Groundhog Day

Many have asked how we are doing.  I share stories and abstract photos, but I don't share the everyday things we do here.  Let's put it this way, this phase we are in right now gaining legal guardianship here in Uganda is like the movie Groundhog Day. The same things happen everyday, maybe in a different order, maybe even spiced up a bit, but the same none the less. Everyday feels like February 2. 

Let me give you a glimpse into our February 2nd. This is not a pity party, just an idea of what our days include and why I haven't posted much. 

We do nothing. Nothing of importance, or purpose. Nothing except wonder how long we will be here. The unknown is really something you can drive yourself crazy contemplating. 

We do nothing A LOT. But we also enjoy watching Imani clean her toys, the clean floor, or the dirty porch (with her white doll shirt because that seemed like a good rag) after we've played all we can but she's not done. 

We do the same puzzles, read the same books, play the same iPad games, sing the same songs, and watch the same iPad videos everyday. Good thing repetition helps children learn.  Imani will not only know her alphabet through song, but by recognizing the letters and tracing them.  Danny and I will be singing it in our sleep. :) 

We watch tv that is constantly resetting, or goes out and coming back in blurry lines. Sometimes its in another language and there are no subtitles, but the lip movements don't match at all. I've also seen Richard Marx "Waiting for You" and Sinéad O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" music videos. 

We get excited about our daily (sometimes 2) trip to Caffe Roma.  It's decent prices and we get a lot of yummy food.  It's enough for a take away meal for Imani the next day.  It's also cheap gelato. 2000 shillings for a small cup.  That's less than a dollar. 

We eat the same foods just about everyday here at the guest house for breakfast. Mango, pineapple or banana, french toast/toast with coffee and juice. Rice and any kind of meat you put in front of Imani for the other two meals.  Girlfriend hasn't met an animal (goat, cow, pig, lamb, chicken, fish) she doesn't thoroughly enjoy.  Even it means chewing said animal for 5 minutes.  She cleans the bone and leaves nothing besides it on the plate.  

We try to go on an outing (the ATM machine, lawyers office, grocery store, the american club) each day to keep our sanity.  But outings cost money and we could be here a while so we must budget the little money we have.  

We talk about home.  We try to contact home as often as possible, but it's usually when friends and family are still sleeping, or at work, or it's not a convenient time. FaceTime and Skype leave us feeling refreshed, for a few minutes anyway. Imani likes FaceTime because she is so shy and interacting via the iPad is easier. She'll sing, dance, and wave to lucky people over the Internet, but only started speaking to our driver yesterday! Girlfriend is just so much cooler online I guess :)

We go to bed at about 8:30 or 9pm each night. Imani is usually sleeping by 7:30, but it gets dark out and there is really nothing else to do. 

So with that said, we went on safari to change things up a bit. Three days, two nights, hundreds of antelope, dozens of giraffes, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, water buffalo, baboons, monkeys, birds, a leopard, a lion practically within our reach and ONE ALL AROUND AMAZING EXPERIENCE! 

But alas, we woke up from these days and it was February 2 again.