12:30pm     Yesterday we also went on a hippopotamus excursion to the lake.  It was amazing!  (I tend to use the word amazing a lot, but there seems no better word to describe many things!)  As we walked along the shores and through people’s front yards, we asked everyone we ran across if they’d seen the hippos lately and they point us in the correct direction.  At one point we could see 3 of them, but they were far across the lake.  Still pretty remarkable though.   The muzungus were sure excited to see them, but most people really don’t care for them because they are very dangerous and also eat all the crops.  We are planning another outing to the lake to take boats out and see if we can get closer.  Pretty exciting to say you have hippos in your back yard. 

Update on school:  Some beautiful names of the children that have stuck with me: Dovine, Brighton, Byron, Jactus, Jacton.  The headmaster told me today, very seriously, that I should take all the children home to America with me, all 120-some of them.  When I said that I couldn’t because I wouldn’t know what to do with all of them, he laughed and then said that I should just take a few of them.  That is something I get a lot, everyone wants to come home with me.  The headmaster said he’d leave his wife for me and Mrs. George said she’d leave her kids with her husband to come to the states with me.  It’s funny to laugh at, but given the opportunity they would totally do it in a heartbeat. 

I already know that when I leave, I’m going to be longing to come back. 

I worked with the lab technician at Mama Maria.  To check for malaria you put a blood sample on a slide, let it air-dry in the window, dip it in a few liquids (they have important names but I forgot) and then let it dry and put it under the microscope, then turn on the generator so there can be light.  I got to view malaria parasites under the microscope, pretty crazy.  And when the generator is out of fuel, you can’t use the microscope.  Also, he uses a hand-spun centrifuge, it has 4 spots for test tubes and it takes about 7 minutes of vigorous hand cranking to complete (it’s anchored to the table via a vice-like thing). 

P.S. Found out that the great beef we ate yesterday was liver.  Ew.