I Miss Uganda

We had our HELP International team reunited this last weekend. I remembered how stinking incredible it was and then I wanted to go back. Instead I've just been watching this video of our adventures in Africa and looking at my pictures over and over. And now you can watch it too! It's kind of long but it does a good job of explaining a lot of the projects we worked on this summer.

Maybe soon I'll update on what my life is like right now. It's busy, hence the lack of blogging. My bad.

Nange!

So, I was hanging out with a bunch of kids and I got my camera out. This automatically causes chaos but of the best kind. They were all screaming "nange" (my turn) and shoving each other to be the one in front of the camera. I thought I'd share some since African children seem to melt our hearts. I only wish that you could have seen what comes after you take their picture. If you think these smiles are sweet, you should see their faces when you show them their picture. I wish I could be as grateful as they are--so happy to see a simple picture when I see myself everyday and never think twice about it. 

Jigger Outreach

In one of the last weeks we went to a Jigger Outreach with some of the people in our neighborhood. Jiggers are like little fleas that live in the grass. Since a lot of the people in the remote villages don't have shoes, the jiggers get into their feet. Sometimes they can have four layers of these bugs inside of their feet. Occasionally they get into their fingers and hands and then they get all infected and disgusting and painful. So we went about three hours away to get to these people. We had a megaphone and just told them where to meet us. They had people there who actually knew how to do the extraction of the jiggers and they were having health and hygiene sessions for the adults so I kept the kids occupied. They are so hilarious because they will do absolutely anything that you do. They just stand around you and copy everything you do and say everything you say. We played for hours. It was so great. 

Sorry the pictures are really tiny and really terrible quality. But you get the idea. It was a really sad, but good day. None of the kids even fussed a little bit when they were having their feet hacked into with a razor blade. They were all so brave. And even though you know they're in pain and they're hungry and their lives are hard, they are still so happy. You can't help but be happy when you're with them. I had so much to learn from these people. Sorry for so many pictures but I just can't get enough of them.