May 26

Here are all the emails I wrote while the internet was down. Enjoy:

It's been so long! Sorry, the internet has been down at the inn. But I
have kept a record of my life in my journal, so I will transcribe it
for all you lovely followers of my blog:
Sunday:
TOday was the best day of my life. This morning the internet still
wasn't working, which is unfortunate, but it meant that I got to sleep
in because I didn'[t have to wake up early to read and write emails. I
got ready, ate delicious breakfast, and we took a taxi to church.
Church was wonderful, as usual. There were 2 muzungu (white) senior
missionaries there who are from provo, so it was fun to see and talk
to them. But the best part of church was that Karen invited Ben who
works at the inn  to some with us. I'm pretty sure I've talked about
him before. He's the one who is young and is taking care of several
young kids who are the orphans of his brother. So Ben and the 5
children came to church. He is planning on meeting with the
missionaries on Wednesday. Hopefully that works out for him. He would
make an excellent member of the church. He already has a good
relationship with Heavenly Father and is obviously very charitable.
Plus, hopefully if he joins he will be able to take advantage of the
perpetual education fund. He is one of those people who would really
benefit from it.
After church we were invited over to Sister Victoria's house for
dinner. I was a little worried because she is the crazy lady from
Relief society who yelled at everyone for not making her family feel
welcome. As we were walking ot her house, my trepidation increased,
for our path was surrounded on either side by huts constructed
entirely of mud bricks and obviously lacking in electricity, running
water, or anything resembling sanitation. Now, I try to be strong and
charitable, but the food here freaks me out, especially when there is
a high probability that it was prepared in less than sanitary
conditions. However, fear not my friends! As we rounded the corner, lo
and behold, a fantastic gated community!! Talk about income disparity.
As we walked through the gates and into the house, it was like a slice
of heaven on earth. Sure the furniture was dated and there was not air
conditioning, but you are missing the point. The point is that there
WAS furniture and that she had several high powered fans and, most
importantly, obviously sanitary facilities. She also had a really nice
TV (much nicer than mine at my apartment-not hard) and she put on "the
Testaments" for us to watch while dinner was getting ready. I forgot
how awesome (read: cheesy) that movie is. Then we had dinner and OH!
Oh, dinner! My earlier fears were completely unfounded. It was, hands
down, the best meal I have had since coming to Africa. Though, in all
honestly, the competition is not that fierce.
Sister Victoria had SO MUCH FOOD!  It was seriously wonderful. I’m
pretty sure she had it catered too, because it was in those little tub
things with the heaters under them that BYU catering uses. Plus, there
was so much that wasn’t meat, so there was plenty to satisfy a hungry
little pseudo vegetarian. After dinner we watched Rio, which is a
fabulous movie. Highly recommended. It was strangely comforting to
watch an American movie. It’s like, you may be in a third world
country deprived of any pop culture that doesn’t involve Tony Horton,
but hey! American movies still exist. It was an especially appropriate
reminder considering the unfortunate events of Saturday when we tried
to watch The Dark Knight. The market that we go to on Saturdays has a
huge assortment of pirated DVDs for sale, but the selection is very
random and half of it is porn. But the group had really been wanting
to watch The Dark Knight, so I decided to try to call on my Ross power
to help us out. This is the same power that brought me, among other
things, my vampire shirt, my gold and pink dress, sparkly Steve
Maddens, etc. The way the power works is that I picture the thing I
want in my mind, I picture myself finding that thing, and I picture
myself using that thing. The power has a 93% success rate. After about
5 mins of sifting through terrible movies and porn, we found it!
Success! Unfortunately, the story has a sad ending. The flaw in my
power is that I don’t think in sound. The entire movie was horribly
dubbed in Luganda! http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/ We couldn’t even
watch the action scenes in peace because the man was still babbling
even though there was no dialogue. What could he possibly have been
saying? We will never know. Our solution: we watched the entire movie
on mute, filling in the lines ourselves whenever we could remember
them and summarizing when we couldn’t remember word for word. Let me
tell you, it was a whole lot less intense. I challenge every one of
you to watch the movie without sound, then you will get a taste of the
trials I go through.
       Anyway, Rio was a great movie, especially because I could understand
the language. After Sister Victoria’s I went home and talked to my
wonderful parents on the phone.
       I don’t think I mentioned the fact that today is/was Tyler’s
birthday. But it is, so  later on, we went to Ben’s house to have a
little birthday party.  There were some neighborhood kids around and
we all had a mini dance party to the terrible reggae music they play
on the radio here. Those kids could really move it! They are like 6
years old and their body rolls totally put me to shame. 2 of Ben’s
kids are little twin girls and they absolutely break my heart. It’s a
good thing they have a guardian and aren’t straight up orphans or they
would totally be coming home with me. All of the kids are wonderful,
but there is a soft spot in my heart for twin girls. I would totally
adopt them, but I can’t just take one, I would have to have them all!
And then all of a sudden I would be a mother of 5 with two years left
of law school, without a job or husband. That would be….bad…right?
       As we were walking home from Ben’s I saw a firefly! If I didn’t think
bucket lists were totally stupid, seeing a firefly would have been on
my bucket list. And now I did it!
       As I was getting ready for be just now, I found an entire box of
sweet and saltygranola bars that I had forgotten about! It was like
Christmas! I almost cried.
       So, see? This truly was the best day of my entire life ever. The
greatest day in the whole history of Stefanie. Though, I suspect that
after three weeks in a third world country, my standards have shifted
a lot.

