freep frow.

so...the past week has been hard. reallllly hard. i won't go into details because i could type out each day for an hour and no one wants to read that. basically, i was sick while on assignment in zambia. which means i was pretty much alone. i'm blessed to not have gotten sick before this, but i really wish it would have happened in uganda where i could have had someone to take care of me. and yes, i'm still young enough to have someone take care of me when i am sick, :). i missed pat dearly...but i'm glad to say the week is over and i get to go 'home' (to uganda) on friday...wooooot!

the high point of the week was definitely saturday. a girl from the states showed up to stay in the guest house so i wasn't alone, which was nice. she is a med student from yale (i'm hanging out with people from yale...the last person i stayed in a guest house with was from harvard - stupid and inadequate don't even BEGIN to describe how i feel here sometimes, haha) and is here to assist on ortho surgeries for the week. anyway - she showed up saturday so it was nice to chat with someone.

then hitler came to pick me up. ahh yes, i forgot to tell you all about hitler. he introduced himself the first day when he picked me up from the airport and i literally called him, 'hey you' for the first two days of the trip because i SWORE i heard him wrong. in fact, i did not and his name is actually hitler. sweet sweet guy, works at the hospital. anyway - he picked me up on saturday morning and we went to the weekly soccer game. excuse me, futbol match. i told him i was pretty sick and would just watch but he showed up at my door with my new CURE international jersey in hand. complete with the green socks and shorts. so i had to say yes.

we get to the pitch, which is more dirt than grass, and i hacked my way up and down the left wing for an hour. at one point, the 40 year old looked at me laughing and said, 'i am playing you as if you are a lady.' so i said, 'well, that's good because i am playing you as if you are an old man.' he laughed but i wasn't trying to be funny. i was trying to breathe.

i was very disappointed in my play and wanted to impress them. i read a book recently and the author said that each person needs a USP...Unique Selling Point. i could not come up with mine in life, but i found it on the soccer field. the good old flip throw. i figured since i made a loser of myself by failing to demonstrate any actual skill with the ball at my feet, i should probably throw it in at some point to redeem any cool points. with about five minutes left, the ball went out and i jogged over and threw it in. i have NO idea what their reactions were, they were speaking all sorts of zambian languages (there are 72 total). but i think they liked it. after the game we took a photo and a man from the other team came over and said:

'rashel!!!! what is it that skill you call?'
'a flip throw...you should try it'
'ahh, i see. a freeeeep frow!!'

and so went my saturday...africa makes me laugh.