we're still here.

March 4th.

Today we have been at New Hope for one month.

Work on the guesthouse is going slowly, in large part because of the rain. The metal roof becomes very slippery when wet, and I'm not trying to slide off the roof and break a leg. So work pretty much stops when it rains. And boy did it rain today. It was like it was trying get as much moisture out of the sky as possible as fast as possible. When it couldn't rain any harder, it started hailing. It was crazy how much water was coming off the roof, and how hard the wind was blowing. It was the inauguration of the rainy season. So we get to be here for a whole month of the rainy season. This means that we have to work extra hard in the morning before it rains in the afternoons. I'm hoping that we can finish this week, both because my body is getting tired of this, and also so that work can continue on the inside in the dry. My hands are starting to look pretty beat up, as well as taking on the stench of the gloves that I wear all day.



It is a bit rough on the digestive system eating just beans and potatoes for lunch. I have to eat twice as much food for it to last me until dinner. At home my normal work lunch is not nearly as much food, but it is more energy dense, i think.

I saw a lizard today at the jobsite that was one of the coolest lizards I have ever seen. He changed colors several times, quite quickly. The first time I saw him he was bright blue on about half his body and green and tan on the other half, then only his tail was blue, then later almost all tan.





March 8th

Well, we ran out of materials for the guesthouse, so I'm going to Kampala with Mukisa (the construction supervisor ) on monday to get some supplies. I'll probably drop by the Davises, and maybe do a little food shopping.

Ellie and I finally were able to put our beds together this week. We didn't have a mosquito net big enough to cover both beds so we bought one when we were in Kampala last. We also didn't feel like waking up with bat poop in our teeth and hair, so until we dealt with the "heavenly flavor" as Uncle Ji-ten calls it, we weren't going to push our beds together. So we jerry-rigged a bat-poop catching device. It is really a temporary measure, but sometimes temporary measures go on for quite a while before getting fixed, (as in after we leave) so i figured I would just deal with it myself. The whole sleeping-in-seperate-beds thing confused some of the cleaning staff at first; one day after I had been sick a lady asked Ellie "is your brother feeling better today?" Same last name, different beds, must be siblings, right? hah.