Just a note. I have not had an internet connection for a solid 3 weeks, so bear with me. Think about it like a book, but don't judge it like a book because there will be misspellings and grammatical uncertainties...
Thursday 6/30/11
So my roommate Adam Gosvener hasn't been feeling very well the past couple of days. He had a fever, and then it turned into a stomach bug and he has had diarrhea the last couple days. I got back from the orphanage yesterday when he decided to tell me “I think I pooped like 40 times today, and we are out of toilet paper, so if you need to go, I apologize.” I jokingly referred to his day as “going a few times” a little while after that, and he was quick to correct me. “No, seriously I pooped like 40 times and Im not even kidding.” .. No pictures. I went in the bathroom when I got home, we had a long day of working with concrete, and some got into my shoes and rubbed a few bug bites absolutely raw. I needed to trim off a few of the hairs so that when I ripped off the athletic tape that I was planning on putting on my feet to protect the soar it would not be so painful. Well, not being used to my new beard trimmer, I tapped it on the edge of the toilet seat and off came the blades into the nastiness. I tried as best I could to clean it off in the sink.. and so I just finished hacking off what was forming of a beard. I am not all about the facial hair this time like I have been in the past for some reason. So now that I realized I dropped the blades into the toilet Adam has been blowing up the last couple days, I am anticipating a rash of some sort to appear on my face. Ill keep you posted.
Sunday 7/3/11
Days are flying bye.. It is always so crazy to me how fast it goes. Yesterday was our last day at the orphanage; another amazing day. Seems like the last day is always the time when you and the children feel compelled to say the words that have been on your heart the whole time. Just before we leave the questions like “will I ever see you again?” or “will you remember me?” come out. It may not sound so heart wrenching on a computer screen, but in person it tugs at your heart. They want to have you in their lives so bad. They don't want you to go. We worked on the school in the morning. We sanded and prepped the walls in the classrooms that were ready and painted the classrooms that we prepped the day before. Our goal is to get kids into the classrooms by the time the rest of the team leaves Seeta. About 13 of us are on a bus right now to Lira to finish what Bruce and I started a few weeks ago when we made the trip. The rest of the team leaves Uganda on Wednesday the 6th, and our team leaves on Wednesday the 13th (Happy Birthday me!). Anyways, back to yesterday, we had a huge party. Starting around 1:00pm we started the celebration. There were three tents, about 11 tables with chairs, and speakers that were turned up as high as possible before distortion took over. The children came out dancing for us. I have always been entertained by them; they are so sweet and so willing to dance and sing for us. There were exchanges of gifts, They admitted that they didn't have very much they could give us, but they don't have to feel like they need to give us anything. It is hard to be given things without feeling like you should give in return...
We presented many of the things that we brought in the container. They were all very excited. Pastor Jackson finished with a prayer over us and over all the school. He had everyone pray with him and raise their hands over the school. It was amazing to see 1000 hands stretched out over the school. They are so thankful. We finished off the evening at the orphanage with dancing. There is something that changes within you when you can dance with children. It is so innocent and so loving. You just dance to make them smile without the feeling that someone is watching that needs to be impressed. Their smiles are worth the hours of flying, the mosquito bites, the dust, dirty socks, cold showers, sweating all day, constant heat, not so palatable food, the misunderstandings, the hand washing, the squattie potties, the smelly bathrooms, the flies, and the awkward moments. It is actually a small price to pay. We had one of our team get up for the first time and dance for the whole orphanage.
Anna Austin taught one of the homes the dance to a Shakira song that they all knew, and they danced for everyone. We all danced that dance later in the night with the children. Then the Goodbyes came for those who were not coming back to the orphanage. For the people that had never experienced the goodbyes it was a little harder than they might have anticipated. Those kids have a way of capturing your heart. So, now that chapter of the trip is over, at least for my team and I. Now it is on to Lira, where Francis (The Cook) makes some killer beans, and the children have a different kind of story. We left early so that we might be able to make it to Lira by noon.
