Finished

March 31st

Well today was a glorious day in my book because i am officially finished with my job at the guesthouse. There are of course many things left to do, even a few things with the roof, but my part of the project is officially done.

See?










So tomorrow I go off to the computer lab. Whoo hoo!

Here's that smile of Kayesu's I mentioned a while ago.





March 30th

One thing that I miss about the states is the internet bandwidth. Actually, even just a reliable connection would be nice. (oh the irony; the connection just dropped)

It was really nice to video skype with you folks at church today, both the Journey class and with random folks in the sanctuary. Adrienne, we didn't get to see your belly. ;-)

March 29th.

Today there is a wedding at New Hope. We will go to part of it, because the whole thing will be quite an ordeal. We'll also be having dinner with the Brittons again, which should be nice. We're also planning on going to Luwero and Kiwoko, to search for material for some clothes and get a few things.

We have Kayesu again, who is as cute as ever. I have yet to get her smile on camera, but it is priceless. I was feeding her last night, (even though she is perfectly capable of feeding herself, she won't when she is with us. she just cries if you hand her food.) trying to get her to eat spaghetti and cabbage. She doesn't like spaghetti because all she normally gets is posho and beans. I in general have better success feeding her than Ellie does, so I was trying to get her to eat, even though she was fussy. So I put several forkfuls of cabbage in her mouth, she started chewing away, and Tim who was watching was impressed that I got her to eat cabbage. As I went in for one more forkful, however, her little lips opened up and pushed all the chewed up cabbage out onto her and my laps. I guess she was just pretending to obey me.

Desperate

March 27th



The stories of many children here are horrific, ranging from abuse to neglect to rape to who-knows-what. Even many of the adult staff often have stories to tell. Case in point: Roger, who is the head nurse of the clinic, is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Because he was going to be killed if he stayed ( i can't remember why, probably ethnic war ) he walked to Uganda, leaving behind his fiancee, who was also going to be killed. He ended up at New Hope, and was here for many years, thinking that for sure his fiancee had been killed and didn't make it out of the Congo. Years later, she ended up making it to New Hope, and they got married and have a little girl who is the cutest little thing. He is one of the smiliest guys I know, and is always happy. I was watching him exuburantly worship in church a few weeks ago, and I was struck by how thankful he must feel to God for his life, his wife, and his little girl. He had nothing, just managed to escape, and then God richly blessed him. I should ask him to share his story sometime to get all the details. Anyway, I was struck with how rich his thankfullness to God must be, considering his present and past circumstances. Immediately as I had that thought I was equally struck with how thankful I should be (and am not), considering what God has done for me. If it is really true that the penalty has been paid for my wrongs, and I get to know and be known and loved by the almighty and eternal universe-spanning God who is the source of all that is good and right, then I should be shrieking and jumping up and down for joy a hundred times as much as Roger, who only had his life circumstances changed. It is sort of like that post I had from before about joy. We don't really see and understand things, so our reaction is not proportional to their significance. Would that I would have the thoughts and feelings of God after Him.

It is also clearer to me why some people in the west struggle to really be thankful. Or why people don't think they need a god. For one, we have our needs met, and have plenty (food, shelter, material things; think maslow's hiearchy of needs) . We feel that we can provide for ourselves, that we don't need help, even to push my grocery cart up a hill to my car, much less rescue from a bottomless pit. We dont' believe that we need saving , or that life with God is actually that cool, because we're happy with what we have now. The truth is that we are in just as desperate a situation as Roger was he was escaping Congo, but we just dont' realize it.

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on a lighter note, pictures for your enjoyment.

Here is a video with me making a save while playing goalie in the Institute vs. Teachers game. It was a good thing i was in goal, because I couldn't have run nearly as hard and as long as those guys did.

Video Link

This one is for you, Robin and Stu. Bring back memories?





Here is a picture of James, Abu and I with the broken truss.



btw, thank you all for praying for us. So far we are disease-free, including malaria, which has been great. Please continue to pray for that.

Nicholas

Here is baby nicholas, who stayed with us last weekend. Ellie calls him "chocolate chip" because he is so dark.

Ow.

