Trying to be Thankful

It's been a rough day in the life of the DMU girls here in Uganda. It's not that anything specific went poorly today - I think we are all just hitting the end of that "honeymoon period" where everything is new and fun and starting to get into the day to day routine. Two weeks has been enough time for the novelty to wear off, but not enough time for us to adapt to the cultural differences or being a very obvious outsider to this culture. I am also starting to realize how blessed we are in the US to have the resources that we do. So, in what may be a roundabout way of complaining about life here, I'm putting together a little list of things I'm thankful for in the states.

• Luer locks
• Vag packs (for deliveries)
• Gloves that fit
• Shoe booties
• Doctors who actively engage in your education
• Any size suture I want
• Nurses who do all the dirty work on OB
• Nurses who do all the dirty work in general
• Wi-fi in hospitals/smartphones
• Toilet paper 
• High speed internet
• Did I mention nurses?
• Not having "Mzungu! Mzungu!" (translation: white person! white person!) yelled at me multiple times a day :)
• Friends - I miss all of you back home

And now, for the much harder list today, things I'm thankful for here in Uganda.

• Fika with my new Swedish friends
• The opportunity to travel on weekends
• Having enough wealth to go out to dinner most nights (something we take for granted)
• Being here with some awesome people from DMU
• Constantly feeling outside my comfort zone (much easier to be thankful for when you aren't in the midst of the experience!)
• Improving my bartering skills (45,000 shillings for the painting? No way. 20,000 for a taxi? tsk, tsk, tsk)
• Getting to hang out at a hotel pool over our long weekend
  
  Having some fun with my waterproof camera 
  
  
  Next post will be more upbeat, I promise!