Easter and Finals and Hippos

• The internet has gone to crapsville lately, that is my excuse for the lack of blogs. No wait. I have a better excuse. Every night I bring my computer home and plan on writing a paper or a blog or doing some sort of homework. And every night one of my siblings takes my computer and plays Akon for 4 straight hours until the battery dies, or commits suicide due to Akon overexposure. That's a big problem among computers in Africa, Akon overexposure. Its tragic.
  
• I went on a safari last weekend and it was amazing! We camped in Murchison Falls national park. Hippos, warthogs and baboons were always wandering around our camp. We saw leopard tracks. We saw tons of giraffes and hippos and elephants. We had this van with a top that popped up and we could hang out the top while elephants walked right by us. SO COOL. It reminded me a lot of snorkeling. I could have gone back every weekend. We went on a game boat ride on afternoon down the Nile towards the falls. It was beautiful. The next morning we hiked around the top of the falls. It was exactly like when I was a kid and we used to hike around the national forest in New Hampshire, except this time we had an armed African following us around to keep away the hippos… We actually got in trouble with the guard because we ignored the signs and walked right up to the falls. Like sat on the edge and dangled our feet in the spray of the falls. Have I mentioned that I love Africa?
  
• Easter with my family was ridiculous and amusing. My host dad, who is never home, gave us a huge African guilt trip (African guilt is the WORST) about not being home on easter during the day. Well we got home for easter supper and we asked, do what did you do today? Nothing. Did you go to church? No, but we had soda! The big easter celebration that we missed was soda. Which admittedly is a big deal… but still. My mom had sent me a box filled with candy and easter eggs. I considered putting on an easter egg hunt for the neighbor kids, but then decided that an easter egg hunt in the dark for my teenage siblings would be a better use of resources, as in more candy for everyone. Hahaha. My siblings were hilarious searching for the eggs. 2 were hidden so well that they couldn't be found until the morning. The next day we died easter eggs, this was MUCH less popular than eggs full of candy. Who wants eggs full of eggs? Blech. The egg salad that I made was also NOT popular. As in looked at with disgust and not touched by anyone African.
  
• We had easter Monday off so I took the break to do a ton of chores that I have been needing to do. I was going to wash clothes, and bathe, and spend like an hour scrubbing all the dirt out of my feet. I ended up fetching a ton of water and helping Sarah do the entire family's laundry. We spent hours washing clothes (by hand) and chatting with each other. At one point she turned to me and asked, do you like talking like this? I was like ummm THIS is my favorite thing about living here! It was one of those perfectly mundane but yet perfectly wonderful days.
  
• This past weekend was spent studying for exams and hanging out with a good friend. Exams here are 3 hours long and people use the entire time! I finished first in my African Old Testament class. I used an hour and a half and then I stared out the window for a while. Then at like 2 hours I finally decided to be brave and stand up and turn my paper in. The professor smiled at me and said, "I knew you would be first." This morning I had a history of East Africa exam. It took an hour and twenty minutes and I wrote twelve pages! I have discovered that length and repeating yourself really bode well in African schooling.
  
• I have more to write but Suzan is stealing my computer. Will post again tomorrow.