March 26th

Today was a day of injuries. If you had the sudden urge to pray for me around 3 am, then 5 am, (eastern standard time) there was a good reason. Surely the Lord was watching over me and the people I was working with. Today we were putting up the trusses that we built yesterday and this morning. I really wanted to get done with the trusses today, both because I want to finish the project, and because we are holding up the finishing contractors. We had to insert the trusses underneath the existing roof, which was quite tricky. They needed to be quite beefy to take the weight of the concrete ceiling, so the bottom and top chords were both 2x6, which means they're actually about 2 1/8 by 7, and wet. The span was 29 feet, so they were quite large, and HEAVY. I'm guessing ~ 500 lbs. Anyway, the way that we had to do it was to lift up one side of the truss (with the truss standing, not flat) while climbing a ladder and set that side on the top plate, then go across the room and lift it up while simultaneously sliding onto the other top plate ( being careful not to slide it off the first side) Not that big a deal given ideal circumstances, but oh these were less than ideal.

First the 3 AM one.

So on the first truss that we were attempting to put up, we got the one side up with me doing the lifting on the "ladder", with about 9 ugandans helping below. Because the truss was upright, it needed to be stabilized to keep from falling over, so there were guys with long boards holding the top. kind like an amish barn raising, except smaller. So I ran over to the other "ladder" so we could pick up and set the other side. We got it up so it was resting on the top of the ladder, we just needed to get it up the last 2 feet or so, with me standing on the second to last rung with the truss on my shoulder. Remember the stabilizing boards? it was at this point when I'm balancing on the ladder with 250lbs on my shoulder that they decided to put a little lateral force on the truss. This sent me and the truss tumbling sideways off the ladder. You know how things slow down in moments like that? As I fell I was taking a mental inventory of the objects that I was about to fall on, (a stack of chairs and tables from the dining area) and figuring out if I was going to land on my back or not, which I was really not looking forward to. Then I landed feet first on an upside down table on top of another table ( missing the table legs, and not breaking the table, which is a testament to the quality of Jonah's carpentry skills.) and the truss landed next to my foot. My arm got bruised and scratched up, but i was fine, and everyone else was fine, miraculously.

2 Hours later, after we put up trusses 1,2,3 without further incident (except when i was placing the 2nd one, the first one fell over because it was poorly braced, but it got stuck on another truss and stayed up.) we got to the 4th one. It was going to be slightly more difficult because the plate was harder to get to. Also, I at this point was very tired after lifting both sides of 3 trusses, fearing for my life, being dehydrated, and overheated. I decided that I would have Abu do the lifting from the ladder, because I was so exhausted. we got one side up, and again I put Abu on the ladder, with me on the opposite ladder so that I could push when the time came. Some of our original 9 had wandered off, and we were down to about 6. So they were having a hard time getting it up to Abu on the ladder, especially with me not there. (me strong like bull ;-) ) We're not quite sure what happened, but somehow when they got it on top of the ladder and Abu was lifting it, the ladder gave way, and the whole truss fell down and sideways, (breaking the ladder in half in the process) and this time there were no tables to land on, so Abu lept for the wall to get out of the way of the falling truss.The 5 guys underneath the truss somehow managed to get out of the way and again somehow I didn't get knocked off my ladder with it falling from where I was holding it. It landed on the ground flat, snapped in half, and the half that was still up came to rest 6 inches from my right knee on my ladder. Again, miraculous there were no major injuries. We have travel health insurance, and I'm really glad that I didn't get to use it today.

Ironically the worst injury I had today came after we fixed the truss and were putting it back up. It was a tight fit, and I was standing on the top of the ladder pushing up with my shoulder for about 10 minutes straight, sometimes with all the strength I have. I have bruises and scratches all over my shoulder, back, and arms from lifting; it actually looks terrible.

I went and got Ellie from the secondary site on jame's bike today, and she rode back to our house on the back, sidesaddle. The brakes on the bike are less than adequate, so i decided to stop somewhat abruptly instead of going down a steep hill that I would not have been able to navigate safely. Well, Ellie had switched orientation from how she had started out, and so I dumped the wrong direction, putting her on her back instead of on her feet. So she tumbled off the back onto the concrete and managed not to land on her head.


Anyway, I am exhausted, sore, and I'm going to go snuggle with my wife, so thank you for your prayers today, they were effective.

accountability

March 24th.

We arrive home one month from today.

