We Become What We Choose

Yesterday we went to an orphanage and played with the kids, as well as saw their AMAZING array of gardens and plants. They have it all, from avacados, matoke, PINEAPPLE plants!!!, (I thought to ask if they had pickle plants, if you get my gist ;) ), potatoes, tomatoes, rice (?totally don't get it), cabbage, more cabbage, cassava, beans, and other things like nanners. (bananas). The ride out there was quite the adventure. We boda-ed (rode motorcycles) for an hour, and just as I was getting off I was pulling my billowy skirt together, because it was going EVERYWHERE. As I was too preoccupied not paying attention, I love-tapped my leg on the exhaust. Remember that little motorcycle we would drive around the house until Adrienne eventually drove it into the house? (had to throw that last part in there for you, Adrienne). ;) Yeah, well that is a MINI me compared to this motorcycle. A vote decided the above burn (on my super white legs--you THOUGHT I was getting a tan. Joke. Still white!) was a heart. What a pus-villed, searing heart. This is how I want to think of love. Painful and blistery.

The rest of the day at the orphanage was WAY neat! We ate lunch there, eating strictly from the food they grow. Inspired me to plant me a li'l tomato garden come fall. Hold me to it, eh? I had a LOT of thoughts as we were about to leave there. Everyone was clamoring to get pictures with the little black orphan kids to post to blogs and e-mail home. Suddenly to me the whole thing seemed cheap. I want to have these memories in my mind of REAL events, not of staged pictures to show. I mean, I want pictures, definitely, but with everyone coming together to only stage "cute" pictures to show people... that's not what I want. I want genuine, sincere moments. With the picture at the top of today's blog, I heavily debated putting it up. To me, that was such a REAL moment that when I saw the picture on someone's camera, I was amazed at how it really captured that moment. Everyone was putting the little boy on their lap for the picture, me included, and then went off to take more. I just stayed in the chair with him on my lap and rocked him to sleep. As he sat on my lap, I started to think how Heavenly Father knows all His children so intimately well that He knows what challenges to give them in earth life. How different these children's lives are from the life I enjoyed growing up. Not to say that they don't enjoy their lives--they are completely happy, because they enjoy much different things than I did. But I tried to put myself in this little boy's life for a day--for a lifetime. I can't imagine. In my life, I can be WHATEVER I want to be. If I decide tomorrow that I want to be a doctor, I have the means to make it happen. If I decide I want to live the rest of my life watching movies and just living paycheck to paycheck, so be it. But it is my CHOICE. I'm not the product of my environment as much as I'm able to transform my environment.

Our NEXT site visitor, Peter, is here for this week. We had a REALLY neat talk. He's like the grand-daddy of the group; older Vietnam veteran who serves on the board. I've taken a newform of entertainment of writing little messages with pen on each square of toliet paper. Then I roll it up and set it back in the bathroom. Well, I was out doing that this morning before I had real committments to attend to, and he came out. He told me how I have such a happy spirit, and that to develop that talent/characteristic will give me the ability to make a tremendous influence on people's lives and things around me. I took those words to heart, and my "deep" thinking continues on. Everyone has characteristics they are blessed with, and life is not a matter of "finding our destiny" (sounds totally faggish, I know), but rather "creating our destiny."

everyone in the house could tell that something dramatic was going down because our CD's (country directors) had a LOT of "secret meetings". AKA meetings in their room, which now happens to be the room for 4 others of us. While these meetings were happening, we were booted from a home for some hours. Oh, the joys! In jest, the rest of us in the room joke that for everyone in the house, an open-door policy exists. However, if you live in the room, a closed-door policy exists. Well, Morris is gone. The man from teh security company came to release him and told us that he wasn't going to "let his boy go without a meal." Nicole, our CD, asked me to pack a lunch for him.We had to let go of our guard, Morris. This was especially hard/weird, because all week Nostalgically, I made a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich to send him on his way. When I came home and another guard was there, I felt sad already. The temporary guard we have is the one who usually guards for HELP. This year, the team in Mukono (30 minutes away) got to him first. I was showing him my journal and offered to let him decorate a page. He used stickers like an EXPERT. The bolded words are stickers
His page says:
Cecilly we are now Best FRIENDS forever but not within Africa only but worldwide. The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.
Celebrate in STYLE! Like now am doing it because I did not know we could meet at the same place and start laughing with you or smiling like the people who grew up in one family. *Cecilly when you Laugh Out Loud I just feel like naming my last child after your name, so that she can also laugh the way you are laughing.
*It is not the right time for me to say these words aside but I wish i could say it at the end of the season or at the end of this summer.
*All these words above are from and it's for David Ceilly

Presh.

One of the big projects I am doing is working with an elderly group, to kind of start bringing community members together that are in the same life situation: for example, we have this elderly group. The first meeting was 4, then 6, 9, and now 14. We played BINGO one week--total HIT. They loved it. This week we did a presentation on how to take care of their backs, and then they taught us a game. That's what the above right picture is--all the "jejas" (respectful name for "grandmas"). The new kid, Jon, is really chill. He's getting married September 2, so all the girls are basically let down. I won't state my opinion on if I am or not. ;) Suffice to say that he provides a male relief that Kyle and Tim just didn't cover.