We encountered a few problems, the bus started having some issues that Robert said we need to fix, so we pulled the bus over a few times. Complete dismount from the bus. We pulled over in one location where there was a church nearby and we all could hear the worship music. Anna took that opportunity to dance once again. There was a man that walked up and started to negotiate with us... no one knew what he was negotiating for, but he was throwing some pretty big numbers out there. Anna asked him if he could dance, and he smiled and just started shaking his hips. Every car or bus that would drive by would start honking at us. We weren't in the road all that much, so it must have just been to say hi to the Mzungus dancing around for no apparent reason. We polished off the rest of the cheese and dried salami that the ladies from California (Dianna and Becky) left us. Everyone on the bus loves cheese. We arrived in Lira. We checked into the Pauline Hotel and dropped our stuff. We had to go through some of our bags because we had many things that were gong to the orphanage mixed in with our things. We got word from Betty that the children were ready for us to come, so we all got on the bus so that we could arrive together. The welcome was amazing. We rolled up to the bus, and the children started screaming I leaned my arm out the bus and they grabbed a hold of it.. was probably a mistake, but I think I'll do it again next year. We stopped the bus in the orphanage, and I opened the door. They all waited patiently for us to get off the bus, but you could just see them be anxious; just beaming for us. It really is touching when you see how much just coming to visit them and love them means to them. They were all huddled right up against the door opening. It was like a crowd surfing kind of crowd. Every person that came off the but they screamed and all tried to hug all at the same time. Every person.
Tuesday 7/5/11
I got a little sick! I have never been sick when I have been over here, but I got something. It is like a soar throat that became a sinus infection, that became a cold, that became mucus in my lungs. Pretty exciting. I spent pretty much the whole day hocking, and spitting. Its a little embarrassing.. I can just see someone thinking “Some American is making a ruckus spitting all over our town..” So, I have been dealing with that, but it has not kept me from working. I still play with the kids, but not breathing on them or touching them. I don't want them to get whatever it is that I have. They all crowd around you. Its almost like they just want to hear you speak in your accent or look at your face. Maybe even feel the hair on your arm. You are just something they don't get to see very often. We got the little water tower up and waited pretty much the whole day for the hardware store to replace our tanks. What happened was we went and bought 2000 Liter water tanks, one to sit on top of the tower and one for the bottom. Once we ordered them from the hardware store they gave us the dimensions and we went and had the tower fabricated. When we got to the orphanage I guess the fabricators aren't quite what they are at home, so they made them about 20 centimeters short.. our tanks that we bought would not fit in them. So we had to go back to the store and get them to exchange the tanks that we bought for 1500 liter tanks.
They still hold close to 2 tons of water and now they fit on the tower. We spent considerable time in Lira. We looked at a few solar systems.. We were thinking about installing lights in the homes using solar. That way there would be no electric bill other than what it would cost to run the pumps.. that would be nice. That night we were back at the Hotel after the sun went down, Adam Gosvener stayed at the orphanage just a few minutes later than I did helping his sister with an interview with one of the children, and the mosquitoes got him. He had a swarm around him as he typed what he was hearing. He had probably 10 bites on each arm when he got back. Betty forgot something at the orphanage and had to go back, so I went with her and took my nice bright flashlight that my brother gave me. I swear that thing is like a spotlight. Up here there is no power, so the entire existence of this orphanage, there has been no light once the sun goes down. They are literally in the darkness. Bringing the flashlight gathered a crowd of kids. I dont know if it was the fact that I came back after dark, or that had a flashlight. I remember at one point I shined it upward to the stars and it illuminated all the dust in the air like a spotlight would, and they all gasped in amazement.. I heard a tiny voice say, “Jesus is coming!!”. I heard her and shouted, “Jesus is coming!!!”, then they all shouted with celebration and excitement. All I could do was just smile. Then I had to go back to the hotel and go to bed. They all wanted me to spend the night with them so bad. I totally would.. In a heart beat, but then I probably would get in a little trouble.. not to mention that the mosquitoes would have feasted on me.
Wednesday 7/6/11
Sleep felt good this morning. When we have been getting to the orphanage, we have not been able to do anything for the last couple of days because the Ugandan workers always have something that they have to do before we can do what we need to do. With the water tanks, first it was that the way we were going to set the tower was “not good”, then when we let them do it their way, “We must first paint.” so we let them paint the tower. I wanted to move onto the tower as soon as the painter left. I asked him “How long until we can work?”
“Three days.” ...yeah right. It was a little tacky, but we just moved in anyways. We cant sit and wait three days.. especially for paint. They can re-paint some other time when we are gone. We only have 3 days until we leave. With the Electricity, the wire that we bought to connect the panel inside the pump house to the panel that the electrical company is going to set was too small. We were using 3mm wire.. It looks a lot like 12 gauge wire to me, but maybe I'm wrong. It has plenty of capacity to power our little 4 amp 1 horsepower pump. The misunderstanding is that they thought we were going to power all of the houses in the orphanage with this wire... oops. Nope! Just the pump. That was cleared up. They do however have to finish the floor inside the pump house which means that I cant go in there with a ladder and finish my wiring... Also, the electrical company has been promising Betty that they were going to come and hook up our power for the last 3 days, and every day they are no-shows. So if you could be praying for that..
