So i have officially moved back up to Bujagali- the past two months have seen a lot of packing and unpacking to be sure! From the banda i shared with morgan to rwanda, and sipi and back, to the guide banda at NRE, to another room in that banda because they were thatching the roof, to Town, and finally, back up here. I am now living in a little loft room at All Terrain Cafe, just across the street from the campsite. It is brutally hot during the day, but seeing as i am not usually there, it doesnt bother me. I have a double med (muzungatu) and another bed, for "spendovers" in the words of kristin luber, a table, a chair and a load of shelves. i even splurged and bought an electric kettle for wehn there is power. its perfect for what i need. It is certainly less stressful to be up here, and less of a pain to be hanging around both at night and during the day when im not working.

Annie is back, don't know if i specified before, and she has brought with her (along with instant oatmeal and green tea (food craveings) an addiction to the TV show Gossip Girl which i am all to happy to indulge her by watching as well. The show is based around a ficticious blog, "Gossip Girl" that details the lifes of manhattans elite, upper east side teenagers at posh private schools and their imperfect lives. (great trashy tv show, sometimes i drool over the clothes and the utter impracticality of the lifestyle- made both more and less evident by living here) What i mean by more and less evident is the lesiure lifestyle that i have mentioned previously. Annie and I always get a kick by refering to our "people"- the lady that does our laundry, or cleans our homes, our drivers, etc... Its not manhattans upper east side, but its not bad either. Then again, there is no place for Manolos and designer clothes out here, even though you can sometimes find them in the markets.

I was walking around Jinja yesterday, getting some things in the market and i was struck by how different this experiance has been to my last experiance in Africa, when i studdied abroad in Cameroon, west Africa. In Cameroon, i was shuttled around with a group of 14 other american students, of mixed race and origin, but all having a similar backround and experiance. Despite this buffer, and the protection of the program- staying in fancy hotels, getting special treatment- i cant help but feel that i did more then to fully "experiance" the place. Every experiance was new, and good or bad, it was discussed endlessly in class sessions, casual conversation, and class journals. Whats more is that we were living in host familys, forced into Cameroonian culture in a way that i have avoided here by living all the various places (mzungu compounds, of sorts) that i have. While i have made friends here, i havent interacted with the locals in the same way i imagined i had in Cameroon. Granted, Cameroon wasnt always sunshine. I had one hostfamily i couldn't stand- where my host father stole my cellphone, and put me under house arrest for my first weekend. Ah, memories.

Despite this, i cannot deny that i fully live in Uganda, that i have built a life here. I have a job, friends, a home- everything that my friends in the states have in their real world jobs. I am fully functioning here, running around the markets to buy a new handle for a broken toilet, or a metal chest, bargaining for prices while market shopping for new clothes that i really dont need. All these experiances are the same as those i had in CMR, yet feel so vastly different here. Maybe becuause i have gotten used to them, maybe because everything in CMR was conducted in french, which exotified the experiance. who knows.

At anyrate, things are going well, loving my new home though ive only spent one night there thus far, and i am excited to say that my friend Soapy (from North Country Rivers, the rafting company in maine i worked for) comes out to visit in two weeks.
more updates, and hopefully pictures to follow..
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