Tuesday May 24
Living in a rain forrest is fun. I love the sound of rain, especially
on the tin roofs. Every night I am woken up by the sound of violent
rain and it is the most beautiful sound in the world.
       The clinic work is going well. It’s actually going really well, which
is kind of a double egded sword (I hope. I’m a little shady on that
metaphor). The point of this program is not just to write wills for
people, but to train those who live here about will writing so that
when we leave it still continues. The good news is that the interns
are becoming really good at writing wills and hardly need our help at
all anymore except with the more complex issues. They are really
becoming self sufficient. The bad news is that this makes me less
useful and so sometimes I don't feel like I have a lot to do. It’s all
good though. I’m really glad the program is going so well, and next
week we get a whole new batch of interns, so I will have to train them
all again.
       The intern I usually work with is named Sharon. She is really nice
and adorable. She is a first year social work student, but she really
wants to be either a singer or a writer. Having read one of her short
stories, I think she could be a really good singer. She joins us every
morning in our rendition of “Lean on Me” that we sing for the clients.
I also really like her because she calls me Stef, which is a vast
improvement over Stephen.
       Today as I got off the cab, the driver totally tried to swindle me. I
despise the cabs here. They are so annoying driving around honking at
people, they smell terrible, and when you ride them they are so
inefficient because they stop every ten feet to try and get people on
even if all the seats are full. Not my favorite. From our inn to
downtown costs 500 shillings, but every cab driver tried to make us
pay more. They usually gove up when we show them that we know what
we’re doing. However, as I paid this one cab driver today, he was
supposed to give me 500 in change, but only handed me 300. I was like,
“Um, you own me 200 more” and he was like “no 700” meaning that the
ride cost 700. Ooooooo I was really mad. I got all up in his face and
was like “FIVE HUNDRED. Give me my change!” and he laughed and said
“700.” So I ripped the 1000 that I had given him out of his hand and
said “five. Hundred.” That stopped his laughing because now not only
had he not swindled me, he was down 300. He stared at my obviously
furious face and said weakly “700?” “No,” I said in a deadly voice,
“500.” With that, I reached over to his hand that hokld the coins and
pried a 500 piece out of his fingers. Then I calmly handed him my 1000
note along with the 300 he gave me. “500,” I said, “have a nice day.”
He quickly got in his taxi and drove off. I like to think I did some
good this day. Not only will that driver likely think twice before
ripping people off, I probably gave him his first taste of a
non-submissive female ever. Three cheers for feminism!

Thursday May 26, 2011
Yesterday we didn’t have work. Wednesdays are usually outreach, but
there wasn’t one yesterday. Because it’s TASO and their communication
is terrible, I have no idea why there was no outreach, but I consider
it a victory that they told us what to do at all. So we stayed at the
inn and worked on our externship requirement crap. That night we went
to Ben’s house to meet with him and the missionaries, but
unfortunately the missionaries didn’t show up. I wish the missionaries
would be flakes, but we took the opportunity to talk to him about our
testimonies of the book of mormon, and it was really awesome.
       On the walk home from Ben’s the power went out and it was completely
black. We were in the poor part of town, so no one had any generators
or anything, so the only light around was the stars and our cell
phones. The walk home was an interesting experience. At one point I
stepped in a huge mud puddle that I can only hope was wet with water
and not sewage.
       2 of our interns left today, so last night we decided to make them
American cookies as a going away present. The desserts here are, on
the whole, exceedingly crap or completely non existent, which is a
shame. The inn has no oven (not that one would have worked without
electricity) so we decided to make no bake cookies. After a call to my
wonderful mother for the recipe, we ventured into powerless downtown
Entebbe for the ingredients. It was good that the recipe is simple
because Uganda has nothing like marshmallows or chocolate chips or
anything. But they did have all of our ingredients with the exception
of baking cocoa. We decided instead to use something called “drinking
chocolate” which I think is like Nesquick. Let me tell you, those
cookies were SWEET. And delicious. Also, they were awesome because we
made them practically over a campfire. The Ugandan students (not as
accustomed to sugar overload as I am) could barely handle a portion of
the cookie. Pansies. We had a few left over, so our P90X session had
refreshments. Awesome.
       I am burning through all the books I brought. I finished the Count Of
Monte Cristo today. I am really scared that I will run out and have
nothing. Luckily Mark is a reader, so I will have to raid his stash.

       I’m glad the internet is finally back! Thank you guys so much for
emailing me! Love you all!
Stefanie

Update

Stef called this morning to apologize for the lack of emails in the last few days.  Apparently the internet is down and she doesn't know when it will be fixed because people in Uganda aren't exactly efficient.  As soon as she starts writing again I'll start posting again.

May 19

Oooooh I hate Kevin. THAT MAKES ME SO MAD. What a jerk wad. I think you
should absolutely tell Jason. Like, maybe not that it isn't going to
work and you want Kevin fired, but just to let him know what is going
on. You shouldn't have to deal with him being utterly absurd. And he
totally doesn't get to lazer all year. I don't care if he thinks he is
"boss" because he totally isn't. Grrrrrrrrr. Also, Sam is the social
worker at the clinic who works with us the most. He is a little crazy.
Yesterday at the clinic we sang "Lean on Me" after we introduced
ourselves. Mark played the guitar and we all sang, with parts and
everything. It was actually pretty good. And it must have been super
effective because there was a MAD RUSH of clients all wanting their
wills written. At one point my intern and I had three clients we were
working with at the same time, she with a woman who spoke Luganda and
me with 2 clients who spoke English. I had to have Savannah come help
me though. I may be a genius and the most capable person you know, but
even I can't write 2 wills at once.
We American students have finally figured out a cultural gap between
us and the Ugandans. It is regarding the word "safe" as in
–adjective
1.
secure from liability to harm, injury, danger, or risk: a safe place.
2.
free from hurt, injury, danger, or risk: to arrive safe and sound.
3.
involving little or no risk of mishap, error, etc.: a safe estimate.

Here in Uganda, apparently "safe" does not have the same meaning. We
were beginning to suspect something was amuck when the list of things
we were told were "safe" grew to include:

1. The killer spiders in the zoo
2. These giant horrendous looking wasp things
3. Walking around the streets of Kampala with the terrible traffic
(where there is one single traffic signal for the entire city)
4. Swimming in lake Victoria (where floating garbage creates a three
foot thick perimeter)
5. Riding the bodaboda's (little dirt bike taxi's that zip in and out
of the aforementioned terrible traffic and have no helmets)
6. Bungee jumping
7. Malaria
8. Political riots
9. (related) Tear gas
10. Eating fish (including fish heads, a common delicacy here in Uganda)
11.Drinking the water

Apparently, here in Uganda "safe" means "your chances of dying are
pretty slim" as in "it is very likely that it will dismember you or
maim you terribly or make you very sick. But, hey, at least you will
still be alive." Don't worry, I've learned to trust my own instincts
and NOT the words of Ugandans. I really like my limbs.

