Gulu Survey Trip – Part 1

Sorry I have been so silent over the past week and a half. Last Monday I left to go to Gulu and haven’t had very much internet access since. I feel like a lot has happened since I have been in Kampala but I will try to summarize it as best I can.

The site we were surveying is a plot of land about 45 minutes outside of Gulu, a town in northern Uganda. It is somewhere in the vicinity of 430 acres; the exact boundary is still being debated. We used GPS surveying equipment with multiple rovers in order to cover as much area as possible. There are no existing structures on the property so all we did was take topographical shots.

A lot of the site is covered with thick brush which made it very difficult to walk through. In order to make it easier to walk, the site had been burned to clear away a lot of the brush. Unfortunately, it left all of the grass covered in soot. As a result, we left each day covered head to toe in black dust. I think the highlight of each day was nice long cold shower.

The work we are doing is for Watoto church. They are looking to develop the site with a vocational school, agricultural center, and rehab center for former children soldiers. The survey is only the beginning of our work. I will be coming back to Gulu in a couple weeks with a full team of engineers and architects to start designing the site. From here on out, I will be using most of my time to work on this project. Many more details on the work and exactly Watoto is doing will be coming soon. In the meantime, here are a few photos from the trip:

Walking to the site for the first time. At times, the bush was pretty thick like this.

Luckily, however, the majority of site looked like this. From time to time, we ran into some pretty thick trees. At one point, while I was stuck in the middle of a whole bunch of trees a took a picture in each of the four directions from where I was standing. It took me about half an hour to walk just a hundred meters through these trees. These are the four shots:

This was lunch every day. Sitting on the ground in the middle of nowhere having some PB&J sandwiches and bananas.

I also wanted to give a shout out to my beautiful niece Grace who turned 2 this past Saturday. I was bummed I didn’t get to celebrate it with her but I was able call home and talk to her for a little bit. Talking to her made my day. Happy Birthday Grace. I love you!