To my faithful readers:

I have not posted in a while, and for that, I must apologize. It's not that I've not done anything interesting, it's just that I've rather lost the motivation to tell people about it. A welcome relief for all of you, I'm sure. The lack of motivation can be traced back to a small pool of factors. (A) I've been busy with a combination of volunteer work, hanging out with other volunteers, and going on weekend holidays. (B) I managed to pick up typhoid, either from drinking tap water in Nairobi or from eating from a random shack at the side of the road in Uganda. My guess is Nairobi water. Before anyone panics (too late!), I'm fine. It left me very exhausted for two weeks or so, but I got some shots and some antibiotics, so I'm better now. (C) Most of the internet in the country of Kenya operates on an archaic satellite system, so there is no hope for any type of Western-standard high speed internet. I have lost my patience for this. I also dislike paying for internet, it's so much cheaper at the parents' home.

I intend to post something of a summary when I get back to Nairobi. I'm currently in Jinja, Uganda (again), and I have a cool story. Because I go to Uganda so much, I'm learning to guide rafts, give safety talks, and most importantly, kayak. Kayaking is difficult, because I need to learn to roll the kayak. Rolling a kayak is what one must achieve after one's kayak capsizes, usually in the middle of a rapid. Through some unnatural underwater contortions, one can flip the kayak upright, thereby restoring oxygen to the entrance points of the respiratory system, ensuring that one will avoid drowning (for a short time). Though I have not achieved this, I have been assured that it takes one to two weeks of daily practice, which translates into one to two weeks of getting water up my nose everytime I roll. So Geoffrey, Bosco, and Ollo took me along on a "family float trip," a trip designed for families that don't want to paddle, but want to go down the river. The first rapid they encounter is a class two, and it's the largest rapid they'll encounter. It's quite small. However, when you're sitting in a kayak approaching your first rapid ever, unsure of your ability to paddle straight, keep the kayak upright, and/or recover after the kayak capsizes, it's quite large. Geoffrey went first, and I watched him, but he surfed it, because he's a master of the Nile. Bosco went next, and he also surfed it, but for not as long. I went last, and I don't yet know how to surf. My goal was to get through the rapid without dying. There was a small ramp down to a small wave, and I made it! I got through the wave and stayed upright! All the kayakers, when you ask them to tell stories about how they learned to kayak, will say that you swim every rapid your first day on the river. (Swimming, in relation to kayaking, is when you capsize but can't roll back up, so you pull the skirt, which keeps water out of the kayak, and swim the rapid while the kayak fills with water.) As soon as I conquered the wave, I stopped trying out of the sheer surprise that I didn't swim my first rapid, so the kayak capsized at the end of the rapid while I was celebrating.