Month two: Hello green grass!

Is month two really now over?! I've got much to catch you up on so hang tight!

The grass is greener where you water it.

On my way from the Cape Town, South Africa airport to my hotel I struck up a conversation with my Costa Rican driver. We immediately bonded and jumped over pleasantries right into personal motivations. He was one of those really optimistic people who was so happy with where he was at in life--regardless of the things going against him. He briefly looked outside his side window and with a big reassuring smile he said, "The grass is greener where you water it."

I’m sure you’ve heard the common phrase: The grass is greener on the other side. I mean, haven't we all thrown our own little pity parties and thought this would be ideal IF this happened or my life would be complete if I had this?? Let's be real, we've all lived some version of that phrase--we're human! But, I’ve actually never heard someone spin it to where there is no other field on the other side, there's just your field that's waiting to be tended to.

That night I thought about our conversation and realized I can come up with a million different ideal scenarios for my life but it doesn't take away the fact that I have a reality that is waiting for me to live it. 

This month, as cheesy as it sounds, I began to water my grass. I live in Uganda, work with hardworking people who are trying their hardest to rise above poverty, have great friends and have a family who was planning to visit. How, I thought, could I best focus on the things I have at the moment and make them work?

I'm definitely still trying to tune out "the noise" that I wrote about on my last post but this month life took that challenge a step further, life said, "Okay Amanda, this noise and pressure and everything around you is happening, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to look for more distraction? Are you going to spend days longing for things outside of your control? OR are you going to wake up, embrace the good and the bad and make something uniquely tailored to your life out of it?" 

Think about your field. No one else's, but yours. Maybe you have blessings on blessings on blessings and are totally embracing the heck out of it! Or maybe your field is barren, nothing to it but you and a distant mirage of someone else's sweet field. How can you embrace what you have currently and move from there? Think about it, I know I will.

Soooo enough of the pep-talk, what have you been up to?!

Month two brought me so much joy and adventure! August was heavily peppered with unexpected activities like attending a Film Festival, learning how to cook a traditional Ugandan meal at one of our beneficiaries homes and hiking up to Fort Patiko (what a view)! It was a hectic, fun and eye opening month for me!

Before I left to South Africa to meet up with my family, 31 Bits had a huge goodbye party for Melanie, who had been working for the company for over a year. I had never experienced anything like this celebration. Our beneficiaries prepared dances and food and showed so much love towards their incredibly caring boss and friend, Melanie. Everyone seemed to be jumping and dancing for hours! And for that time, it seemed like the world stood still and just wanted us to be. 

After the party of a lifetime, I hitched a ride with a couple of friends who were headed to Kampala for the weekend. I had to be at the airport by four a.m. so we all ended up bouncing around Kampala and eventually making it back to our hotel room to pick up my stuff. So I basically got zero sleep...

After sleeping my way through the entire eight hour flight, I got picked up and taken from the airport to the hotel, where I proceeded to have my own dance party and later a much needed bath! It. Was. Gloriousssss. My family finally made it to the hotel later that evening. You better believe we gave the longest hugs and toasted to being back together!

That next day, we hiked up to Table Mountain, where the view was incredible--think city to your left and vast blue ocean to your right! Later that day I was able to meet up with Kuzi, a friend my college roommate (and best friend, ILY Sarah) had made while studying abroad. I had only known Kuzi through their weekly Skype calls and Sarah's passionately relentless efforts to raise money for Kuzi to go to school. So meeting this girl in person was pretty emotional. It was crazy to me the amount of impact people have on each other, I'm talking about the impact that alters people's lives. Seeing her that day made the word impact tangible and oh so life-giving!

After Cape Town we spent some days out in the wine country, where we drank way too much wine, went horseback riding through the mountains and sat by the fireplace. It instantly became my second happy place (the ranch is first, obvi lol).

We then made our way to a safari lodge where we were up close with lions, giraffes, elephants, cheetah, zebras and about a hundred other species. It was incredible--also VERY cold!! After our South African adventure we made our way to Uganda where we hiked up to see some mountain gorillas where my dad almost got dragged away by one of them--no joke! Why am I laughing? I shouldn't be laughing, right? 

We finally made our way to Gulu!! I showed my family where I work, ate, slept and pretty much breathe. So they got the whole Gulu tour. It was hard, though, to be with them for two weeks and see them drive away, but not even hours later I was reunited with my Gulu family! In a spur of the moment decision I said yes to waking up early the following day and taking an hour-long boda ride to Fort Patiko. I spent some time staring at the view in front of me and simply thinking, "Thank you, Lord." xo