Busy days

So much is happening everyday. Last week during my hospital day, I saw an ovarian cyst removed. It was huge! It was the size of a softball!!! I couldn't believe it. They also removed one of her fallopian tubes and appendix while they were there. It was a great operation. On Thursday, we played soccer with orphans and street kids. They were amazing and kicked our butts even though we had a few extra people on our team. These kids are part of the Youth Outreach Programme. HELP donated game jerseys and ball for these kids. I can't wait to see one of their games. This last weekend, we went rafting on the River Nile. It was soooooooo awesome but not the best place to start learning how to raft. Most of the rapids were class 5. One time we were going over a waterfall (yes, a stinkin waterfall) and I slid all the way from the back of the raft to the front. Of course, we got stuck underneath the waterfall too. We were being pelted with the water and our raft was starting to tip so we all scurried to one side to try and paddle. It was ridiculous. Overall, I only fell out two times. This was because our raft flipped or because or raft nearly flipped and my spot of the raft was completely washed out. The last rapid flipped every raft that came through. It wouldn't have been bad if I didn't get sucked down by a boil and stuck under water for a good 20 seconds. I am so glad that I had a helmet on. I also got burnt by the sun really badly. I put on sunscreen but it did absolutely nothing for me. I am burnt so badly that I have blisters on my knees, shoulders, and upper arms. I cannot sleep at night because of the pain, but it was totally worth it. I went to the hospital yesterday to meet with the head doctor about our research and we ran into Jospephine, the head public health nurse who we work with on several projects, and she gave me a big hug. I felt like crying and told her that I was burnt by the sun. Being black, she didn't understand what a sun burn was and kept slapping her hand on my burns saying that I had a fever. She didn't understand that she was killing me each time that she touched me and popping blisters in the process. The work here is going well. We are making great strides with our HIV research project. Also, we taught our first HIV lesson to a secondary school last week. It went well, but I am surprised at how much the kids do not know. We had to go back to the drawing board to change our lesson so we could address the kids questions better. HIV screening is going well as usual. In the next couple weeks, we want to open up new areas for the testing.We are trying to get our handwashing stations/sanitation lesson off the ground. We are struggling with those a little bit due to a lack of time, but I found a great rural school up in Najja that would be a perfect beneficiary. They have built this school out of nothing. About half of the students are orphans because their parents died of AIDS. The HIV/AIDS rate in this area is out of control. Hopefully, I will be able to do something to change this. As a team, we are creating an agricultural school, constructing a nursery garden, creating a mushroom house, constructing many stoves, creating disability physical therapy and support groups, conducting business training, training teachers, planning for eye camp, and expanding a school house. I love being able to jump onto a stove project, visit an orphanage, plan eye camp, work on the AIDS extravaganza coming up in July, or work with partners to improve their small projects. The days seem to fly by because we are doing so much. Today, we went up to Najja to talk to the ag school there. We were packed into a tiny taxi. These taxis are the size of a normal mini van. We had 22-23 people in the taxi. I had an adult man sitting on my sun burnt knees while a chicken was pecking my poor sun burnt arm. The ride was miserable but the meeting was great. As it turns out, the church just donated a huge water tank to the school. We also met an elderlyLDS couple who are serving their mission in the area. They just happened to be at the school. It was so great because we are the only members in the area. What a coincidence running into this couple in the middle of nowhere. I love it here and am so grateful for this opportunity and my health. I have been blessed with a very privileged life and the opportunity to serve these great people.