more random bits

First of all, congrats to albert and april for the birth of their daughter mercy. Happy day of birth mercy. Welcome to your first taste of life, mercy.

Bob leaves tomorrow. Sad thain boat team of Africa. We shall miss bob. He counsels us as to the stupid things we are about to embark on. also, he teaches us in areas he has experience in that we don’t. he has a positive attitude which is hard to come by in this line of work. As preparation for leaving he did last minute shopping in kampala for gifts and I hemmed his pants. Random I know. Sharron, keep him safe, for he has survived Uganda with the food here and the boda rides. It would be a shame for something to happen in safe America. Good luck bob. You are a good man and this group will miss you. For all you wondering, no, this isn’t a eulogy at all. but seriously, who will buy soda for us all each night?

Jon paul walked back the other day bearing our lunch and a headless snake with a sprig of chili stuck in his bandana. He did not kill it, that fact has bummed him a bit. But he did cut off the head and skin it. I think it was a green mamba. The locals were stoning it when he saved its skin. Quite literally actually since that’s all he kept. The locals have nicknamed him “the man with no clothes” in lugandan because he never wears his shirt when walking around and most of the time around the dorm he goes barefoot.

The boat is moving along in its process. We have the floors and beams ontop of the hulls but not fully attached yet. once those are in place, the rest of the boat will move much faster. It feels like we have repositioned the hulls for weeks. Each time we get closer, tho never perfect. If the hulls aren’t perfect, the whole boat will remain crooked. Not ok. So we inch over each day towards perfection. Moving a 2 ton hull with wooden levers and man power can get exasperating. Oh well.

There is a lizard in one of the containers. And we found a bat trapped in one of the hulls. Frogs and insects constantly get inside and promptly stuck. We walk thru hundreds of dragonflies sporting every color of the rainbow. Actually, not so much green, but every other color. What is a group of dragonflies called? Imagine standing in the center of the galaxy with all the stars spinning around you. Now imagine all those stars are dragonflies. That’s what its like.

We hear music every day going down the road. Ice cream boda! Kinda like an ice cream truck, only… in the form of a boda. Strapped to the back is an orange Gatorade looking ice water holder full of pink and yellow ice cream. 200 shillings for a small cone. Awesome. We go down to the village and buy sweet cakes and bubble gum and soda. Or zebra which is a truly aweful form of rum. If you mix it with coke its drinkable. The fifa world cup plays every evening so we walk over to the resort to watch the games. It feels like a movie to walk thru the warm evening to the pole and thatch building housing rustic chairs and a tv, Those south Africans really like buzzy horns. When we hear the bee hive, we know the tv is playing the football match. Not American football, soccer.

We have all reached a level of tan not possible in seattle, even in the hottest of summers. Our tan lines stand out quite a bit. My arm hair stands out against my brown arms. Bryce and jon-paul tend to wear epoxy shorts and good shoes for their African work uniform. I add a cami or a shirt to the outfit for my uniform. Bob is the odd one, sporting long pants and a button shirt compliments of ex officio. In communication with the locals, we tend to use nicknames based mainly on their physical appearance. There is Red Hat, and Ben (not his name), Gray shirt, Stripes, etc. they in turn call Bryce Mr. Bright cuz the closest pronunciation is “blyce”.

Bob won the other night at settlers of catan. But he didn’t realize it for two rounds until I was about to get 11 points and win. Then he counted up his points and cut me off. I was so close.

The stupid mud wasps tried to build a nest on a pair of my pants. I guess they figured they wouldn’t move. They had only been there since the night before. Stupid mud wasps.