The weather has given me a very English welcome with temperatures of around 17 deg C and lots of wet stuff!

I arrived back in the UK on Sunday and spent a few days with family before returning home to Southampton. It’s been lovely to see family and friends again, and I’ve had a lovely welcome home.

Friends have been working very hard – my patio has been finished for me, the kitchen painted and the garden tidied. (Pics to come maybe??) My home group from church have also provided me with a lovely hamper full of delightful stuff including English tea, cheese and most importantly – Cadbury’s chocolate

I’ve also not had to cook yet as I’ve either eaten out or have had food cooked for me, courtesy of family and friends. THANK YOU!!

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The first few days were somewhat odd, especially after hearing about the bombings in Kampala on Sunday evenings. Praise God that no AIM workers or our Ugandan colleagues and friends were affected. However, I had met the American guy that was killed – that was a big shock. (Click here for more info on Nate Henn)

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Minor things that have passed through my mind in the last few days:

~ Phrases I’m trying to forget American/Canadian/Ugandan-English) – cos people will look at me strangely if I use them here in England!

• - Can you come pick me?
• - Anyways…
• - Sure…
• - I’m so excited to go to ….
• - You just sit and visit with… (sit and talk)
• - Cookies (when really they’re biscuits – custard creams, they’re biscuits, not cookies!! )
• - Pants instead of trousers!

~ Things that I’m missing

• Friends
• Saying ‘Hello how are you?’ to everyone
• The red dust (bizarrely!)
• Boda bodas
• Taxis

~ Things I haven’t got used to here yet

• Minimal risk of a power-outage
• Fast internet!!
• Not having to wash my feet quite so thoroughly!
• Less risk of the car being broken into (really!)
• Wearing my hoody all the time! It’s cold!! Not that I’m complaining!
• Using my laptop keyboard again, with the @ in the right place, and there’s actually a £, different to the American keyboard I used when filling in the for office manager!
• No holes in the road (even the holes on my road at home have been filled in!)
• Lighter evenings
• Walking home in the dark on my own and being safe

I leave in 2 days time. I’m half packed, but not feeling ready to go. I hate good byes – it’s a very sad week for me.

I think England is hotter than here at the moment, so that will be nice.

I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends again, but wouldn’t it be nice all round if you moved out here instead?

See you soon!

Finally, 2 days before moving house, I was brave enough to go and find some children in the neighbourhood to meet and play.

Actually, it was with a nudge from God, a prayer that I was doing something right, and a goal to give out the Happy Meal toys that Mum had sent with me to Uganda.

And I spent a very happy hour or so giving out the toys (Mr Men and Little Misses), taking photos, and blowing bubbles with some of the children and talking to a couple of the Mums.

These were mostly children and parents that I had been saying ‘hello, how are you’ to once or twice a day for the previous 5 months whilst I’d been at the house.

And then two days later, I moved house!

But I went back a week later with photos to give out.

This might be my favourite memory of the trip

I’m sooo looking forward to seeing family and friends again.
But I’m not looking forward to leaving Kamapala and Uganda.

All very strange!

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I have been doing my new role as temporary office manager for 3 weeks now. I’m still learning loads, but it’s getting easier. I’m enjoying it – the variety and meeting people.

I have also moved into a different flat. It was odd to leave my lovely house on the hill with it’s beautiful view, especially of the sunset.

The new place is nice though – lounge diner, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 2 balconies. And I can see the sunrise from my bedroom window!

It’s strange the things I find odd here – I have DRAWERS in my bedroom! A novelty! And it’s further to walk from one end of the flat to the other!!

The bonus of being here is that there’s a toaster, an oven, a comfy 2 seater sofa for curling up on and hot water in the kitchen for washing up in! And I also have the use of a twin tub washing machine – another completely new experience for me

So, it’s kind of like a half-way house before going back to the UK.

This is fine normally, but I had people coming for lunch, and I wanted to make (English) flapjacks, which requires the microwave, cos I don’t have an oven.

So, at 9:40am, I asked God if I could have power back by 10am so that I could make said flapjacks. 10 minutes later, the power was back on

God’s so lovely

Actually, he’s more than just lovely, he’s amazing and powerful and so much more. But he’s also lovely, and loves me too

Rwanda – 1 hour behind Uganda, 1 hour ahead of the UK.

Currency – Rwandan Francs. About 800 Francs to the £ sterling.

About 4000 Ugandan shillings is about the same as 1000 Francs.