James and Ellie and I were talking after dinner about some of the issues in my last post, and one of the things that James brought up in response to my thoughts about organizational accountability was this: people like us who spend a longish time with an organization like New Hope, or World Vision, or Compassion, or whatever, have a responsibility to be advocates for those organizations when we get back home. (assuming of course that we approve of and support the work that they're doing.) One of the big problems, both for recepients and donors of aid $ is that there is a huge disconnect between the givers and receivers, and little accountability for all the steps and people in between. (which is one reason that child sponsorship programs have been so successful for Compassion and World Vision, both for giver and recepient) Most people can't afford to fly to western mongolia to make sure that the $150 they gave actually goes to good use, and in fact it would be irresponsible if everyone did that. SO folks like us who have been on the ground, and seen things with our own eyes have a responsibility to tell the truth about organizations, the good and the bad. We have to tell people who want to be philanthropic about New Hope, so they can support the folks who are really doing good. There has to be trust somewhere for there to be accountability, so our friends trust our judgement, and we have seen and trust New Hope for their effectivenes in ministry.

baby face

March 23rd

Well, I'm finally clean-shaven after three weeks. I had developed a habit of playing with my mustache, and I went to go do it right now, and was very confused for a second to find smooth skin there

Before


After





I look like an iron worker in this shot, partially because I had been welding all day.



This is Auntie Florence, whom I have mentioned a number of times.



A while ago when we were staying at the Davises during the medical scare I read a book they had called "he White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good" about how billions of dollars in foreign aid into developing countries has been remarkably ineffective in changing the daily lives of poor people in those nations.

"William Easterly's The White Man's Burden is about what its author calls the twin tragedies of global poverty. The first, of course, is that so many are seemingly fated to live horribly stunted, miserable lives and die such early deaths. The second is that after fifty years and more than $2.3 trillion in aid from the West to address the first tragedy, it has shockingly little to show for it. We'll never solve the first tragedy, Easterly argues, unless we figure out the second. "
It was a very interesting read, and I recommend it. The author admits he doesn't really have solutions, but he points out some major flaws in the way that billions of dollars are disbursed every year. So i've been thinking about those kinds of things every once in a while. Here are a few relevant thoughts. (and a link to the amazon page with the book)

Book Link

One of the points that the author makes in his book near the end is that the treatment of AIDS has gotten a lot of attention recently. Obviously HHBC is privy to this, having gone through Step Into Africa last year. He contrasts the cost of treatment of HIV/AIDS with the cost of prevention in sub-saharan africa, and concludes that it is approximately 1000 times cheaper (i can't remember the numbers, it's been a while) to prevent the transmission of AIDS than to treat it, with treatment adding on average 3 years of life to the affected person. His point is that aid organizations are able to raise a lot more money, and even governments are able to justify giving money to buy anti-retrovirals because it's easier to raise money with pictures and stories of really sick people than with a story about someone who didn't get HIV/AIDS. For instance, to prevent transmission at birth costs $9 for a one-time dosage, but if that child has HIV, they need to take medicine every day, which costs minimum $150 a year, plus a case worker to visit them, counsel them. The cost goes up to $1500 a year if they aren't faithful in taking the pills and their body develops a resistance to the cheap drugs. So there are lobbys to make drugs cheaper, and governments and drug companies donate billions of dollars, but what if you could sidestep all that and focus on the original problem: how did they get HIV. That doesn't mean we shouldn't treat people of course, but it is an interesting perspective.

I have more to write, but it's off to church we go. more later.
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(later)

The author also pokes at a western tendency to throw money at problems, instead of understanding them. So we have goals (instead of solutions) put forth by the World Bank, or the UN, or UNICEF, or whoever that sound like this: We will provide access to clean drinking water for the 75%[made-up-statistic] of people in sub-saharan africa ( who currently are dying because of simple things like diarrhea.) So that goal goes on the fundraising literature, and they raise 2 billion dollars, and feel pretty good about themselves, and then..... oops, there is no workable/practical way of actually executing the goal, so they give the money to corrupt governments who squander it on nothing. Lets all get back together next year and do it again, shall we? That is a bit of hyperbole, but not as much as you would think/hope.

A good example of this is that recently George Bush pledged to buy mosquito nets for every child in [insert african country that i don't remember here]. It is a nice gesture obstensibly worth millions of dollars. Now, the question that no one has asked is this: what is the mechanism where all the kids are going to get the nets? Will there be education on how to use them, and why to use them? Is there an accountability mechanism for the money given? There was a study done which showed that free mosquito nets, even when they actually made it into the hands of kids, didn't actually reduce incidences of malaria. On the other hand, subsidized nets which were bought with family money at a reduced price were highly effective at reducing malaria cases.

