I. AM. HERE.

please excuse my crassness, but HOLY S*** I'M IN UGANDA. sorry it's taken so long to post; we've had very limited internet access and the small amount of time we have had has been with very. slow. computers. my smith email account isn't really working here, so for now i'm going to be using my very old aol account, surfrrosa@aol.com. but so far we've only been on computers in internet cafes, so i'm hoping once i'm on my own computer on the wireless at the s.i.t. resource center it will be better. also the internet cafe i'm at right now is playing only celine dion and it's AWESOME. right now "my heart will go on" is playing. just giving you some context.

ANYWAY. where do i even begin???? everything's pretty much been an overwhelming blur so far. we've done a tour of the city, eaten at some delicious restaurants, visited the s.i.t. resouce center where we'll be having our classes. the food has been delicious, but SO STARCHY. every meal basically consists of rice, beans, potatoes, matooke (mashed banana), and variations on these things. it's super good, but boy does it make you feel bloated. i'm worried about what's gonna happen when i'm with my homestay family and they're pushing more, more, more food on me! so far my stomach has been pretty stable (fingers crossed), but we'll see how long it stays that way....

yesterday we received a complete, day-to-day schedule for the rest of the semester, and it is JAM PACKED. all of the classes and lectures and excursions sound incredible. we'll be going to rwanda to visit some genocide memorial sites and a rwandan prison in a few weeks, and then we'll be visiting queen elizabeth national park where i'll finally get to see all of the "real" african animals! (so far it's pretty much been only lots of goats and cows) [p.s. jared -- they do have cows here and they do drink milk]. i'll try to post some pictures as soon as possible, probably when i have my own computer and wireless.

we also received our homestay family assignments yesterday. i'm going to be living with a mother and her children (i can't remember her name at the moment, or the area where i'll be living). mona, our driver, said he lives just a few houses down from where i'll be living and that he'll invite me over to dinner at his place to meet his HUGE family. mona says that i'll have a few brothers and sisters my age, which i'm really excited about, and also that my mother has a lot of chickens whose eggs i'll probably be helping to harvest. we'll meet up with our homestay families on sunday and go home with them then. mona says that my home isn't too far from the resource center, which is good. we have to take taxis to class every morning, which i'm incredibly nervous about doing for the first time. taxis here aren't like taxis in the u.s.; they're buses that pack in about 15 ppl or so. you meet the taxi at a taxi park that is SO overwhelming and (they tell us) is supposedly arranged in some sort of organized chaos that is understandable over time (i'm trying to believe them). driving here is CRAZY. there's pretty much no traffic lights, and driving is pretty much like a big game of chicken....whoever wimps out first lets the other person go. there's these little motorbikes called "boda bodas" that are another way of getting around -- much quicker, but MUCH more dangerous, and we're forbidden from riding on those. so anyway, we have to find the taxi that's going to near where we're headed, but because streets are often unmarked here and most ppl don't read maps, directions literally entail "turn left at the big tree/building/etc". it's going to be an experience.

kampala seems really big and crazy and overwhelming, but i'm told (i'm trusting you here, snichols) that it gets less overwhelming with time. apparently tomorrow they're going to be sending us off in groups to go around the city and try to find the best cell phone deals. (most ppl don't have cell phones yet, but thanks to snichols i do....i can't remember my number off the top of my head but i'm pretty sure snichols posted it in a comment on my first post). i'm terrifed and excited about it. i'll let you know how it goes.

okay, well my internet time is just about to expire. again, i'm not sure how often i'm going to be able to post, but i'll do my best. i miss you all!!!! please keep the comments coming....it makes me feel so happy to read them!!