O-M-G I made a turkey!!

We paid our guard 40k in shillings and he came home with this turkey. Turkeys make a sound that is less annoying than a rooster's cocka-doodle-doo, but still really annoying at 6am. Here she is chillin' with our chickens.

 I thought making a turkey (well, making a tasty good one) would be super difficult. It just seemed like an overwhelming task at first. But when I saw our turkey (plucked and cleaned) I realized it was just a big chicken. And I make chicken all the time! Although I've never made roast chicken, but now I feel like maybe I should give that a try too.

All I did was saute some onions and garlic in butter until soft, and then added salt, pepper, and olive oil just so I had more liquid. I rubbed lemon halves all over the inside of the turkey and stuffed it with chopped carrots, quartered onions, garlic, and apples. I capped the open cavity with aluminum foil so the stuffing wouldn't fall out, and tied the legs together. Then I rubbed the whole turkey down with the butter mixture. I also cut underneath the skin near the breasts and poured some of the butter under the skin. Then I rubbed the entire bird with salt (as advised by the interwebs if you don't brine beforehand). After that, I just tied the wings to the sides, then put the bird breast-down in a huge pot and covered with foil. After an hour and a half, I took the bird out of that pot and flipped it right-side up on a deep cookie sheet, poured the drippings/butter sauce back over the bird, and put it back in without aluminum foil so the skin would get delicious and crispy. Then...I went back to work (haha) and Frederica flipped the bird once so both sides would brown. It turned out amazingly well!!


Evidence:

NOM

 I also made real stuffing on the side, and it was delish. While I was at work finishing some things, Frederica and Jessica mashed some potatoes, and when the turkey came out put in Jess' apple pie. It was such a delicious meal after having no variety for so long!

Frederica is focused on the food. No time for cameras!

Also, the power went off last night, so we had our feast in the dark. I'm glad we did the majority of the baking on Saturday, when we had power, so we could use Beth's electric mixer. None of this would have been possible without Beth - our oven doesn't work, and she graciously offered to let us use hers while she's back in the States. We probably owe her some gas money!

The only thing about the feast that didn't feel like Thanksgiving was that there were only 3 of us. Katie's in London, Beth's in the States, and though there are a lot of people from work that I would love to invite, I really didn't know how it was going to turn out and I didn't want to invite people over and then have bad food. Plus, the bird was actually pretty small - it fed about 4 people. And, of course, we were at Beth's, and I can't invite people over to a house that isn't mine! But as sooooon as we get our oven fixed, there will be a turkeyfest part 2, believe you me.

Agnes and the kids enjoyed the leftovers so much this morning (they had turkey for breakfast...haha) that I know I have to do this again, if only to see Feena and Hope so happy with grease all over their faces. Ellie was pretty happy too - we saved the thigh bones for her, and instead of biting us all morning she nommed on her bone for hours.

Yay! Now I feel like I celebrated Thanksgiving, even if it was tiny and dark. =D

there's always someone at home who never forgets who you are.

Being away from home for Thanksgiving, and the holidays in general, is so much harder than I anticipated. But it has given me a lot of time to think about what I'm thankful for - much more so than usual, when everything's busy and fun and a blur. So, even though I hate "Thanksgiving-thankful" blog posts, I do love making lists, and the list lover/time on my hands won out.

• I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to take a year off from medical school. I like the science I'm doing and I think it's important, but I also think I just needed a break. Room to breathe, to read a book, to walk to work, to hug a three year old every day, exercise, etc...I just had too much tunnel vision back home. Training to be a doctor really does feel like this one-way express train to MORE and I just needed to jump off the train and hobo around on the old slow ones that run between Jinja and Tororo and slooooow down. 
• I'm thankful that the people that love me, and that I love the most, have been generally supportive of my leaving for a year. It's not been easy for me either. I can't wait to come home to errybody.
• I love coming home to two kids every day. It's so fun. Even though they scream bloody murder half the time and steal my candy, what would our exercise videos every AM be without them getting in the way while mimicking us? How else would I get to hold a 3 year old every day? So worth it.
• I'm hopeful that Brandon might get to come visit! We're gonna climb Mt. Elgon. Woo wooo so exciting.
• Living here has made me conscious of all the things that I've never had to do without, that I take for granted 100% of the time in the US. Water, power, food. I mean, you should see me when we can't get internet in the US. It's kinda ridiculous. And it goes above and beyond that - I've never had to want for anything, really. Katie and I have talked about this in relation to the Occupy movement going on in the States. It's hard to get really excited about that when, honestly, those protestors might be the 99% in the US, but they are in the top 1% of the world. Maybe they should think about how they have access to water, sanitation, and healthcare. I understand that they're angry, I just maybe think there are other things worth directing that energy at. But I've always felt that way. Anyway, I want to do better at keeping everything in perspective, and being here has certainly taught me some lessons. 

