Fall Foliage

Earlier this summer I decided that I was going to do a cookbook fundraiser to support BULA - A Recipe for a Future: Second Edition. I thought it would be a great idea to get my home town involved in our projects in Uganda. I drove home one weekend, made 600 copies of a flyer asking for recipes and I set out on foot delivering each one door to door.

As I walked around the town I saw it differently than I ever had before - I saw it through the eyes of someone from the village of Gganda. With these lenses on, I suddenly realized how beautiful my home town was. Everything I saw was amazing: the houses, the yards, the flowers, the wide open spaces. I was in awe.

Since my return from Uganda I am constantly amazed by what surrounds me: HOT WATER is available by simply turning a facet and TOILETS - but we'll just leave it at that. WIRELESS INTERNET that is unbelievably fast and doesn't turn off at the most inopportune time. Oh, and GASOLINE that only costs $3.30 a gallon. Or highways that are paved, without massive potholes spanning the entire road and drivers who actually follow traffic laws or CELL PHONE connections that come in clearly and hassle free. And there is so much more.

For many of us, we are experiencing the transition of seasons and the beautiful colors of the fall foliage. As I was driving through the town in which I live, all I could think about was someone arriving from Gganda during this time and encountering fall for the first time. How exotic and astonishing the leaves would seem to someone who never experienced anything in seasons but wet or dry.

Seeing this amazing gift of Mother Nature, for what seemed like the first time, I felt blessed to be surrounded by such magnificence.

Someone once said, “Look at everything as if you were seeing it for the first or the last time. Then your time on Earth will be filled with glory.”

This is what my time in Uganda has taught me.

PS: The cookbook will be available in November!!!