Parasites!

Last night was miserable for us, seeing that we both caught a parasite. We woke up hardly being able to lift our heads off of the pillow. We had been sharing water from the same water bottles and we were buying it from the local market. We were soon informed that many of the water bottles that we had bought had possibly been recycled and filled with either tap wate, or water from other tainted sources. (The Nile maybe?) ha ha. No wonder we had gotten ill...rumor had it in Gulu that they would refill the bottles from the bottom and seal them back up melting the bottoms back. From this point on, we would start to check the bottoms before we bought them. We found a surprising amount of bottles the next few days that looked exactly as this were the case. It is really tough being the sickest you have ever been, and not having running water or electricity. No bathroom to get sick in. Just a hole in the ground and a little bit of hand sanitizer. I felt that I had enough energy to take the day on, but Sarah could not get out of bed, so she rested all day while we went to the village to continue our work.

That day we were contacted by Invisible Children, and told that there was a new organization in town called R.E.N.U.H. (Restoring Northern Uganda's Hospitals.) and they were renting a house with another organization called the Kroche Kids. Both organizations were made up with college students passionate about helping the Acholi people. We were told that the house that they had rented would be opened up as a hostel so we could stay there as long as we would like, but it was just purchased that day and we would need to help them set it up. This was a blast. We met all the other students from the organizations and we all got along so well. They made us feel welcome and we all chipped in to put together bunk beds, get furniture from the market, cook our meals and get the house into working order. It was a rough process, (seeing that we had little to work with) but it came together well. The house actually had running water and a nice latrine out back that was far nicer than our previous hotel. We were able to take our first (cold) showers, and it felt great. We had electricity about half the time but it would go out just about every night. They asked me to paint a Muriel on one of the walls so I started the project with one pencil, and a packet of permanent markers. 7 and 1/2 hours later I had finished
(in the dark with a head lamp) the Mureil. It was such a long process with no paint, but I feel it worked out well for them. It read "welcome to the Adservio and KK House!"