merely picked at what was in front of me (if you know me, you know that picking at food is a completely alien action). I was so excited to cook for myself again when I got to site. I tried out a lot of the recipes in the cookbook, I posted pictures of my creations on facebook, I even gave recipes to my family and friends back home, urging them to try out what I'm making. It was the best thing ever, except that to not eat at the college every day is somewhat of a sin. My college is not wealthy, I've come to find out, comparing it with other institutions I've visited and hearing the stories of my friends' schools. The school is even closing two weeks early because we can't afford to feed the students anymore. There is only one dish ever prepared and served; posho and beans. Posho is maize flour mixed with boiling water and can best be described as a dry, dense version of grits. It's much smoother in texture than grits, but unfortunately has no butter, cheese, salt, or pepper mixed in. The beans are simply boiled. I have eaten at the college several times, but usually prefer to duck out and eat left overs or something at my own house. This has drawn attention and "playful teasing" in the form of telling me I'm not Ugandan enough, that I need to learn to love the food since I'll be staying forever, and that I need to understand the reason for the limited diet is the poverty level of the country. (Although I feel like some pretty poor places in the world have come up with some amazing culinary creations.) I know that I'm supposed to be integrating into the community and sharing culture, and I had a discussion about it with my principal the other day. It was very informal; he's my neighbor and we were standing in our yards. I told him that I had tried almost all the Ugandan foods I'd ever heard of, even the white ants that were brought to me. I told him that I had not refused to try anything since I've been here, and that I thought I was pretty brave to begin with, moving 8,000 miles away from my family to live in a completely foreign culture simply to try to help and learn, something almost none of my friends back home would do. He told me it wasn't enough, that trying foods wasn't enough, that I had to love them, and that when I don't eat their lunch they are sad. I asked if he'd ever tried something he didn't like, and he just laughed and asked what kinds of foods we had in America that he wouldn't like (they call all of our foods "snacks" by the way, we don't eat real food). I tried to come up with the scariest, weirdest things I could think of to make my point: lobsters, crawfish, oysters on the half shell, ceviche, sushi, tofu, seaweed salad. Not having ever seen any of these, none of this even made sense to him, let alone got through to him. I get frustrated that it's so easy to criticize me and my culture when they are here at home, and the phrase "don't judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes" is completely lost on them. I have tried to offer food to people here, things I cook that I want to share. They just look at it and laugh and tell me I eat only snacks, and that I should eat their food. I'm trying to figure out how much I should give in and how much I should be like "this is something that's important to me, let me eat my goddamn spaghetti, will you?" It seems stupid to be this concerned about food, and that I should just give up, but for some reason it's bugging me.

Secondly, vices. I have developed three of them: reading, cleaning, and planning trips. I guess all three of those things were present in my "real life" just not to the extent that they are here. Cleaning is actually super necessary because bugs will move in and take over if I don't sweep (including all the corners and up the backs of doors) on an at least daily basis, mop the whole house weekly, and never leave dishes out overnight. Spindly spiders, little robotic jumping spiders, and ones that look like they are straight out of Arachnophobia. I swear a producer of that movie was like, "Oh hey, I've been to Uganda, and they have some creepy ass looking spiders hanging out up in the north. They're little, so they seem like they'd be harmless, but man do they give me the willies." I actually had a little jumping spider living in my room for a while, mostly up on the ceiling. I watched him attack a fly one afternoon, and then found the dried up corpse on the floor later that evening. Since he was earning his keep, I left him alone. Somehow sadly, when I returned from my weekend in Gulu he was gone. His much bigger cousin stopped by the other day, but was gigantic and much too close to my bath towel hanging on the wall, so he got the boot. Or more accurately, the flip-flop. Also in my menagerie are flies of all shapes and sizes, bees the size of a baby's fist, wasps that come in to explore my house, centipedes as thick as a finger and eight inches long, praying mantises - both minute and enormous, the tiniest gd gnats that can fall through mosquito net weave, and mosquitoes ranging from Florida sized to looking like they flew out of Jumanji. Geckos live in my house too, and other than occasionally startling me if one jumps out from behind a curtain, I really don't mind their presence, because they eat the bugs, and are cuter than them too, even though they poop everywhere.

I have read 43 books so far, in under 6 months. Whoa. Granted two of them were Harry Potter and eight were A Series of Unfortunate Events, but that is still a lot. I swear every other conversation somehow relates to something I've read and I am starting to feel like an ass hat being like, "Oh yea, that's somehow related to something I read!" I'm like Hermione, sheesh. If anyone wants to send me Harlan Coben books, The Survival of the Sickest, or anything else you've enjoyed, I'll love you forever! (Shameless plug: also, see my wish list for other, fun, package ideas! I heart mail!)

I heart planning trips. Danielle and I used to sit around our apartment with Expedia pages open on our computers, trying to figure out where to go. We looked at London a million times, Italy, the Caribbean, but we never went anywhere except to visit our families. Now that I'm over here and am a stone's throw from crazy ass places like Rwanda and Zanzibar, and am in the company of people who are excited about traveling too, we're planning trips that are so totally going to happen. Climbing Mt. Sabinya, for instance, in a few weeks (the mountain that straddles the DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda), and hiking Mt. Elgon a few weeks after that. I love looking forward to things in general, and looking forward to these small milestones instead of that looming "21" on my wall (as in, 21 months till I'm done) makes this experience much more doable and enjoyable.