Day 341 - It's here!!!!

So the day has finally arrived! We leave for Uganda tonight (first leg of the journey is an overnight flight to London). I'm all the things I was last year (nervous, excited, exhilarated) and more (sooo happy to be able to see my friends there again, stressed 'cause Ryan from GIVE isn't on this trip and overseeing everything is up to Chris and I, and not quite as excited about the actual travel part as I was last year 'cause I now know that the journey there is a long and tiring one).

I am incredibly thankful though for this amazing opportunity, and I know that this will be a great, purpose-filled trip!

I'm going to try and keep a daily journal while I'm there (I tried last year, but there were some days where I just felt too tired at the end of the day to do much of anything). I really want to document this trip well, so I hope to have some detailed stories to share when I get back.

Please keep our team in your thoughts and prayers, and I hope everyone has a great couple of weeks!

See you in September!

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Day 335 - a few things about Uganda . . .

I love Uganda for many, many reasons - it's a fascinating country and would take me much longer than one blog post to articulate why I love it so much. I thought I'd take a few minutes though on this 'ole blog of mine, to share with you some things about one of my favorite countries that you might not know. So here goes:

* "U-gan-da or U-ghan-da?" A question that I've been asked by more than one person when they find out I'm going back. From what I know, you can say it both ways, but most people (including the locals I met on our last trip) would pronounce it "U-ghan-da." You can actually also pronounce it "oo-gan-da". Interestingly, I've also seen Uganda spelled "Ughanda".

* The two official languages of Uganda are English and Swahili, but there are a ton of different indigenous languages and dialects, and Luganda is pretty much the major language spoken in Southern Uganda

* Uganda's largest export is coffee

* 84% of the population is Christian

* Winston Churchill was the one who coined the term "The Pearl of Africa" while describing Uganda's beauty

* Lake Victoria (on the southeastern side of Uganda) is the third largest lake in the world

* At 236,040 sq km, the country of Uganda is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon in the U.S.

* Uganda achieved independence from the UK in 1962

* The movie "The Last King of Scotland" (which takes place in Uganda) was also filmed in Uganda!

* Uganda has about 2.5 million orphans

* Uganda is one of the few remaining places in the world where Mountain Gorillas reside (im fact, at least half of their population is in Uganda)!

* the average humidity is 80.3% (my frizzy hair would attest to that)!

* the average annual family income is $200.00 US dollars

* the source of the River Nile is in Uganda (near Jinja)

* the highest mountain range in all of Africa is in Uganda (the Rwenzori Mountains)


Those are just a few little interesting tidbits about the country I'm going back to in just a few short days!!

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Day 334 - one week to go!

Well today marks the start of our one-week countdown! I can't believe that one week from today we'll be getting ready to head to the airport! We had a great morning at church - our lead pastor called the team up in front of the congregation during both services and had everyone pray for us. It's a wonderful thing - to be prayed for, and know that our church family will be keeping us in their thoughts and prayers while we're away. It was also nice just to be at church with everyone to be honest. I usually work on Sundays during the day and can't go to church too often, so when I can it's always nice - especially today when the whole Uganda team was there and we could have this time together in service before we leave next week.

After church, we had a team meeting to go over some details, and then a bunch of us went out for lunch. Hearing everyone talk about how excited they are just keeps getting me more and more excited, and I'm counting down the days (and hours) until we can load all our luggage into the van and head out! Chris and I have spent the last two days running around Markham and Mississauga, having doctor's appointments, running errands and doing all of our trip shopping and getting final trip details sorted out. I still feel like we have a lot to do this week, but I know it'll all get done and it's more just the "pre-trip stress" I always get before we go away. I'm actually having a rather relaxed afternoon right now - I'm sitting on our couch in the family room, working on trip paperwork on Chris' laptop (okay besides taking a break right now to update my blog), but I have the "Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers" movie playing in the background, so I still feel pretty chill (while getting things done - awesome)!

On a fundraising note - it looks like we've made it! We had a great week last week for fundraising - a lot of cheques and online donations came in, and we got a large sum from the church, which is such an amazing blessing! To have the fundraising side of the trip finalized is a huge weight off all our shoulders, and we are so incredibly thankful to everyone who has supported us financially!

