Project Trip: Pythons and Angry Neighbors

Some of my favorite memories of the trip came when we were out slogging around 450 acres of thick bush. See this previous post for some photos.

The most memorable (yet frightening) moment came as we were exploring the wet area of the site near the creek. We had asked some boys that lived nearby to take us to the creek. As we approached, we were stopped dead in our tracks to let a pretty good sized python slither past. It was probably a good 6 inches in diameter and we only saw the last 8-10 feet as the front had already slid out of sight. There’s no telling how long it actually was. I only wish I had thought quick enough to pull out my camera. Unfortunately, I was too stunned to pull out my camera. All I was thinking was how I was going to run out of the thick bush if it turned toward us. The local Ugandan boys thought it was awfully funny that we were so scared.

To top the day off, as we were walking away from the creek, hearts still racing, we came into a clearing and were greeted by half a dozen very angry Ugandans. They had been waiting for us and just began to yell at us in Acholi. We had no idea what they were saying, but the boys that we with us talked with them and stood up for us. They eventually started speaking in English, but were still yelling, asking us why we were there. We told them, but they didn’t believe us. We found out later, that they thought that we were trying to buy their land.

Squatter rights apply in Uganda. That means if you live on a piece of property for enough time, you then own the land. With so many people in the IDP camps for so many years, the problem is people would leave the camps and find that their land had been sold without them there to defend themselves. This is what these locals that was happening; they were scared that we were going to buy their land. After about 20 minutes they calmed down and we were able to go on our way.

It was quite the exciting day.

Project Trip: A Unique Team with a Unique Project

Now that the children’s homes and trauma rehabilitation programs are becoming established, Watoto is pursuing the design of an agricultural and technical college and training facility. This is where eMi comes in. For about a week and half, 13 professional engineers and architects gathered together from all over the world to do the design. It was such an honor to be a part of this team that has so much experience in so many different fields.

Among several eMi interns and our staff leader John, we had several architects from a firm in Australia, a agricultural engineering professor from Colorado State University, a horticulture/agriculturalist from Massachusetts, a livestock specialist from California, a water/wastewater engineer from Colorado, and a structural engineer with expertise in seismic design from California. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of experience in the team and a knowledge being thrown about in our meetings. The design process was a great learning experience. Here is the team ...

My job for the week was to finish up a few surveying details from when I was there a few weeks ago. Then I was working with the structural engineer to come up with a sufficient structural design that was seismically sound. There is a significant seismic risk in this area of Uganda (we actually felt a small earthquake while we were there) and Watoto’s current construction practice is insufficient to handle any seismic loads. I also served as tour guide around the 450 acre site. Having spent 10 days in Gulu earlier in February, I had gotten to know the site pretty well so I got to lead the other team members around the land to help the find the areas that had good views (for the architects) and the areas that needed soil and water tests (for the engineers).

While the final design is not complete and much work still needs to be done finalizing the details of the design, we got a lot done in the week that we were there. Along with the other interns and some correspondence from our volunteers, I will be helping finalize all the drawings and report to give to Watoto at the end of the semester in June.

The following is the PowerPoint presentation we gave to Watoto at the end of our time there. I just recorded the presentation from the computer without any of our descriptions and the quality isn't the greatest so I hope it makes at least some sense.

Project Trip: Watoto’s Work

Once the LRA left northern Uganda five years ago, Watoto, along with many other missionary organizations, stepped in and started to help the people of Gulu who were very much in need after twenty years of terror imposed by the government and the LRA.

Watoto is a very large organization and has been able to help the people of Gulu in many different ways. There are already several different ministries in place, including a children’s village. The village is a collection of homes that takes in children that have been orphaned. These children lose their parents for a variety of different of reasons. Some have been left without a family because of the LRA. Others lose their parents to HIV/AIDS. Yet others are taken in because their families abandoned them because they have nothing to provide for them. These children are put in to a home with a mother. Each home has around eight children with one house mom. These houses are put into clusters of eight homes for a total of 64 children in each cluster. The current village has 3 full clusters of homes with two more partially full.

