 _We went on a game drive! A game drive is a safari for only half a day.
We woke up at six and caught the 7:00am ferry, which is a mini platform that carries eight cars. We had hired a guide and a safari vehicle for the trip since it is better to have a guide. Our guide's name was Emma, don't laugh . . . it is a popular name in these parts . . . for boys. On the ferry, while docking after two minutes of travelling across the Nile, we spotted hippos in the waer! EEk! All you could see was their ears! They are so cute and fat! We drove a little and soon I was sitting on the roof of the SUV, enjoying the breeze. There were so . . .
 Here is a Isaac on the left _Back in Uganda, Barbara, invited us on a home visit up the mountain, to two kids, Isaac and Eveline. On the way up she explained to Dad, Mom and I their history...
Isaac is forteen, although he only looks about ten. Eveline is sixteen, and has to take care of them both, earning money for food and such. Their parents died from HIV when they were eight and twelve, and ever since they've been living on their own. Relatives are their neighbours, but they show no sign of helping Isaac and Eveline. In fact, they put a cow in Eveline's house and refused to remove it, but by the time we got there it had gone. Isaac greeted us, beaming. He is so small, barely my height, despite his age. He ran off right away to . . .
 _There are theese kids who hang out at our gate all day - Barbara gets very irritated by them, so they aren't supposed to be there. Sometimes when Barbara is staying late at BVA I go out and read books to them. Matrine (properly Matron) is eight and acts like she's the boss of everything. At first that annoyed me, but I realized that was good - she would be able to defend herself if anybody threatened her. The others... I forget their names, but one girl always wore a ripped red t-shirt and tattered baige skirt (probably originally white, but has definitly gotten dirty over years). Actually, Birch just reminded her name was Shamina... Yep, we always sang that song. The third girl always wore her bright pink school uniform. The Bududa school kids aren't scared to wear pink, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, black, gray, brown uniforms - all that schools care about it is that everyone is dressed in matching colours.
Matrine lives down the hill from our guest house, within view. I'm not sure if ...
 The front of Justine's house _One day Justine (reminder: the guest house maid and cook) invited us to her house for lunch on a Sunday. Her mud 'hut' isn't really a hut, and is, actually, a lot like a small cabin. It's on the way to the school so we knew the way, and just our family set off.
She served quite a bit; chicken, matoke (special banana), beef (hopefully bought from the maduka - her cow is so sweet, if possible for a cow to be...), vegetables and rice... It was delicious! We stayed a little while after, thanking her endlessly for the meal.
She has two children; Isaiah (three months old and CHUBBY!) and John (three years old). Micheal (her husband) has a daughter named Sarah from his last marriage. The problem is . . .
 _As I mentioned before, we'd met some people, Katie and Sawyer, who were adopting an African baby, Grace. When Barbara had first introduced us to them at Chat 'n' Chino, the Western cafe in Mbale, they had explained to us the St. Kitozi Baby-Home for abandoned babies where Grace was from. Sawyer was volunteering there while Katie was doing work, and Mom was eager to know more about it. In the end we had arranged to go to the baby home for a few days and help Sawyer and Katie manage some four and five years olds and bring them to a hotel pool!
So, two weeks later, we pulled up in Katie's car with Katie in front of the baby home. Sawyer had stayed home to take care of Grace. As soon as . . .
 _I wake up late, and have half an hour to get ready, and although I skip breakfast I still stretch my time to one hour. I walk with Mom and Dad, sometimes Barbra, through the lush greenery and calm dirt road... This takes about twenty minutes extra than the main walk on the main road, but it's much more enjoyable than getting a mouthful of dirt every ten seconds as a car, or worse, a matatou, which makes you swallow the dust... Uh! Anyways, the walk through the hills and past all the villagers mud huts is much better, because only the occasional motorcycle (nick-named bodda-bodda) passes by.
The school has three buildings. The main building, the small kitchen, and the girls dorm. Two temporary buildings are . . .
 _Liguisu (I'm not sure how to spell it) is the tribal language in Bududa. Here are the few words and phrases I learned and still remember:
Matoke = special kind of flavolous (not sweet) banana, that is localy grown and used for various forms of cooking - mashed, fried, fresh...
Matatoo = an incredibly squished van that takes you to Mbale - usually transports 20 to 30 people and three chickens, on their way to the death house
Maduka = The little group of shops at the entrance to Bududa, where they sell bananas, tomatos, soda, and other such foods - I wouldn't recomend the meat, as it's been dangling outside of the store getting splattered with dirt and dust - sadly, they murder a cow every week (at prescicely seven o'clock a.m.), so there's no telling how long that stuff has been sitting there.
Wanyala = Thank you
Wanyala hooteh ha = Thank you for digging
Wanyala hulima = Thank you for cooking
Melembe = Hello
Poleh=Slow:always say 'poleh,poleh' to your motorcycle driver
one time at night a ...
 _Saturday is always a slow day for me - it's like my body knows it's supposed to be a holiday, and although it seems to complain sleepily, it grudgingly goes on. After a quick breakfast or a banana for the road, we set of again for our lush hike of palms trees and eucalyptus. The vilagers don't like eucalyptus trees because they suck up all the rain water that's meant for other plants. In the height of the rainy season, though, they're helpful because all the huts and houses are located on the moutains and the water floods everything in it's path, unless there are trees to lessen the impact... It's amazing how the people here live!
The Children of Peace program for vulnerable children and orphans is where I can help a little. I read to the primary threes (primary is their word for grade, although the level of education is poor, so grade five is more like secondary ten) and the primary fours read to me, with an occasional correction. Well, much more than occasional!
I also read aloud to . . .
 _We arrived in Uganda! Of course, that was a while ago. Silly me didn't blog once! So now I have to recall as best as I can the days in Bududa.
There were other volunteers who had arrived before us. Sabia (25 years old) had been there for a year and a half, and still had six months to go! Anna had been volunteering for five months during her 'gap year', in between high school and college. Tom is nineteen. Barbara, of course, is the head coordinator of the Bududa Vocational Acadamy.
We stay in a little guest house up on a small hill. The main house has . . .
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