Love you all!
Stefanie

May 18

Get ready for a LOOOOONG email.
I am alive and everything, worry not. There was no electricity this
morning, which meant no computers. It also meant that I started off
the day with a cold shower by flashlight. It felt very authentic, like
the true Africa experience. Then the novelty wore off and it felt
irritating.
Yesterday was actually quite an eventful day. The clinic day started
with a ceremony to celebrate world AIDS day or AIDS candle day or
something. I don’t remember what it was called, but basically it was a
program honoring those who have died from AIDS. There was music and
praying, and then at the end they passed out candles and we lit them
and sang the AIDS anthem together, which is apparently something like
“today it’s me, tomorrow someone else.” It was actually a really
touching experience, especially because there was someone translating
for us so we would know what was happening.
After the service, it was regular clinic day, though first we started
with a meeting with Celia and the interns where she talked to them
about our concerns. We came to a compromise. We (the American
students) figure if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So rather than try
to force the Ugandan students to skip tea, we will be joining them for
tea, but we will take a working tea, which means that we will both be
drinking tea while we’re working (which is pretty self explanatory).
Worry not friends, I am not breaking the word of wisdom. Apparently in
Uganda, “tea” refers to hot milk mixed with sugar. It’s really thick
milk, so I basically feel like I am eating baby formula (the only
experience I have with warm milk) and it is nasty. But, it keeps the
interns working, plus it fills me up a bit, so I am not SO FREAKING
STARVING by the time people finally let me have lunch.
I only had time to write one will yesterday (which was a really great
one I did for a woman who had very little. Her husband was HIV
positive as well, but when he found out, apparently he went insane and
left, so she wanted to protect her children as much as she could. She
had very little, but it was nice that I could make sure that what she
has is protected). After that, Tyler, Sam and I headed to Kampala (my
favorite. Not) to meet with an organization called UWESO (Uganda women
ensuring survival of orphans, or something like that). We didn’t have
any idea what it was going into it (Sam set it up for us), but Tyler
had me come along in case we were visiting an orphanage or something
because he knows I love children. However, when we got there we
realized it was not an orphanage, but instead another NGO like TASO,
except this one cares for orphans and at risk children. We explained
to them what we our organization does and they were SO EXCITED about
us. Seriously, I was getting ready to sell them on this organization,
and all of a sudden it seemed like they were selling us on why we
should let them fund us. They started talking about huge projects,
like television ads and billboards that will act like public service
announcements to sensitize Ugandans to the idea of creating wills.
They want us to create a proposal about what our company will do over
the next year as far as recruiting, fundraising, training etc, and
then they will get with us about a company proposal for a project
where we work together. This is a legit organization that gets funding
from tons of places like UNICEF and USAID (the organization I worked
for my senior year) so if this works out it could be a really awesome
thing.
I would like to start this story out with the fact that I am still
alive and well. So stop worrying. On the way to Kampala there were a
bunch of people lining the roads along with a bunch of police men
milling about. The taxis can get really annoying because they don’t
like to go to the destination until they are completely full. This
taxi was no exception and sat idle on the side of the road for about
15 mins with the conductor walking around trying to get people to get
in the taxi. But no one wanted to get in the taxi because they weren’t
there to go to Kampala, they were there for a political demonstration.
I was getting nervous because I could tell the crowd was getting
restless. I asked Sam if we were in trouble. He said we were fine, but
he always says that. He also said we were fine to go to work on the
day that the opposition leader came back to the country and people got
beat left and right that day. So I don’t really trust him, but he was
calm, so I tried to remain calm as long as he was calm. But I could
feel the tension building. People were yelling and the police were
getting out their night sticks. And yet, there sat our stupid cab
driver, content to be parked in the middle of a riot rather than drive
off with a half empty taxi.  People on the cab started getting antsy,
urging the cab driver to drive on, don’t wait, but he wouldn’t listen.
 Eventually, even Sam started arguing with the driver, telling him
that we should get out of there. That was the point I really started
getting nervous. If Sam thinks something is potentially dangerous,
that means there is probably a pretty high chance of death (just
kidding. Kind of). Then, all of a sudden, from not to far behind where
our taxi is parked we hear this thunderous BOOM like a cannon going
off. It was pandemonium inside the taxi. Everyone started screaming
and swearing at the driver to GO GO GO NOW!!! Finally he decided to
listen to them and sped off so fast that the conductor barely had time
to get in and did not have time to shut the door.  As we finally put a
safe distance between us and the riot, Sam calmly turns to me and
says, “Now Steven, what were we talking about?”
Today was another frustrating start to clinic day. These people really
need to work on their communication skills. After double and triple
checking with several different people that there was clinic today, we
arrive to find out that there is an outreach instead, but that there
are not enough interns for all of us. SIGH. These people really need
to work on their communication skills. So, since I got to travel the
day before, I stayed at the clinic and worked with Tyler organizing
the wills that we have already written and working on our proposal for
UWESO. It was a very chill day. I also read 150 pages of The
Mysterious Benedict Society, which so far is FABULOUS. Also, Jake and
Jaxon: I finished the entire Gregor the Overlander series. Have you
read it? I think you both would really like it. Anyway, after we
finished all that, there was a client meeting that we were invited to.
It wasn’t a clinic day, so we weren’t writing wils, but they wanted us
to tell the clients what we were doing so that they would be willing
to write one when they come back.  It was a kind of boring meeting
(most of it was in Luganda) but there was one little family there that
absolutely broke my heart. It was a young mother, I would be surprised
if she were any older than me, and her three young children: a happy
baby girl, maybe 6 months with the hugest eyes I have ever seen and
adorable chubby cheeks, a rambunctious boy who was three and had
dimples, who did not stop running around in circles the entire time I
saw him except for once when he asked me to tighten the drawstrings on
his pants so he could run faster, and the oldest girl, who was about
6. She is the one who really breaks my heart. I don’t know what is
wrong with her, but she was so sick and weak that she could barely
walk.  Her tiny little legs were so thin and weak that I was afraid
she would fall on her way to the benches. Her breathing was fast and
shallow and I could tell by the way that her mother kept touching her
forehead that she had a really bad fever. She really wanted her mom to
hold her on her lap, so I went and took the baby from the mom.  As I
stood there holding the baby watching the mom try to comfort the
little girl, it took every ounce of self control I had not to burst
into tears because whatever this little girl had, the doctors in
Uganda probably aren’t advanced enough to treat it and she is probably
going to die, especially since it was probably HIV related.
Fortunately, the baby chose that moment to pee on me and take my mind
off it for a minute. Apparently there aren’t disposable diapers in
Uganda.  I really hope that this woman comes back to the clinic to
write a will so that even if her daughter dies, we can help her
protect her land for the baby and the little boy with the dimples.
Herm Candace you sound like the best Big Sister ever. I seriously
teared up when I read about the song Jazmine wrote about you. However,
I wouldn’t put much stock in that because I am still feeling unstable
from the family at the clinic. BTW, I’m allergic to my typhoid
medicine, not my malaria medicine. And apparently here malaria is NBD.
The boy who works at the front desk (Josh, we’re great friends) has
malaria and doesn’t plan on dying. And my intern friend Sharon had
malaria two weeks ago. I find it odd.
Congratulations Natalie on making Legacy again! Even though I totally
knew you would.
Herm Niccole, congrats on the successful FHE and I totally support you
buying the Kinect. Sorry Kevin sucks. Also, hahahahahaha Maddie is so
funny that she remembered still. Tell her I love her dearly.
As of tomorrow, I only have one month and 10 days until I come home! I
really do love it here, but I am excited to come home. I miss you all
a lot.
Love, Stefanie