I'll try and do some more blog posts before we leave. It's gonna' be a really busy week, but I'll get in a few updates over the next several days. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

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Day 330 - kinda' out of it . . . .

I had to go to my travel doctor today to get my third (and final) Hep B vaccine. I normally don't mind shots at all, and hardly ever have allergic or adverse reactions to anything.

Not the Hepatits B vaccine apparently! I knew going into it that I may have some issues - when I had the second shot several months ago, I started feeling sick about 10 minutes after leaving the doctor's office and then felt like I had the worst flu ever for about 24 hours straight (and then felt fine after that). When I told him that today, he said that kind of reaction was very rare and that although I may have the same kind of reaction with the third shot, I probably wouldn't. He did say we could forego it altogether, but of course I'm like "no no, I'll be fine - it's cool".

Well I get the shot, feel fine afterwards and head to work. Sure enough, after being at work for only about 10 minutes I start feeling really, really weird. Thankfully I didn't feel flu-ish or even sick really - I just felt really weird. It's hard to explain, it's kind of like I felt just really drugged or something. I was kinda' just out of it - even my co-worker was asking "are you sure you're okay?". My head felt really foggy and everything felt kind of dreamlike and not real. It was the weirdest sensation, probably made even the more weirder by me simply thinking "wow - this is really weird . . ."

Argghh - it was not fun, although thankfully a few hours later my head started to feel a bit clearer, and now I'm feeling pretty normal again.

Needless to say I am not fond of the Hepatitis B vaccine, although I recognize it's importance and I'm okay with dealing with some temporary side effects so I don't ever actually need to suffer from the horribleness that is Hep B. It's just scary to react to something and not really be able to do anything about it and just wait it out.

I do quite like my travel doctor - he really is very knowledgable and I find him really funny at times. We were talking today about possible malaria medication for me as I'm allergic to Malarone (of course the one thing I'm truly allergic to just happens to be the best and most popular anti-malarial available). He talked about the first option, which sounded okay, then started talking about the other option. When I asked him about the side effects for that one and that I'd heard they could be pretty bad, he goes "well yeah, there is a chance you could go slightly psychotic on that one."

Hmmm - I think I'll go with option #1 . . . .

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Day 327 - What??!!

How in the world can it be August 1st already? Seriously, what??!!

I am in serious denial that July has come and gone. I kinda' feel like July just passed me by completely and I have yet to experience anything "summerish"! I've only been to the beach once for goodness sake, and I'm a total beach bum!!

Most of me is actually stoked that it's August, as we leave for Africa in less than two weeks now, but I know that it'll be September when we get back and in my mind that means summer is over! It's also stressful, as my work schedule is a bit crazy right now, and I still have some scheduling to do for our trip, and shopping and packing, and all sorts of last minute prep work.

Oh time - you're going by too quickly!

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Day 324 - Soooo close!!

So I've been working on the detailed trip outline for our Uganda trip for the past couple of hours, and it's getting me soooo excited about our trip! It feels really real now, now that's it's only a little more than 2 weeks away! I found out today that a good friend of ours has volunteered to take care of Franklin and our house while we're gone, which is awesome as I always feel really guilty when we put him in a kennel for an extended period of time (plus it's crazy expensive!) She stayed with him last year when we went, and Franklin loves her (I seriously think he was a little depressed when we came back and she went home!)

I'm really excited that Chris and I get to lead the trip this year. It's a huge honour to have GIVE International trust us with this one, and although I was pretty nervous about it, after meeting with Ryan (the director of GIVE) this past weekend, I'm feeling a lot more confident that we're up for it and ready for the challenge!

I'm also super excited as we've just confirmed with GIVE that we get to lead another trip next year! We'll actually be leaving again for Uganda only about 6 months after we come back from this trip, as it'll be over March Break next year. That trip won't be a church or group specific trip - we're opening it up to several churches and groups, and it'll be for people aged 16-20. I think that trip'll be very cool as it'll be interesting to see how people who don't know each other interact under the amazing circumstances they'll encounter in Uganda. I am in a bit of a quandry as by that point next year I'll be out of vacation time at work, and technically I'm not entitled to the next fiscal year's vacation time until April 1st of 2011. Please pray for me that either my work will let me take a week of unpaid time off, or that they'll let me use some of my next year's vacation early!!

