We are in Africa!!!

Hello friends and family!!!!

The traveling experience:
Everything went smoothly as we flew through the states, but once we got to London, things started to get a little out of control.  We got there in the morning (but it was the middle of the night for us), and decided we wanted to tour London for the day (we had a 12 hour layover).  We got off to a slow start, trying to decide what to do, but once we figured that out, and how to use the subway, we got to London pretty quickly.  The one thing that could have made everything better would have been if we would have left our carry-ons at the airport.  But we were feeling invincible, so we took our backpacks and 2 suitcases, and trekked all over London.  And I mean allllll over.  Our goal was to go to the British Museum, but getting there turned out to be quite the challenge.  Not only were we exhausted from walking all around, but halfway through our walk, both of the wheels on our suitcases froze up and wouldn't turn anymore.  I was about in tears, but luckily, Richard has been working out for the past couple months, and he used his big strong man muscles to carry both our suitcases for the rest of the way.  By the time we finally got to the Museum, we realized it was time to head back to the airport, and so we didn't ever get to go inside.  Needless to say, we were pretty bummed.  We had spent way too much money for way too little fun.  I think the one good thing about that trip was that we had some fish and chips...that was one expensive lunch!  Anyway, when we got back to the airport, we found out that our flight had been delayed for 2 hours.  Needless to say, we were totally grumpy with the way our London experience turned out.  The last highlight (if you can call it that) of the trip was that I lost my main suitcase with all my clothes, medicine, toiletries, and more..which was pretty upsetting.  We are 6 hours away from the airport, and it is not easy to go back.  Luckily, they were able to find it yesterday, so we will be getting it in the next couple of days. 

Richard and I made it safely to Mbale, Uganda - we got here very late on wednesday night, and jumped right into the work the next day at 7:30AM. 

We went to a small village called Pallisa - way out in the middle of nowhere - and had an AMAZING first day experience - I feel like we really experienced Africa.  I couldn't believe my eyes, and the whole time, I just felt like I was watching a movie...except we were actually there! Here are some of the highlights from that experience:
 - being called "Muzungu" (white person) by many of the African people
 - Playing with and teaching the children
 - Being sung to by the children and the women of the village
 - Having the best dance party ever with the villagers - they were so crazy, and we loved it!
 - Interviewing the members of a polygamist homestead - Richard and I asked them about the children and their education, and other people asked questions about health and other topics
 - Eating an authentic African meal of rice, posho (boiled water and cornmeal - it makes a flavorless dough..ick), fish, beef, and pineapple - we felt that they were very generous to us. 
 - Traveling on an extremely bumpy dirt road for about 2 hours with 19 of us in one toyota mini van

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to upload pictures, but we will do so in a couple days!