Carol Bontekoe

This blog has been keeping track of my adventures since 2004. The stories and the adventures have come from my college dorm room to Uganda, Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan, learning Dutch in the Netherlands to living in the wilds of Homer, Alaska. I went back to school in Amsterdam to study Theaterwetenschap (Theatre Science) at University of Amsterdam. And now my adventures as a Fruit Fly, a Sexy Unicorn, and creating a movement with Team Sparkle in Chicago.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Come talk to me

Another game I'm taking internationally.... Spoons. Last night at the compound some of us volunteers played Spoons with some of the orphans; Love, Hope, and Freedom. I know they sound like Hippie's kids names but it seems to be the Chirstain names the give the corphans here. It was alot of fun but sometimes they would slam down their cards as they passed them so all of us volunteers would dive for the spoons and no one would even have a four of a kind. It was alot of fun and the kids seemed to like it. Defiantly easy enough card game for anyone to get the hang of. Love kept trying to put a knife in the spoon pile, she is only 6 but we know she knows not to do that. That is a little too extreme of a version of Spoons. Today Ann(ONe of the "Mom" volunteers) was taking Kanayo and I to have lunch in Jinja, about a hour and a half away, to have lunch at the source of the Nile. But, it didn't exactly turn out how we planned. We had told the bus driver to drop us off at this National Park. Well, he must not have known exactly where that was so he dropped us off about an hours walk past where we needed. Once we realized we weren't where we needed to be we head back up the road. We saw TONS of Monkeys just chillin in the trees next to the woods. It was very cool. THey were just hanging out and we had been reading how hard it was to see Monkeys but it was more than easy enough for us. We saw 3 different kinds... The only one's whose name I remember is the Red Tail Monkey. After that we got a guided tour of the park. Our guide knew so much. It was an awesome walk through the woods. My mom would have gone crazy.So many beautiful plants. birds, and butterflies. So amazing. We saw the biggest tree I have ever seen. It is a fig tree. We hope we got some pics that show just how big it really is. We had to be careful about getting to close cuz the guide told us there was a Cobra in the tree. And in the parks here it is all about survival of the fittest. They don't do any of that trying to help plants live stuff. He was like we are in the jungle, What is strong enough to surive......will.After sitting in this cool little hut in the jungle for a while to cool off from the long walk and the humidity we decided to go back out to the road to try to catch a bus to Jinja for Lunch. That wasn't going to happen, every bus that drove by was completel full because of course the day we decide to go to Jinja there has to be a big agriculture show. So, after trying to catch a bus for about an hour we heded back into Kampala. But the day wasn't lost we went to an African Art Gallary, which had some of the most amazing art work. I also did my first bartering(sp) ever. I did pretty well. I got my mom a hand made napkin ring and a hand made drum. On the drum I got the woman down from 40,000 to 28,000 Shillings. That is really good deal for being a mzungu(white person) They knock up the prices really bad. But I couldn't believe I got her to go down in price it was awesome. She just kept saying, "wait come and talk to me, we will work it out. I even bartered on the Napkin Ring that was only 3,000 Shillings to begin with." hahahaha but I was on a roll. The Drum is awesome. I'll have one of the best carry ons on the plane, ever. I'm finally starting to get used to African Cities... or well Ugandain cities. In Kampala there are NO STOP LIGHTS or STOP SIGNS. Absolutely no cossing areas. It is crazy. I mean even Marion has a stop light!!!!! And I'm finally realizing that yes it is alright for there to be a huge group of chicken in the down town area and that it is more than natural for a cow to be hanging out in the road. Also, the police are so corrupt here that the citizens take things into their own hands, for like Car accidents and stealing and stuff. Yesterday we heard gun shot and it didn't even phase us. I have been told it takes two weeks to get used to everything around you so I'm defiantly getting the hang. And I love the kids. But I have loved them since the begining. I have started sounding like Erica and every time something wierd happens I'm just like, know wh wouldn't that happen. Oh, my hotmail works again... so you can email me there. And Tom I LOVE the CDS..... I love the CDs that I got from Everyone. Okay Rafting the Nile tomorrow morning so I need to get back to the compund to get some sleep. Pray for me!!!!!!!

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