18 hours and counting!!

Less than 18 hours until my flight leaves from DC!! (Though I can’t post this to the internet from where I am, so the posted time will read much later than that) I’m staying at school near Philly in the apartment I’ll live in with friends when I return from Uganda. We’ve stopped here to unload some furniture and say goodbye to friends. The past week has been full of goodbyes – get-togethers with family and close friends. Packing has been a challenge, and was incredibly stressful yesterday and today. I’ve been freaking out wondering if I have everything I need. I finally just told myself I’d be fine, checked my list over, packed the car, and we left. I feel a little overwhelmed mentally, probably due to all the goodbyes and frustration of packing, plus the feeling of venturing into the unknown. Though I’m not sure the latter is a stressor so much as a release for me – I’m so excited to experience a way of life so different from what I’ve ever known. Tonight while disussing with my friends the types of food I’ll be eating, I remarked that I wouldn’t mind being the one who has to kill the chicken for a meal while I’m in Uganda. They got a good laugh out of that. But in all seriousness, I really want all the experience I can get.

I received a tentative calendar for the semester on Monday. Our first week is orientation and we leave for our trip to Rwanda on September 1st. We’ll be there for a week. I’m excited for that; I’m sure it will be extremely intense and an incredibly memorable experience. On Monday night I watched the movie Hotel Rwanda with my family – somehow I’ve managed to have never seen it until that point, despite the many high school teachers at Ketcham that showed it in their social studies classes. Anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie I highly recommend it. It’s the gripping account of the Rwandan genocide that occurred in 1994 in which over a million Rwandans were slaughtered. The movie focuses on one man, the manager of a hotel in Rwanda, that housed just under 1000 people, saving their lives. I’m sure I’ll meet many people on our trip that will relate their experience and survival of the genocide. We were told to be prepared to share a 5 minute testimony and a 20 minute sermon to share with the churches we’ll be visiting both in Rwanda and in Uganda throughout the semester. Apparently it’s proper to share when one visits a congregation.

I’ve been told not to expect to have any internet or telephone access from the time we fly out until after our trip to Rwanda. So if you don’t see any updates for 2 weeks or a little longer that’s why (We start classes September 10th, so I’m sure I’ll have access by then). That just means I’ll have that much more to update you on when I do have internet access!

Oh by the way, if you’d like to leave comments on my blog, you can click on “comments” below each blog entry, which will take you to an entry page where you can type and submit a comment. I’ll be checking my e-mail and facebook as often as I can, and I’ll do my best to stay in touch. If you’d like to send me mail while I’m gone, my address is:

Joelle Morabito, Uganda Studies Programme
Uganda Christian University
P.O. Box 4
Mukono, UGANDA

I’m told that it’s not a good idea to send packages, but smaller, padded envelopes are okay.

I’m so excited to leave tomorrow; it feels like I’ve been waiting all summer for this. Thanks for all your prayers and the love I’ve felt from family and friends. I’ll miss you all, and I hope you enjoy sharing in my experience as you read my blog.

~Joelle~