Final Days in Uganda

It's been a week since I departed from Uganda and the Momenta workshop ended, and I still can't seem to find the right words to talk about it... I miss it. It was an amazing experience and I'm honored to have been able to share it with such wonderful people that are now like family to me. Below are a few snapshots of the final days there. I know I need to post some of my actual work, but I'm just not ready for that yet. :-)

I've been traveling for almost one month straight and now that I have a small break, I don't know what to do first! Right after I landed in JFK last Monday, I drove to Staten Island for my car, drove to Mayfield to see my parents, and drove to Syracuse for school on Wednesday morning. I didn't even get to unpack before I left Thursday night and drove to DC for 2 days with my friends Jess and Allison, slept only about 6 hours total while there, and then I drove back Saturday night and got in around 1:30 AM. Today, I spent most of my day barely catching up on emails, homework, laundry, and so on. Phew. I'm out of breath just thinking about it!

So what's next? Well... I have to finish up my time here at SU, move back to PA at the end of April before school even ends, fly to St. Petersburg for the Poynter summer fellowship on May 17 ( and make sure I have all of my grades handed in for my students at OCC), return on May 29, and then drive to Moline, Illinois to start my internship which begins June 1. Whoa.... what do I have to say about all of that..... This is so awesome!!! 

Last minute edits before the final show.

Carl and Molly hanging out at TASO headquarters.

Once again, no I did not see any elephants, giraffes, lions, tigers, guerillas, and so on. I was not on a safari! hehehe ( I love you all) However, yes, I saw a baboon. Other than cows, goats, chickens, ducks, lizards, terrifying gigantic prehistoric looking birds, a large cockroach in my bed, a frog in Carl's toilet, lots of mosquitoes, a couple of cats, and a rigor-mortis giant rat (that the people there insisted was not a rat, uh huh...),  this is the only "exotic", if you will, animal that I saw. They were pretty cool, and whole lot larger than I thought they would be. They came right up to the van we were driving in on our way back to Kampala. I was a bit worried that one was going jump up and smack someone in the face or, worse yet, grab a camera. 

I don't even know what to say about this. 

The drive to Entebbe airport.

Still in the car.

We looked a little rough around the edges after our two weeks in Uganda... We were the smelly ones on the plane. This is Sam Stewart (Sham) and Eva Russo (legs) while we were waiting for our flight to Amsterdam. 

I did get to see Jamie Rose (my mama Jimie)  and Eva at the NPPA Northern Short Course this weekend, and it was like a sigh of relief just seeing their smiling faces. It felt so good to give them big hugs and laugh about all of our strange you had to be there encounters!