Days 11, 12, 13 and 14

Its been a little while since my last post. Lets see, since my last post I have done a few things.

On Sunday, I was able to attend a different church that was more African than the previous one, the pastor spoke in English or Lugandan and they had a translator for the other that he didn't speak in unlike the previous one where I went to which was all English. After that I went to visit one of the boys youth homes and got to spend some time with them and share with them. I also got a soccer ball or a net ball for each of the youth homes and got to give this home a soccer ball and we played with them for a little while. That night I got to sit in on a COSA meeting which is for all the people that graduated or went through the Cornerstone program. That was cool to see, even if everyone who went through it wasn't there, but just that they still have a community together even after they graduate.

On Monday I got to do some engineering research. I went to visit the offices of EMI, Engineering Ministries International, which was awesome to talk with them and get advice and information. They also shared with me about an internship program that they have that they encouraged me to apply to. Most likely right after I graduate in order to be the most help in the projects. That would be a good opportunity to come back to Ugandan and actually do some engineering here. After that in the afternoon I got to visit the largest University that they have in Uganda and meet with one of the Mechanical Engineering Professors there and ask questions and get advice on what masters program/course to get that would be most beneficial to Uganda. That was helpful to hear from a Ugandan Engineer. That night we tried to go bowling to celebrate the 4th of July but it ended up being closed on Mondays. When we got back to the cornerstone guest houses they were doing that TED talk group again bust this time they had a speaker that talked on the importance of Networking and good/helpful approaches to do so, which was encouraging and helpful.

On Tuesday I had the morning off and was scheduled to meet with Dunstan who helps with Uganda Orphans Fund who I went to Uganda with last time, but there was a miss communication and he thought we were meeting on Wednesday. That afternoon we went to one of the girls youth homes and spent time sharing and playing with them. They even had a song to sing to us. It was amazing to learn and I didn't really put it together until talking with some of the mentors, but all the mentors (the people who help take care and oversee the day to day lives of the boys/girls in the homes) are almost on in college and around my age. They are students as well as taking care of the kids, which is a big load. After that we got to go bowling after postponing it from Monday! You had the option to just use your socks if you didn't want to rent the shoes which I thought was interesting but fine with my if that means we didn't have to pay extra.

Today was a travel day. We took a bus north to Gulu which was about a 6 hour bus ride, after waiting 2 hours for the bus because we had missed the earlier bus. We are at St. Monica's which is a boarding school for special cases like girls who were abducted from the LRA and who returned from the bush. We are going to be doing some work for them, working on the little banana plantation that they have as well as digging some fence holes for them, along with getting some time to interact with them while we are here.