adventures!

My team went location scouting for our short film today. While the writers and art directors stayed behind to work on the script breakdown and props, I went out with Kelsey, Aaron, Fasil and Siraj to find a soccer field and a house, which are thankfully the only two locations we need.

We couldn't get a taxi to the first location, so we walked two miles to a Christian orphanage that had a soccer field. We're not sure if we'll use it yet; we talked to the director about a price, but we won't know until tomorrow. The orphanage was very nice; it was more like a self-sustaining village than anything else.

Afterwards we got a taxi to Meganagne, then hopped on my first public bus to get to the house of Siraj's best friend. It was an extremely nice house; three stories, marble staircase, kitchen with cheerful yellow cabinets - so strange to see in the middle of a neighborhood with muddy roads and broken down buildings. Siraj invited us to a coffee ceremony at his house afterwards, and his friend offered to drive us since it was raining.

His house was smaller, but he had the most beautiful children I've ever seen: a little girl who showed us all the A's she got in first grade, a smaller boy who never stopped dancing, and a newborn boy with enormous eyes. They served us popcorn that had sugar crystals sprinkled over it when it was hot, and small cups of coffee - incredibly delicious coffee, I might add.

Siraj's friend, who was so gracious and kind to us, drove us all the way back to our hotel just in time for me to catch up with the girls going out for women's night. We went to a Chinese restaurant by the stadium and ate the BEST spring rolls I've ever eaten, which made me happy because all I had for lunch was peanut butter and crackers. I was especially happy to have two good dinners in a row, because last night was Mexican night at the STINT house. They asked for two of the girls to volunteer to go early and help cook, so Lauren (my roomie) and I had an adventure catching a taxi all by ourselves and getting all the way to Gerji. (We ended up walking halfway.) I had SO much fun cooking though; I made the guacamole, and helped Lauren with the rice. Everyone was ridiculously excited when they found out we had avocados and fajitas; you can tell we're all missing food from home.

I'm starting to be able to decipher the taxi driver lingo. When they're going to the stadium, they shout something that sounds like "cheddum, cheddum!" And when they're going to Gerchoula, they just say, "Chouda, chouda!" The best one is when they're going to Bole, and it sounds like they're saying "Booty booty booty!"

Our short film team seems to be the only one that is getting along - the other two teams are having problems with being unified and getting everyone to do their job and their job only. I'm praying very hard for them, and I'm sure they would appreciate more prayer; two of my friends are directors, and they're getting pretty stressed out. We have until Thursday to find locations, actors, props, get our script finalized, and be done with all the rest of preproduction, and then we film all day Friday and Saturday.

I'm finally nearly through being sick - thanks to everyone for your prayers and comments, they mean so much to me! We're visiting an orphanage tomorrow, possibly the same one I went to today, and I am ridiculously excited.