Smell ya later, Uganda.

I had to say goodbye to the women we worked with, I don't even want to get into detail about the goodbyes. It was heartbreaking and those 12 women will have a special place in my heart forever. I wish I had been better with my blog life in Uganda. But I was busy doing African things like watching pirated movies and eating rice. Sorry. I'll finish with a bang about my last few days in the great country of Uganda. 

The seven other girls I've been working with this summer and I decided to take a quick trip as kind of a celebration to wrap up an incredible summer. So, we decided to spend a few days on an island on Lake Victoria, which is the second largest lake in the world. My friend, Meredith, found it online and it looked semi-legit..."African standards". AKA: American standards? I don't think so. But what the heck, it was an adventure. 

We took a taxicab to the lake where we were meeting a boat to take us two hours to the island. About 10 little, petite African men greeted us and took our bags the second we stepped out of the taxi van. They then walked us to the shore to our boat. I wasn't expecting a cruise ship by any means, but I was a bit skeptical when the little African dude pointed to the wooden fisherman’s boat that was ready to sink any minute and said to me, "we go?" For a split second I thought to myself, "Is this a sick joke?" And then I thought, "this is AWESOME. Leggo!" Next item of business: How in the world am I supposed to get on the boat that is 30 feet in the water without a dock? Oh. Docks don't exist? Am I supposed to swim to the boat? Walk on water like Christ? Yeah, no. Next thing I knew this little 5'5" 140 lb (guesstimate) African man picked me up like a baby and started walking out into the water. WHAT ARE YOU DOING AFRICAN MAN PUT ME DOWN. We finally got to the boat and he set me in and said, "Jesus, you Americans are heavy." .......awesome. Just what a 20 year old girl wants to hear. FOOD ISN'T SCARCE IN AMERICA OKAY, SIR?  I just looked at him, laughed, apologized, and internally planned for his murder. The boat ride was unreal. For most of it, due to the fog and massive lake, I couldn't see a single thing in any direction. At some point between being called a fat American on land and arriving at the island we passed the equator to the southern hemisphere, which was pretty neat. Anyway, We finally saw the island in the distance and got incredibly anxious. The bed and breakfast dormitory was the only thing visible on the tiny island. As we got closer we saw dozens of birds flying all around the shore. And as we got even closer, we saw a baby crocodile cruising along in a swampy area. I tried to ignore it for my own sanity. In fact, I'm still trying to convince myself it was my imagination. After pulling up to shore the host of the dormitory, Andrew, showed us to our room. A big open room with five twin beds covered in nets. "Don't worry about the nets we don't even have Mosquitos on this island. The nets will just keep the bats from pooping on you at night." Oh, okay, thanks Andrew, as long as there aren't Mosquitos. Andrew continued to say, “A few months ago we had a few dogs on the island go missing, we went on a hunt to find them and found a 16 foot python that has been eating our dogs. Don’t worry though, we killed the python.” SHUT UP, ANDREW. NOT HELPING. He went on going off about the spiders, hippos, and the poisonous snakes on the island, etc. at first I thought he was just TRYING to be funny. Then I realized he was dead serious and I was traumatized. 

Day one on the island: I'm a pretty tough girl. There are times that girls scream about things that I don't even notice...sometimes I even feel a little masculine, which is not okay. But that's beside the point. Lets just say this...the one thing I cannot handle...large spiders. And unfortunately, Andrew wasn't lying about those spiders. We sat down for lunch and as I was eating my avocado and tomato salad (which is not a typical Chanel lunch but it was necessary after the fat American comment) I looked up from my plate for a split second and...I saw...it. The biggest, blackest, biggest, scariest, biggest, meanest, biggest spider I've ever seen. It was up in the corner of the kitchen the size of my face. I just shook my head, closed my eyes, cried for a few hours, and tried to focus on my delicious tomato salad? I have this weird psychological problem where I think if I talk crap about spiders they will hear me and plan a gruesome attack with all their spider buddies. So I tried not to complain too much. Andrew just laughed his head off and said, "you haven't seen anything yet." I don't want to see anything Andrew. Take me home. Take me to my parent's house in America where I can scream bloody murder at the sight of an ant in my bedroom and my mom will come kill it for me. Tough luck, Chanel. Anyway, I inhaled my lunch and went out to the beach. And life got good, real good. I put the deadly island critters on the back burner and I plopped down in a chair about 5 feet from Lake Victoria and opened my book. "Everyone Is Hanging Out Without Me?" By Mindy Kaling. Absolutely hilarious, I strongly suggest it. I was about half way through my book when some random 40-year-old guy came up and asked me if I wanted to go sailing. My first thought was, "My dad would kill me if I said yes to this old grey man asking me to go sail with him on a boat in the middle of an African lake." But then next thing I knew I was a sailing woman. Man, I have got to get into sailing! It was rad. And the guy only tried to murder me twice, no big deal. After sailing it was nearly dusk and we sat around the campfire while Andrew asked us trivia questions. He made us Americans look really dumb. If anyone was wondering, the second most translated book next to the Holy Bible is the Ikea Catalog. Who knew, right? But also, WHO CARES? The sight of the lake at night was beautiful. All the small villages on neighboring islands set out to fish at night in their little wooden boats with lanterns on both ends for light. It reminded me of Tangled. Simply stunning. Just when I started to get cozy I felt a critter on my leg. Not some little ant, a frickin' centipede. I immediately slapped my leg, squishing centipede guts all down my ankle. You've gotta be kidding me. On the verge of tears, it was finally time for dinner. Dinner was decent. We ate with Andrew. He drank a Coke, and when he was about half way finished he refilled it with half a bottle of vodka. I'm not an alcohol expert, but I'm pretty sure that’s a lot. I then hit the hay. As exhausted as I was from such an eventful day, I couldn't get myself to fall asleep. So I pulled out my phone and began playing Tetris. That lasted about five minutes until Mosquitos started swarming my phone and I smashed about 12 of the little rascals on my screen. I then popped a Tylenol PM and slept like a rock for a solid 10 hours and woke up to the sound of the waves, the smell of breakfast, and no bat poop on my face. 

