Urseke

Hello everybody! Our team made it to Urseke without any problems and we love it here!

We got up early on Monday morning and thanked and said goodbye to our lovely host families, then got on the bus and left. The drive wasn't too bad; We expected it to be terribly bumpy, but it wasn't bad. It would definitely suck to drive, because it was pretty much one and half lanes wide with lots of switchbacks.

On the way here, Lisa, Kyla and myself had a cultural experience. The place we stopped to rest didn't have normal toilets; Instead they had squating toilets. So we "popped a squat" and did our thing. Lisa even took a picture.

We love Urseke. We're staying in what was to be an orphanage, but there's no need for an orphanage here, from what I can understand. Mark and Ruth are living there with their 4 children, as well as their neice is living there as well currently. There will also be a seminary student that will be sharing a room with Kurt and myself. Their children are so awesome, as well as the children of the town. We've been getting all sorts of hugs and they'll tell us they love us. The place where we're living has a big playground, and so every evening for an hour the place is opened up for all the local children to play at; they even have a bounce house. One of the quirkiest things about it is that there are about 20 turtles just wandering around the yard. Apparently turtles live in the wild here, so they've been collected and live there now. It's so cozy though and we love it.

Last night we got a tour of the town from the only other 20-something-year-old American living here, and pretty much saw the whole town. The town is so small, so there's one place for everything. We would pass a place and she would say, "this is where you hang out," or, "this is where we buy ice cream," and so on. It's nice for me, especially, to be in a small town. Just seeing the stars again was amazing.

Today we slept in and then got to work. They have a ropes course on which the ground beneath was covered in sawdust, but unfortunately that would blow everywhere. So today, we pulled out the shovels and wheel barrels and started hauling pea-gravel. We finished at least half of it today and half so wicked blisters to show for it. The camp doesn't start until Sunday, so most of our projects will be like this for now.