Spot the Ugandan.

We just recently finished one project. It was for the African Children's Choir.
A new school campus, as their old one was running out of capacity and in a rough neighborhood.

This is a photo taken from the school (it's a multistory building)
it's one of the houses near the school compound, but I thought it was fairly typical of a Ugandan hut in a poor neighborhood.
See if you can find the 10 Africans that are in the photo, although the resolution probably won't be brilliant. I thought it was cool once I started to count, how they blended in with the shadows so much. It can be nearly impossible to photograph them at night

The stains on the dirt from pouring out washing water or food preparation water are typical, and the clothes, the tubs, the water jerry cans. People sitting around with no work to do in the middle of the day.

They take great pride though in their homes however humble they are. I think its amazing to go inside a little house and step into their private space. The hospitality of Ugandan people leaves Australian hospitality for dead in most cases.

-RACKOKO-
I was browsing my photos of the north and saw my bed. I was quite happy with my improvisation. I turned a table upside down to hold the mozzie net at one end and tied it to the window's security bars at the other end. So this is where I slept for the few days at Rackoko IDP camp , had to use the table for brekky, but just set it back up at night.

It was very hot as there was zero ventilation in the room (the window was solid steel and had no mesh to keep mozzies out, so it couldn't be ventilation). Gets pretty hot with a tin roof and a hot northern sun (an hour or two from the Sudanese border.) So it was hard to get to sleep in the heat, but once i was asleep I had unreal sleeps. (I stayed up with all the locals watching the soccer and playing pool, so I didn't spend too much time in bed while up there anyway.)
I was sharing the room with a Ugandan guy called Godwin...
I've tried to post this a dozen times now, you have to be persistent.

pets and cheese

So in no particular order. There was a little lost puppy near the house of one of the staff couples. So they brought him to us, we were going to look after him. However, the owners became known so we gave him back. I thought we had actually bought him, so was surprised when he was gone a day later. But he is pretty cute huh, thats Janet holding him, shes a staff member (civil engineer).
We still have this little kitten. One girl at the office, named Erica is pretty compassionate. She found this little kitten crying in the gutter so rescued it and brought it to the office. Leah is now its surrogate mother, waking up to feed it etc. I'm not taking any responsibility, but when it gets older and cuter I'll play with it.
I also thought I would let you in on my cheese making experiements. I had some milk in the fridge but we didn't have electricity for 4 days straight. I put it in the freezer, so that when the generator was on it might stay normal / keep it cool. I took it out to use it but it had started to seperate into curds and whey. So I thought it was a perfect chance to make some cheese. So this picture is of the solid little block I made. But I wasn't game to eat it, as I didn't really have any idea what I was doing. Considering what you see in my hands is only part of milk I think I was on the way. I should feed it to the kitten and see what happens next time I make some "cheese"

Pictures. (Take 2)

Some of you may not realise how big Lake Victoria is?
I looked up the area because it is so massive...
turns out it is a quarter of the size of Victoria (my state in Australia)
These pics show Port Bell on Lake Victoria. (although you can't see it too much, there are often boats there.

I thought I'd treat you to 3 sunrises. They are often really nice here. They are taken from our 2nd story balcony (the top floor is mainly office, bottom floor living space, and I live alone out the back in the servant quarters [for lack of a p.c term])

The middle one is not over the lake, but over the prison just to the left of the other shots. The prisons here are terrible, like up to 40 people in 15 sq.meters apparently. I might be visiting with church people, not sure though. The sunset was nice anyway it was taken this morning. I've been getting up pretty early over here, between 5:30-6:30 usually, so I often see the sunrises. They're a lot more beautiful than a camera catches though, but still you get an idea.

Pictures.

I thought I'd post up some pictures and give a little bit of story as I go. Just to give you some insights into the little things of the day.
So this is a parcel sent by ground mail to Uganda. We got the package slip last week, which indicates you have a package to pick up. The funniest part of it... As you can see on the zoomed in bit... it was sent December 2004. I thought this was hilarious, until it is my parcel of course. So all those vegemite shipments better be sent airmail, it's unlikely any package will get here before I leave :P

Out of this shipment (we emailed the guy for permission to open it), I took the following photos.
This one is a shirt that came in the package. I thought I'd throw it on and take a picture since I haven't posted any full size pics of me. It was on my half day off (after working a 65-70 hour week the week before.)
So even lollies go off if you leave them long enough. These are the American equivalent of fruit tingles. Except those spots are mould. I tried a few that didn't have any visible mould but then decided it was a bit risky. I enjoyed the 2.5 year old beef jerky though.

