Whirlwind Holiday season

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all from the Pearl of Africa! I've had a very busy and social last couple of weeks. It started mid-dec at an IST (in-service training) put on by Peace Corps in Kampala to train us on how to teach life skills to kids and teachers in Uganda. It wasn't a bad workshop and was a good excuse to see all the other volunteers in my training group and make holiday plans. I spent Christmas day at my supervisor's father's (the head of our clan) house in the village. For a guy with 40 kids, it was suprisingly low-key. Apparently most of the kids were at the trading center participating in Christmas day games like soccer, wrestling, and a bike race around the district. The next many days were spent just visiting with other volunteers and having a good time. However, the last few days have been a little intense because of what's happening in Kenya right now. For those who don't know, there was a disputed election and riots that followed that have resulted in at least 300 deaths. There has been violence in the border town of Busia which is the main crossing from Kenya into Uganda. Unfortunately, besides scaring volunteers stationed near there, it has caused a huge fuel shortage here in Uganda. Most imports to Uganda, including fuel, come through the port of Mombasa in Kenya then are trucked this way.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200801021234.html
All this has completely disorganized my organization's program of receiving and distributing nets (fyi, that sentence was inspired by Ugang-lish). We were scheduled to pick up the nets today in Kampala, but transport costs has grounded us. The normal taxi ride of 12,000 Ugsh from Mbale to Kampala is now 40,000 Ugsh. Not including what it's going to cost us to rent the truck to bring them back. My supervisor and I are discussing sucking up the costs and just getting the nets asap. We don't know if things are going to get better or worse in Kenya, especially cause there is a huge rally of opposition supporters scheduled for today in Nairobi. We've been waiting so long to get these nets and really want them in the village in people's homes. Especailly since we found out that the donor organization, Against Malaria, has fundraised and authorized us to have an additional 2,000 + nets during this round. That means any time now, we will be distributing 8,400 treated mosquito nets to 5 parishes in Kakoro Sub County. Super exciting stuff and it better all go right or I'm going to go crazy! Stay tuned and hope all are having as an exciting (if not nervewracking!) new years as I'm having...