So there are simple problems like clean drinking water (which most people know is a problem), malaria (which kills more people than AIDS in uganda and rwanda) and one that is not so well known, chiggers. Chiggers (or jiggers) are a tiny parasite that leap onto your body and burrow their way into your skin, feeding on your flesh while growing. They like to go next to finger and toe nails, but that is mostly because those parts are in contact with the ground often. So it swells with eggs to the size of a pea, and if not surgically removed, will hatch its 300+ eggs into your body, and the process starts over again. So the problem is that people a) have poor methods of removal, often consisting of a sharp piece of wood, which causes all kinds of infections (or a pin which is shared, which spreads other diseases like hepatitis) and b) they dont' have shoes, and the chiggers live in sandy soil which is most of africa. There is a guy who hangs around New Hope who is cognitively impaired, and soon after we got here he spent a whole day getting chiggers removed from his feet with a scalpel, one person per foot. So there is another guy who sweeps the admin building, and like many people around here, he is barefooted. He is old, maybe 65, which is pretty old here. I looked at his feet the other day, and he was missing parts of his toes, toenails, and his whole pinky toe, most likely from chiggers. Simple solution: shoes, and a box of pins and some education. Not a very "sexy" solution; a box of pins doesn't make for moving pamphlets.

Sorry these thoughts aren't very put together, eloquent, or researched. Ask me more about them when we get back, and (maybe) i'll make more sense. Read the book, anyway, and tell me what you think. I thought it was worth reading, even if I dont' agree with all of it.

john

ICE CREAM!!

March 22nd

We got back from Kampala just in time for dinner tonight. We were successful in finding ice cream, and we did ourselves one better even. We got chocolate and strawberry milkshakes, and a banana split with chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce. (which, needless to say, was AMAZING) Ellie said that it was the best chocolate milkshake of her life. We haven't had any serious quantity of dairy in such a long time, however, that our stomachs rebelled a little. We didn't get to go swimming in the pool because it started to downpour and thunder and lightning, but the banana split made up for it by far. Then we went over to the Davises for a relaxing evening and late dinner. Jenny and Ellie and I went to a neat place to get fabrics. It is a school for the physically handicapped, and they teach tailoring and tie-dying to the kids, both to give them self-worth and useful skills, and also to generate revenue for the school. When I heard "tie-dye" I pooh-poohed it a little, because I was thinking of the normal simple spiral pyschedelic pattern that most t-shirts have in the US. Well, we were pleasantly suprised to find quite beautiful patterns. We got some for me to make a shirt. It was really hard to see the kids; some had cognitive and physical impairments, or some just physical. If you think life is hard for the handicapped in the US, just come here and you will have a different perspective. Accessibility isn't even an issue. Some kids were there in wheelchairs simply because they would never be able to make it around a Kampala high school. A lot of times on the streets you'll see guys with little to no legs who have a tricycle converted to hand power.

We got to say goodbye to the Davises for the last time, because they are headed to Kenya for a conference, and we will miss them when we leave the country. We had a really nice time of praying together for each other before we left.
It was quite odd to sit on a toilet that flushed, and take a shower. The shower was very needed for me, because I had had two long days of travel with no shower. Just riding the streets of kampala makes you really dirty. Obviously the red dirt gets everywhere, but I was thinking that my arms looked tan...until I scrubbed them in the shower, and all the diesel particulates came off. It was gross.

Speaking of gross, we got back tonight and I was really hot and dirty again from traveling (packing 19 people into a mini-bus the size of VW bus doesn't make for a cool comfortable 3 hour ride). So I went to shower but we had no power to turn the light on over the shower. No problem, I say to myself. I'll just put the lantern on the ledge and shower by lantern light, and I'll put it up high so that the bugs are attracted UP, and not near me. There is a nice saying about the difference between theory and practice that applies here, I'm sure. Anyway so I turn on the lantern and start to disrobe. Now, I'm at least 1/2 British so my skin makes a pretty good lighthouse reflector, and the bugs saw the light from the LED and then saw another, almost as bright but much larger very near surface, and decided they would go for slightly less bright and warmer. After 4 or 5 half inch flying ants had landed on my neck and I had swiped them off, I decided that standing wasn't such a good idea. Taking a shower out of a basin while squatting and swatting bugs on your wet body is not easy, let me tell you. It is at this point that I look up at the lantern, and it is crawling with bugs. Tactical error #2: the lantern was next to my towel and my clothes, therefore they too were covered in flying ants and beetles. So I decided to go for it and turn off the lantern to take away the attraction source. Oops, Tactical Error #3. They now had no reason to stay up, so they all came down (onto my towel and me). Having just rinsed the shampoo out of my eyes, I decided that my shower was over, shook the bugs out of my towel, and decided to take advantage of the fact that power was off (it is really dark around here with no moon) and make a run for it with my towel around my waist (something I would never normally do; always fully clothed.) Tactical Error #4. I am a big man, with a small towel, and on my third step out of the shower power comes on and everyone's outside lights come on, including ours. My quick walk increases to a hobbled towel-holding sprint, and I dive in the door, and Ellie knocks off the 10 or so bugs on my back. I went back to the shower after I had dried off, and found about 200 flying ants lying on the ground. I don't think I killed that many, but they were definitely swarming me. Luckily they dont' really bite.