Well that will do it, I'll make another post with a few more pictures, as I don't want it to crash after uploading so many photos.

Church

I thought you might be interested to hear about my church a bit.
I'm attending a small church plant. The mother church is local to me as well, called Life Christian Ministries Namuwongo. It has 500 members.
The little plant I go to is located also nearby, near the slums of Bukasa. It is in a half finished school building and has maybe 30 people (including kids).

It is a pentecostal church (from my experience, the largest percentage of churches are. I haven't seen a single anglican "Church of Uganda", but on the CIA factbook, Anglican is by far dominant... doesn't seem at all accurate.)

Anyway, biblical teaching seems scarce sometimes here, although there are definately some exceptions.

Pastor Robert is one of the pastors at the church. He has brought so many blessings to my heart as he shares, He is such a genuine, humble and godly man from what I know of Him so far. Hearing him speak about forgiveness, reasons for unanswered prayers, marital faithfulness, raising family, etc etc. He is a breath of fresh air always, so I praise God for him. I don't think I would have been so inclined to stay without getting to know him.

My philosophy is that in 6 months, you just need to get involved somewhere, flitting around trying to find a church won't really achieve as much. I really believe the more time you can spend in given relationships the better. So I've preached there and had a chance for some other ministry too, I really want to base my involvement through churches. I have another church based in someone's house that I want to get more involved with their youth programs. I met them 2 weeks ago, and plan to visit on this weekend / maybe help with their saturday night youth program. They go on evangelism trips and also minister at prisons, so hopefully I'll get to go with them on some of those trips coming up.

The service goes for 3 hours usually, can be tiring :) I don't understand most of the songs, they have quite a few different ones each week, but I'm starting to recognise some repeated ones now. They usually translate for me for messages, they very kind that way, although sometimes the translation is too quiet or hard to follow. I sometimes need a translator between Ugandan English --> Australian English.

Regardless, Pastor Robert usually share in english which I appreciate. Luganda and Swahili are the other main languages used.

David, who I've spoken of before, introduced me to the church, so we go there together. After church we usually head up to a local restaurant together to get a meal for a 1000 shillings (~70c).
It includes goat soup, matoke (savory cooking banana) , yam, kasava, beans, g-nut sauce, generous slabs of avocardo (cheap here) and rice. I usually manage to finish it, but its a struggle sometimes... 70c only!!

I'll try to take some pictures this week. I don't like taking the camera around much, its one less thing that can be stolen, also an obvious sign of money, I feel that can be like vinegar to a wound when you are walking through slums.

Zimbabwe

I just wanted to post about Zimbabwe. I'm sure it is getting some coverage in western press, but it really is desperate there. Some estimates of the inflation there are around 1700% (the highest anywhere in the world).

Practically, this means that if you don't buy the loaf of bread in the morning... it will cost you twice as much to buy it in the evening.
That is all well and good if your wages double every day. But they don't.

This economy has been in a bad way for a while, it can only completely collapse at this rate. Many people (up to 30% of the population in some estimates) are attempting to flee the country.

In "Operation World" (2001), the book about world mission, it was estimated that 10% of the countries population were orphans. That is so hard to imagine any country dealing with that, let alone the power hungry dictator that Zimbabwe has.

It just seems to be a terrible situation, people fleeing their homes in desperation, to South Africa and surrounding countries. The outlook there is pretty bleak too, which just goes to show how desperate these millions have become are to flee there.

I definately think coming to Uganda has helped me understand more of what real poverty actually looks like and the desperation that it induces and I have to say please keep praying for this country and its struggling people. There is no point in "President Robert" dying just to let a worse leader in there either.

Blogging Drought.

Well it only feels like yesterday since I wrote my last post, but time flies over here.
For the first 4 days this week we had no electricity. So during the work day we run on a generator, but that is when I'm working, which means after work, I can't write emails or blogs etc, since the generator goes off then.

So, sorry if anyone has been reading this but not finding any fresh updates. To quote a friend of mine "you have to experience the difficulties before you understand".
Also I've been investing my internet time over the past few weeks into individual emailing, but apparently a bunch of people have been reading this blog. You have to leave comments for me every so often, I didn't think it was being read very much.

