July 3rd, 2011

July 3rd, 2011


Today is a great day. A lot of things happened today, but it is also my step-mother’s birthday. I would like to give a huge shout-out to Sue wishing her a very happy birthday. I am pretty lucky to have such an awesome family that supports me through all the crazy things that I choose to do.

It was a peaceful morning with a nice breakfast and African tea to top it off. I decided imma start everyday with a cup of African tea. It is too good to pass up. Plus, coffee just makes me jittery. Started reading The Hunger Games yesterday and it isn’t too bad. Finished Matterhorn which I started when I got here. Took awhile, but that was one thick book. Glad to be moving on, despite how good it was.

So the monkeys had to be released into the wild today. Bryan brought home a basket and we managed to wrestle them into it with help from Emma. We then drove em out to a village that was quite the ways off. After driving up a sketchy path off the dirt road we found a beautiful place to release them. I hope Baby Gino and Momma G make it. People around here don’t take kindly to monkeys because they destroy crops. If they are caught or even seen by people around there, their chances of survival go down drastically. This land we stumbled on was awesome though. It looked like someone regularly mowed the vegetation and trees were cleared so there was a lot of open space. They left just the right amount of trees to provide a nice layer of shade. If this land was owned by Musana we would have the most epic capture the flag games ever! Bryan and I decided to hang out a bit at this place because it was so peaceful. It is definitely used for cattle grazing by someone, but other than that we didn’t see anyone out there. It was sad to see the monkeys go, but maybe being free is better for em. Ill definitely miss brushing my teeth with them every morning.

The village is a unique thing to see. People live similar to how others live like near the farm, which is in a different village. There are a few nicer buildings (nice is relative of course) but I saw a lot of mud huts and houses. I don’t think many village people see to many Mzungus (white people) everyday. One lady near where we dropped off the monkeys was actually even frightened of us. Or they were all just messin around. Pretty sure she was scared though. It’s pretty crazy that we alter people’s day by just showing up to a less traveled place out in the forest.

We got a call from Santongo while we were out releasing the monkeys that Umaru decided to run away from Musana. This is his second time I guess. He came from Mbale and hasn’t been here very long. Musana is certainly not a prison, but I feel like other kids would kill to be living, or attending school at this place. I am surprised this kid is so persistent on leaving. Not sure if Musana will even keep him around now. All I know is that our home is much better than the place he came from. Guess we’ll see...