Cliche, beans, what can you do.

 I'll try to take more exciting pictures this weekend when we're in town, I promise.

This is what I get to see every morning.

Er, well, every morning that I actually wake up for quiet time.

So, this is what I get to see once a week.

It's Friday night, and the end of my third week here in Africa, which I thought was incredibly significant until I realized that I still have a good seventeen weeks left. It's so weird, just to look at the outward changes that have taken place over the last few weeks. Lucy and I often complain that there is nothing about us now that in any way resembles who we were back home, and it's really true. I feel like I've been completely stripped of all the little habits and routines that have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. For instance, where I used to shower obsessively, sometimes twice a day, I now get by two or three days without a shower, just excessive deodorant and loads of bobby pins. It's not that we don't have time to shower, it's just that, when faced with a freezing, filthy shower room, being dirty seems like a far better alternative. Another thing, I used to take pride in my love for healthy eating, and general living. This summer, I developed such positive habits, frequent working out, lots of vegetables and just little things like that. Now, I eat my feelings, and spend most of my free time sitting around. I guess I'm just a slow adjuster, maybe in a month or so I'll be running to Lake Victoria and back every morning, as I had planned on doing before I came here and realized just how early six o'clock actually was. But, changes and discomforts aside, I love my life here. I realize it more and more every day. Now that the culture shock is (mostly) over, I can appreciate the little things that annoyed me before, and I'm getting to learn a whole new way of life. For instance, last night, I was introduced to sugar cane when I looked over and saw Becky, the Ugandan girl in the bed next to me, eating what looked like a bit of a tree. It was hysterical and slightly alarming, but she let me try some, and after I choked it down (you're apparently NOT supposed to swallow that stuff), I actually really enjoyed it. So, there. I'm one step closer to being a true African, I guess.

The little baby goats that live on the base. 

The African sky, on a "cloudy" night. It looks like I'm just really bad at holding my camera still - false. I'm actually just really bad at being patient. I was sitting outside, meaning to do a star trail picture (where you hold the camera and capture the motion of the earth by the trails of light the stars make) but I got bored, and also distracted when about ten men gathered around me because they were worried that I was sick or sad or something since I was crouching over the ground clutching my camera to try to keep it still. 

But, even though I'm a bit of a failure at photographs that require patience, I had to post this one up here, because the time I got to spend looking at the sky last night was a real turning point for me, I absolutely fell in love with this country. There's a peace here that I've never known before, I know that a large part of that is from God and all that I am learning about His nature and His love, but part of it is just this land and its beauty. I am now convinced that there is not an inch of this country that is not completely and totally filled with life. Animals, plants, bugs, people, even the water is so full of life. I have never felt so at peace with the world around me, and subsequently with myself. This morning, for the first time in the two weeks that I've been here, I woke up (at six am, to African chants of praise) and thought about how hard it would be to leave, once it came time to do so.