May 16

Yesterday we actually got to work! YAY! Unfortunately, the day was
very slow. I swear, we ran into every single possible problem
yesterday, but in the end I think it was a good thing because we were
able to think up and implement solutions to the problems. The biggest
problem we deal with is the interns. They are all very nice and smart,
but they are kind of lazy. Also, they don't communicate very well. We
will finish a will, and I will say "ok, you sit here with the client
while I go and photocopy this. I'll be right back." I'll come back 5
mins later and the client and the intern are nowhere to be found. 30
mins later the intern comes back from "tea." it's super irritating.
Then, when it's time for lunch, we often go to lunch and then come
back and our interns haven't gone to lunch yet, meaning we waste 2
hours not working while we all eat. The problem is, lunch in Uganda
takes place around 1 or 1:30. While this is really late and we are
starving, the Americans realize that this is culture and we can't just
go around demanding that everyone adjust their schedules to
accommodate us. However, some days (Like yesterday) we have a lull of
clients right around noon. It seems obvious to us that we should take
lunch during the lull, so that we can work with clients when we get
back instead of sitting around during a lull and eating when there are
clients waiting at 1:30. However, the students don't want to eat that
early. It was funny because Savanah and I went and confronted our
interns at about 12:30 and told them very calmly and rationally that
we were all going to eat lunch now because there were no clients. They
were like, "No, it's ok." We were both like, "..........." Neither of
us are used to people not bending to our wishes when we explain them.
So, we ended up just wasting a bunch of time.
HOWEVER, these problems will likely be solved. We talked to Celia, the
director over social resources or something, and the woman was
amazing. She addressed all of our concerns and was totally on our side
about the wasting time thing. She said she would talk to the interns
and that everything should be better. And if not, she will send them
back to the university. Also, it was so good to talk to her to get a
real perspective on things. Because the day was frustrating, it was
easy for me to lose sight of why I'm really here and what the point of
all of this is. But she talked about her conversations with some of
the people we have written wills for and how we have given them hope
and security. I realized that even though I was frustrated by how few
wills I was able to complete yesterday, the few I did will make such a
difference to that individual, and that is completely worth it. If I
come to Africa and only secure the property rights for one family, it
has been a success. I think I need to talk to Celia more often.
After work we went to FHE. It was actually super fun and very much
like a Provo FHE. We had songs, a prayer, and a lesson, and then we
played games. We totally played Big Booty, like from girls camp,
except they called it President. I dominated. Then they played soccer.
I didn't play, but it was really fun to sit around and socialize with
some of the girls from the ward. Plus, they had refreshments! Uganda
is not big on dessert and I have been missing it mucho, so that was
awesome!
On the walk home, we randomly ran into Sam from the TASO clinic who
took us to a restaurant and bought us delicious bbq pork. That's right
everyone, I ate meat in Uganda! So stop worrying, I got protein.
When we finally got home, it was really late but we had a bunch of
work to do to prepare for work tomorrow. Because of that, we didn't
get started with P90X until 10pm. Not gonna lie, if it was just me I
totally wouldn't have done it, but sometimes peer pressure is a good
thing. Though I totally fell asleep in between moves. So this morning
I am REALLY TIRED.
I got my card back, so if you transferred the money out of my account,
please feel free to transfer it back in. The lady I got it from had
like 15 cards in her hand, so apparently that is something that
happens all the time. Lame.
I am dying to know if Natalie made the choir. Tell me!

