After an eventful first two weeks things have hit a lull where we find ourselves sitting in what feels like Purgatory. We got the court ruling which we were of course ecstatic over the results, but now we are playing the hurry up and wait game. I am not one to just sit around and do nothing all day. Unfortunately that is exactly what we are doing. Many of our days of late are spent around the apartment or going into town to use the WI-FI at a cafe. Today we thought we were going to at least make some progress with Mary's medical clearance. Unfortunately, we have to put it off another week and now we still are no further to getting anything done. Another source of anxiety lies in attaining Mary's passport which is taking longer than expected and is the last necessary component in applying for her Visa.
Our downtime is spent constantly remembering that we are not in America anymore and how much we miss certain aspects of our home country. Hence the title of my journal home page. It has been a constant saying when things do not go as well as hoped or to how we are used to in America that we are not in Kansas anymore. My parents are serious homebodies and have never been away from home and their animals for this long so this is especially hard on them. Also, I think my Dad is going a little nuts being constantly surrounded by females! He misses having Matt around to have his "guy time". As for me, I am just going crazy with having nothing to do. It is not so much that I am missing America as I have been away from it before, but last time I was working every day at least eight hours a day and on weekends I traveled. So for all of us it is kind of like slow torture waiting for things to progress.
On a lighter note, the plus side to having this time here is, of course, getting to know Mary. Mom and Mary have settled into a routine that works really well for her. In the morning she gets to watch a little tv before the days starts. She does some school work with Mom for an hour or two, has lunch and then heads down to the pool. The pool is probably the highlight of her day. For someone who was rather weary of the water at first, she loves her pool time. The afternoon is spent with a movie to give Mom a little down time. And after dinner, it is time to wind down with a shower and a book. For the the adults our wind down time is spent escaping into the world of Castle (a TV show). Silly as it sounds that show has kept us sane and it gives us a place to hide for an hour or two. Also, there are always our close friends, Vodka and Brandy, mine and Dad's choice of liquor, respectively.
For now, we are trying to be positive that things will work out. As for me, I am focusing, as best I can, on upcoming trips. As I already mentioned in a previous blog, we are headed to Queen Elizabeth NP on Wednesday for a safari. The next week I will hopefully be headed to the far reaches of Southwestern Uganda for Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to go gorilla trekking and after that I am headed to Jinja and Iganga to visit the kids I taught last summer. We are always keeping in mind that the end result is completely worth it as I never saw this little girl talk and laugh as much as she does now. And that is big for me.
