Hotels

I know that I just posted an update, but then something funny popped into my mind and thought I would share it quickly.  People ask all of the time, where are you going to be staying.

Great question.

When I am in Masaka with Fr. Michael, I could probably be staying where I stayed before.  It is a compound style place - brick walls, cement floors, huge block security wall around it, guard with an AK 47 standing at the large steel gate.  It was $55 for a week; safe, cheap, minimal with a bed, bucket to wash in, and a mosquito net.  

When I stay in the capital, everything is different.  We received two pages of hotels with a list of amenities at each, and then the price.  Most hotels ranged about $45-$65 a night, some had the same high security walls, and guard, brick walls and cement floors, but the greatest distinctions between them all were the amenities; no wifi or $3 a day or free, private bathroom or communal,  hot water with or without washing bins, a tv, room fans, etc.  Crazy.  And I was just thinking about this and it made me laugh because I am getting a block of hotel rooms for our soccer team for some tournaments that we have coming up.  When I get online, our list of amenities looks a little different - spa, gym, indoor pool.  And the list should be different - we live in the US, our prices are higher, we should get more.  It just served as a funny reminder of how quickly our priorities change.

When I saw that instead of the 15 days that we were originally told that we could be there for, $65 a night for a private bathroom and hot water and wifi seemed a little steep, but do-able.  But when you hear "12 weeks" at $65, you change your priorities.  You have to - you cannot go into a different country, and demand that it be the same or that it operate the same.  That is one of the reasons I like Uganda.  There are no big worries, time is slower, people rush so much less.  My priorities will be not be sitting in carpool, driving to soccer practice, rushing to crossfit.  Are these priorities wrong?  No, they are the perfect priorities to have in the given situation.  My priorities will be focusing solely on having a positive attitude, being patient, learning about my new son, filling out paperwork, teaching school lessons to village children, passing out new soccer balls to the Slum Soccer Camp, handing out candy to little children running up to me every where I go and doing a lot of "hanging out" with friends old and new.  I cannot wait.

When we were looking at the hotel list, my husband commented "no private bathroom #firstworldproblems, no indoor plumbing #2ndworldproblems, no safe drinking water #3rdworldproblems."  He told me that he would be thinking of me, especially when he goes from our hotel in the Capital, to a week later, at a soccer tournament, resting on the ultra plush bed, watching sports on the tv, and drinking from water bottles from the mini-fridge.  All we can do is laugh and just embrace the gifts He gives us and grow where God plants us :-)