Life in a new place is always a bit of an adventure because of all the unexpected things that happen, so I’ve come to accept that I should only be surprised if there is ever a day when there is nothing unexpected that comes my way. Here’s a bit of a snapshot of some things that all happened in just one week’s time:
- Our roommate’s sister had a baby earlier than expected (but still a healthy baby boy!), so she stayed with us for a week since her husband is in Kampala. Fun fact: I found out I have the ability to sleep through the night without hearing a newborn baby cry
Baby Favor (1 week old) 
Baby Favor (just a couple hours old)
- Apparently our landlady had put the house on Airbnb (we were not aware), so we had one hour’s notice that we had strangers spending the night that night, and she wanted the guests to stay in the room where the newborn and mother had been staying all week
- While the guests were here the water in the entire neighborhood stopped working, so we had to start fetching water and boiling some in order for them to bathe (while the girl stood waiting for us wrapped in a towel. No pressure.)
- I needed to rinse off my toothbrush, but since the water wasn’t working I decided to use some water we previously had in our flask we keep hot water in after we’ve boiled it. However, today was the day someone had decided to switch flasks with the one for milk, so I ended up pouring hot milk on my toothbrush
- While the water was out, a random lady waltzed into our yard and started filling up her jerican from our rainwater tank. She never greeted us or anything, but just sat and stared at me and Lianna for several minutes while we washed our clothes, then just left. (I locked the gate once she left so no other surprise visitors would decide to pay a visit)
- I came for worship practice for Urban Nite but 90% of the band didn’t show up and no one had said what songs we were doing that week, so the few of us that were there (half of which were not even in the band) just went through a couple songs we like and called it a day
- On the one day I was supposed to be early for work, my boda guy decided to be 45 minutes late to pick me up, and I ended up holding up an entire meeting because of it
- I had a scare when I got an email from Calvin making it sound like I wasn’t going to have completed enough credits to graduate next semester, so I had to sort that out (which is a slow process when the person you’re emailing is 8 hours behind you so you can pretty much only exchange one email a day). Thankfully we found the discrepancy and I’m still set to graduate on time
- I wasn’t told which songs the praise team for Urban Nite was going to be doing until I got to practice the day before the service, where I soon realized I only knew two of the five songs. I had to learn the other three overnight (thankfully they were in English and pretty simple) and perform them on stage the next day without going over them again with the group to make sure I really had them down
- We ran out of mics during the set, so I gave mine up (since I didn’t know the songs well), but then I didn’t have a mic to hold as a sense of security and felt even more awkward on stage (see picture)
- Our drummer and lead guitar player (who was also going to be the leader singer for most of our songs) were late to the Urban Nite service, so we just had to go ahead and start singing without them and hope they came soon
- While we were waiting for them to arrive, the other lead singer ad-libbed with a song we had not practiced (though thankfully it was one I already knew)
- During the set the leader added in a few dance breaks/dance moves that I definitely did not know how to do and we hadn’t practiced (nothing quite like learning in front of an audience who can all do it way better than you). But this is pretty much a weekly occurrence, so I’m accepting that I will be forever making a fool of myself in front of a crowd
- Lianna and I were trying to make brownies in a mug for some friends, but didn’t have any measuring cups. We figured out how many tablespoons are in a 1/4 cup and went from there
Lindy in Kabale 