The New Crew:

As you may or may not have noticed my blogging has become a little less common. Firstly, I apologize. Secondly, I must say it is a good thing for me; because it means that I have too many better things to do. As, we continue in our transition from our summer crew to our fall crew, a lot more responsibility falls into my hands. And maybe for the first time, I think I know what I’m doing. I am really thankful I’ve had the opportunity to be here for five months rather than the intended two. It seems that after two months I am just beginning to cross barriers I didn’t realize existed. Additionally, I know I wouldn’t have been comfortable with my impact here or lack thereof, if I had to go home after two months.

Now to the new crew: first came, Miss Rachel


Rachel and I already tend to embarrassingly say things in unison in our sweet but painfully obvious American accents. Americans generally like to say, “please, thank you and your welcome” for everything and that’s not bad, but just not so normal…here. Rachel has got an eye for running Maple, almost as much as she’s got an eye for the latest fashion. As you can imagine after two months in the same clothes, this diva is excited to have a few new dresses to steal out of Rachel’s closet. But for more than just Rachel’s good taste in clothes, as a founding member of Maple, Rachel is a very valuable new member to Maple Uganda and I for one am super excited to have her here.

Next came B-Rad….



He is true to his name. Friday night the boys and I hit up Mbale town and Brad proved how rad he can be. I knew the Ugandan liquor, “Waragi” could make me dance pretty awesome, but I had no idea of its potential until Brad came along and knocked me out of the water and off of the dance floor. Brad is going to take lead on our Maple work in Lira and in his free time he tosses the American football around with the excited local munchkins and lights up everyone’s day with his big contagious smile.

And then there was Jo-el:



Joel: “smile…go file,”
Me: “what?”
Who doesn’t love random comments here n there….well, with Joel they are everywhere. And so far, it’s great. I almost forgot I snort sometimes when I laugh, but these guys have me laughing enough that it’s impossible to forget. Joel is going to be in charge of finding Maple a village to work with, so when he isn’t organizing that, Joel enjoys rambling non sense (sometimes even in Spanish or Arabic), crosswords (sometimes both at the same time) and beating me at Yahtzee.

Well that’s the crew and it seems that we have about as many corks as we do charms, so we are in for anything but a boring few months!