Moving the football field

As I get closer to the end of my time in Lira, I don’t know what to write; I always have mixed emotions. The construction should be over by now, but it isn't. We have placed 5 out of 30 rolls of razor wire, the remaining 25 are split between two shipments on their way from Kampala. One of those shipments was supposed to be today, but it wasn't. I have become used to this. Henry still showed up, with one mason, and two helpers. The boys from the orphanage that have been working, Bonny and Walter, were here as well; they put in another day of work. I felt like most of the work today was unessential. but we did finish up the wall. There was one corner that I found that was not connected to the original wall which was built by out first foreman, Nelson. We closed that gap, and then Henry and the others worked on the wall by the main gate. He told me that one side of the wall was lower than the other by almost 3 courses. This was true, but I didn't think too much of it. He wanted it to be right, so they spent a good portion of the day removing the razor wire that we already had placed, and adding a few courses of brick. The project will now fall into Felix’s hands, and he will be responsible for completing the razor wire. 

We placed some more tile at the water tap, the tiles that Henry placed are finished. He picked up some broken tiles for the trough that carries filtered tank water into the gutter, and put Walter to work on that. One of the girls, Alum Sara, decided that she wanted to try her hand at tile, so she and Walter finished laying the broken tiles. 

I kept busy of course, I took down my water bottle gutters, and started to clean things up. I took Uncle Francis down to the pump house and trained him in the ways of the pump. When I spoke with Betty last night, we agreed that Francis should be the one to pump the water. We met with all the children as an assembly by the pump house and explained to them that from now on, the water in the tank is for drinking only. That means if we see you using this water to wash your clothes, or bathe, we will punish you by making you collect rubbish or “slashing” (cutting the grass). We explained to them how clean the tank water is, and how the tap water makes you sick. We explained that the water in the tank is very expensive, and when we use a lot, it costs pastor Jackson a lot of money. The children all nodded when asked if they understood, then went back to playing their games.

I showed Francis the charging stations that Joe and I installed, and told him how I was doing it. I also showed him where to place the chargers at night so that the rats don’t eat the chargers. I also made him in charge of the chicken coop. I collected some scaffolding that was around and set it inside the coop so that the chickens could perch on the steps of the scaffolding. It worked out perfectly. I wanted to go down and see the chickens perched on the bars, but it is raining, so I think it is more important that I don't get wet. I cleaned more rubble from the construction, there is so much more than I can clean alone. I even convinced the boys to move their football playing to a different side of the orphanage. I had them walk around in the grass and collect rocks, and broken bricks. I removed small bushes, and filled divots in the ground. The boys got really excited and wandered out into the wetland, cut down several trees and brought them back to make goals. We set the goals up, and the playing started. I then had opportunity to go do some things without distraction. 

After the sun started to go down, I had a few of the P6 kids from the other day in my house, and started to help them understand more of the math problems from the previous night with Mum Betty. I was having fun being the math teacher. I now see why the math teachers were so anal about having you show your work. I really want them to understand what they are doing, so when they do shortcuts and don't show how they got their result, I would tell it was wrong because they didn't show their work. 

I ate dinner at Mum Lydia’s house, she made some delicious pork with cabbage. It puts the regular beans and posho to shame. Last night Matoke, tonight pork and cabbage; I am becoming spoiled.