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.)

May already??

Time for a little update, trying to stratch my head and remember what I've been up to.

Weather wise, it has been very much the rainy season still... some parts of Uganda get 400-500mm rain just in April-May. So this morning was a good example. The first rain drops started falling, each one covering 5cm of ground and within 2 minutes the ground was covered with flowing water. Sure enough, it was soon gone and sunshine returned. The weather has been a little overcast and cooler and behaving a bit unusual according to some Ugandans. Still haven't been cole enough to want a jumper of any sort, not even close. Still sleeping on top of the bed with no sheet over me most nights.

Its been hard to find time to post here as I've either been away on weekends or working/busy. I visited Maz for her 21st birthday (May 8th) and got four days off to stay in Mbale, that was great to see Maz and have a chance for some conversation. Long distance relationship is quite challenging in many ways, I think most people would testify to that, but it makes your relationship stronger in some ways also.
I did leave my camera with her, so there will be no photos for a while til I catch up with her next (probably in June sometime.)

I would like to post photos of Sipi Falls (but can't obviously). We went there with Maz's Ugandan family, and they were really beautiful. The view from the mountain is magnificent looking over a vast amount of land and there are three waterfalls... I could be wrong but I think 90, 75 and 68 meters high. There is also a 9 meter deep natural swimming pool which we didn't get time to see. We went up there a little late, so didn't have heaps of time, but it was well worth it. One place charged us 75c each to go on to their land because we are Whites.

There were some caves / openings behind the falls that you could walk behind the water. We only saw the smallest fall up close.

The only downer was the travel time, about 8-9 hours each direction for ~300 km. The buses both broke down, there were random driver changes and the police fined us. At one point on the way home, I was getting ready to sleep the night on the broken down bus, as it was stopped for maybe 30 minutes and they were loudly hitting the engine with a hammer. The Ugandan next to me went to sleep using me as a pillow, so I couldn't even stretch my legs.

So I ended up going to do some prison work also, which was quite moving. I went to the youth remand home where 108 'criminals' are held. Some are there for getting caught kissing a girlfriend, some are there for stealing 5 million shillings (3500AUD). Sometimes the police will take them to jail without even informing their parents. Some of them wanted us to phone their parents to say where they were.
I went with a bunch of students form Makeree University and another man who I had met previously (and loved) called Eric, a Kenyan. I didn't know he would be on the trip so it was quite a nice surprise. We basically sang some songs, and handed out bananas (bagoya) and bread buns which the kids liked. The conditions there aren't very nice, but they teach them some studies while they are there which is good. I had some great chats with a few of the guys. They were really interested to hear some truth from the bible, especially one muslim guy, who was interested in hearing the claims that Jesus made about himself. Since they have to be either truth or false, lies or realities.

I enjoyed hanging with some peers too. My focus coming over here was to try to develope several friendships more deeply as opposed to getting to know many people at a more shallow depth. But it was still nice to catch up with some guys and girls and spend time finding out about them. Its hard culturally to have good gender balance in friendships here, AKA I've spent my time getting to know guys, but it was nice chatting to some sisters too for a change. The uni students seemed pretty keen in their faith and it reminded me of university work back in Australia in some points.

I'm trying to remember if I posted about Mukono. If I did you can compare the two and spot the difference as it is less fresh now.
A ministry up there is known as Reach One Touch One Ministries (ROTOM). It reaches out as a service to the elderly. Started by a Ugandan guy only a few years ago, it now involves 276 elderly folk and the 100 orphans under their care. Kenneth is the founder. He had got to know just one woman, and had gone to the USA to study and had a job there (rare). But he gave up the job and came back to focus on helping the elderly. They get together once per week to do training / life survival / coping with elderly living sessions. They also have some regular bible studies and visitation. They also get meals provided and sometimes help building huts etc if they become homeless.

It is sponsored through the US, Canada and Germany mainly I think, but I loved seeing money going to a great project and being used really well to rapidly expand into the local community. They are really well respected and everyone around can see that they really care for the oldies.

Social welfare is a very different concept here. Traditionally the economy was built for survival here... if you have any money, help someone who is in a worse spot, and they will help you when you are inevitably struggling. With the increase of western thinking, and individualism and capitalism, some of those structures are breaking down and leaving people less cared for. there are no government programs to help (as far as I know) so it is pretty hard for them, as elderly care and services just don't exist almost.

