Projects and more projects!

I got two emails this morning asking when I was going to send an update again, so I decided I better write one today before we go to the village in the morning! Hopefully I will have some neat experiences to write about when I get back from there on Tuesday night.
My mom said that my emails are quite funny to read, because they are basically just one big run on sentence....and I write exactly how I talk (super fast and hard to understand). So, I'll try a lot harder to take a little bit more time and make them easier to read!
I haven't written an update this week because I feel like I am not making very much progress in changing the world. I have kind of had a hard time and felt like I have wasted my first two weeks. The group that I came with doesn't have any projects planned out for us before we get here. We have some contacts from last years groups, and our country directors came a couple weeks before us and got a few more. So when we got here we were able to go to a lot of the different villages, slums, and clinics that want our help and talk to a few more people and then we have a lot of meetings...both with our group, and potential projects. Then we are set loose....with no guidance or much direction to plan the projects we want to do and work out every detail of them and set everything up!
This was a bit overwhelming....I am not good at figuring out all the details and setting up meetings and working out all the logistics, especially when I don't have a ton of knowledge in any of the projects. But I have realized this experience is about a lot more than just doing service the entire time. I am learning SO many more life lessons and things that will help me in the future. I also have realized that if we want to truly make a difference in the 4 months that our group is here, and create projects that will continue to help them even once we are gone...those projects take A LOT of time and planning. We have to figure out the best ways to help these people help themselves. Even though I haven't been out doing a ton of physical work...the planning and preparing is making just as much of a difference! I won't be able to see all of our projects finish in the 6 weeks I am here, in fact most of them won't be done, but that's okay because I am still making a difference and helping while I am here. And even more than that I am being changed and touched by every single person I meet, both the African's and people in my group, and the experience I am having will change me and help me to be a better person and affect people when I come home as well.

I didn't really mean for that to be such a long introduction...but anyways now I can tell you a little bit about what we have been doing and the projects we have been working on!
As we have talked to a lot of the village and school leaders one of the things they want and need the most to help them is education. They know the importance of education and they have such a lack of it. And knowledge is something that we can give them that won't run out when we leave or cost money, or need fixing and repair.
So a lot of our projects have to do with education....teaching English, general health, science, music, and then the project that I am kind of in charge of with a couple others is youth leadership and empowerment classes. We have like 8 classes that we have set up and written the curriculum and lesson plans for, and the schools can choose to either have just the individual classes taught, or they can be taught during a 6 week program where we come once a week. We even have like maturation type classes that we have set up because they have NO knowledge of that type of thing here or sex education or anything. It's way sad...in the middle school they said over 75% of their students are sexually active and know nothing about it or the consequences of it. In the Bunabuyoka village (the one we went to on Monday and the one we are going back to tomorrow) the midwife was telling us about a 15 year old girl who got pregnant, but had no clue about it because they don't teach them about it at all and she didn't know when she went in to labor she just thought she was sick so the baby ended up suffocating inside of her and died and then she got way sick and almost died because she had a dead baby inside her....isn't that so sad?? They need to learn SO much, and a lot of it is things that comes second nature to us and we don't even realize that we are so lucky to have a knowledge of..
I won't go into detail about more of the projects because I am sure I will tell you more about them as we are doing them!

But then on Thursday me and Jan didn't have any meetings to go to and I found a salon in town that did braids so we decided to get our African braids!! They told us it would take like 3 or 4 hours...Jan's took about 4...mine took 7!!!! I was sitting in the same hard chair for 7 hours. I was going crazy by the end, but they looked way awesome and only cost like 25 dollars! Everyone in town told us that we looked like Alisha Keys and that we looked "smart" which means good looking basically haha
I really liked them and I was SO excited to not have to worry about frizzy and greasy hair the next 3 1/2 weeks. But then last night one fell out and a bunch were getting loose and they were so heavy and my head itched and I couldn't sleep and my hair is so thick that I couldn't pull them all up and they were super hot.....so today I couldn't stand them any more and I took them all out.....haha they were bugging me so bad I guess I had a nightmare about them and woke the girls up in my room screaming about my braids! So they only lasted like 3 days! But it's okay I'm still glad I got them and experience my African braids...and we definitely had quite the funny experience at the salon getting them done.
They washed our hair and then they dried it in one of those old fashion dryer things, but there was no cover over the blade and it was basically just spinning my hair in a circle and matting it WAY bad. Then there was a guy in there who asked us if he could work on our nails so we said why not since we were just sitting there.
So I got a manicure and pedicure! It was kinda sketch and he KILLED when he was massaging us, but it's all part of the experience :)

Then yesterday we went on this hike called Sipi Falls. It was GORGEOUS!! I have a bunch of pictures that I will upload to facebook later tonight or later on in the week. It was up in the mountains and we hiked to like 3 different falls. There are villages clear up there and all the kids came and guided us to all the different places. There was a 15 year old boy named Martin who started talking to me and then became my guide haha he would tell me all the different plants and things on the way. He would sit and wait for me any time the group started going and he would hold my hand any time it was muddy or there was a hill so that I wouldn't fall. It was way cute!
I can't wait to show you guys the pictures..it was so pretty I can't even describe it!

Also...look forward to pictures of my post braid hair.....haha first it was in like way sweet dreads and now it is a legit AFRO haha it is huge!! The pictures are pretty funny...

I think that is all I really have to update you on....pray for me tomorrow night when I am sleeping in the village in the mountains. Haha hopefully we make it back safe! We are doing some WAY exciting things in the village but I will tell you more about them later!