The JAM- not the kind you put on toast

Good Morning- well, for us it is 9AM Saturday- that makes it midnight for our family and friends back home. Hope you all sleep well.
Sleep is an interesting thing in Uganda! With it now being rainy season, the temperature is a little cooler so that is helpful. However, there are many interesting sounds that sometimes make sleeping a bit of a challenge. We are getting used to the crickets- they really are a soothing sound that actually aids slumber. A new addition the last few nights has been what sounds like a very large frog. If the tone and volume of his croak is any indication, he must be about the size of a Dalmatian! Greg’s “favourite” sound at night is what he refers to as the “dog choir”. Many people have dogs within their compounds and there are also a few strays. One will start off with a solo of howling that lasts about 5-10 seconds. Then the others join in with a chorus of barking, yelping, howling- it really needs to be heard to be believed! Thankfully, it doesn’t go on for very long, but they do several encore presentations throughout the night. Greg decided last night to keep the windows closed so we could get a good rest-that kept the sounds out, but with the heat and humidity, it felt like we were sleeping in a large plastic bag!
We are starting to become quite the socialites- we have been out after dark two nights in a row.
On Thursday we were invited to the home of one of the Watoto team members. Their home has a beautiful, big yard with all kinds of trees and flowers- it is like a park. We had a delicious meal and a great time of visiting with wonderful people.
Last night, we were out later, more out of necessity than pleasure. Greg got tied up at Watoto Central in a late day meeting so he didn’t get to the babies’ home to pick Lorenda up until 5:30. There is this thing that happens in Kampala starting a little before 5:00 and lasting until nearly 9:00- it is called “the jam” and we got caught in it yesterday. We have said a little about the traffic here- we promise we will get you a picture to help you better understand it. When we were here in 2010, one of our team members journaled, “The only way to describe the traffic here is that it is indescribable.” And we never, ever got caught in the jam on that trip.
Back to our trip yesterday…the distance from babies’ home to Garden City Mall is about 800 meters. That “drive” (better word would be crawl) took us 30 minutes. We decided to exit out of the traffic at the mall, eat out and pick up a few groceries. When we finished at 8:30 PM, the traffic had thinned out enough that the remaining 3.3 km to our apartment only took us 30 minutes. We were exhausted, having left before 7AM and not returning until 9PM. It was a shower and straight to bed!
Thanks to those of you who have been commenting on the blog or e-mailing us. It is a great encouragement and we would love to hear from even more of you.
Have a great day or night, depending where you are and when you read this.