What else is news? Well the Kenya Baptist University project is winding up fast, we will hopefully publish by Wednesday next week, leaving time to complete remaining tasks after publishing with the final date set for May 29.

On May 30, I leave for another project down in the south west of Uganda, in a place called Kabale. That will go for a week and a half, and I will be doing surveying, the water system design and some sections of the report, which will keep me fairly busy until I come back to Oz in July. So you can be praying for that project.

I've also been applying for jobs back in Australia. Thats been going ok, with some phone interviews etc. I'm keeping my options open and if I can't get something lined up I'll focus more determinedly when I get home. If anyone has any good housing opportunities for me, coming up in Melbourne around July, let me know!

I'm currently an illegal immigrant, but only because I'm waiting for immigration to approve my special pass to extend my Visa. They still have my passport which I think is dodgy, but no other way around things. And to think Maz got it for free!! I had to pay $60. (which is the official price).

The peace talks have resumed in Juba a little while ago (regarding the LRA rebels in the north.) Tom is the professor from the US who I have been working on the water system design with. His wife Jill is going up next week sometime to be at the peace talks as someone who will pray, so that is exciting and I hope the peace talks can really make progress. The ICC still has Joseph Kony as the #1 wanted war criminal in the world I think, which is slowing down the talks as he and his commanders know their necks are on the chopping block. One of our guards went back to his village to rebuild, which happened in two weeks. I was so grateful and thankful that he could finally go and build again. The LRA burned down his home and lots of death occured around him (he was even shot at personally and friends running close by didn't make it). Its just a story of new beginnings, even though he lost friends, family, home and buisness.

Its crazy thinking back to my life in the last few years and realise that none of my concerns or stresses are even worth comparing to the struggles some people have had to go through. Sobering thought while you are partying away or chilling out, that somewhere, someone is going through extreme hardship and suffering, beyond our imagination.

So other random tidbits. We have no water, something has broken outside our property. The water we recieve here we boil anyway as stagnation in pipes and pollutants etc as well as the nasty growths in the tanks. When we do water quality tests around the nation it often fails human consumption quality standards.

Our landlord didn't pay his bill so they put a notice on our property that there would be a public auction in 1 month to sell the place. But he paid the bill so that drama was averted.

They also found 2 fully loaded AK-47's buried across the street. (they are fully automatic assault rifles for those who don't know their guns.) The guy made bricks during the day time, but was a black market trader. Rumor has it that the police tortured him quite severely. Just one of those things that doesn't have much impact on daily life, but an interesting story to tell.

I had a mexican party at Steve and Melinda Hoyts too. The food didn't seem too mexican to me, but its harder with limited ingredients. There some salsa's, refried beans, etc. I just made a pineapple, banana and mango fruit salad... Cheap and easy to make over here. :)

Still enjoying soccer, I make it there most weeks, sometimes I miss a few in a row though. Good friendly games.

As you can see, the news is getting shorter, primarily because I'm getting very tired. Benny Hinn (famous for his religious TV show.) is coming to town tomorrow (Saturday). I'm quite skeptical about him, but wouldn't have minded getting along to check him out for myself for free. But a friend is going along and He'll tell me all about it (I'm working instead with the project deadline so close.)

Thanks for reading, watch this space for more pictureless updates!

How does this work???

Life may not have imparted technological excitement to some of my readers... so...

If you are wondering where a picture or post that you saw previously dissapeared to, or wondering how to navigate around... You can always browse posts from other months by going to the panel on the right of the page and scrolling to the archive of all the posts!!! If you get lost at any time or stuck inside a single post... simply click on the Blog title right at the top to load the home page. I have it displaying 10 posts by default I think.

Thanks for surfing in, and thanks for your support, friendship, encouragement and prayers, whatever part you have played.

I miss my established friends over here sometimes so I'm looking forward to catching up when I return in a few months time.

I really appreciate those who have sent me encouragement and news, sometimes it is exactly what you need in a strange place!!

Other events of April!

MBALE
I made my second trip up to Mbale. Maz had organised a Joy Party (as seen in the photo) because of the struggles her African family up there having been going through. She had also baked some Easter goodies because she was away in Gulu over Easter. It was great to be up there again, however it was a fairly quick visit with lots of action which made it difficult to get any time together, but we caught up with some people I missed out on round one which was great, and I got to see a bit more of where she had lived for the first while.

