T.I.A. (This Is Africa)

Sometimes waiting is the hardest thing to do.
Pretty much always it is my least favorite thing to do.
God called me to Africa.
Africa is all about waiting.
God has a sense of humor.

So come to find out, in the process to get all my visa things sorted out and my status as a nurse in Uganda I am going to have to get really good at waiting. To start out with, I can't apply for my work permit visa until I have my nursing license issued in Uganda. The good news is that they have put me on the list for a 3 year permanent nurses license instead of just a temporary one. Bad news is I missed the deadline for nursing candidate interviews for August, as I was flying in to Entebbe the day that I would have had to have been in interviews. So the next day that I can go sit for the interviews is Sept 4. This gives me a fair amount of time that I can't legally work in Uganda, nor do I have any gainful employment. Even after the interview, I am going to have to work in a government hospital for 6 weeks as an "orientation" period (presumably non-paid). In that case there are a couple of different options for me. I can go live with Akiki in Kibiito and commute to Fort Portal to the hospital there for my 6 weeks, or I can stay in Kampala and work in one of the hospitals here. Even though I love living with the girls here, I am anxious to be going upcountry and getting settled in, so I'll probably end up doing just that.
Needless to say I really wasn't planning on this drawn out of a process before getting to work. I mean, I am kinda prepared for anything that I go to try and do in Africa to not exactly work out the way I intended, and I am used to meeting a fair amount of red tape in getting anything done here, but still...
Anyway, the good news is that in the meantime I have some really great friends to stay with and I have been trying to be helpful around the house and with errands to make myself useful. Aki work with event planning, so I've been assisting her a little with making decorations for a kwanjula (engagement/introduction ceremony) that's coming up this weekend. I'll probably end up helping her out with that a bit.

Other than that I've been hanging out with friends at home and church, traipsing across Kampala, cooking over charcoal stoves, taking cold showers, listening and dancing to African rhythms, and generally enjoying being back in one of my favorite places on earth!

In more fun news, I love how nothing changes even though you are on the other side of the globe. For example, on girls night we still laughed, talked, showed off dance moves, and watched Pitch Perfect. Last night we had a pillow fight which I'm not sure I got the better end of (I never seem to). I still love cooking, even if its food from a crazy looking outdoor market, prepared over a charcoal stove, and I have to sort the stones out of the rice before I cook it. I still get asked to answer all the medical questions. Everyone still loves FroYo. I still hate laundry and dishes. People still say crazy tweetable things. And last, but definitely not least, God is still moving and working and good... all the time!