Initial Impressions

We made it! It was nearly two full days of travel and plenty of European Man smell later that we landed in Uganda and made the crazy/terrifying car ride to the capital city Kampala. It appears that in Uganda, a two lane road can quickly become a seven lane road if the people in front of you are going slower than one would like.
Right now we are sitting in our hotel room (we meaning Melissa and Katie - two women also going out to help at Restore for three months, and myself) and hearing an animal call outside that sounds like a monkey. Nowhere else have I been where someone honestly asked if we also heard the monkey outside. And this is still the capital city so I can imagine what it will be like in Gulu which is a much smaller, rural town. My mind is already opening so much as well as my appreciation for indoor plumbing.

Here it goes....

Hello faithful family, friends and colleagues! As promised, I thought that keeping a blog (despite my tendency to shy away from writing and stick close to numbers) would be most useful to update you all on what is going on in Gulu, Uganda. For those of you who I have not told, or need a quick recap, I am working with a non-profit organization called Restore International (http://www.restoreinternational.org/). They are such an amazing organization. They function like a small non-profit (i.e. administrative costs are almost non-existent) but they produce wide-spread results that are helping to change the justice and education systems throughout Uganda and India.

During my time in Uganda I am going to be working with the Restore Academy, a secondary school, to put in a new accounting system, help administratively with the school and really whatever else they find for me to do! (I told them i was willing to help with anything, including cleaning toilets, etc, but was quickly informed that their toilets were holes in the ground and thus required little cleaning - so dodged a bullet there... but at the same time, not really if you know what I mean...) So this is going to be an adventure. I feel both pumped and blessed that I am able to have this opportunity before me. We will see what happens next!

P.S. I will probably have intermittent email access so if you would like to get a hold of me you can try either my work or personal email addresses and I will try to get back to you as soon as I am able!