I know a bunch of you have been praying for her and the work she is doing, so thanks so much for that on her behalf. I know she really appreciates the prayer support and God's strength and grace. It has been an amazing blessing and priveledge to be able to share our experiences over here, both directly and indirectly by sharing the same cultural experience. I can't thank God enough for that. She has been a great friend over here, and God has really used her to challenge and encourage me many times. Long distance relationship with poor communication infrastructure in country makes it hard at times. I know a bunch of you have also been praying for our relationship, so you can keep praying we will glorify God in all we do, and just continue to experience incredible growth in our love and trust for Him.

This snap is of two of my favorite ladies over here. Obviously Maz is on top of the list by a long way, but Anisha is a little cutie, both Maz and I love to play with her and she is really excited to see us, her adopted 'Muzungu' parents. (she has an African Mum and Dad of her own!)



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RIOTS.
I realized that I forgot to mention about all the riots here in Kampala. The reason is because an Indian owned sugar company wants to buy part of the Mabira Rainforest and the majority of Ugandans disagree with that. So they had demonstrations which were supposed to be peaceful but unsurprisingly turned nasty. The police/military controlled them using tear gas and bullets on a number of days but there were deaths. One innocent Indian man was grabbed by the mob and stoned to death immediately, while others were severely beaten. The burnt some vehicles and looted Indian stores. We didn't go into town on those days but our director Chad, suffered from tear gas in riots the next week. It seems to be more peaceful now, but its hard to tell when things will flare up. Riot control over here is certainly less gentle than in Australia, they don't even hesitate to give someone a thrashing. You can continue to pray for safety and stability here in the Capital and for the peace talks with the Rebels in the North that have recently resumed after a few months break.

Kangulumira

I love getting out of Kampala when I can, in a very similar fashion to how I love getting out of Melbourne to hit the countryside for a break.
Kangulumira is a village that is 45 minutes north west of Jinja (where the mouth of the Nile River is, and also Uganda's second largest population centre.)
This first picture is a discreet hip-snap looking at maybe 100 kids milling around a stage. The stage is a publicity thing for MTN, one of the telecom providers in the country. This is the main street. I like the villages because the streets aren't so overcrowded and narrow.

We went to visit a lady called Ali, who works for Peace Cor in Uganda. They seem to be a reasonable organisation. She is trained in chemical engineering, but doesn't plan to go back to it anytime soon. She is working as an educator in all the local schools, about health and other topics. This picture is taken from her back doorstep, she just has a simple little place. In the background, you can just see the little naked boy playing, classic Uganda!! Little nudie's everywhere. Fair enough when they only have one set of decent clothes, keep 'em clean as long as possible. It's also classic that he is lucky to be 2 yrs old and is playing almost completely unsupervised.

So I took some snaps of the local kids I was playing and interacting with while there. This first pic is of Titus building a little house for chickens, similar to the ones in the above photo. He was using a very sharp machete about 6 inches from his bare feet. It was fun watching him build, because he was quite skillful. He originally comes from Mbale, so he knew Luguso, which I knew one greeting from Maz. But he also speaks Luganda and English. Talented 13 yr old! The other kids are his brother and two other neighbors.

The next snap is of some kids who live right next to this guy I got to know briefly. His name is Jimmy and he lives in a tiny little place and goes to school in Kangulumira. His parents are still back in the village with the rest of the kids, and his oldest brother is trying to earn money in Kampala to be able to get to university, which is a hard target.


And Marvin is my little mate. We didn't do so much talking but he seemed to like hanging around with me. Probably because I'm a white skinned anomaly, but I like to think there was also a deep bond of mateship forming!! There is so much potential for ministry to children here, they often have absolutely nothing better to do than roll a tire around or play with a stick. So plenty of room to build friendships, play football and teach them the love of Christ.


Finally, Kangulumira is one of the largest pineapple growing areas in Uganda, and they export to Kenya and Tanzania, so I thought I should include a shot of some pineapples in their natural habitat. :)

I came on Friday, left early on Sunday morning for Mbale via Jinja. The Friday night was the heaviest rain I've ever seen!!

