Ellana's African Adventures: Ready for another weekend getaway

Steve, Ellana, and I are so excited to be taking another short trip this weekend to Uganda. The past couple of weeks have been really cold and rainy, so we are hoping for some warmth and sun in Kampala and Jinja. We are going with some of our friends here at the IU house, so hopefully Ellana will be on her best behavior!

Ellana has finally decided that walking will be her most common form of getting around, so we had our first experience with a truly walking toddler in the grocery store earlier today. Her favorite things were all, of course, at her level, so she enjoyed stacking some soap containers and touching the bags of powdered sugar. I'm also a little embarrassed to admit that her current favorite foods are Pringles (or as she calls them "Gingles") as well as some pop-sickles that we found that are kind-of like Flavor-Ice. She doesn't understand that Pringles are not breakfast food as they are the first thing she wants in the morning and typically the last thing she wants at night. She loves them so much that she throws a fit if I don't let her eat them while we are in the grocery store, and she doesn't even want the cashier to take them from her when its time to pay. She shouted "Gingle" to the cashier the other day until he gave them back to her, much to my horror, but everyone in Nakumatt seemed to think it was hilarious!

Ellana also recovered today from her first real illness in Kenya. She started coughing early Wednesday morning and could not keep anything down yesterday until dinner. By that time she was finally acting like herself and woke up acting completely fine this morning. We were so glad as we were nervous about having a sick toddler in Kenya!

We also have successfully found a second babysitter as Sylvia ended up not working out last week. For some reason she stopped returning phone calls and showing up, so her cousin, Sharon, has taken over. So far, Sharon has been amazing, but we are a little sad that she will be leaving for school in Nairobi in a couple weeks. Her sister will be taking over at that point, and if she's anything like Sharon, I'm sure everything will be fine.

Steve's OR frustrations have continued the past couple of weeks as last Wednesday the hospital was out of oxygen, and this week they neglected to tell him that the medical students had exams that physicians had to proctor meaning that none of the difficult surgeries could be completed. Thank goodness the Duke team arrives in less than two weeks!

I will be writing more as soon as we return from Uganda. Have a wonderful weekend!