Mosquitoes are literally buzzing in my ear and I can feel the 15 new bites my feet have (I wonder how many sporozoites were just injected into me?? gross) so I should probably get under my bed net. I miss you US peeps and I can't wait to come home. Eat some deep fried turkey/brisket/honey baked ham/pie for me!! =D

ellie has gotten so big!

Look at how tinyyyyy she was when we first got her! We thought something was wrong with her legs because she couldn't walk well, but she was just super tiny.

We bought her a bed. The first night we actually tucked her in. Haha.

Without covers.

She falls off a lot though. lolz. This time she remained asleep on the floor next to her bed.

Feena, clearly not feeling too bad with that broken arm.

Awwww the children being sweet to the dog for once.

Ellie likes having her belly rubbed. Beth likes holding baby puppies!

the latest haps

Wow, it feels like a lot has happened since I've last posted. Feena broke her arm last week (which we discovered when we got home on Thursday at 8pm...even though it happened at 1pm) and it was a hectic end of the week, getting her casted on Friday and then re-imaged on Monday to find that the original reduction had been pretty bad:

 Yikes!

So we went back to the "orthopedists" (only in quotations because I'm not sure exactly what their training is. They weren't doctors, I'm pretty sure) and they tried again (poor poor Feena): 

It didn't look ALL that much better to me, but I thought it might be close enough because of the location of the break and the fact that children can heal like crazy. But we were all unsure enough (and untrusting enough of the people working on her, who didn't even request that she be re-imaged in the first place, and refused to give her lidocaine when they re-set it) that I took a bunch of photos of the before and after xrays and sent them to Pras in SF so he could have a peds ortho person take a look at them. Luckily, they said that it's a common joke that the bones of the proximal humerus can be "in the same room" in children and heal just fine, so that makes me feel better. Especially because Feena hasn't really slowed down since the incident, wears her arm sling only half the time, and fell on her arm on Monday after we did all the imaging. So really who knows where the bones are now.

She was a tough little kid. Because no one told us when she got injured, and we got home so late, she had to wait overnight (with a broken arm!) before we could get an xray. Then, she didn't cry at all - only whimpered - when they gave her a lidocaine shot with a HUGE needle and then set the bone. I was so impressed. She was so wiped out by everything that she fell asleep sitting up while they were casting her. I have the cutest pictures of her, but of course I can't get them off my camera right now. She did cry when they didn't give her lidocaine, though. Ugh.

I found the entire experience really frustrating. I'm used to having total and complete faith in doctors and in people in the medical profession generally, and the men who worked on Feena just kept failing over and over again to meet my expectations. They didn't ask for a f/u xray, didn't give her lidocaine when they re-set the bone, and ALSO ripped me off (charged me when care is supposed to be free). Honestly, they seemed to just be lazy. I don't know any other way to describe it. At least they were right about the fact that their second reduction was good enough. Obviously I didn't trust their word on that one and went ahead and emailed Pras. And when would Feena have been taken to the doctor if we weren't there to rush things along? The mind boggles.

Also, maybe if the kids were being watched to begin with, this wouldn't have happened. Another older girl - 8 years old to Feena's 3 - pushed her off a concreted walled ditch into the concrete floor of the ditch. No wonder she got such a bad break.

Anyway, other things that have happened recently:

• Ellie has been vaccinated against rabies! Yay. And she is growing growing growing. However, she continues to bite like a crazed puppy demon. I'm going to start calling her Ells Bells.
• Katie's friends visited from Jinja, so we had a mini-party on a Tuesday night! That's pretty crazy for us here in Tororo
• Work....has been busy, and slightly more productive. My experiment is working a little better now, but still not quite as well as I'd like. Continuing to puzzle that one out...
• We have watched 9 episodes of Mad Men in the entire time I've been here. I think I'm busier than I expected. We're finally past the episodes I had watched on my own!
• I'm going to Zanzibar for Christmas!!!! SO EXCITED. Not as excited as if I were going home, but this will be a quicker & easier trip than that would be. I'm going to have to trick myself into the Christmas spirit since it's always 80 degrees here
• Peeps from various stores in town are bringing us dog food, chocolate, and a hair dryer from Kampala. Ellie just won't eat peas or beans, which is like 80% of our diet. She likes chicken/meat/fish just fine though. The hair dryer is for me, not for Ellie. I've worn my hair up every single day since I've been here and it's sufferinggg. 

Oh yes, and I've made some major changes to the blog recently. I liked having that dynamic view you could switch around, but it eliminated my top picture and all the links on the side, which I really like. So I nixed it for now (even though like, 100 people looked at it that day, which is a lot of people). I kept the background picture, though. We'll see if this layout sticks around or if I change my mind again.