Day two on the island was quite relaxing. One thing I have grown to love about Africa is that no one relies on that dang electronic stuff. All that iPhone junk is so unnecessary...but let's be real, I'm a complete hypocrite. I love that junk. But a break from it all was nice. SO DAY 2. We started off going on a hike and jumped in the lake afterwards to cool down. We grabbed lunch and Andrew poured his other half of the vodka bottle in his coffee. So, with my recently developed alcohol expertise, I diagnosed him as an alcoholic. Anyway, after lunch my friend, Kelsey, and I thought it would be a fun adventure to paddle from one side of the island to the other, yeah, MISTAKE. My arms felt like jello after 10 minutes and the little plastic boat was bound to tip at any minute. It was about to tip into a lake filled with Hippos, which is the deadliest animal in Africa. Cool. Great idea, Chanel. Lets just go for a little paddle in the waters of hippos and water snakes on this sketch African boat. We survived. After we returned we had peanuts for a snack. My friend, Jessica, was holding the peanuts and Andrew came up to her and said, “Hand me those peanuts, Woman.” EXCUSE ME? I bit my tongue. Pretended I didn’t hear. But this chauvinist alcoholic was no longer on my good side. Aside from that near death experience and the sketchy host, Andrew, it was a pretty good day. It went right back downhill when we watched Father of The Bride to finish off the night. That movie is a roller coaster. One second I am feeling painfully awkward for dang Steve Martin, and the next my eyes are full of tears. Dang you, Steve Martin. My night continued to shoot downhill from there. After the movie I went to the bathroom. I don't mean to sound unladylike or to go into unnecessary detail, but as I sat on the toilet I spotted three centipedes and six spiders. IN ONE STALL. Then I glanced into the shower and saw one of those big black spiders, like the one in the kitchen, remember? It was probably the same one coming to haunt me. I knew he heard me talking crap about him. I then sprinted through the jungle back to my dorm. I went to my bag to take some Tylenol PM. Guys, I promise I'm not a druggy. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Anyway, I shined my flashlight in my backpack and sure enough, it was ant infested. I thought about throwing a fit, but then I realized I didn't want the ants to hear me like the spider did. So I climbed into bed. Within a few minutes I felt tingles on my legs. At first I thought it was just sweat or something. But as the tingling escalated I shined my flashlight on my legs, sure enough, MOTHS. As much as I wanted to scream, cry, or even kill myself, all I could think was how I thought we were going to be at some exotic tropical island like the movies. What a joke. What a sick joke. My night couldn't have been worse, and I blame Steve Martin. What a jerk. 

Day 3 on the island: I did my laundry. By hand. Have I mentioned that I have been doing my laundry by hand all summer? Cause I have. After the scrubba-dub-dub we grabbed breakfast and jumped on that beautiful boat to head home.

My dear readers, I promise I'm not bipolar nor emotionally unstable. I just needed a way to vent. And naturally, I chose social media. Sorry. Some events of that island I will cherish forever, and other events, like the spiders and ANDREW, I will spend my life trying to forget. 

Aside from the traumatic events this weekend included, I had a lot of time to reflect on how life-changing this summer has been. Life-changing...such a cliché term. But living in African circumstances and working in villages with single mothers for over two months has, well, changed my life. It has shown me that simplicity is one of the keys to happiness, but has also exemplified how blessed my life is. And how lucky I am to have a close-knit family with parents that love each other unconditionally, which upon being in Africa I have realized is a very rare and special gift. My gratitude for my family has shot through the roof. My mom always told me growing up that someday my family would be the most important thing in my life. My mom was right, as always. I will miss Uganda dearly, but home is calling. Mom, please be on time to the airport with a sign bearing my name. Las Vegas. August 1st. 5:15 P.M. Smell ya later, Uganda!