Admitting is the first step.

So, this weekend in Kampala I have found out that I infact have a problem. I know that you have known I have many problems for a very long time, BUT this one is new to me. (If you would like to report other problems that you are aware of but I am, just get the proper forms and return them to my secretary, signed in triplicate, notarized, and filed 3 months prior to the date you would like action to be taken.) ... I digress...

So there I was in Kampala walking down the street, and I was ensnared by an aroma that happened to waft across my path. This aroma happened to be that wonderful smell that ocurs on the premises of coffee shops. This aroma has always been a favorite of mine. In fact when I needed to be productive at school I would leave my apartment and go to a coffee shop. This means that the last couple of weeks of school I was in at Cafe Diem more often than my apartment. This also means that my coffee drink intake was high.

So as I was walking and this aroma captured me, I'm not sure what happened next... its kind of a blur, but the next thing I remember is sitting in the coffee shop ordering an iced mocha. Yes I got ice, coffee, and chocolate all at the same magical moment. It was lovely. (For those concerned about my healthy I made sure that the ice was boiled, or the water was boiled before taking on the form of crystalline wonderfulness.)

So Julius also had one of these. He was not a big fan. In fact he thought I was crazy for being so excited about it, but excited I was.

Then we continued to journey around Kampala. It was good we went all over the place and saw many things, bought things we didn't need because, well... it seemed like a good idea at the time.

In other news Kampala is MUCH more western than Mbale,or the rest of Uganda that I have been. There are some places that you would guess that you are in the US. Large shopping centers complete with escalators and shoe stores that have new shoes of assorted varieties, looking much like the US stores. (In one of these stores there was a coffee shop, I accidentally got more coffee there. Julius was lost and I found that place so I got more to pass the time until he was found.)

So I was just talking to Julius about how much like the US Kampala is as we were going to have our lunch. He ordered because... that is what he likes to do... So the food comes. Matooke, rice, and casava with a red sauce over it. I thought that it was peices of soya (similar to tofu but with more texture), then I asked him about half way through the plate what kind of sauce it was. (Reminder: We were just talking about how western things in Kampala can be.) He said it was "uva" or something like that, and I asked what that was. (For you Spanish speakers, or non Spanish speakers, I thought... this is not grapes (uvas = grapes.) He said oh, its intestines...

OH... uh... alright... it really tasted pretty good. The texture seemed much stranger as I finished eating. Note to self... Self, don't ask what you're eating until you have finished eating it.

Then I went back to the hotel I was staying at, I was very tired... I went to bed... failed to sleep, tried to read, tried to sleep, played on my computer, tried to sleep, called my parents, tried to sleep... The last time I looked at the clock it was just after 5 AM. I then got up at 6:30 to get ready for church.

The moral of this story is that after 2 months without coffee, DO NOT take coffee drinks with a total of 4 shots of espresso in the afternoon. You will not be very able to sleep. Looking back I would say it was probably worth it... they were amazing...

So the reason to go to Kampala was to work on importing soybeans right? Right. So that failed... Contrary to my previous conversations with the people, now I don't just need the papers, but a research plan submitted to a research institute and then approved by them. They need to oversee the research. The crop needs to be grown for 2 season before the seeds can be increased.

This is precisely what the school not equipped/willing to do.

Then I preached at a church just outside of Kampala on Sunday. Walked back to town, where Julius had a meeting at 3. At about 5:45 the meeting started. Julius and I then gave an orientation to Mbale. There is a mission here this week with door to door evangelism and a crusade every evening. There are about 12-15 mzungus from the US that are taking part in this. We told them what it was like here... It is good that one of my spiritual gifts is doing things not according to a plan, because plans are generally not what people go by. Example: the people were supposed to leave for Mbale at 9:00 AM. Julius called me at 5:00 PM. They were just leaving Mbale.

After the meeting I went to the taxi park to get a taxi to Mbale. The taxi did not leave until about 8:00. I got to Mbale at 12:30. I was very tired, remember how I got 1.5 hours of sleep the night before.

Then yesterday we made no bake cookies. That was fun. People were quite confused with what it was (it doesn't look all that appetizing), but after trying it they liked it very much. Boniface was not all that excited about it. He asked if he was going to get diabetes from it. Note: he had about 1 ounce of cookie.

NOW, I must go get ready for my discipleship class. I'm glad that you have made it through this post. I should have perhaps built in an intermission, but that would have had to happen at a tense moment, and since rambling is never tense, there is no place for it. I suppose we'll have to just live with the narcolepsy inducing nature that my blog is famous for.