To begin...

It has not even been two years yet.  I have been married now for 1 year, 10 months, and 19 days.  But, when I stop amidst the chaos to think about all that has happened during this time, it feels like it should have been a lifetime.  Grace and I should be in our 70s now and relaxing on a porch, drinking coffee and looking at Lake Victoria.  That is the dream in my head…the house we have yet to build…on the land we have bought, but is waiting for us to return…the trees that have been planted as place-fillers…to keep others from trespassing.  They claim the land as “ours”…even more than the title we obtained and paid for.

 

Our story is unusual.  Our family is unusual.  But, our day-to-day now looks a lot like other families.  We get up and go to school or work.  We do extra-curricular activities.  I work here and there all day on various responsibilities….1 hour for my part-time job…stop to change and feed Hannah...phone meeting about work, then 20 minutes of email….Hannah’s up from a nap needing attention….she goes down and I work more….she’s up, so I get everything together and we try to run a few errands before the soccer game….we show up at the game, cheer and support, listen to Edith’s stories of her day and her needs for tomorrow…go home and struggle to make dinner…get Hannah fed…Grace comes home…we eat…bath for baby…clean kitchen, pump milk, watch TV, sew a little, prepare for my classes, talk about important tasks, then to bed….do it again.  

Only 6 months ago, we were living in Jinja and life was at a different pace.  I still had Hannah inside, and spent a majority of my day in bed.  Between power outages, “morning” sickness, and the stress of preparing to move internationally, it was all I could do to stay out of bed for 12 hours a day.  Part of me misses those days...having an excuse to take a nap...to shut it all out and rest.  These days do not allow for that respite. 

There is time to touch on all that brought us here, but for now, I will simply say, we are here.  We are doing well.  We are finding our feet.  We are settling.  And, we are going towards our dreams.