Ellie got to ride a boda-boda for the first time today. She was quite a good sport about it. We had already been riding for quite some time when I remembered that she had only ridden a motorcycle once before, and that was with Ben riding very easily and carefully on smooth roads in the US. I am accustomed to both riding and driving them, so I didn't give it a second thought, then realized how brave she had been afterwards.

Thursday when I went into Kampala to get screws turned out to be quite a day. I was thinking of just going in morning, getting my stuff and taking a taxi back. We were supposed to leave between 8 and 9, and silly me I rush through breakfast and get there at 7:59. Long story short, we left around 11, and didn't get into town until 1, and didn't get our money from the bank until 2. VERY long story short (imagine hiring 3 porters to carry heavy building materials from a store 5 minutes away all around the taxi park, looking for taxi for an hour that will take us and our pile of stuff home, which we never did.), we didn't get home till after midnight. AND, i didn't even need to be there, because the construction supervisor was there the whole time, and I actually make it harder for him to get good deals because they see me and they think big bucks.

We have little Nicholas staying with us tonight; he is two months old.

Here are a couple pictures from last week.

This is Kayesu, she is awfully cute. we call her tweety bird







This is Rose, whom I've mentioned before.




This is Eva, whom Ellie has sponsored since she came here last.



This is a John who hasn't shaved in while.


A storm is coming, so I'm going upload this while I still can. Hope you all are doing well.


March 19th

I finished the weight bench today. I have been supervising abu and james from afar, which is nice because it gives me a bit more mobility. On the other hand, they don't move quite as quickly as when I'm around. So after I finished the bench, I went to the the computer building and helped IT Sam with the technological side of things.

Today is wednesday, which means staff fellowship. Today was special, because we went to the vocational school and the maize mill. Jeff was going to give us a tour, and started to do so when a downpour started. We hung out in the textiles department, which was way cool. They have a business weaving fabrics with two looms, and they plan to make two more looms. The fabric is quite nice, i think i will get some. their plans for the mill are also quite impressive. Right now they have about 300 acres of commerical farm that they grow various crops on, including corn. So all the posho (corn meal) that they feed the students and staff here is grown on the farm. But they have to pay to get it milled. Even the locals who sell their corn to the middle man buy it back at a much higher price after milling. So New Hope hopes to become the supplier of posho for the region, will pay the farmers more than what they normally get, sell the posho cheaper, and dump the profit back into the organization. The same goes for the timber milling business, the textiles, the clothes, the auto repair shop, and the building program. It is really neat, and impressive. I will go back another time when there is not a torrential downpour and check it out.

I am going to kampala again tomorrow to get more screws and washers for the roof nails. Hopefully this is the last trip for materials before the roof is done. I'm getting a little tired of it. It is a bit silly driving three hours there and three back just to get a bag of screws, but it is what we need to finish the project. Welcome to Africa.

Ellie and I are going to go to Kampala again on friday as a little vacation, and we will see the Davises for the last time because they won't be around when we are back through on our way to leave. They have been amazingly kind and accomodating in letting us stay at their place, both in planned and unplanned visits. We'll see if we can find some real ice cream in Kampala, and maybe find a few nice places to eat.

march 17th

So i welded some of the weight bench today, and it looks like it is going to be quite a task. They don't have any thin welding rods, and as before mentioned, the welder isn't exactly fine-tunable, so I was blowing through the steel like whoah. So I learned a new trick to cope, but it will still be difficult.


March 16th

I asked Abu and James, the guys that I work with, about what their day is like. james ( 18 years old) lives with his brother, who doesn't have a job and is 25. He gets up around 6, drinks tea, hangs around until he comes to work . Abu (19) lives alone, and gets up at 5 exactly to take his 3 cows to pasture at a field far away. It takes him from 5 until 8 to walk his cows to where they go and come to work. Think about that; he walks at least an hour there and an hour to work. I'm pretty sure they don't make that much working for New Hope. At least they feed them lunch here.