Love you all!
Love, Stefanie

May 15

Thank you to mum and Natalie and Niccole for emails! All of them made
me very happy. Cole, your calling is going to be awesome. I think that
asking for Monday off is a fine idea. And if he wont give it to you,
take it off anyway. Your group sounds amazing.
Yesterday we had church and you will never guess what the bishop asked
me to do. Hint: I've done it 5 times already. That's right. I was
asked to lead the choir. It's not an official calling because my
records aren't in the ward or anything, but after sacrament meeting
the bishop came up to us and asked if any of us lead music. I said
that I do, and he said that the ward choir is really enthusiastic and
wants to learn new songs, but none of them know how. I guess they have
been relying on any missionary who gets transferred there and has
talent. I told him I would absolutely love to help them out. I figure
that it is my destiny. Until I learn to consistantly attend ward
choir, I will be called as the director. Going to another continent
will not change that. I'm not really sure when we'll start or
anythign. The  bishop said that we would talk later.
Yesterday after church (and after talking on the phone to my family,
YAY!) we went to Ben's house. Ben is a guy who works at the inn. His
story is pretty incredible. His parents died when he was ten and his
older brother had to take care of him and his younger sister. then his
older brother got married and had 5 kids. Then, about 5 years ago, his
older brother died unexpectedly in an accident. Everyone told him that
it was time for him to stand up and be a man. He was 15 years old and
he was suddenly responsible for the well being of his brother's wife
and all of the children. He would like to go to college and study
journalism, but it has been really hard for him to find time to go
when he has to work so much to provide for the kids and then take care
of them when he's not working. I can't even imagine being that
selfless. We hung out with the kids for awhile and taught them down by
the banks and "Friday" by Rebecca Black. They got really good at
saying "YEAH!" when I sang "Partyin partyin!"
Back to work today! Hopefully we actually get to work. If they send us
home again my mind just might explode.
Love you all!
Stefanie

May 15

Ok, I have been trying to send pictures for awhile and it has not been
working. Hopefully it will if I send just one. THis is a picture of me
and Bridget, a 5 year old from Nsangi.

P.S. Ignore my hair.

May 14

Herm! When you write me things like that it makes me so happy! I am so
glad you are having so much fun with mow crew AND fab five AND Provo
friends. You are so popular! I love Kings Speech.
Yes, you can put swear words on my blog. Unless you think something is
terribly inappropriate, I am ok with you putting anything I say on the
blog.  Unless I have told you to leave something out, I've generally
thought it through and decided it's ok for the world to see. That's
why I edited it with an asterisk.
Yesterday was a pretty chill day. After 3 days of not working, the
weekend gets less exciting. We mostly just made plans for the safaris
we want to go on and then went in to town to buy water and food and
stuff to get us through the week. We went to the Saturday market again
and i bought a giant beautiful avacado and an equally beautiful giant
tomato. I cut them up and put them on a roll and had the most
delicious vegetarian sandwich of my life (ok, that's a lie. It really
needed come provalone and  ranch dressing. But I have come to find
that the deliciousness of something really depends on whether you are
in a foreign country and your other option is goat meat).
The bad news yesterday is that when I tried to get more money from the
ATM, the freaking machine took my card! Ooooooh, I was mad. And
scared. That seems to me like a great way for someone to orchestrate
identity fraud. The machine said "Card held due to reader error." What
the heck does that mean? The guard said that my card was safe and that
I could pick it up from the bank Monday morning. Apparently this has
happened to Tyler before, but it was when the bank was open so it
wasn't as big of a deal. But I tried to remain calm and called daddy
and mum and asked them to moniter my account until I could get my card
back. Hopefully nothing is wrong, but SIGH.
Sorry this one is so boring. Hopefully my blog doesn't lose followers.

May 13

I love all that mow crew news. Tell those girls I LOVE them!
I totally wich I could go slip n slinding with you. Don't break your arm.
This will be short because breakfast is ready and I am STARVING.
Yesterday we got to the clinic and no one was there. It was supposed
to be an outreach day, so we were worried that they had left us, but
when we found Sam he said that the clinic was closed that day for
departmental meetings. Awesome. That would have been good to know
before we woke up early and got to the clinic. So, we didn't work
AGAIN yesterday. 5 day weekend anybody? So instead, we went and laid
out in the sun (my favorite!) until around noon, when Sam said he
would take us to see Kampala.
I'm not going to lie, I kind of hated Kampala. It was SO DIRTY. Like,
dusty and grimy, not like full of pornography. The traffic was the
worst I have ever seen in my life, and there is no way there are any
sort of emissions standards. Also, no traffic lights or crosswalks.
You just had to cross the street like Frogger. Sam would just kind of
dart in the road and we would follow, trying not to die. Savannah and
I have come to the conclusion that Africa is very bad for our
language. What with the spiders, driving on the wrong side of the
road, and the crossing the street, we have had more than the usual
opportunities to swear, which neither of us really want to do. Plus,
if we were to get hit by a car crossing the street, we wouldn't want
our last words to be a swear word. So we decided to not swear anymore.
Therefor, on our next trek across the street, we sang "Seize the Day"
from Newsies. Seize the day is a much better last phrase than a swear.
However, as we were crossing ,a GIANT semi came out of nowhere heading
straught fot us. It falshed its lights at us, but made no signs of
stopping. THe road was so narrow and there were cars on either side of
us, so we had nowhere to go. I was sure we were going to die. The
truck stopped at the last minute, but I didn't keep my lanugage goal
very long. It went more like this: "Don't be afraid and don't delay.
Nothing can break us no one- HOLY SH*T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Hahahahahahha so much for that goal. But I'm still trying.
The one good thing about Kampala is that they have fast food
restaraunts. We all have been craving burgers SO BAD and we finally
got one! So I am happy!
Thanks so much for your emails! Love you all!
Love, Stefanie

