053

a few weeks ago, i started reading some journal entries that i was writing this time last year. my first journal entry, from the wee hours of the morning of august 16, is about the excitement & anticipation of meeting our team & heading off with them to uganda.

i haven't been reading much in between then and now, but tonight i wondered, "what happened one year ago?" so i picked up my worn red journal, flipped to the page labeled with "11 sept 2010" and scribbles.

it reads, "today i ate beans & moved into a mud hut."

it goes on to describe the details of our day: saying goodbye to our friends at hotel roma, our home for a few weeks; a journey from gulu town to a plot of land in the bush somewhere in masindi district; details of a 2-hour trip in a white van driven by charles, going from paved roads to dirt roads to a path that could barely qualify as a road; singing disney songs; all six of us doing ALL of our laundry at once until our hands bled (why we ever thought doing our laundry together was a good idea is beyond me); fred making dirty white socks look impeccably clean; slipping & sliding through the mud as we ventured to the latrine that night.

i wrote about the disadvantages of living in a mud hut: poop floor, termites behind every surface, spiders adorning our walls, the possibility of rats, a fresh sprinkling of dead bugs (ones small enough to fit through the holes of our mosquito nets) on our pillows each night, always dirty feet, etc.

little did i know how comforting these "disadvantages" would soon become. little did i know that soon our hut would become home, that we would decorate, that the rats never would show up (not that we know of, anyways), that the wall spiders pretty much keep to themselves, that termites really aren't so bad.

little did i know that the following day my journal entry would be so different than the day prior.

12 sept 2010: "i woke up this morning to the sounds of children singing. getting ready for bed last night we heard sounds of children laughing. the rain sounds nice on the roof of our hut. i'm still amazed that the inside stays dry. when we go to bed & turn off our headlamps, it's pitch black in here. when there is lightning, though, there is a line of light that comes in along the circumference of the hut where the mud wall and the thatched roof leave a gap."

pages follow of beautiful memories.

i'm so thankful to have these memories documented on paper & in my mind.