A BIG thank-you goes out to everyone who has donated money so far. After our Run for Uganda last Saturday we've been able to get our total donations up to about $40,000.00!! It means we still have almost $22,000.00 to go, but I know it's possible for us to get there. If you would like to donate, but haven't already, please see my previous post from a few weeks ago that lists a few different ways you can donate.

T-minus 17 days!!!!

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Day 320 - Run for Uganda Update!

I did it! I finished the Run for Uganda on Saturday and am still alive!! ;)

I have to admit, I was pretty nervous beforehand - my "how hard can it be?" mentality pretty much dissipated as the minutes counted down to the start time. Mainly because it was so stinkin' hot Saturday morning - I think it was something like 39 degrees with the humidity? Definitely fitting I guess as we were running for Uganda! I had no grand plans of being fast or anything, I just wanted to keep going and be able to say I didn't stop at all (and by the looks of some of the people running the 10k and the 5k, I'd have had no chance anyway of coming in anywhere close to the front of the pack)!

I put my MP3 player on as Chris counted the seconds down to zero and started the run with a lot of enthusiasm and energy, although sadly I must admit that at the 1k point I was already thinking "oh right, maybe I should have practiced beforehand!" I ran for a little bit more, but then had to stop and walk for a bit. I pretty much kept myself to a run for a song or two / walk for a song or two pattern. When I walked though, I was definitely "power-walking" and not taking a leisurely stroll or anything. I got a little deflated (okay, a lot) when I reached the 2.5k mark (where there was a little tent set-up with water and stuff). I couldn't believe I had only reached 2.5 kilometres! It definitely felt like I had gone a lot further than that, but then I told myself that I at least had passed the halfway point, so now I just had to get to the finish line!

One huge motivating factor for me was seeing the 10k people on their last 5k stretch of the run. Basicially for those running the 10k, you simply turned around at the 5k mark and ran back. They started their race a half hour before ours, so we started passing them as were getting into the meat of our 5k run. Wow - it was so fun and inspiring seeing them trek along and still running strong. Seeing our Uganda team members especially who were doing the 10k was awesome - I cheered for all the 10kers as they passed me, but I have to admit I saved most of my cheering for our team members. Seeing Ashley, Renee, Eddie and Gord go by and seeing how committed they were to finishing the 10k definitely kept me going!!

I finally, after much huffing and puffing, saw the 5K mark approaching. People cheered as I passed the finish line and I clocked in at about 43 minutes (which, yes is a long time to do 5k, but hey - not bad for the first time). I grabbed some water and sat down for a minute or two, and heard Jeff tell someone else that it might be awhile before the shuttle came to to take everyone back to the church (where it all began). I was still kind of amped up, so in a split second decision I decided to get back up and do the other 5k back to the church! I just didn't feel like I was quite "done" yet, so I grabbed a bottle of water and headed back! I ran for a bit, and walked for a bit, but it pretty much took me the same amount of time to go back as it did for the first 5k. Finally crossing the finish line felt awesome - even though every inch of me was covered in sweat and I felt like I couldn't move another muscle, it was definitely worth it!

There's definitely something about running that is a lot of fun, and I can see how runners get addicted to races and marathons - being able to say you actually did it is pretty cool! I think once I give my muscles another day or two to recover, I may just finally take up running! (maybe - I make no promises). The route along the Don Valley Trail was absolutely gorgeous btw. I simply can't believe that in all my time living here, I hadn't experienced it yet! It follows the Don River, and it really is amazing. Very shady in most parts, lots of bridges, and you definitely forget you're in the city! Now that I know what it's like, if I do start running regularly, I think I'll be traversing it's trails more often!

So all in all, a great event, a great run, and a great day (even though I had to get showered and changed right after the run and go to work for a full shift!) Note to self - make sure you get the whole day off next time!

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