it may startle some to learn that Uganda is a Christian country. So Christian, in fact, that the only place in town apart from the Indian grocery store that has a generator is the great big pentecostal church with which I share a wall. I am asked on a regular basis if I pray, if I have been saved, if I hate the homosexuals. So at the times when there's just a little too much Jesus (aka Holy Week), we get the urge to take the first bus out of town.

Mbale is where the Abayudaya are, the largest Jewish community in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, the student body of SIT is pretty much a mirror image of what I'm used to at home (vegetarian, gay, Jewish, or some combination of the above), but I was just desiring a little more Judaism in my life. A couple of classmates are doing research in Mbale, which is right under Mount Elgon on the border of Kenya, and we Gulu-dwellers stormed down for a Passover visit.

(the bus ride down was, quite literally, the Road to Hell. The bus driver had many different horns at his disposal to compose a sort of trumpet fanfare as he barreled down the road, which was not a road so much as a dirt trail through the bush. Jamie and I made sad faces to each other the whole way there.)

on a side note, one of the most enjoyable parts of the weekend was when Kaitlyn and I happened across a Chinese grocery store. We stayed for almost a half-hour at the cash register, conversing with the shopkeepers in putonghua. I think the owners (from Shanghai) were a little extra-jolly at the prospects of meeting people in Africa who actually spoke Chinese, but it was an endearing exchange nonetheless. Beijing opera played on the tv in the background. As we left the grocery store, it was dark, and street children swarwed around us, grabbing us and shoving us and asking for money, and we were so flustered that we couldn't find our hotel, which was just one street over. I actually shouted, 'I miss China!!!'

I do though, and I think about China all the time. I don't feel the same connection as I do here, but there are things about it that I always miss. Especially in light of how I am treated as a white woman in Africa. We went on a hike up Mount Elgon on saturday, and dunked our heads under the waterfall, but I feel a little maxed-out on scenery after last semester. I know it's terrible, but I just can't find Africa nearly as beautiful as I should after seeing Tibetan prayer flags in the Himalayas. I keep thinking about going back to Yunnan and Tibet, if for nothing but an extraordinary hiking trip.

transport to the Abayudaya for shabbat was a bit of a pickle. We were running late, and there were no taxis and bodas were too expensive for the long distance, so finally someone went up to a lorry parked on the side of the road and said, 'how much?' The drivers agreed to take us for only 1500 shillings each, and we all piled into the back of the lorry, which was just a glorified pickup truck with bars overhead. I was just desperate to see the Jews.

later that night I was having some trouble with my eye, so I spent about a half-hour on the phone with my mom freaking out about losing my vision. She told me to go to the clinic to get checked for pink eye, which was a good idea considering the next morning my eye was even puffier. I also noticed some aches in my joints, no moreso than my left shoulder which felt like it had had about a million meningitis vaccines. I hobbled over to a clinic which was mercifully open on Easter Sunday, and found out that I had not only pink eye, but malaria. What a joyous gift. Fortunately because of the malarone I've been taking it's only a mild case with a slight fever. I could most aptly describe malaria as hallucinating a broken arm. Just a few more days, and I'll be good as new.

(the drive back to Gulu from Mbala was also, quite literally, the Road to Hell. With a side of malaria.)