Blind-Sided

So completely out of nowhere...I decided to get horribly Uganda-sick today. I honestly wasn't expecting to miss it as much as I do, and I'm a little bit blind-sided. But anyway, I thought the best thing for me to do would be just to compile a little list of my favorite memories and just general things that I miss...so in no particular order:

1)TALA! (This was a girl who lived on my hall, and I don't think it's too far fetched to say that she totally became my adopted Ugandan little sister. Half the time she drove me crazy, but I totally miss her crazy screaming down the halls and her general tomboyish personality. She was probably one of my best friends on the trip, if not the best and I love her dearly.)

2)Ugandans loved the song "Life Your Life" with Rihanna and T.I. and it was playing on repeat all throughout the semester. One of the other USP girls made the mistake of showing one of the Honors College students, Eddie, the Numa Numa kid video and that was also played consecutively EVERY night. It kind of drove me nuts...haha.

3)The night of my rural homestay when I had to bathe after dinner in complete darkness. I was basically just standing there naked in the middle of an African plain under the most brilliant and breathtaking starry sky I've ever seen. There are no words to express the feeling that night.

4)Another similar experience happened in Rwanda. As we were leaving the Christian Hope Village where the children of genocide victims are given housing (which was amazing enough as it was), but it started to rain and we just watched this gorgeous powerful rainstorm come over the mountain and through the valley we were in until I just stood and let it soak me. It was like the most amazing high I've ever felt.

5)Teaching Isaac and my other little Ugandan nieces and nephews how to play "Patty Cake". Everytime I'd get to the end Issac would scream "FOR ISAAC AND ME!" He was my favorite child in the world, and it breaks my heart thinking about him now.

6)Sitting on the edge of the window of our matatu on our safari trip speeding through the plains at like 90 miles an hour with the wind whipping through my hair, elephants walking by in the distance and the gorgeous orange sun setting over the horizon.

7)The night I had dinner with Walter and he shared his story with me about his life, his involvement with IJM and his future career aspirations. We were one of the last groups of people to leave the Dining Hall, and then he walked me back to my dorm holding my hand and completely just blessing me with his presence.

8)The rush of running on the red dirt track to the setting sun every night and following it up with a delicious dinner of cow peas and rice.

9)*sigh* I MISS THE FOOD! I ate cow peas and rice nearly every night and never really got sick of it. Cabbage was also always a treat, as was pineapple. And if I ever needed a break, I just walked across the street from campus to get a chapati or a hamburger and chips (fries) from Sam's stand.

10)Creative writing! I may have lost my sanity without this class as an outlet for all the stress and stuff I was going through. My teacher was probably my favorite teacher of all time, and I truly hope he gets published super soon, because he deserves it more than anyone I know.

So yeah...those are definitely the top 10. I have to say...this didn't help my nostalgia in the least, but man do I miss this stuff. I can't wait to go back!!!

gettin' INKed!!

That's right all, I'm finally doin' it! I'm going Friday after work (and before my free Happy Hour Open Bar I won. Hooray!). I'm getting the title of the song Daddy wrote for me when I was born tattooed on my side ("Through the Glass") kind of just to remember that song, but mostly to remember the amazing musician he was before his stroke robbed him of the ability to do anything he loves.

I started talking to my roommate, Martina, who's going to go with me about her tattoos and my own ideas. She loved my idea, and I also asked her if what she thought of my wings idea. I've wanted to get wings on my back both in reference to Isaiah 40:31 and my experience in Rwanda. My idea is hard to explain here, but if you're actually interested I'd love some more people to bounce my idea off of...but anyway- I've been going back and forth, because I love the idea and I think it holds a lot of meaning for me, but I also don't want to have a cliche wings tattoo that like every girl has. I asked Martina and she told me I should totally go through with it because for me, it's not just a cliche set of wings, but something meaningful. That will be a constant reminder of my time and the tragic history of Rwanda, but also a message of hope in all things.

So yeah, there's a good chance I might be returning to Eastern at the end of the summer with TWO tattoos, but for now, I'm content with with my Daddy tribute :)

I'll make sure to take pictures to share with everyone! Wish me luck, Lord knows I'm going to be hella nervous!

she's baaaaaack!

I have no idea if anyone still reads this thing, but I continue to discover my love for writing...even if it does happen to be in the embarassing form of blogging, so I'm going to try and keep it going the very best I can.

I'll admit, I'm a little disappointed in how I left my last blog kind of hanging there. My last two weeks in Uganda and Rwanda left me a bit frazzled, and then there was the whole readjusting to life in America. So by the time I got myself together, I kind of felt like it was too late to re-cap my that lost time. Disappointing because honestly, out of my whole four months there, our one-week stay in Rwanda was not only the most memorable part of the trip, but the most life-changing as well. I apologize for the tease, because I feel as though too much time has elapsed to do my stories any justice. But for anyone who's curious, I'd LOVE to talk about my time there because, like I said, it changed my life!

Anyhow, fast forward to present day. Here I am, sitting in my lovely room in my Chinatown apartment, seriously procrastinating writing a bogus paper for my required class through my internship program, but altogether loving city-living. Philadelphia is spectacular. I can most definitely see myself living here post-graduation. Although it rains a bit too much for my liking, I love every aspect of it. The funny thing is, I was totally expecting a bunch of city snobs to greet me when I moved here for the summer, but in reality, I was greeted by an almost small-town vibe displaced in the birthplace of the United States. Surprising? Oh yeah. But awesome!

My internship is at Philadelphia FIGHT, a local HIV/AIDS organization. My job is working in the public AIDS Library where I spend some time working the front desk which mostly entails getting people signed onto our computers for 30-minute slots of free internet access. Mostly though, I spend a lot of time in the back conference room "collating," which seems to me, a much fancier word than the actual task at hand. Since June is AIDS Education Month, there are all kinds of community events and presentations being hosted by FIGHT, and I'm stuck doing the grunt work to make these events happen. Babysitting the copiers as the produce mass quanities of event programs, making copies of information pamphlets and other resources, and mostly, stuffing lots of papers into folders that more than likely, people won't give a second glance.

My time there has definitely been a learning experience more than anything. I don't take it for granted at all, and I love the people I work with, but it's definitely made me aware that the field of HIV/AIDS is not something I'll be actively pursuing in the future. I consider myself to be a fairly open-minded person, but the contexts I've experienced the HIV/AIDS epidemic in, are completely different! Although, I'll admit it sometimes still makes me a little uncomfortable being confronted by openly transgender and homosexual people, I don't have a problem with it the way I do, I feel as though FIGHT and the HIV/AIDS community as a whole is condoning sexually promiscuous behavior! It makes me squirm when I hear anyone talking about lube, anal sex, etc. But it's all okay as long as you're "safe." It's just something that bothers me...I fully support the HIV/AIDS community as well as the LGBTQQ community as a whole, but if there's one thing I can't support it's justifying sexually immoral behavior simply by putting a condom on it and declaring it "safe."

So yeah, that's my little rant about that- but like I said, other than that one little controversial issue, I do think I'm gaining a lot out of my experience there. So yeah...I guess it's about time I got to work- hopefully you'll hear more from me soon!

Love and such