I was sitting talking with Joseph and Rose tonight in the Institute, and all of the sudden something fell from the ceiling onto my shoulder. Thinking it was a bug maybe, I brushed it off before identifying it. Turns out it was lizard poop. Sure enough, we looked straight up, and there was a nice pinky gecko at the very peak of the institute ceiling who had dropped his load onto me. Pooping upside down is quite a feat, especially with a tail.

cute video

Here is a video we took when we had Isaiah with us.

http://picasaweb.google.com/johncollman/Uganda02/photo#5179052574273866418

Traffic

March 15th.


We leave Uganda exactly one month from today. Time here has gone so fast. I wish we could stay longer, and do more things, visit more places. Sam, the IT manager is getting nervous that he's never going to get to use my expertise with computers, because the building projects are endless. Speaking of which, the gueshouse saga is far from over, although we did finish the valleys as planned. First, we need to build 4 more trusses and insert them under the already finshed roof, because the load of the concrete ceiling is going to be too much for a 28 foot span with trusses 8 foot on center (imagine that) . So that is going to be a feat. Second, we need to bat-proof the ridge caps, which requires special foam pieces that fit the profile of the tin. However, the foam pieces are expensive, so Uncle Jay ruled that we have to figure something else out. The other common method is to put mesh over the peak and slap down mortar, which is difficult, messy, and not very effective; case is point, our banda is full of bats. So I was thinking about this as I was watching Mukisa try the mesh/mortar method, and I had the the idea to make molds so we can have a poured piece of concrete in the shape of the profile of the tin. Well, this is a good idea in terms of saving money, but it takes forever to make the molds, pour them, let them dry, rinse and repeat. We need like 150 pieces, so at 19 per shot, it's going to take a while. I'm going to try and let Abu and James take over, so I can move on and do other things. We'll see how that goes.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but traffic around here, and especially in Kampala, is pretty crazy. Also, the quanity, bulk, and weight of items that are carried on boda-bodas (motorcycles) and bicycles is incredible. People go shopping for building supplies on a motorcycle, and the guy on the back holds the stuff as they weave through traffic. The other day i saw a bike with maybe 5 or 6 good sized unfinished armchairs stacked on the back, maybe 12 feet high. I've seen a man riding the back of a motorcycle carrying a whole car door, or 8 foot angle iron, or what is very common is a 6 foot wide sack of charcoal. But the scariest thing that I have seen ( and not just once, 3 times) is someone riding a bike with someone else sitting on the back, with a full size tank of acetylene (with no valve safety cap, mind you) on the rack in front of him, perpendicular to the bike. First of all, a full tank gas probably weighs 250 lbs at least, so thats a lot of weight to handle on the back of a bicycle plus the person holding it.. But more importantly, if that tank slides off and knocks off the valve, it becomes a 250 lb rocket that would literally rip through the car next to the bike, spinning through anyone and anything it hits for the next minute or so. Not to mention that it's extremely flammable. DANGER WILL ROBINSON! When i saw it the first time, I couldn't even believe my eyes.

This becomes even more amazing when you consider how insane the traffic is. The motorcycles and bikes constantly weave through all lanes of traffic, even the wrong side of the road if there is a lot of congestion. Plus, long-distance buses and transport trucks go wherever they want; you better get out of the way. And the mattatus (van taxis) are constantly jousting for position. Add to this pedestrian traffic, and the fact that intersections dont' have working traffic lights so it's basically a free-for-all, ( think lots of honking) , and you get a recipe for disaster. For the sake of my mother's mental health, I'll save the personal traffic stories till when we get back.

This weekend we have Kayaysu staying with us. She normally stays with IT sam and his wife sarah, but she isn't feeling too great, so Sam asked us if we would take her for the weekend. She is a toddler, shy and cute. She knows to use her eyes and smile on people.