Weekly activities outside of work.

Nelson and Lucy (and their large family) live down in Bukasa, 5 minutes walk from where my church is. Nelson pastors a church that meets on their property, in a very simple hut, with bamboo screens for walls and a dirt floor. Lucy makes money for the family, working very hard to make craft and household items, whether woven baskets, bags and trays, necklaces, mats and paintings. I introduced Megan to her, this photo is Lucy and Megan in Lucy's 'shop'/room. Just mud walls and floor. Someone recently bought her a sewing machine, seen on the right.

I have spent quite a bit of time with them, I love Lucy as she is great to chat to, a godly woman and very friendly and encouraging. Nelson keeps quite busy, but he can also talk for ages and ages. He is very excited about his walk with Christ and his pastoral work. They have several children as well. I originally met them through their eldest son Dennis, who I got to know through playing soccer early on in my time here. (We just caught up this weekend but I forgot to photo him.)


Dennis is a great and sincere guy and I wish he was around more, but he attends boarding school in Mukono, so is now only back every several weeks. But I've also got to know his younger brothers a bit too. (in photo, cousin Moses, Fred, and Frank from L-R in front of their bedroom, where Dennis also sleeps when home. The western ideals of individualism and personal space aren't equally esteemed here traditionally.)
I am teaching the next youngest, Fred, how to play guitar. If there are two easy ways of meeting and forming friendships with my male African peers, playing soccer and having a guitar must be them. Its great blokey bonding.

Lucy's youngest son Austin (in picture) usually fears Muzungu, and takes a while to get used to them, some African kids are just like that, and cry whenever you come too near. But Austin has progressively got used to me, initially he wouldn't come near me, then he began to wave good bye when I was leaving, now he wants to shake my hand while I'm there, but he's still not super relaxed like some of them.

It doesn't seem to matter what time I go to their place, they always feed me. So I included a photo of a standard meal at Lucy's. Beans, rice and Matoke. Often they will bring meat for you because you are the guest. I actually really enjoy the Matoke, I wish we could have some in Australia every so often. Their culture is so generous and hospitable in general.


So here is a photo of me in front of Kairos Primary School (the construction in the background.) We meet there for church in a classroom. To the right of the photo is the very edge of a slum, and large piles of rotting food and rubbish are just off-photo to the right. If you look carefully you can see the "God is able" sign stuck to the ladies shop/homes. Signs like this are abundant in Uganda. People name their shops with 'grace', 'faith', 'Jesus loves you', 'Blessed', 'Christ the king' etc. in front of their shop name.


Ronald is a guy I meet for a 2 hour bible study each week, I thought you might like a picture.

Panoramic Photos.

I downloaded a compact little open-source program that makes pretty good panoramic photos. So I've been taking a bunch of "series photos" to turn into panoramas. I uploaded these at a bigger size, which means I think you *should be able* to click on individual photos for more detail.
From Top.
1) It is now the rainy season, here you can see clear blue sky on the right, heavy rain obscuring everything on the left.
2) There are at least a few sunrises this good every week.
3) This is a shot of the Nile River, near Kangulumira village, 45 mins NW of Jinja.
4) This is called Kalagala Falls (taken a lot closer obviously.)
5) This is the view from Maz's gate as she walks out of her home each morning. Mt. Wanali is very beautiful.

EASTER!!

Easter

Well I didn't eat any chocolate but I had a great Easter. I wanted to dedicate a good portion to God and spending time reading His word and in prayer. That time was really humbling as God challenged, rebuked and encouraged me as only He can. I need to spend those solid blocks devoted to Him a lot more, they were some really special times.

We went to the botanical gardens and the zoo, both in Entebbe, on Friday. The pictures from the Zoo will have to wait as I took them on Leahs camera after my battery went flat. I have provided a small sample of suitably exotic snaps so you can imagine the whole gardens were lush rainforest... but they weren't. There were however many interesting plants from countries around the world, I appreciated the cinnamon and cloves trees and the cocoa bush especially.