Drive on the right hand side of the road.

Official language – English, although before January 2010 it was French. Also Kinrwanda.

The parts we saw of Rwanda were Beautiful – green mountains.

And the roads were relatively good, and it was clean.

On the Monday, we looked round a couple of Genocide memorial sites, first a museum, and then a church.

In 1994, the Hutus killed about 1,000,000 Tutsis in the space of about 3 months. Not by using weapons of mass destruction, but each one murdered by someone else – by friends, neighbours, employees – people they knew – with a machete or garden tool.

It’s not just the killings that were hardest to take, but that they would be beaten to death slowly, sometimes purposely left alive to suffer and then killed days later. Or seeing photos of young children with information about their favourite food, and their last words, and then how they were killed. An 18 month old was smashed against the wall.

Since the genocide, the country is making a huge effort to recover.

The next day we enjoyed visiting the craft shop, and Indian restaurant, Hotel Mille Collines (the hotel in the film ‘Hotel Rwanda’) and then another restaurant for supper.

Then we took a coach home, a 9 – 10 hour coach journey back to Kampala.

Going to Rwanda was great for many reasons – to see a different country/city, to meet other AIM missionaries and spend time with Rachel, to see the genocide memorials. But more than that, it was great to realise how at home I feel in Kampala. I wonder if I’ll feel like that when I return to England?!

(You can click on photos to make them bigger.)

Birthday cake in the morning at the office – carrot cake – yummy and then going out for a meal after work. And then when I got home I was able to talk to my parents for a short while on skype before it stopped working, and a couple of other friends.

Thank you to everyone who sent birthday greetings – it was lovely to receive them all. And thank you to the lovely people here who gave me presents – tea bags, cheese, flowers, scarf and a bracelet – all fab presents

Saturday – travelled by bus to Mbarara – tried my first grasshopper! Arrived in Mbarara after about 5 or 6 hours on the road, and had ice cream at the newly opened local ice cream parlour, met new people, supper, then watched a film – The Duchess.

Sunday – church, lunch, fellowship at another missionary’s house – like a house church, and is for anyone who wants to go. Then supper.

Monday to Friday – visiting the lab in the JCRC HIV/AIDS centre. (Joint Clinical Research Centre)
Phelebotomy, Immunology (FACS), Virology (RNA PCR), DNA (PCR), and a bit of parasitology thrown in for good measure! I enjoyed being in a lab again, and it was very interesting to see how the labs in a HIV/AIDS clinic work.

Monday evening – evening out at a local Chinese Restaurant.

Tuesday evening – Mbarara AIMers meet together.

On the Wednesday afternoon, I joined Lou in her girls’ (university students) discipleship bible study

Thursday afternoon, looked around Mbarara town – so quiet compared to Kampala. It’s possible to walk through the market without touching/bumping into/squeezing past another person!!

Mbarara is set in a beautiful part of Uganda, in the middle of lots of green mountains, and only a couple of hours drive from one of the national parks.

Friday evening, there was an end of term party for another uni girls discipleship group. I helped Lou and Susan (the lady Lou lives with) organise the party, and we had lots of party games like pass the parcel, the chocolate game and squeak piggy squeak. The girls were very welcoming, energetic, vocal, and really enjoyed the party, as did I!

Saturday – returned to Kampala.

Photos from the week.

Somehow, despite best efforts, Josh’s hair never got done. So now he needs a hair cut

Josh and Grace - the 'before' photo, although Josh looked the same after as his hair never got done.

But Grace got hers done, and it took both girls 4 hours to do, and a third of that time, they did it by candlelight as our power went out (which is normal here).

Grace having her hair done

3 hours later.... (working by candle light and some occasional torch light)

4 hours later!

And the finale - the Afro-Korean Peacock

It looks amazing

(No, I’m not going to get mine done, but I did get a hair cut today.)

Grace's new hair (without the peacock effect)

We travelled down on the Friday – a long drive from Kampala. There were a few sessions over the weekend during which we shared, prayed, sang and watched DVDs of Louie Giglio ‘preaching’ – amazing!

Saturday afternoon was free time, so some of us went swimming in the bilharzia-free lake in the rain! Saturday evening we had an indoor camp fire.

Sunday lunchtime came too soon and we all left and parted ways. I went with some others to Rwanda for a couple of days as we were so close to the border anyway.

It was a brilliant time, with a chance for spiritual refreshment that I hadn’t realised I needed.