Day 48 - New Volunteers... again.

Already a new set of volunteers has creep their way into Uganda and the seen has totally changed. We were a group of 16 all living under the same roof. We are now 1 1/2 times bigger with 8 new volunteers; 24 people! Of course, there are still 16 people in the house and we have moved 8 people into the Mayor’s house, in the boy’s quarters that are in back. It’s interesting to have new faces walking around and new personalities to try and get used to. I’m glad to have them here, we could really use the help actually. Things are picking up and we need more hands to help things REALLY get rolling. We are scheduling more and more adobe stoves all the time and we’re going to need a lot of help with those.

The morning started out with a bit of trauma as Tori and I took Heidi to Dr. Debbie in Jinja to get her butt sown up. Poor girl. Dr. Debbie was really nice again, but still with her very stern personality. She’s definitely a doctor, and one without much feeling left. She used a needle much larger than the one I used to numb Heidi up; again, I felt really bad for Heidi. I was about to offer her the smaller needle that I had used last night but I didn’t dare say anything. I just bit my tongue and watch her suffer. She got the suture kit out. The suture needle wasn’t exactly super sharp like I’m used to seeing. She began stitching and, of course, the needle wasn’t exactly slipping through her flesh like it should have. The stitches were a little bit rough too, though stitching isn’t her everyday activity so I guess I can understand. She knew that I was a medical assistant and we were talking about how I was GOING to bring a suture kit but failed to. She then asked if I’d like to “throw a stitch in.” Of course, I shrugged and the conversation floated away. She was all done up and we were out of there just as fast as we got in.

Pour Amber and Heidi had to give up their room to me and Trent. Trent and I are now the only 2 guys in the house and I must say I don’t mind. We have our own room and it doesn’t smell! I felt bad that we had to kick the girls out, but it had to work out that way... I’m just glad to still be in the house. We made the switch which required a bit of effort but was successful nonetheless. I tried to get others around the house to be motivated enough to clean up for the arrival of the new volunteers, but nobody was to hot on the idea, not surprising. So, I tidied up as much as I could and that was it! The volunteers got here and I helped them in with their bags. It’s going to be interesting having new people around, but it will be good to mix things up. We had a small logistics tour with everybody. Dan and I were assigned to take DJ, but Dan ended up staying in Seya pretty late. So I took DJ around and showed him all of the important things around town. He’s a real nice guy, very cool, easy to talk to, and will be a great asset to our team. We are hoping to get him trained really well on the stoves so that we can use him as a group lead for the Simba Stoves. We want him to be able to take a group of people and go build a stove with no problem.

When dinner time rolled around, it was really funny to watch the new volunteers serve up and eat their food. It was obviously a different experience for them... they weren't prepared for steamed cabbage, beans, and rice, and maybe another thing or two that was "weird." I'm sure they'll get used to it in a couple of days when they come home starving from working all day.