Milk: Why I Went To Mbale And How I Got There: A Cautionary Tale

June 27^th-June 28^th: Saturday and Sunday 

Woke Saturday morning at 5:30 and used Jim’s computer for a bit tell six when he and I went for a short run. Felt so good; I had so much energy. Then ate breakfast and Jim gave me some chocolate banana bread that had to be eaten because he was taking the Pravius to Mbale later that day. Also gave me some frozen bananas which tasted amazing and is the closest thing I’ve tasted to ice cream here. Collected agragrit all morning. The rest of the team and the Tricaricos had gone to Namalu that morning and brought me back some mandazi, which are fried dough balls. I ate about ten and it took at least ten years off my life. All that grease and fat, so good though.

Talked to Jim about picking us up some milk in Mbale and he said if I wanted some I had to come get it myself. So I asked Craig and he said it was fine so I went down to Mbale with Jim and the Pravius that afternoon. We dropped of the Pravius who were leaving for Kampala the next morning and then ran a bunch of errands. We traded in our empty soda and beer bottles and bought new ones. Went to the market and bought chicken feed, which stank up the car for the rest of the weekend, onions, milk, some hot sauce for me, and a kilo (2.2 lbs) of passion fruit. 

That night for dinner Jim and I ate with Andrew, another missionary stationed in Mbale, and some guy named Charlie. Ate atop a rooftop in downtown Mbale. Incredibly cool. Had delicious Indian food, although it was really hot but so good. Tried a Nile (light beer) mixed with a krest (which is a sour lemon drink) 3 to 1 ratio. It tasted really good. Really fun conversation. Andrew and Charlie are really cool guys. It has been really cool here because I’ve gotten to be friends with guys that are a lot older than me, almost my dad’s age. That night we watched the beginning of a movie about the Nuremberg trials and it was really good but I went to bed because I was tired.

Sunday slept in tell 8:30. Ate a couple muffins and apples that we bought a Happy’s Grocery yesterday. Really dry muffins. Supposedly were mixed fruit but they each had like two raisins on top. Bletch. Played with the fridge magnets. I made a face, a camel, a butterfly, and a caterpillar. Walked to church and met a bunch of people. Sat with John Knox who spent all the prayer times watching me and making sure my eyes were closed. That kid is so funny. He was feeling kinda sick so he ran around after church tagging everyone and yelling “now you’re sick!”

Decided to spend the rest of the day in Mbale and drive back early Monday morning. We ate lunch with Andrew and Martin, an employee of the Proctors. Ate at a restaurant in a hotel called the sunrise. Waited an hour and a half for the food and it was pretty iffy tasting. They didn’t even give Jim what he ordered. When he asked about it they said, “Oh, yes we didn’t make what you ordered, we up graded it.” Whatever (eye roll).

That afternoon I read and went with on a walk with Jim. We had a really good talk about a lot of stuff. He’s easy to talk to and is very wise. I’m really glad that we’ve become friends it’s such a blessing. That evening we went to pray and singing with the missionaries. After that Jim and I had Indian food one more time at the Landmark. Had African tea which tasted really good and also had a really weird dessert. These fried little dough things. They were the size of rice krispies and really sweet. When you bit into them they released all this juice and then it was really grainy and chewy. Weird.