As far as I go, I feel like I have been dragged through the dirt and then beaten on for a good couple of hours. Betty asked me if I would take some pictures of the property lines for her so that she could send them to Kampala and have the fence moved.
I don't know who put the fence in, but they were way off. In the picture, Francis (The Cook) is the property line, and the only fence you see is our fence. The Maze in the background is the end of the line. Anyways, I was walking around this tree that they have been trying to cut down and there were a few branches in the way, so being used to trees back home, I just marched through them Bear Grilles style. Yeah, well the branches weren't having it.. the thorns grabbed onto every part of me as I pushed through them.. I was dragging the branches with my momentum realizing what was happening, I have basically a small stab wound on my upper thigh, and a huge nasty gash on my right foot..
Other than that I was able to just get on with it. Then I had to get inside the tanks to tighten bolts to some pipes, and the first one I got up on top and just dropped in by putting my hands above my head. No problem. I just logically made the assumption that the next tank being the same make, and same size would be the same... It was way smaller. My hips squeezed past it, and I wedged myself down; right underneath the shoulder blades I sat wedged with me feet dangling because they just didn't quite reach the bottom. The edges around the lip were not dull in any way. So I got a few scrapes from that.. Then to top off my day of beatings, there is this ladder that is at the orphanage here, It is one of those folding ladders that breaks in 4 places and can be a step ladder or a straight ladder. Well I had it leaning against a wall in one of the homes as I was tying up some mosquito nets. I must have been around 10 feet up in the air when the ladder started to slide.. the floor was slightly dusty and the foot of the ladder just started sliding across the floor as I started smearing down the wall. One of my fingers got a little burned from the friction against the wall, and God was gracious enough to place my head between two rungs as I probably would have knocked my teeth out when the ladder hit the ground. There also happened to e a spare foam mattress stacked in that corner which broke my fall considerably as well. Somehow my right ankle got slammed against the ladder when I hit the ground which made it swell up a little bit. It feels like I sprained it, but I can totally walk on it no problem.. Its weird. I should really be counting my blessings, I could have fallen off a roof or something like that.. We installed the solar unit into Mum Tabatha's house (The head Mum for Lira). We wanted to check it out. We thought that we would have a tiny light celebration which turned out to not be such a great idea in the end. Not even the Mums and children in Lira are immune to jealousy. I have to say if I were in the same situation as them, it would be very hard. I had to explain to the Mum that is basically second in charge who speaks the native language that it would be unwise if we were to go and buy all the houses solar units without testing them on one house first. We plan on getting light to all the houses in Lira but that we cant do it right now because we don't have the time. I will say though that she was understanding, and that the unit is working well so far. We will see how it does in a year. We will most likely look into installing solar units on the rest of the houses by using panels and battery units made in USA.. Just ship them on the container. It would not be fair if I only said that about the Mums, because I think that the Lira mums are absolutely amazing. That was just something that I struggled with. As usual It was hard to leave the children tonight, they are so sweet. I love them so much.
Friday 7/8/11
Over the last couple of days so much has happened. We finally pushed our way back into the pump house and finished all the wiring, and the pump installation. We were all packed into a little 9 by 9 room with the painter, the mason, Rick, Joe, the bus driver, and myself. It was elbow to elbow. Since our electrician has still not come, we had to rent a generator, and test it. Everything worked great but a few joints in some of the pipes. Where o-rings used to go, and where parts were broken we fixed in whatever way we could. There was one more issue.. We had to change out the sand filter; Rick said that it was smelling a little rancid. It is the pump and filter from the Seeta village and has logged over 400 hours or use for rain water that was collected in our cisterns. As you could imagine it would start getting a little nasty from that. Now, the sand filter is the part in the pump that sees the water first. It removes all the larger pieces of debris that is suspended in the water; organic matter, twigs, anything that makes it past the stainless filter that surrounds the intake pipe. After we changed out the sand I just happened to look into a pipe that that draws water down into the filter; there was something fuzzy down there!... We snagged some wire that we had bought, made a hook and started to fish out whatever it was.. It was a little soft, so we figured it had been in there a little while, but wasn't totally falling apart yet. We managed to hook it right around the neck and pull it out.
