ever watched paint dry?

That's what it's like trying to log onto the internet of late. For over an hour, I have been staring at this computer screen - no, not mine - waiting for the blog site to open. To those of you who have e-mailed me, please understand that I can't respond now, as the system is just TOO SLOW!

My day began at the offices of New Vision, the government run local and most widely read newspaper in Kampala. I wrote up my ad for the missing laptop and reward, and it will run in Thursday's paper. There are now fliers about the laptop decorating the walls of the hotel at various locations, as well as a letter from the manager to the staff informing them of the reward. Everyone is so concerned, the staff included, and they feel so terrible about what has happened. My fellow students treated me at first as if there had been a death in my family, which leads me to the obvious - things could be A LOT worse.

I was welcomed back to the school/orphanage with wide open arms. Rosemary, Michael and Peter are such wonderful people. They love each and every one of these children, and they also love the work they are doing with/for them. I admire them so much. They let me wander around and shoot, then they laid out a great lunch of rice, potatoes, talapia and roasted corn. We had such a nice visit. They have already bought the books! They showed them to me, and I was so touched to see that they had inscribed each one with an acknowledgement to "Gloria and friends." I did not make nearly as many pictures as before, and most don't compare to the ones in the first batches, but at least I now have some.

Tomorrow will be an edit day for me, so I will have some photos to post here on the blog then. Stay tuned...

My fellow students are working on some really interesting projects. Several have left Kampala to pursue their work. Eileen has gone to Gulu, in the northern part of Uganda, to photograph former child soldiers. Dan and Brian have gone to some refugee camps in the southwest part of Uganda, and Cheryl has gone off to do a story on pygmies. We will all gather here on Thursday night to begin putting together our final slide show, and we'll also get to see the presentation of films the students in the other group have made.

Dennis found a pumpkin somewhere for us, and tonight Joe carved it and put a candle inside. Also, Thatcher reminded us all to say "rabbit, rabbit" for good luck since it will be the first day of the month. A few of the others said, yeah we know. I thought only my family did this!

Rabbit, rabbit.