Additionally, Watoto has a baby’s rescue home. The rescue home takes in children under the age of two that have been orphaned for many of the same reasons above. As soon as the babies are old enough, they transfer from the rescue home to the children’s village. They are put into a home and given a mother.

On top of taking in orphaned children, Watoto offers trauma counseling for those affected by the LRA. Over the past couple years, counselors have been traveling to IDP camp to IDP camp, offering trauma rehab for those still living in the camps. Thousands have flocked to the camps while the counselors are there to receive help. The rehab involves training people to deal with the pain they have experienced and helping them learn how to forgive those that have wronged them. Many have come to know the saving, forgiving work of Christ as a result of the trauma rehabilitation program.

The next project that Watoto is undertaking is an agricultural and technical college and training center for those left without any life skills. This is where eMi comes in. I will describe it more in detail in the next post.

Project Trip: LRA and the Conflict in Gulu

To give you a background of the work that we did in Gulu, I wanted to give you a brief history of Gulu and the LRA.

Ever since Uganda became an independent nation in 1962, there has not been a peaceful change in power. While Uganda is considered a democracy, no leader has come to power without a military coup or a rebel group overthrowing the president. Even though the current president, Yoweri Museveni, has been in power since 1986, this has actually happened several times in the short history of independent Uganda. The most recent military coup happened when Museveni came to power. Museveni is from the Buganda tribe (central Uganda). The president that he overthrew was from the Acholi tribe (northern Uganda – including Gulu). Out of this change in power, Joseph Koney, among others from the Acholi tribe, became upset and began to rebel against the government. This is the start of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which began to fight the government and civil war ensued for the next twenty years.

People from Gulu (Acholi people) began to inform the government about the LRA activity which then led to LRA to turn on its own people. They would do unspeakable things among their own people. They would rape young girls. They would cut off the lips and nose of people that they assumed to be informants. They would take young boys as children soldiers and then force them to kill their own parents and siblings so they would have no family to which to escape. I even heard a story of the LRA forcing one child to bite another child to death. When he wouldn’t bite hard enough, they would then shoot another boy to show that this is what would happen to them if they didn’t obey. I am so sorry to be so graphic, but I am just trying to show the horrors that people had to live through while the LRA was active.

To make matters worse, as the LRA gained momentum, the government began to place people in IDP (internally displaced people) camps. The government then assumed that anyone not inside an IDP camp was a rebel and would treat them with deadly force, doing some of the same things the LRA was doing, killing, raping, and stealing from many innocent people.

There is a lot more that happened and a lot more detail that I skipped over. Unfortunately, I just don’t know enough to speak intelligently about it. Eventually, however, Koney and the LRA were chased out of the country in 2006. There has been peace for the last five years but the city is still recovering from the aftermath of the war. Many have been left fatherless and scarred. Not many have enough to support themselves and some young girls have been left little children as a result of being raped with no means to support them. This is where Watoto and many other organizations come in to the picture. I will pick up the story in the next post.

Welcome to the World

I just got back to Kampala last night after 10 days in Gulu. Much more on that later, but first I want to introduce you to my brand new niece. Last Tuesday, my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Elise. I was bummed that I wasn’t around to meet her, but I am so excited to meet her when I come home in June.

When You're in Love

A few weeks ago I finished reading a book by Francis Chan called Crazy Love. It's a great book and I highly recommend. I think one of the chapters that really got me thinking was chapter six called When You're in Love.

In it, he quotes one of John Piper's books:

The critical question for our generation - and for every generation - is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

This really hit me. Is it possible that I am looking forward to heaven because of the good things and not because Jesus will be there? If I am really in love with him, I should desire him for who he is and not for what he gives me. If heaven were a place that had none of the good things listed above, I should still be looking forward to it because Jesus will be there.

