Days 9 - 10

Thought I'd better post something since I didn't yesterday - it was a "down" day for us, which was nice.  It's amazing how much recovery time we need after each of these adventures.  We've decided we've aged at least 10 years on this trip.  Uff da.  :)  And Jack and Noah have probably aged at least 5.  They are amazing - a couple times Noah has talked us down out of a tree about one thing or another - he can be so level-headed and clear at times when we are not.  And we are watching Jack grow into a man each day - it's amazing and horrifying to me all at the same time.  His hands are huge, we can see the bone structure in his face changing and now Mark was pointing out the hair above his lip (!!) . . . and it's very obvious his voice is changing.  It tears at my heart!!  And speaking of hearts, God is doing something serious in his and I hope I live to see the day when it plays out - this boy has a HEART for Uganda and the people here.  It's something we can't even relate to, to be honest.  He told us tonight he's sad about leaving.  ?!?!?  And Mark and I are counting MINUTES, people. MINUTES.

So yesterday was HAIR day for Maggie!  Our maid, Shamim, who has become a friend to us, hooked us up with her hair gal, who came to the hotel to do Maggie's hair.  She arrived at 10 a.m., after traveling TWO HOURS to get here!  She left home at 8 a.m. and had to walk quite a ways to get to a boda boda, who brought her the rest of the way.  Then it took an hour and 45 minutes to do Maggie's hair (I have video - can't wait to show you - her hands seriously moved so fast you could hardly see them).  Guess what she charged us?  $16.  Is that insane or what??  We paid her much more than that because that seemed ridiculous to us.  She was thrilled.  And Maggie was too - we could tell she felt pretty special.  She was a CHAMP - sat there perfectly the whole time without ever fussing or fidgeting once.  I think she's been trained.  So this new 'do should last about 3 weeks -  then I need to figure out what to do next!  Ha!

Today we went into town - our last day with Hamza (aside from him driving us to the airport) - we had to drop off gifts at the law firm, get passport pictures of US for the airport (yes, ridiculous), then go to the embassy to pick up Maggie's visa, and then went shopping at an African craft market with our friends from TN.  Thankfully the embassy stop was quick - Mark was nervous about it because everyone here is on crazy high alert over this terrorist stuff.  Evidently Uganda has been put on notice that they are next, so security measures everywhere have gone into overdrive.  CAN'T WAIT TO GET OUT OF HERE.  Anyway, the kids and I all stayed in the car with Hamza down the street, while Mark went in and it only took him 10 minutes.

Then we got to shop.  However, not so fun with a 2 year old!  Who has never shopped!  And she is a shopper!  She wanted to check out EVERYTHING.  I would have loved to have spent hours there, but it wasn't possible.  We found some fun stuff - and Jack and Noah very carefully picked stuff out for their buddies (with their own money!), which was really cute.

I also posted many pictures today on the photo site https://5happycampers.shutterfly.com/pictures - you need to check them out and see Maggie's hair!  Oh and Jack wanted me to fill you in about his bedtime adventure - he walked over into their room to brush his teeth and we could hear him making these horrible noises - - he comes back looking FREAKED out and said there was a cockroach in their room.  Mark ran in with his shoes and killed it, but oh. my. word. people - it was huge.  First one we've seen here - this place is so clean and so well kept, so we were kind of surprised.  ICK.  Not sure if the boys will sleep tonight much.  :(  Jack searched the whole room, top to bottom, with a flashlight, so we're hoping that's the last one we see.  One thing we see a LOT of are tiny lizards (not in our room - outside) - they hang on the walls and ceilings outside, and they are CUTE.  Seriously!  Anywhere from 1-4 inches long and fast as the speed of light.  I also saw a bigger one at the pool one day - more like 8-10 inches long and BEAUTIFUL blue.

Ok that's it for now - except prayer requests!

1) Pray that we get through airport immigration with NO DRAMA.  That they won't even blink an eye at us!

2) Pray for our safety until we get out of here - we're watching our embassy warnings and not going near any likely targets, but prayers wouldn't hurt.

3) Pray we can ALL get some decent sleep on the plane - especially the 17 hour flight.