May 12

Remember how Tyler told us before we came that the inn would “usually”
have electricity? Yeah, this morning was one of those “not” days. We
are running on generators right now, so hopefully that works well
enough to get this email sent off.
Yesterday we had the day off again, so we decided to go to the zoo.
Let me tell ya, it was an ADVENTURE. There was this one part that they
called a “forest walk” where there was a little path through the
forest that brought you around the other side of the animal cages so
you could see them better. Unfortunately, the “forest walk” was
inappropriately named. It should have been called “the gigantic spider
infested walk of death.” We were walking calmly along the path when I
suddenly saw a spider web next to the path in which resided a spider
that was literally the size of my hand. Here is how the conversation
went from there:
Stefanie: (pointing) NNggghhhhhhrrghgh!!!
Everyone else: What?
Stefanie: Nnnnaannnggggggaaaahhhh!!!
Everyone else: What?
Stefanie: SPIDERAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!
Unfortunately, the hysteria only increased from there. As we traveled
on, it became apparent that this forest belonged to the spiders. They
were EVERYWHERE. Seriously, there were parts of the walk where the
path was bordered with spider webs so thick that they looked like
tulle with hundreds of these giant spiders inside. *shudder* Savannah
and I did not handle it in a calm or rational manner. We were pretty
much screaming our brains out and losing our minds any time our hair
brushed the back of our necks. It was a little absurd, but I also
think it was completely reasonable. We continued on the forest walk
because we figured we were closer to the end than the beginning, but
then we came to a point where the spiders were above the path and we
would have to walk under them to continue. Savannah refused point
blank to go through, and I was right there with her. So we turned
back, mostly running with reckless abandon until we reached safety. I
was feeling creepy crawlies on my legs for the rest of the day.
Then we went to see the monkeys. We were still pretty jumpy, but the
monkeys were adorable. Then, as Karen was leaning next to the fence to
take a picture, the monkey flew at her face. Luckily there was a fence
in between, but if there hadn’t been, the monkey totally would have
killed her. We screamed again. What is it with the Uganda zoo and its
killer animals?
After that we went to see the chimpanzees. Don’t work, none of them
tried to kill us. But they were amazing! We watched them for so long
because they were so fun. One of them was standing next to the edge of
the river holding onto a stick and putting it in the river. He kept
getting longer and longer sticks, but we couldn’t figure out what he
was doing until we realized there was an apple in the water. He was
using the stick to pull the apple towards himself. Eventually he got a
long enough stick and got the apple. Adorable resourceful little
chimpanzee! I loved him.
The zoo was huge so that the animals could have enough room to run
around, so we often had to walk along big paths to get to the next
animal. As we were heading to the giraffes, we realized that on the
path in front of us was a warthog (like Pumba) not in any cage or
anything. We weren’t sure what to do. There was no one around to tell.
We were looking around trying to figure out where the cage it was
supposed to be in was when all of a sudden it noticed us. I know Pumba
isn’t aggressive, but this warthog started charging! We were pretty
far away, but I have no idea how fast they run, so we took off running
as fast as we could away from the pig. We made it about 50 yards
before we felt comfortable stopping and turning around. The pig was
nowhere to be found.
We finally are going back to work today! Yay! Its been nice having
these days off, but I find that I am more likely to be homesick if I’m
not busy.
Miss and love you all!
Love, Stefanie
Oh, P.S. Tyler is alive! He is out of bed and walking around today!

May 11 (again)

I have very little to say because I already wrote yesterday afternoon,
so this morning not much has changed. We're not going to work again
today because the president is being sworn in in Kampala. It's not
that there are riots or anything like yesterday, it's just that no one
in the country, especially government entities like TASO, goes to work
today. So we think we might try to go to the zoo.
Yesterday night I made mself ramen noodles for dinner. Like many other
things in this country, they were curry flavored! It was delicious.
Congratulations Kenzie on getting a job! Hopefully I can get a
discount because, lets face it, I still love that store.
I do not plan to die. I promise you we are being very cautious.
Probably overly cautious, but better safe than sorry.
I got an email from the PILF people saying that administrative
approval for stipends is still taking forver, so hopefully that comes
soon.

Love you all!
Love, Stefanie

May 11

This morning as we woke up for work, Phlavia (the
receptionist/concierge person at the inn) told us that the opposition
leader to the president was coming home from Kenya and was going to
make a trek from the airport here in Entebbe to Kampala. We were a
little nervous about it, but when we called the people at the clinic,
they said it would be just fine. However, as we were driving to work,
we were passed by car after car after car of army men heading to the
airport. We decided that we didn’t feel comfortable with the situation
at ALL, so we went home. When we called the people at the clinic, they
were like, “yeah, you should lay low.” Oh hey, thanks for telling us
that before. So we stayed home.
We were deciding what we wanted to do for the whole day (Tyler is
still comatose in his room. By the way, should I do something about
that? When should I call an ambulance?) I was like, “Well, I have a
collection of Shakespeare play, we could act one out.” Mostly I was
totally kidding, but Mark was like “Yeah, that would be awesome!” Mark
has a Shakespeare App on his iPod, so the four of us spent much of the
say doing a sort of readers theater version of King Lear. It was
AWESOME.
Eventually we got brave (read: really hungry) and ventured out to get
some food. We decided to eat by the shores of Lake Victoria because it
is A) beautiful and B) far enough from the road that we could hide if
a riot started. As we were eating, a bunch of police cars drove by
with their sirens blaring. I was like, “oh man, this is it. We’re
going to die.” Yeah, false. It was the lamest riot I have ever seen
(also the only riot I have ever seen). It was more like a parade. Just
a bunch of cars driving by. Which I am glad about. I much prefer that
that to an actual riot. So, long story short, we stayed home from work
for nothing. But better safe than sorry, right?

Herm, I am very proud of you getting my verbose movie titles. I am
also jealous of you hanging out with the mow girls. FUN PARTY. Though
I'm not jealous of mowing in the rain. YUCKY!  So far the only time it
has rained here is late at night when I have been asleep for hours and
it POURS. Seriously, the hardest rain I have ever heard in my life.
But, because I am safe in bed, I LOVE IT.
I am also jealous of your fab five time. Karen, if you are reading my
blog, I really want curry when I get back in America. I am struggling
a bit with food here (because most of it is truly revolting) but today
for luch I had some truly divine vegatarian samosas that were filled
with an amazing curry spice. I can make it if my days in Uganda are
filled with curry. But that doesn't mean I will be tired of it. I will
still want you to make me some.

Love you all!
Love,
Stefanie

P.S. I hope this sends. Phlavia's nephews are here and are using up a
ton of bandwidth playing car games on the other computer.

