Kitgum

Because the Kabale project was of a much smaller scope, and I had plenty of holiday hours up my sleeve, I was able to go to Kitgum for a week. Marianne had told me about it because she was going, but I didn't know what my work commitments would be like.

So I travelled up to Mbale on a Monday, arriving fairly late. I don't think the bus broke down, just heavy traffic in the city. Charlie (another eMi guy) came up also, and arrived half an hour after me. We stayed the night at Mbale, then traveled to Gulu the following day, quite a long bus trip. We stayed at Gulu that night before heading to Kitgum.

Gulu is a strange town because it has a lot of drifters from the war. I don't really like the atmosphere, but its hard to describe in print. For those of you who have seen the movie "invisible children", there are no night commuters currently as the LRA have been a lot quieter, but I waited for a while in the bus shelter featured in the film.

Kitgum reminded me of the Mallee in western victoria. A hot and fairly dry heat. It had more development than I thought, and a larger population.

We ran a program in several highschools concerning HIV/AIDS awareness, and sexual purity / faithfulness under the title "True love waits". The Ugandan man heading the program is from Kampala Baptist Church, but wants to be based in Gulu to do ministry for the next 5 years or so. The programs went well and the kids were allowed time to write anonymous questions, which flooded in.

The average age to start having sex can be around 10 years old, and the infection rates are quite high. We had spiritual questions, science questions and general advice. It was great to be able to discuss the topic, raising awareness and answering the kids questions
(photo below - collecting questions at one of the schools.)



I also preached at a church within the IDP camp. I didn't have much solid preparation time, and had Malaria and a stomach infection so wasn't feeling as clear as I could have been and didn't say everything I planned to say. I trust it was valuable for the people though with God's power at work. (below - the packed out church in the IDP camp)



The IDP camp we visited was saddening to see. Poor sanitation, poverty, unemployment, cramped living conditions and very limited medical and education systems.



I saw little kids going to the toilet on rubbish heaps, with obvious evidence of poor nutrition.
There are very few ways to generate income (just selling some mangoes and charcoal etc), and many children don't get primary education, while even fewer attend secondary level. The World Food Program supplies a lot of basic food, but it would be incredibly hard to live there.



While confronting to realise no one should live like that, it is hard to know how to be a long term blessing. These camps have been running for 20 years, such a devastating situation for economy, family, culture and society.

The following two pics:
1) me spending time with local kids. They were following me so I went to spend time with them. They couldn't speak english but I was clapping with them with various rythyms. They later called out in Acholi to come and clap some more, so I did some brief clapping for them and they all laughed.
2) Marianne and I, with the 5 Acholi children we have adopted from the camp.



In case you are now expecting me to return with 5 kids, they're not really mine, but it makes for good blog reading.

Marianne had heard of an Australian lady in Kitgum who had started an orphanage quite a while back. So we asked around and the ministry was quite well known, considering there was a primary school for ~3500 and a vocational school for ~1000.
She began by teaching under a tree and teaching songs to about 50 kids, but it has grown a lot since. The sponsorship mainly comes through Australia. They also feed the children breakfast and lunch, and there are a lot of mouths as shown in the following picture.



You could well ask how to feed 3500 children... the answer is: with posho and beans!


The above is of me stirring the posho (~stiff porridge made from maize flower.)


And of course you need a lot of beans!! I marked these images because they have had some trouble with exploitation of their work.

They really do an amazing job, its fantastic to see funding going to a good place, when there is so much corruption is some of the aid organizations / NGO's here, even the well known ones.
If you want to see their website or contribute to their work, visit
www.cks.org.au

So it was a great trip, I was glad I had the time to go, and it was great to spend time with Maz too, especially as we won't see each other for July.

back from Kabale, off to Kitgum.

For the next week,
I'm going up to Kitgum, its about 20-30km from the Sudanese border, up in the north where the war with the LRA rebels has been ongoing. We are visiting high schools to conduct HIV/AIDS awareness sessions and to talk about purity and faithfulness. We will be visiting some IDP camps hopefully and encouraging church leaders too. Charlie, an intern who has been in the office for a few weeks now (one of the 'summer' interns), is coming with me also. Today I will travel to Mbale, then travel with Marianne tomorrow to Gulu, then Kitgum. You can be praying for a fruitful time with the youth up there. The Ugandan man who is leading the trip is named Chris. He seems like a top guy, Marianne knows him a lot better than me!

BACKTRACKING:
The Kabale project trip: Revival Tabernacle Ministries.



We went to Kabale for a week to do a short project. The ministry is revival tabernacle ministries, a growing pentecostal church in a slummy area of Kabale known as Bugongi.

Bugongi has traditionally had lots of drunkenness, theft, prostitution and child mothers / young children with little provisions or care.

The church currently has 200 people in its main congregation in Bugongi, and has planted 25 other churches in the surrounding 20 kilometers. (Usually here when it becomes too far to walk to a church, another one springs up.)

We were designing a bigger church building for them for their main congregation, as their existing structure was very temporary and already being outgrown. We also designed some classrooms and offices as they want to make their headquarters at the site.

At some point in the future they want to also build a school and orphanages.

I took plenty of photos, so here we go!! (the first photo being a picture from the bus coming into Kabale.)