A Special Lunch

I wanted to tell you about this couple I visited. His name is Ronald and her name is Sharweya and their little girl is named Shanita. He had a catholic upbringing and she had a muslim upbringing. He got her pregnant (17) while at the same school, so they both dropped out, so that he could work to support them and she could look after the baby. She is 19 now. I had lunch with them, as per usual, their hospitality and sacrifice was great, providing two dishes with meat, and he doesn't earn very much at all. They just have a little one room place with a curtain in front of the bed like many Ugandans. We had a chance to chat most of the afternoon, before I left at evening. I'll go back and catch up with them again when I can, I think they can definately use the friendship and encouragement. Shanita loves to play with my white hairy legs because they are such a novelty but she is the biggest cutie. It was strange watching the dynamics of such a young family, like they had been thrust into a world of seriousness from the world of school. Ron was talking about economics and keeping the family looked after and Shaweya was a fairly standard Ugandan lady, busy with all the household tasks while we were talking. They seemed to have a really good understanding and love between them, obviously i only saw a snapshot. They had little A4 sheets on the wall about saying sorry when you make a mistake etc. I prayed with them for their little family before I left and they were really appreciative of my visit. Just one of those occaisions that will stick in my mind, every so often they happen and you think "I'll definitely remember this one for a long time". I hope to share Christ's love with them more in future visits.
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Because I can't be bothered making another separate post, I want to post a picture of a little gecko I caught and had for a while before releasing him to the wild again (to catch and eat those pesky mosquitoes.) I'll name him Gerard, our little kitten is called Gimli. He is still alive surprisingly.

Visiting Mbale.

This news is a month old now, but I wanted to get pictures from Maz before I blogged about it.

I got a day off work and traveled to Mbale on the 3-5 March, which is where Maz is living and working mostly if you haven't caught up on that.

5:30am I left for the bus park. I caught a boda boda, which subsequently flew into town. He was just safe enough for me to not tell him to slow down, although we would have been in a poor condition had we come off on a pothole going 80km/h without helmets I think. There are lots of risks over here, I think you just get used to accepting them, because in many cases you don't have other options. It operates very different to Australia in terms of risk to life.

The bus trip was alright, I had to wait an hour or so before it left. When I first arrived I was gauging travel safety by how often I would get a natural adrenaline rush during travel. But you get used to it and don't get the rushes as much after a while. But there were a few times when even the Ugandans on the bus all made exclaimations when the bus swayed a bit more alarmingly. I can sleep standing up in the buses which passes the time.

So Maz was waiting for me, and we headed to Bushikori where she worked. Apparently we only just missed (thankfully) a guy getting stoned for theft. Maz had some tests at the clinic and got malaria medication because she had malaria.

In general it was great being able to connect faces and places that Maz had told me about. A couple of other things I wanted to put on my blog though.

Anisha is a little muslim girl who lives near where Maz is staying. Shes about three years old. Her parents work from what I understand and she wonders around on her own with neighbors keeping a bit of an eye out for her (but certainly a lot less than we look out for our little ones!!

I can't remember why she came to me, maybe we called her, but she indicated she wanted to sit on my lap, so I picked her up. For about the next hour? she was pretty happy to sit there, and whenever I put her down, she just wanted to go straight back up. Anyway she is a real little cutie, so I wanted to post a picture of her. We are both looking cheeky. She definitely stole my heart.

We also visited an orphanage called Salem Village. They have orphanages around the world and seemed fairly well run from first glances. They even had a minor surgery at their clinic and were constructing a major surgery which is fantastic.

I find orphans are pretty heartbreaking to actually see them and their little individual personalities/lives. Not that we don't have any in Australia, but over here, there are an awful lot more and they can just die. Like Zimbabwe, where 10% of the population are orphans. millions of parentless children trying to raise themselves and their siblings.

At this orphanage they take total orphans, orphans and abandonment cases. The pictures are of some huts at the orphanage and some of the orphans, fairly evenly divided beween HIV/Aids, Abandonment and death-while-giving-birth cases. You could spend a whole lifetime over here just trying to raise these kids and love them. And some people do.

I read George Mueller's biography just before coming over here, and I think it helps me see his compassion and heart more to know practically what the orphans he was housing might have been like, and the routine tasks of changing several hundred childrens nappies? (they grew to 2500 orphans in the end.)

I could tell you more about that weekend but I'll write another post instead, so I'll leave it at that but I'm hoping Maz and I might be able to spend some time at the orphanage together although it might not happen with such limited time. There are always many things to do. :)