May 10

The man whose will I wrote today did not speak ENglish very well,
which is not surprising (few people do,, though their English is
usually better than my Luganda). At one point, the intern had to step
out of the room, so rather than sit in awkward silence, I tried to
communicate with him. I told him that my Luganda was very poor, but he
was able to tell me in broken English how thankful he is that I was
there. It was pretty cool. He asked if I spoke Swahili and started
teasing me when I said no becuse Swahili, according to him, is an
international language that everyone should know. I told him I would
get rght on that. :) He was from Rwanda, where apparently they learn
French in schools, but he said that wouldn't help us either because he
hadn't been to school in so long, all he remembered were the
greetings. So I said "Bonjour!" He cracked up like that was the
funniest joke anyone had ever told him. After that, we were the best
of friends. Even when the intern was talking to him, he would keep
cracking jokes and turn to me and wink and smile at me to see if I was
laughing, which I totally was. Unfrotunately, I had no idea what he
was saying. It was still awesome though. :)
Perhaps you have been wondering about my sanitation accomadations (or
perhaps not, but I will tell you anyway). The inn Im staying in is
pretty nice, so the toilets always flush.  In fact, the only place we
have encountered a bathroom void of plumbing was when we went to
Nsangi, where the locals all share a whole in the ground. Eewwwwww.
Needless to say, I held it. There are not many public bathrooms, but
the ones I have run into have been usable. But, oh, there is one in
TASO that is immaculate. You walk in and it smells like cleaner and
everything sparkles. And there is soap! I often hold it until I get
there. It's that good.
After work, our day becames a whole lot more eventful. Tler started
feeling yucky and had to lay down for the last few hours of work. But
the time we were ready to leave and went to get him, he looked
terrible. As we were leaving, we passed a nurse. She took one look at
him and demanded that he come get his blood tested for malaria. The
rest of us went to get dinner (with Mark driving on the left side of
the road for his first time ever. He did a very good job). When we
came back to get Tyler, the car wouldn't start. It wasn't a dead
battery or anything, the ksy just wouldn't turn. A bunch of people
came and tried it, but nothing. So we had to sit and wait for a couple
hours until someone could come cut us another key. We passed the time
singing all the N*Sync songs we could remember the lyrics too
(surprisingly many). Eventually someone came and cut a key, but they
charged us an arm and a leg (ok, the equivelent of 15 US dollars, but
when you are paying less than a dollar a day for your food, that seems
like a lot), but we didn't care because at that point we were just
ready to get hooooooome! So was Tyler, whose malaria test came back
negative, though the doctor was unconvinced. Apparently it takes a few
days for malaria to show up in your blood test after you start showing
symptoms. I really hope he doesn't have it. All the AFricans act like
malaria is no big thing. It's kind of like the flu here, people get it
all the time. Most people get it once a year. But our pansy American
immune systems don't handle it as well. Don't worry, I am constantly
convered in bug spray.
Daddy, thanks for emailing me! I'm not sure if you would rather my
reply here, like II have been doing, or directly to your email, so I
decided here because then I would only have to hit send once, which is
the thing these computers have the hardest time with. Jake's basebal
sounds so fun!  Will there still be games in July when I get home? I
want to see him pitch. Also, I make no promises as to my ability to
not get attached to the baby cow.
Love you all!

May 9

I feel like my emails are going to get less exciting as time goes on
because we will be doing the same thing day after day, which is
working in the clinic writing wills. The work is really interesting
and awesome to me, but often doesn't make for interesting emails.
Sometimes at the clinic I feel the need to unionize or something
because we often have to fight for our lunch breaks. 11:30, 12:00,
12:30, 1:00 all roll by and my stomach starts to grumble, but no one
shows any indication of stopping. Finally, Tyler comes by (just as
hungry as I am) and says that we are going to have lunch as soon as I
finish up the will I am currently working on. So I get through it as
fast as humanly possible, fighting the urge to bite my client's head
off (you know how I get when I'm hungry) and go hand it to the program
director. As soon as I do, the client facilitator comes up and says
"Steven, here is your next client." Um NO. I need lunch.  But when I
tell them so, they look at me like I'm letting the whole country down.
HAhahahahahhahahaha.
Sometimes (often) when we are waiting around we play Sporcle (Sporkle?
I have no idea how to spell it). We played an extrememly fun one
yesterday called verbose movie titles. So we spent the rest of the day
coming up with our own verbose movie titles. Here are a few I came up
with,  see if you can identify the actual (more concise) title:

The Bound Collection of Paper

A Plot of Land Characterized BY Semi-fine Sediment

An Esthetically Pleasing Consciousness

A Career Sharing its Nationality With A European Citizen Hailing From
A Southern European Peninsula.


I'll tell you the answers tomorrow.