This was our team with a few people from the church, standing at the existing church entrance. Because it was a small project, there weren't many volunteers from abroad. Mainly interns. Out team from left, Megan (architect), Jean (civil), Me (civil), Chad (civil) and Melody and Lewis (both architect.)



As per usual, there were many children who were interested in us. This shot shows me with them. They are excited because I was taking shots and showing them their photo. Many of them are from young child mothers and can't afford to go to school at all.



This is the senior pastor, Pastor Johnston. Its funny to me, because while he looks like a cool dude, his clothing and motorbike are the norm rather than exception. Most African pastors wear suits and the motorbike is a boda that belongs to the church, a very common way of getting places here in Uganda! He was really friendly, passionate about reaching the lost in Bugongi and a compassionate man who has adopted 8 orphans from Bugongi to live with his family.



Part of my work was to conduct percolation tests of the soil, to establish drainage rates for design of septic tanks and soak pits. We have a hand auger so I dug a few 11 feet holes. We then saturate them and test the absoption rates. This is shown above as Jean measures the depth to the water while Chad is recording the data.



This is the local river where we filled jerrycans for the percolation tests. We took almost 1000L. I didn't count the trips but there were a lot!! Needless to say the water quality tests from here came out septic!



Another job was to survey the site and transfer it to AutoCAD so that the architects could begin to do their work with the buildings. In the above photo, the guy on the right was helping me measure distances for the survey. He couldn't speak any english but was very helpful. I thought it was a really cute photo that Jean took of them.

So a few more odds and ends!!


They fed us very well, some of the nicest meals I've had in Uganda! A couple of ladies from the church were cooking for us, and we were staying in a house that the church had managed to get for our use.



During the saturday, 3 of us took time out to go and watch Nigeria VS Uganda in an African Cup soccer match. Uganda won, which resulted in much cheering and dancing. This photo is of all the people crowded in to watch a small television in the corner of the room.

Some animals to wrap up the photos. When we went to an island on Lake Bunyoni for a day after the project trip, this is a crested crane, the national bird symbol. Before I left, Alison from my church had the national symbols at my "sending service", so here it is in the flesh.



When we returned from the island, this little baby goat was near the landing dock. It had just been born the night before. Never one to resist taking photos of something really cute, I seized the opportunity.



These little piglets (and the mother) belonged to Joseph, an orphan who has been adopted by Pastor Johnston. He is now ~18, and uses these pigs to provide his school fees. He wanted to show me his pig, so we went and saw it, just living in the middle of a swamp. It went roaming before giving birth, so it was quite a while before he found it again.



This final shot is another scenery one, but has a small story. It is taken from the backyard of a house the church rents. 18 orphans from Bugongi live at the house with some carers, they call it a "house of hope". I visited there with Chad to give them advice on the location of a new rubbish pit and compost system.

Lake Bunyoni

This has officially taken the top of my list for most beautiful scenery in Uganda.

After the recent project trip in Kabale, we took a full day (two nights stay) at Byoona Amagara, an island among many on the lake. At around $10 a night it was amazing, and 100% of their proceeds and more go toward the islanders, so it was great to have such a beautiful spot that also invests directly in the locals.


The above photo is the view from the toilet. It was a pit latrine with a seat on it but the door wouldn't stay closed, so this is the view I had to put up with while performing my digestive duties.



This is the dining area. They served really delicious food, the most expensive of which was around 6500/= or $4. (crayfish masala.)


These photos above and below are of children going to school. In the above photo, a girl rowing to school in a dugout canoe. In the below shots, larger dugouts taking multiple children to school. The large dugouts were really impressive as a single piece of timber from very large trees.


It was a relaxing day. Marianne joined our trip toward the end of the project and stayed for the time at Lake Bunyoni so we were able to spend some time together. It would have been nice to be longer though, as the preceeding weeks were quite draining with the high workload, so I'm still quite weary from that and needing some refreshment time.

Some Pictures

I've got my camera back now so I thought I would throw up some pictures of the previous month when I went to Mbale. The first 'snap' (the word for photo here) is of myself eating grasshoppers in maz's family kitchen.

The next 2 photos is of a roadside market at Mbale, these markets are everywhere, usually selling basic foods and sometimes clothes or other basic goods, such as charcoal etc.


Marianne and I had talked about visiting Sipi Falls (3 Waterfalls close to each other) together. So we travelled up the mountain with her Ugandan family. The next shot is a scenery shot on the way up there, where we stopped to buy some matoke from the roadside.



Near the local township there is a small lookout hill which we climbed to take the following 3 shots, Maz and I, Sipi number 1 and an amazing school on the mountain top. If you took a profile of the different schools that are all over Uganda there is an incredibly diverse range of locations, quality and so on.



We only visited one of the falls, the smallest one, which is Sipi 2. It is 68 meters in height. The next photo is of Maz and some Ugandan family crossing the bridge on the way to the waterfall.



This photo is looking out from the cave behind the waterfall. It has been used for salt mining and also for cattle (that lick the mineral salts.)



That will do for the Mbale photos. well maybe just 2 panoramas, one from the lookout at Sipi, and one of Mount Wanali. (click to see bigger photos of these ones.)