Only in Africa!

Oh the adventures of this week! Where to begin.....
Well, starting Monday over half of the house got sick with food poisoning and random other sicknesses. I told myself that I was not going to get sick, and I didn't! I was one of the few! I haven't had any problems with any kind of sickness so far and I intend to keep it that way! In fact, I have only gotten two mosquito bites since I have been here! I guess I don't have good blood or something. But I'm okay with that. That kind of threw off our schedule for a few days, but we all eventually were up and running again.
I had an exciting week at the hospital. I was able to witness the birth of a little baby boy. I was just volunteering at the right place at the right time and they asked me if I wanted to watch the birth. Of course I said yes! It was really cool to see. Also this week I was able to watch a surgery. They had to remove and ovarian cyst. Half of the ovary was infected, so they just ended up cutting it off. And a man with polio came in with horrible bed sores. He has nobody to take care of him and doesn't have enough money for skin graphs, so all the doctor could do was cut off the dead skin. It was very sad. There are some advantages and disadvantages to being a white person in Lugazi. We pretty much can go wherever we want and see whatever we want to see just because we are white. However, we get over charged for most things here. We have to barter most of the time because they are not being fair. And you get kind of tired of the stares all the time.
On Friday night I experienced the highlight of my trip to Uganda so far. There is a group of kids that do African dancing for weddings and such. Six of us from the group pretty much got a personal show. What people would go pay $100 for, we got to see for free! So these kids ranging from about 5 to 18 dance to make money to send local orphans to school. We are working with them with our youth outreach. They are so amazing!! There was this one little boy who just melted my heart. He would always look back to make sure that you were watching him and that the camera was on him. And he got so into it with the biggest smile on his face. After they performed a couple of dances, they put furs around our waists and made us get up and dance with them. This got the biggest laugh from the surrounding crowds. I think the whole neighborhood was there! Some were crying because they were laughing so hard. I guess mzungus don't know how to dance. Through this, I met the most inspiring kid! His name is Luta. He is about my age I think, maybe younger. Anyways, he is heavily involved with the youth outreach while also attending school and working to put himself through school. In fact, he told me that he uses 50% of his income for himself (school, books, etc.), 30% goes to suporting his mother because his dad died a couple years back, and 20% goes to youth outreach. I talked with him for about twenty minutes or some that night and I wanted to cry the whole time. He has such a big heart and wants so badly to give back to the community through helping kids. He is so inspiring. From that point, I decided that a lot of my time here is going to be helping with youth outreach.
Saturday I went bunji jumping!! It was 44 meters, about 150 feet. It was awesome! I was so nervous the night and whole morning before! But they counted me down and I just had to shove the nerves behind and jump. I don't even know how to explain the feeling... just awesome! I went bunji jumping over the nile... what up?! ;)
And today I just got back from eating an amazing dinner at the branch presidents house. One of the best meals I have had since I have been here. I actually think I am gaining weight. Most of the guys that come lose weight and the girls gain weight. This is because they guys don't get as much protein in their diet as the did in America and we eat a lot of carbs here, hence the girls gain weight. I didn't think it was possible for me to actually gain weight!
Like I said... only in Africa!