Watoto Children's Village

One of the projects eMi is currently working on is a new wastewater treatment plant for the Watoto Children’s Village in Suubi. The village is a place for children who have been orphaned. Most commonly, this is a result of AIDS. There are several Watoto villages throughout Uganda. (You may have actually heard of the Watoto Children’s Choir. They tour all over the US, UK, and Australia to raise money for these villages. I have heard great things about the choir. Look them up on YouTube…). They have recently started up a new village in Gulu in northern Uganda. Many of the children there are formerly child soldiers in the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). It was common for the LRA to kidnap children and then murder their families in order to scare them into becoming soldiers. The LRA is no longer in Uganda so this isn't happening anymore. They are currently in Sudan and parts of the Congo, I believe.

The village is set up with clusters of homes. Each cluster has eight homes. Each home has eight or nine children with one house mom. Many of the house moms are widows as a result of AIDS. Each home becomes a new family with children ranging from primary school level to teenagers. The village that we are working for has close to twenty clusters of homes. (20 clusters x 8 homes x 8 children = a lot of children!) As a result, they are quickly out growing their sewage collection system.

Right now, they are using a series of septic tanks but they want to build a new wastewater treatment plant. That’s where eMi comes in. We spent a couple days at the village last week checking out the site. While we were there, one of the other engineers, Brittany, was taking lots of sewage samples (It was pretty gross. I’m glad I didn’t have to do it). Meanwhile, I was using our GPS equipment to survey the land. The goal of my time there was to figure out the elevations of all the homes so that we can get all the wastewater to get downhill to the plant once it’s built. It was a challenge because the site is on the side of hill that changes over 100 meters in elevation across the property. (My legs we pretty tired by the end of the couple days.)

My favorite part of the trip was getting to know one of the house moms, Mama Harriet. Brittany and I got adopted into one of the homes for the couple days we were there. We were staying in an apartment for visitors, but we ate all of our meals at Mama Harriet’s house. She was the most warm, loving lady and she was just SO excited that we were there. She treated us like her own children and was so generous to us.

This trip reminded me of why I love serving with eMi so much. We get to partner with other ministries all over Uganda and get to see the ways that they are serving others and provide much needed engineering services so that they can continue to effectively minister to others in need. Praise God for what he is doing through Watoto and all involved in making these villages great.

Here are a few photos from our time in Suubi:

A view from the balcony of the apartment we stayed in. It was really cool to see the sun set over the hill.

A view of the courtyard in one of the clusters. All of the buildings are very well constructed and look very nice, especially in comparison to traditional Ugandan construction.

Brittany making crosses out of banana tree leaves with some of the kids.

Moses and Joseph helping Brittany close the lid to one of the septic tanks.

Our meals were very traditional Ugandan food. For both lunch and dinner we had rice, beans, matoke, and posho. Matoke is basically banana mush (it’s the yellow stuff at the top of the picture). Posho is a dish made from maize flour. The best way I can describe it is white fluff with no flavoring (there is a little sitting just to the right of the matoke). We also had eggplant at this meal, but I get the feeling that it was a special treat since we were visiting.

This is Mama Harriet and some of her boys standing outside her house. I cannot emphasize enough how warm and hospitable she was towards us.