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Uncle Tim ( a big arizonian who is a student at the Institute, who also used to be a strength coach/soccer coach/all kinds of coaches) has been encouraging the older boys to work out, lifting weights and running, especially the ones from the soccer teams (which he also coaches). So he bought a couple of dumbells in Kampala, but he really has a vision for having a whole set of bench weights. Those are really expensive here, so he asked me for ideas on how to make them out of concrete. One way they do it is to just stick a pole in two buckets full of concrete, and there you have it. But then you're limited to that one weight ( in their case, 170 lbs, which is a lot for the little guys, and even for guys like me. ) So they want stackable weights. I came up with some concrete molds that are reuseable of two different sizes, so they can stack varying weights on the bar. I was willing to help, but a bit skeptical about the desire of the average Ugandan to lift weights when their day consists of back-breaking labor. So I asked one of the guys who has been working out with Tim about that, and he said out here, not as many people would be interested in working out, but in Kiwoko just a couple km away they guys would love to access to facilities like those that Tim is planning. I was quite surprised to find that out. Anyway, all of this is a back-story to the fact that I'm supposed to be making a weight bench/squat rack right now, but I can't because the forge isn't open and I can't find Uncle Godfrey. So I get to relax instead. I am looking forward to welding, but not with the welder that they have here. Instead of having a dial to change the amperage, there are just different posts to put the contacts on, with no covers or anything. OH, I forgot to write about the welder that Jon pointed out to me in the market near his house in Kampala. The guy had made it himself, and it basically just looks like an open box with whole bunch of bare wires stuffed in it, and coming out of it. When it turns on, it smokes like crazy. Umm, scary.


If you are new to our blog, be sure to check all the old entries by scrolling down, and if you'd like to see more pictures, click on any of them to go to the picasa album where there are more pix than what I have posted here.

MIA

It's Ellie here. I've been a little MIA in the blog world. I'm more of a let's experience the experience rather than write about them. Anyway, this past week has kind of been crazy. yesterday I woke up feeling kind of sick. By the afternoon, I knew I was sick. We brought a themometer from home and every time I checked my temp it was rising and rising. I had to lie down the whole day and whenever I would try to stand, I would feel dizzy and nauseated. I was scared I had malaria and REALLY didn't want to walk down to the clinic 1) because it would require standing which would make me throw up and 2) I would be garanteed a malaria test which includes getting poked (and I hate needles and blood). By 4:30 I really knew I needed to go in so I prayed hard that I could stand and walk to the clinic and back without falling or vomitting. It was sucessful! I did indeed, get a malaria test. It was just a quick prick on the finger (which was done by Ann, the short-term American nurse. She says when the head of the clinic, Roger, tests, he uses a huge needle that is extremely painful and quite unnecessary. I'm glad it was Ann who did it!) the test was negative. YAY.

then I said I feel really sick. She gave me a bucket and I pretty much puked out my brains. I told Ann that I think she is the first person who I threw up in front of outside my family (except maybe Melodie M. who took me to the hospital from Cedar Campus but I can't remember if I actually threw up in front of her....I'm sure she'd remember though!) I felt much better after that and could walk home ok but then in the evening I felt awful again. my stomach was turning and turning and finally at midnight....I felt like my guts were being thrown out of my body in both directions and..... let's just say.... the latrine was too far away and would require getting dressed in skirts etc. so the plastic wash basin had to do. All I have to say is that I fell sound asleep after that and after I woke up in the morning, it was all cleaned out, thanks to a very loving and kind husband. THANKS JOHN I LOVE YOU AND CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH!!

today I still don't feel great --definitely not making the long walk to the Baby House. I am just resting in the house and trying to keep some food down. Whatever is in my body, my body doesn't like. But I think the worst of it is over (let's pray).

Maybe some of you are wondering what I've been doing during all these resting times. The cyst thing kept me out of commission for about 11 days, 15 days to fully recover. And times like now when I can't do much, not even think that great because it is kind of hard to concentrate on things like letter-writing or paper-writing or scripture studying when your insides feel like they're turning inside out. I haven't neglected those, but an excellent game I found that allows me to not think too much but is much more challenging than solitaire, is Spider Solitaire on the computer. I just learned it while I was here and now it's really fun!

Besides puking in front of Ann, another awkward situation I was in a couple days ago was letting go of the girl who had been doing our laundry. It was really awkward being in a different culture and trying to fire someone in front of me, hoping I'm keeping the sensitive nature of the conversation cultually appropriate. I know Africa culture is a shame-based culture so I tried my best not to shame her but also explain why I was letting her go. I think it went ok in the end. At least she left with some money I owed her so she didn't leave empty-handed and angry.... maybe just angry. but it had to be done and now it's over.

Since I've been at New Hope, I feel like I keep accidently being in these awkward situations --trying to decipher what is cultural and what is moral, what I can agree is a neutral thing that I am just used to doing differently versus determining that I can't agree with something because it is a moral questions instead of a cultural one. It can be really challenging (by the way, I love how Ugandans say challENging instead of CHALLenging). But it has been good for me to express a frustration in a positive way and then it has really helped to get explanations of why a certain thing is done in a certain way; then I can decide if it was a question of morality or culture. It hasn't been easy to keep from turning the construtive critism into grumbling (last week's message at church was from the book of Numbers which we've been calling "the Book of Grumbling") so that is something I'm trying to keep myself in check about.