It was a huge rat.. real long tail. I thought for sure we were going to be taking it out in pieces. But it managed to stay intact. I snagged it with needle nose pliers after Rick got it to stick out of the pipe. It felt really soft in the pliers. I set it on the ground and re-picked it from what Matt called a “pretty precarious limb”. I tossed it over the fence as far as I could before it slipped out. So we were all good. We even figured out that it was the same rat that had been eating a hole in our bags.. When Bruce and I came up a few weeks before we stored it in one of the houses, and this rat decided that the pipe was a great place to make a home. We hooked everything back up, fired a generator up, and flipped the power on, the pump exposed a few more leaks that we repaired, and then the motor started to work really hard until it eventually stopped. We continued to set the filter to rinse and backwash until we heard whatever else was in there around the discharge pipes out the back of the building. Baby rats... It spit three out, so we new there were a few in there. It was still stopping when we would start to filter, so we had to take some pipes apart.. We figured we sucked one of the babies through the pipe a small distance to the flow meter... Sure enough; a little baby was jammed really tight up against our flow meter..
It came out in pieces. How could it get so soft in such a short time? I guess you could think about it like a pressure cooker if you wanted. Those pumps don't stop after just a little resistance. Now that we were finished with our pipe blocks, we poured a cup of bleach into each tank, and started pumping water, disinfecting the water lines and the tanks. We cycled around 3000 Liters, so I think we are sufficient. Rick also assured me that with all that is on that skid, it more than kills anything that is in the water. This skid is designed to remove particles, bacteria, and virus down to .5 microns or something like that. Then it has a UV light that just kills anything else. It is marketed as a miniature bottling plant. We got everything set and working, and now it all falls on the Electrical company. The sooner they come, the sooner the mums will have power to charge their cell phones, and water.
The next day, we continued to try and fill the upper tank on the tower, and the children came home at noon from school and got ready for our celebration. It was our last full day with them. The celebration was good. It is always good. Their choir is always good, and they do dramas, and dances. The even had a poem. This year they had a theme that they were singing and talking about. It was HIV AIDS. Many of the kids don't have HIV, and doing constriction every year, I am never really aware of anything like that just because I typically don't run into it. I cant help but feel emotional during their performance. Im sure it is the same for everyone that is on the team.
After their performance, we gathered around the pump house and had a nice little water celebration. I jumped up on top of the tower to try and get some nice shots from above. I had my 200mm lens on, but it turned out to be perfect for the job. After the celebration we all ran back to the other side of the village and had soda and biscuits (they say “Bis-quit”; its a sweet cracker). We sang and danced, and then when the team went back the the hotel I stayed and started to take some pictures in the dark with the kids. I staged them all and started to color them in with my flashlight. That is something that I just love. I did it with the Italians last year, and I knew that the children here would love it. The only problem is that every child wants to be a part of every picture. And I just cant fit them all in, so I had a lot of kids that didnt want to move out of the pictures, but in the end I managed to squeeze everyone in. We left the next morning around 10:30. We had to make a ferry that crosses the Nile at 6:00pm. If you miss that, you are spending the night on the bus. So we said our goodbyes, and finished our mission trip. Now for the rest of the time it is more for the birdwatchers and wildlife people. I am still sick, I picked up whatever it is when I came into Lira, so I have had it for about a week. Not really showing any progress. So if you want to pray for some things, pray that the Electrician comes and hooks up the power to the pump house, and that my lung mucus goes away.
Sunday 7/10/11
We got in to Red Chili's, ordered dinner, unpacked our things into our little hut houses, and got to relax for the rest of the night. They have a neat setup here, there is one main area where people hang out under a huge grass roof, and the warthogs and baboons just sort of run throughout the camp but keep their distance from Humans. The humans also keep their distance. The whole camp is sitting up on a plateau for the most part. There are game trails all around it. There is a big fire pit and seating areas that looks out either on national park, the Nile river, or bushes filled with what I would call tropical birds. There are tents and actual yurt type huts. There are showering units and bathrooms. There is a steady flow of safari vehicles coming in and out of the camp. The temperature starts in the morning around 75 degrees and mid day... gosh, I dont know.. 100? We did a boat safari in the morning. It is a trip that takes probably 4 hours or so. It goes up the river to Murchison falls and stops to look at birds, elephants, monkeys, crocodile, hippos, or any animal. I cant say that I was feeling all that great, but I went because I'm here, I might as well see some awesome animals that it takes a lot of traveling to see. Finished the boat safari, and fell asleep. I took a solid 3 hour nap with the fan blowing.. I woke up as soon as they turned the generator off. Tiffany Gosvener also took a nap and woke up to someone knocking at her door. She just assumed it was one of her roommates and told them to come in, and fell back asleep.. a few minutes later she woke up to a male baboon at the foot of her bed going through her things.. I guess it saw someone else knock on another door, and did the same. Somehow she managed to sprint out of her room in a panic to the dining area where we were all sitting, and explain what happened. A few of the guys went to the room to try and get it out, but as they were walking up to the hut, it fled with some rice cakes. Later, I went on an evening cruise that goes in the opposite direction and saw some more animals with the sunset. It was quite pleasant. It took me a really long time to get to sleep. The heat of the day makes your room really hot, so when you go to bed your room is like a large oven even though it is cool outside. Feel free to open your door and let the air circulate, but you will also get all the mosquitoes, and bugs that come with it. Then when you shut the doors, the heat from the walls just warms it back up. The fact that I napped really played its part as well.