Breakfast time!Love you all!
Love, Stefanie

May 8

Happy Mothers day to my lovely mother!
Sorry I didn’t actually send this last night (or this morning,
depending on what time zone you are in). the internet gets SUPER slow
at night.
Yesterday we went out on the town!  To get to the “town” we had to
take a “taxi” which is actually a mini van type vehicle with four rows
of seats and as many people as possible jammed in. For 500 shillings
(the equivalent of 25 cents) they will drive you just about anywhere
you want to go, which sounds awesome, right? In many ways it is
awesome, but in others it is not. For example, there are many many
MANY people crammed next to you and they don’t usually have, shall we
say, the same hygiene standards that I am accustomed to.  Also, the
drivers are CRAZY, weaving in and out of traffic and passing
constantly. It’s funny because, as I mentioned before, most of the
culture seems much slower and laid back than America, but that
apparently doesn’t apply to driving. As soon as they get in a car,
they are determined to arrive at their destination AS FAST AS HUMANLY
POSSIBLE.
       While in the city we went to a market, which was just like you would
picture it: tons of tents everywhere with goods galore. You will be
proud to know that I am getting the hang of haggling. I bought some
sunglasses (because I forgot mine, whoops) and the guy said I could
have them for 8,000, but I successfully got it down to 5000. Boo yah.
Also, the pineapple here is like heaven. Almost literally. I am sure
this pineapple will be in heaven.
       At one point walking around we got tired and sat on a curb and just
watched people. This tiny little kid (his dad said he was 2, but I
have been told by several people that their child was 2 when it was
obviously not true. Maybe that’s just the age they use) came up to us,
as friendly as can be, laughing and high fiving us. His dad asked if
he could take the kid’s picture with us, which was fun. Then we asked
the dad what the kids name was and he said Robot. Robot? Seriously?
Hahahhahahahahahahaha
Today we went to church for the first time. We had to take the cab
there (awesome). I was surprised by how similar it is to US church.
They even encouraged the congregation to go to institute so they could
meet their eternal companion, hahaha. But seriously, I guess I had
this preconceived notion that the church would somehow be not as
advanced as it is in the United States. Like, I knew their testimonies
would probably be super strong, but I guess I assumed lessons would be
simpler and stuff. But I was completely wrong. The people here are so
very knowledgeable, especially of the scriptures. And everything is
organized so well. There are no pianos, so the conductor sings the first line of the song so that we
all get the tune and key.  Instead of prelude music, the ward choir
came early and sang hymns.  Candace, tell your friend that I met 4
missionaries and they are all nice.  It was really fun because
everyone was so excited to see us there and came up to shake our
hands. Plus, there were many adorable babies. They have a ward FHE
tomorrow, so hopefully we can go to that.
Thank you guys so much for sending me emails! I get ridiculously happy
when I know what is going on in your lives.  I am also glad I got to
talk to half of you, but sad that I missed out on the other half. I am
also sad that I missed eggs Benedict. That will have to be something
that is repeated.
Love you guys so so so much!

May 6

Today was an awesome day because on Fridays the clinic has outreach
days, which means the whole clinic goes to a more remote village to
treat the AIDS victims there. The village we went to is called Msangi.
I can’t remember if I told you, but in Uganda some people are hesitant
to write wills because they believe they will die the next day. The
belief has largely dissipated in the city, but in the country it is
still running rampant. However, there was still enough to do to keep
us busy.  It was very fun because although the people in the city are
not used to seeing white people, it is even more rare for the people
in the country.  The little kids would run around saying “Morungu!
Morungu!” which means white person. It was hilarious because every
time I said “Oliotia” to someone, they would crack up. I guess they
didn’t expect that from the blonde girl.  Mum, dad: I learned today
that in Uganda, you are honored if you have twins. They even add a
title to your name. Nalongo for the mother of twins and Ssalongo for
the father of twins. And no, I did not type that wrong, there really
are two ss. So, good job guys.
Today after the clinic we went to a fruit stand, which was just like
you would expect an African fruit stand to be like. I got an awesome
pineapple that cost all of about 15 cents.
We started P90X today. Let me tell you, it was like working out in a
sauna. We were all pretty disgusting afterward. But with the way I am
eating (aka very little) and all the exercising, look out world, I am
going to be SUPER HOT.
Ok, I started most of that email yesterday (Friday) and now this is
from Saturday, so this is from the next day. Yesterday night we were
invited to a wedding party. Not the actual wedding, but a wedding
party, which I guess is a cultural thing here. The groom invites his
family and close friends to a party where he presents his plans for
the wedding (because I guess the groom plans the weddings here) and
tells everyone how much everything is going to cost. Then, they make
suggestions about where to cut costs and stuff and then they all offer
money to pay for different parts of the wedding. It was really
interesting, plus we got free food! After the party there was a dance.
It was awesome! The Africans were beside themselves with excitement
that we were there. It was hilarious because EVERY SINGLE SONG was
reggae. At one point, Mark went and requested that the DJ play Single
Ladies (in honor of us unmarried women in the program, aka all of us)
and it was a reggae remix! At one point Savannah and I started doing
the Macarena to whatever reggae song was playing, and the Africans
LOVED it. So, since that was so popular, we decided to try the boot
scootin boogie. Oh man, they were beside themselves. Who knew my lame
Provo dance moves would make me the most popular girl in Africa? After
awhile, Mark asked me what my signature dance move was, so I showed
him the bend and snap. All of a sudden all of the Africans, including
the men, were bending and snapping. HAHAHAHHAHAHahaha. It was just
like that salon scene in Legally Blonde. They kept coming up to me and
saying “show me how to do it! Teach me to do it better like you!” I
was very flattered.
Here is something you might find amusing: everyone here calls me
Steven, though with there accent it sounds life Stefen. I guess the ie
is just too much to handle. So everyone I have met thinks I have a boy
name.
I feel like Africa has already made me a better person. Like, there
are things that I often want to complain about (like always having a
cold shower and I think there are bats in my bathroom), but when I
really think about it, it would be incredibly ridiculous of me to
complain about those things because I don’t have AIDS. In 2 months I
will be back in the states with you guys and I can have all the hot
showers I want, but these people I am working with will die of AIDS.
It’s really humbling.
Hmm. The internet is being really slow. I hope this will send.
Herm Niccole, your life sounds awesome. I hope the concert was super
fun! I am not sending the emails to everyone. I’m not sure I have
everyone’s emails because they don’t just come up when you are using
the basic HTML (which I have to because the connection is so slow). So
could you continue to send them on? Thanks so much. And I totally
found you a baby. Yesterday in Nsangi, a woman we were writing the
will for was holding a tiny tiny TINY baby that was here great
grandchild. Seriously, I’m not even sure this baby was old enough to
be blessed in church yet. Anyway, the baby got really fussy at one
point, so I offered to walk around with her for a bit while Karen
finished writing the will. It was the best thing ever. I wanted that
baby so much!!!! But I didn’t take her.  Because that would have been
wrong. But I will stay on the lookout for an actual orphan that I can
bring home. (kidding mum. Kind of)

Lady Gaga is blasting from the hotel office. Oh, American culture.

Miss you all!
Love, Stefanie