A lot of my photos are on other people's cameras, so I might just post some text blog and add photos on later. So here goes for an update with a bunch of random pieces, while I'm awake enough to type it. (because the power has been off and you can only put up with candles for so long, I've been going to bed early, like between 8:30-9:30... so I'm getting tired pretty early.)

The last few weeks I've been working pretty hard on a project for the African Children's Choir. They are building a new campus. Basically they take neglected kids / street kids, train them as a choir which then tours western nations. The money they raise supports the kids through schooling and even university in some cases.
They raise a bunch of funds for orphans in various countries over here, especially aids orphans.
Anyway, the project is due for completion really soon, so we are pushing hard to get it done.

I did some surveying for Wakiso Baptist Church, they will be an upcoming project for us sometime. They started witha children's ministry but found they quickly got the parents also. So they now have 150 children of a morning and 150 adults also but want a church for 800. They currently have a shack with basic benchs, dirt floor (like many churches here).
It is next to a slaughterhouse, which in Africa, smells just like you are imagining. But they are growing by at least 2 people per week at the moment, making it hard to keep up.
They currently look after 10 orphans but want to expand to 30 by three years time.

Wih the commonwealth delegation coming to Kampala later this year, things are getting tidied up a lot here. They are trying to get all the rubbish piles out of the city and ban the street shops. They said everyone has to paint their shops etc. or face removal. There is also a bunch of roadworks going on to make things more passable. It has certainly stirred things into action.
They are trucking the street kids out to the north apparently. Many Ugandans will tell you they can see the changes. I suppose our countries do the same when something imortant happens, host the olympics --> run an anti-littering campaign. Keeping up appearances.

Kampala is a pretty grotty city. Another thing to thank the West for maybe. Bringing in super cheap plastic bags instead of the woven baskets they had beforehand. So mounds upon mounds of plastic rubbish are everywhere you go, mixed in with food scraps. We gave them the cheap plastics but they didn't have a rubbish disposal system in place. They regularly burn it all, producing excellent quality air to breath.
Who knows where all our rubbish goes though hey? We just put it out of site... a Throw Away mentality... Where is "away" though...?

If you are wondering, I'm not disgruntled or even pessismistic about the culture, just stating things as they are to my eyes. Its strange to think we all live on the same earth but there are wildly different standards here.
Animal Rights, Environmental Protection, Occupational Health and Safety. These three things are almost non existent here, to name just some of the pillars of Australian society. Over here, chickens will just be on the buses under people's feet etc. Environment- no emission controls or pollution monitoring, burn plastics. OH&S - they will have an unfenced unsupported hole 8 meters deep, or a guy climbing up a 70 meter tower, no ladder no harness.
Same Earth, but wildly different priorities and philosophies.

Weather. Don't think I've said much about it.
For each month throughout the year, the average temperature in Kampala flucuates by about 3 degrees. ie. the highest monthly max. average temperature is only a few degrees hotter than the lowest month. So I think it is about 17 at night and 30 during the day.
0.2 degrees above the equator, just in the northern hemisphere if you haven't had a chance to look at a map of Uganda yet.
The seasons have been playing up for the last few years, this part of the world is experiencing some unusual and unseen patterns. But still plenty of rain, the dry season here still looks like the greenest winter Central Victoria has ever had. We have a paw paw tree in the frontyard, mangoes, pineapples and bananas are all very cheap. proably 30c/kg for banana's. A pineapple is around 60c. I'm loving the fresh fruit when I get a chance to buy some at the market.

I do miss vegetables though. I found a shop that sells green beans pretty cheaply, so that was exciting and I'll be heading there to get beans every so often. I have potato, carrot and cabbage mainly for vegetables, and matoke too which is a banana shaped and textured vege. It is hard to describe the flavor, but they are savory anyway.
the green beans were just over a $1/kg, so it's nice to have them. Also found cheap meat, like $4 /kg rump steak. It's good for a weekend treat meal. I eat porridge most mornings, just oatmeal. With powdered milk, but that is reasonably expensive. like $4-5 for a tin, cheaper than Aus, but when you see things over here that go above maybe $5, you feel like its a luxury item.
Thats enough for one post, plus I'm going to bed. I'll attach some pictures and some more random thoughts soon. I'm pretty tired so forgive me if any of that is too rambling.