Monday 7/11/11
I woke up around 4:00am to an interesting sound outside my hut. I woke Adam up because he wanted to see the hippos as they graze through the camp. There was a hippo that came right next to our hut, and then around to our front door and kept on moving. I opened our door very quietly as to not startle it, and shined my flashlight on it. It is crazy how big they are. The light doesn't bother them at all. They just keep on eating; minding their own business. Adam mentioned that he all of the sudden had to pee really bad.. I did too.. we decided to wait a bit before we went. At 6:15am Adam and I woke up because we were all going on a game drive across the Nile. We hired the gentleman that did the story telling the first night we got here.. He has been a park ranger for some 37 years or something. His name was George, and he took us to where he knew there were Lions.
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We didn't see any, but we only talked to one person that saw any Lions today. We saw all kinds of Giraffe though. They are amazing animals. As I was driving home I was wishing I had a wide angle lens. The geography is amazing here. Oregon is so beautiful, but I am so used to Oregon I think that I have become numb to it. It takes something truly spectacular for me to be awed in Oregon. Here it is a different story. When you can look out of the bus window and see an African plain; rolling hills filled with acacia and palm trees, antelope, giraffe, Ugandan cob, and elephants. You can see seemingly forever in every direction. The Nile flows right through it all, and the sky scape is breathtaking. The sunrise is always so bright and pink. Even when it is overcast, you can see the sun; it is bright red. It is just something that I cant capture, especially with my 200mm lens.. After our game drive we all came back to the camp, and I got a chance to recharge my camera battery and fill in some more of my growing blog post.. =)
Wednesday 7/13/11
Today was a lot of traveling. I started at the Andrietta Hotel in Entebbe and am ending at some hotel in Rome right next to the train station. I have been fumbling my way through this place. I feel like I dont quite know it well enough to feel confident. I managed to remember where the hotel was that we stayed at last time we were here. I even got in, and they didn't have any rooms, so he took me to another hotel, and they didn't have any rooms. The guy said “We are full, you have to leave.”
“If you would be so kind as to just point me in the direction of another hotel..”
“you are the 5th person that has come in looking for a room... we are full, you have to leave.”
“Awesome, thank you please.” I said as I grabbed my bag and started back to the train station to slug it out with the other people that were sleeping on the benches. I crossed a street and was met by a man named something that started with an A, and he asked me if I needed a hotel in the most broken english I think I have ever heard. We exchanged words; he said, “Hotel.”
“You know a hotel”
“Yes hotel. Fortyera.”
“im sorry, I dont speak... your language” (it wasn't anything I recognized) “40 euro?”
“yes, come”
“ok” I felt like it was ok. I needed a room.. but they required passport information...? I had to let them see my passport. And sign the receipt in two places before I could pay. I think I am getting my identity stolen. So, here I am in my room just trying to figure out what to do next. I called Dennis, because I will be meeting up with him in Florence tomorrow. Karen assured me that it is completely normal for passport information to be required for hotel stays.
Finally arrived in Florence, and managed to get a text off to Dennis and Karen Quick. Before I got there I tried to send off a text from Rome so that he could pick me up from the train station in Florence when I arrived, but I had an Italian woman helping me and she actually put all my coins into the phone, and it just took them and reset back to the welcome screen... all she could say was “Mi Dispiache!” as she walked off. I told her it was ok, even though she had no idea what I was saying.. I managed to get a text off when I got into Florence from a pay phone. It said, “Dennis I'm here I'm outside mcdonalds outside the station” so he sent me a few texts back to me that I of course didn't get since it was a payphone. So I waited there by the Mcdonalds wondering if they got my message as I people watched and waited. I started to get antsy, so I went over to another pay phone and figured out how to actually make a call. I called Dennis and confirmed that he was coming. Sure enough he was almost there. Then I saw Karen as she was trying to sneak up on me; they were going to startle me, but the plan was foiled. They they walked me back to where their (our) place is... we walked right through the heart of Florence. And in some doors that are way over sized, up an elevator, and into our apartment which has this tasty view...
Pray for Dennis, he has been having some back and hip issues. He and Karen went to see a chiropractor. if he feels up to it tonight we are going to go out to see some night sights after the bible study.
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