Blessings

It's been a busy few days. Anu is really helping us revamp our study in order to get good and very useful data. Instead of simply taking samples from schools used in a previous study, we are going to see if we can get blood smaples from children in schools along the stream that passes through the dump site and continues on into town (I hope). Obviously it's tough to think that I have already been here for about 3 weeks and we haven't got a single sample to show for it. Which is fine, I think. I guess it's just important that we are getting through the red tape and that we recognize that simple getting blood samples to do a prevalence and education study will be a great accomplishment.

On top of that, my ticket to South Africa did not exist until this morning... even though I bought it in early June. Apparently getting a reservation confirmation number doesn't mean much at all. It's good to be in science, it makes you really anal. Luckily, everything worked out. I went to the South African AIrlines office today and they laughed because this happens all the time. When I showed them the email I received about a month ago, thay saw my desktop, a picture of my neice, Noa. They asked me how many children I had and I explained... Then the blessings started rolling. For a while. Like 10 minutes. It was awesome.

Living Jewish is a very religious country is really good. When it comes down to it, many of our interpersonal beliefs are similar. There are, of course, differences, but when anyone says Gd bless you, you should always answer amen. I think one of my brothers-from-another-mother, David Osband told me that. No matter what, accept the blessings. And boy are there blessings here.

On Shabbat I was doing my regular chilling. Wearing a white shirt and light khaki pants, I was reading a book in the sun when Jeffery Luboga's, Dr. L's son, fiance called to me. She had come to the house to clean Jeffery's room and do his laundry (I want a wife), and we struck up a conversation. She thought I was a seventh day adventist, but I explained I am Jewish. We had a great converstaion about Jerusalem and how important Gd is in our lives. It's cool to be able to share Gd with someone else. Someone who is completely different from anyone you've ever met before. It's important for us to recognize our similarities with other people from around the world. And then maybe all of us can take it a step further and reach out a hand to help them. Whoa, am I getting preachy. Enough of that...

Last night was a typical Kampala trip. After arguing with a matatu conducter about how much we should pay to go to the bottom of the hill of Mpererwe, normally its 200, but he saw 4 mzungus (that's the correct spelling) and thought he could ask for 500, we went to the local internet cafe...if you could call it that. I was downloading email at about 500 bytes per second. I can write faster than that. So we buy only 40 minutes because we have 2 emails to send. Right after signing into my gmail account, the power goes out. The lighting that we were admiring from a distance all night suddenly decided to get closer. It was crowded, the ground was muddy, the only light we had was from our flashlights, the bodabodas, and some matatus who finally decided it was dark enough to turn on their lights (only a few), and the ground was super muddy. But still, nothing slowed down. The only reaction to the power going out was an "aaw" from us mzungus. So after running the gaunlet (read: crossing the street), we made it into a "supermarket" and got out of the area ASAP.

On Thursday(I have to write more) I met a young man named Joseph who loves across the street from the Lubogas. He sold me a few paintings, I'm a sucker, and he returned on Friday to sell some to Lauren. She wasn't home, but we spoke for more than an hour while we watched the sun go down (I had already prayed mincha, the afternoon services). I learned a lot of Luganda from him and a lot about the plight of the young Ugandan man. I don't think it's appropriate for me to share with you all that he shared with me, HIPPA... But I can tell you that he is working himself to peices trying to raise money so that he can attend Makerere University in August. It costs about 500,000 shillings a semester... about $312, so it's $614 for the year. When he asked me how much I pay for school, I told him about $50,000. He was dumfounded. He said that I should take out the loans and move to Uganda and live like a king. Hmmmm.

The hardest part of being so far away from everyone is FOMO. I know some of you know the term, but for those who don't, FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out. It's what keeps you kids awake when they know you are having people over among other things. I have a lot that I am missing out on. My neice is going to become a big sister and grow 3 months older. I really just thought about making my trip end a bit earlier.

The further away from everything you know, the faster things seem to change.