214/365

214/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

The girls were obsessed with the two kittens and their mother that stayed at the house. When I walked out in the morning I found the three of them oohing and awing over the (flea covered) kittens.

It was such a nice morning. I wrote in my journal and enjoyed the views. We had tea and bread for breakfast. We also had the sweetest bananas that I've ever tasted - because they were right off the trees outside. They were more yellow inside than bananas I've had from the supermarket. I could have eaten bananas the entire time we were there. If only.

As quick as the morning went, the afternoon dragged. We went over to the other house where the party was to be and had lunch (rice and beans). Everyone was there to prepare for the next day. Miss Pauline had 200 pounds of rice to sort through for rocks and other things, so I was excited to help her and have something to do. It took us from 4:00 to 7:00 to get halfway through. I was starting to feel unwell and a little bit crazy from starring at rice for so long. I decided to lay down and unfortunately, I slept through dinner which was cow intestines. Too bad I missed that one! But I'd been smuggling my peanut butter and granola bars all day and I was absolutely not hungry.

I woke up around 9:00 even though I could have slept the night through. I figured we'd be leaving soon and I wanted to be awake when the time came. But I walked out and found we still had to sort through 100 more pounds of rice. So I sat down to help and we....went....slow. Miss Pauline was falling asleep on the table. We were ready to go, so ready. But Pastor Chola was working on the program for the next day. There were not enough beds for the 100 or so people there, so people were falling asleep where they sat. By midnight I was dying. I was so ready to get in a bed and away from rice. Pastor Chola said to give him 5 minutes and he'd find a key for us.

An hour later, Amy and I left with Faustin. The others had found a bed or a couch or the floor or a table to sleep on. We had to hike back to our car by the light of the moon and I was sure I'd fall. Once we got to the other house we had to hike some more - you can't just pull up to these houses. I just kept laughing because I could not believe what was happening. The only reason I wasn't scared was because I don't think God brought me to Africa to die...right? The moon was actually very bright there, but it was almost like walking with impaired vision.

The house we slept in that night actually had electricity and I've never been so happy to flip a switch. Of course, it was only on for about two seconds before I passed out.