Email #2

MAY 16, 2009

Back in Bolga today. I won't usually be able to write so often.

My host family goes to a Protestant church in Wulugu. There are a few
others, but no, no mormon church and no missionaries. I went with them
last Sunday, they started building a church but couldn't afford to finish.
Right now it is a cement block frame with a sort of canvas roof. Not many
people go to this church though. It was a lot of fun, the first bit was
just the pastor yelling about usual Christian things (he says if you are
about to be in an accident, you can yell "JESUS! JESUS!" and you will be
alright, so.. keep that in mind haha) but most of that was in Mampuli.
Then we all stood up and danced and sang the same song for almost ten
minutes.. and that was a lot of fun for most of the minutes. Then they did
a sort of testimony section and most of the time people just went up and
said something quick, and then started singing a song that everyone would
join in on including the two drummers playing, not with drum sticks, but
just actually sticks they must have picked up along the way. Tommorow I
will go to the Roman Catholic church with the other volunteers that live
next door; it's bigger and they have a whole band and more people singing
and dancing, so it should be fun.

At the orphanage, I've just been kind of hanging out with the kids. It's
been pretty overwhelming with 45 kids. I know a few, but I'm sure there
are still some that I have't met. The primary school is also right next to
the orphanage, so when they are on break, I gain a loooot more kids and
there's no way of keeping track of which kids are from the orphanage and
which are not, aside from the orphans' uniforms usually being all sorts of
broken. But we play a lot of soccer and dance and they teach me Mampuli.
None of my orphans speak English very well with them being so isolated, so
that's been tough too.

When I get back from the orphanage, usually around one or so, I spend a
lot of time playing and teaching ukulele to some of the Wulugu kids and
practicing Mampuli. It's really pretty relaxed, I thought I'd learn to be
a good worker and all but really I might come back fat and lazy. Ama, my
host mother, gives me tons of food and I tell her I cannot eat so much but
she tells me I must eat and grow fat, so fat that my mother will not
recognize me. I eat rice with soup (tomato paste a loooot of oil and some
peppers, and usually these weird little fish, but not in mine), yams with
soup, pasta with soup, and rice with the soup already cooked into it. And
that's all, haha. The other volunteers say that's all it will be. So I've
been taking my Flinstone's vitamins.

And that's pretty much it. I usually spend my evenings at the Wulugu
orphanage, I don't get to go back to Guabuliga after lunch. The Wulugu
orphanage is really relaxed, only about 14 kids and they are old enough to
take care of themselves. Plus it's not like I would really have to take
care of them or anything, they have two volunteers living at the
orphanage, so I get to just go hang out. And then I'm usually in bed
sometime between eight and nine, and up by six or seven. Most of the
village wakes up around 4 or 5 though.

Aaaaaaaand I don't know what else. Pictures will be hard, I can't send
them from this cafe and I dunno how else I could. But maybe I'll figure
something out. Uhhhhh if you forward this to everyone... hey everyone..
sup? but maybe you shouldn't, it's a bit boring. and long. shoot. anyways.
everything is going good still. last night i learned it's a realllly bad
idea to sleep with your mosquito net as a blanket. i knew it probably
wasn't a very good idea, but i figured whatever. oh well, i'm fine now.
just a little bit itchy and poisoned this morning. annd i probably gave
myself cancer. dangit.
love you ma