Tear gas in Tororo Town

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1270708/-/bgvityz/-/

This morning we were walking to work (..at 11am, life is hard) and Katie's like "Do you guys hear gunshots?" And I say, well if they're gunshots, surely they're not shooting people. My reasoning was weak, but I just thought it was unlikely. And also that there would be a bigger hullaballoo if they were shooting people. But then not 2 minutes later about 20 bodas come racing down the road in the other direction, some carrying passengers but most not, and then a whole bunch more following very quickly after, honking and yelling. Katie started asking people on the side of the road what was going on and we heard various versions of the same story - that the police had somehow killed a boda driver and now all the bodas were protesting.

This is a boda boda. It's a dude driving a motorcycle and you sit on the back, so it's a motorcycle taxi! They are dangerous, for obvious reasons. Usually even the driver doesn't have a helmet. And if you could see the Tororo roads....

So we got to work safely and then for lunch didn't go far because we heard from others that the police were trying to subdue the riots in town by using tear gas and LIVE AMMUNITION. wtf. One of the doctors was trapped in town for like an hour just lying on the floor waiting to get to safety. So, even though we need eggs and toilet paper and I need more internet, we are just going to have to wait until tomorrow when things settle down.

Tororo is the quietest little town you can imagine, so this was a pretty crazy morning.

In other news, I have some really great blog posts coming up, particularly about water (or rather, our lack of it) and Halloween part 2, featuring pumpkin carving in the dark! However....I'm holding back for now because they would both be a lot better with pictures, and my camera is no longer connecting to my computer. I'm so bummed. I fixed one technology problem (kindle and ipod) and immediately my camera breaks. YARRRRR So I ordered a card reader to be sent to Katie's sister's in London, because she'll be there in 2 weeks for Thanksgiving. I might go ahead and do the posts without pictures but then add them in later. We'll see!

Things we have ordered to Katie's sister in London:
1) Seeds for our garden
2) Two bottles of Sriracha
3) Cheesecloth for our eventual goat cheese
4) 2 sets of resistance bands (for P90X) (lolz)
5) A headlamp for me, and camera reader for me. I am needy.

Look for new posts soon!!

jinja timez

things i gained in jinja:
1 roll double stuff oreos
1 roll peanut butter/choc swirl oreos
1 roll chips ahoy
3 small packages of pringles, one labeled "cheezy cheese"
1 terrifyingly sweet honey green tea
1 twix bar, immediately consumed
1 LED flashlight
FIRST PLACE PRIZE (a bottle of Amarula) FOR COSTUMES @ NRE as the Jager Bombardiers:


things i lost:
my jawesome headlamp =(

It was probably worth it.

The party was fun, and it was crazy different from our normal Tororo snails-pace life. After the party we went to the Hairy Lemon, which is a little island in the middle of the Nile that is basically made for chilling. And for kayaking, if you are so inclined.


I figure I better put off my major rafting and/or kayaking adventures until Mom sends me some contacts, because it might just be a bad thing to lose a pair of glasses to the Nile.

Sunrise at the Lemon was beautiful. I couldn't sleep, maybe because a monkey dropped onto the roof like BAM and I was like "WTF was that" because in my dream the bunk beds were dominoes and had all tipped each other over and I was like "oh good thing I'm in the middle of the room not in a bunk!" So I actually said "what was that?" out loud, but nobody responded and I figured it out, and then in the morning it turns out everyone had heard me and just chose to ignore me. PEOPLE = LAMEZ
MONKEYZ=LOUD
SUNRISE= AWESOME

On the ride home we got a call from Jess Bloome that the kids had somehow dropped and injured Ellie and so I was freaking ouuuuut all the way home, but when we got there she seemed ok, but breathing a bit weirdly. Katie was able to take her to the vet this morning (which we only knew about because I happened to get his number from a lady who sold me heartworm medication in town...because he doesn't work in the building labeled as the veterinary office anymore) and the doctor said her pulse was high and she was running a temp, and gave her some antibiotics. (The trip to the vet was apparently a blog post in itself - I'm sorry I missed it.) She seems to be doing better for now (and I have no idea what the truth is about what's really wrong with her, though I did try listening to her little puppy lungs) and I'm hoping for the best. We have to teach Hope and Feena to be a wee bit gentler. Anyway, keep Ellie in your thoughts.

That whole paragraph feels like a run-on sentence. Sorry.

ALSO termites were eating our wood!! Oh nos. So we have to treat the wood for the fence for our eventual garden that will keep out our eventual goat. Weirdness.

We maybe have figured out what is wrong with what I'm doing in the lab. Maybe. In 10 days we shall know for sure! I really hope it works cuz I am tired of working and then having no results to show for it. Le sigh.

T-1 day till furniture
T-3 days until possible Kindle and Ipod nano

YAY