Maybe you can relate. I don't have any answers or great words of wisdom. But what Chan writes later on in the chapter is encouraging. He uses Psalm 63 as his example.

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. -Psalm 63:1-5

I can only pray that this would be true of my life. You know that feeling when you are so thirsty you just can't take it anymore. That's what I want my love for God to be. It's not something that is easy. It's a relationship I continually need to invest in, but I know that in the end it is the most satisfying of all relationships. I encourage you to seek this relationship too.

Haircut Fiacso

So a couple days before heading off to Gulu, I decided to get a haircut. Now the first time I got my hair cut in Uganda it wasn't the most successful experience (See here). I found this place that was just a few minutes from my apartment so I decided to check it out. There was a man there that had a rather simple set up: one chair, one set of clippers (with 2 attachments for a No.1 and No.2 buzz), and a poster with about 20 different hairstyle options. None of those really intrigued me because my hair does not do the same things a Ugandan man's hair will do.

So after about 5 minutes explaining what I want, he started. I was going to have him buzz the bottom part of my head and then cut the top short. I should have known that he wouldn't have been able to do it. After a while, I had to show him how you have to take the clippers in the opposite direction of the hair to get it right. Finally that worked out and look pretty good. But then he start cutting the top part. After just a few moments and radically different hair length all over my head, I just had him buzz it all.

Needless to say, I have really short hair now. The silver lining: it only cost me 2000 shillings which is only about 80 cents.

Going to Gulu

I am off to Gulu again. I leave Monday morning to spend another 10 days there. I am going with a team of 13 people from all over the world to design the new agricultural training facility and vocational school at the site I was surveying a few weeks ago. This project is part of the larger Project Gulu that Watoto is working on right now in northern Uganda. I will have many more details about the project when I get back. But for now, in order to get a vision for Watoto is up to in Gulu, check out these links:

- Project Gulu
- eMi EA Project Profile
- Restour Tour

Just like last time I was in Gulu, I will have little to no internet. But stay tuned this week for some more stories, adventures, and things I have been learning that I have written about and will be coming your way soon.

White Water Rafting

After getting back from Gulu we took off for a day trip to Jinja, the source of the Nile River, and went white water rafting. It was an awesome experience. There was six of us in a raft with our guide Alex. Alex was interesting because he was Ugandan but spoke with a mix of Ugandan/Australian accent. I guess he has spent too much time around muzungus on holiday.

He was a great guy though and really knew what he was doing and kept us all really safe. He knew when it was important to not flip the raft and when going for a spill would be fun. Our boat flipped a couple of times sending us flying out of the boat. One time I even ended up underneath the raft which was upside-down leaving a pocket of air to keep breathing until I could get out from under. My favorite rapid was somewhere toward the end of the day and included about a 10 to 15 ft mini waterfall. Oddly enough, that was not one of the rapids that sent us swimming.

All in all, it was a great time. We all stayed safe and relatively injury free, save for a few scrapes on our hands and minorly sunburned knees and shoulders. The rapids were great, but it was also fun just to jump out of the boat in the flat water and go for a swim or just relax in the sun as we floated down the Nile. It was day that I won't soon forget.

We bought a DVD of some pictures that they took of us throughout the day. Here are a few of the good ones:

Everyone loading the rafts in the water. I've never seen so many muzungus in my life!

Recovering a little bit after the first rapid.

Get down and hold on!

Our guide, Alex, was even getting down and holding on. I think that is saying something.

About to go swimming...

Bracing for impact.

This is the mini water fall that we got to go down. (See next photo)

Our raft went down backwards. It was quite the thrill.

Trying not to drink to much of the water. Don't want to swallow any parasites...

One half bailed. The other half held on.

Our team of rafters. Our guide Alex is standing in the background.

About to go down the last fall. That is my head sticking up out of the raft.

A view of the Nile after we climbed back up the hill. What a day!