Travels.

March 13th

So I finally went to Kampala yesterday, which was good fun. I managed to misunderstand my cellphone alarm and got ready and walked all the way to the rendevouz point at 1:00 am, realized my mistake when Mukisa wasn't there, walked back and went back to bed. ( 1 am looks a lot like 6 am in terms of darkness) We were on the road at 6:15. It takes less then two hours including stops and taxi transfers to get to the Kampala city limit , then it takes another hour to get into the city, maybe 5 km.

We were successful in our shopping for materials, and got the screws and transparent sheets we needed. So today we'll finish the last two valleys.

I also stopped off at the Davises to drop some things off and pick up some stuff we left there last time. I got to see the completed bench/swing (which I helped Jon build part of), which was very comfortable and relaxing. I also tried the new foot-swing, which was good times. In watching the video of me swinging, I also realized that right now I have more hair on my face than on some parts of my head. I had known I was going bald for a while, but this was first time I got a nice view of it. I am an ancient quarter-century old, so it makes sense, I guess. I'll put that video on picasa another time.



SWING



Jon and I were sitting in the swing, and I heard a musical tinkle. I turned to him in disbelief: "is that an ice cream truck?" well, not exactly. A guy pushing a bike with an igloo cooler strapped to his handlebars. But I wasn't going to pass up the chance to get ice cream for the first time in 2 months. So I bought us one each, which was nice and refreshing. It wasn't ice cream, more like flavor-ice, but hey, i'm not picky.



Ok, time to go off to breakfast.

March 11th

Today is my mom's birthday, and Brendan's birthday. Happy birthday folks.
I have been working doing IT for the past two days instead of working on the guesthouse because of the lack of materials. Tomorrow I really am going to go to Kampala

we're still here.

March 4th.

Today we have been at New Hope for one month.

Work on the guesthouse is going slowly, in large part because of the rain. The metal roof becomes very slippery when wet, and I'm not trying to slide off the roof and break a leg. So work pretty much stops when it rains. And boy did it rain today. It was like it was trying get as much moisture out of the sky as possible as fast as possible. When it couldn't rain any harder, it started hailing. It was crazy how much water was coming off the roof, and how hard the wind was blowing. It was the inauguration of the rainy season. So we get to be here for a whole month of the rainy season. This means that we have to work extra hard in the morning before it rains in the afternoons. I'm hoping that we can finish this week, both because my body is getting tired of this, and also so that work can continue on the inside in the dry. My hands are starting to look pretty beat up, as well as taking on the stench of the gloves that I wear all day.



It is a bit rough on the digestive system eating just beans and potatoes for lunch. I have to eat twice as much food for it to last me until dinner. At home my normal work lunch is not nearly as much food, but it is more energy dense, i think.

I saw a lizard today at the jobsite that was one of the coolest lizards I have ever seen. He changed colors several times, quite quickly. The first time I saw him he was bright blue on about half his body and green and tan on the other half, then only his tail was blue, then later almost all tan.





March 8th

Well, we ran out of materials for the guesthouse, so I'm going to Kampala with Mukisa (the construction supervisor ) on monday to get some supplies. I'll probably drop by the Davises, and maybe do a little food shopping.

Ellie and I finally were able to put our beds together this week. We didn't have a mosquito net big enough to cover both beds so we bought one when we were in Kampala last. We also didn't feel like waking up with bat poop in our teeth and hair, so until we dealt with the "heavenly flavor" as Uncle Ji-ten calls it, we weren't going to push our beds together. So we jerry-rigged a bat-poop catching device. It is really a temporary measure, but sometimes temporary measures go on for quite a while before getting fixed, (as in after we leave) so i figured I would just deal with it myself. The whole sleeping-in-seperate-beds thing confused some of the cleaning staff at first; one day after I had been sick a lady asked Ellie "is your brother feeling better today?" Same last name, different beds, must be siblings, right? hah.

Life with a snotty baby

March 2nd

New Hope is an interesting place, full of happy and sad stories. Remember Auntie Florence, the friend who is going to get married? Well she has a ten-year old son Brian (her husband died a long time ago) who is a real sweetie. He has latched onto Tim and Joseph, partially because they live next door and partially because he hasn't had a male figure in his life for a while. (and Tim is a way cool boisterous american in his eyes, probably. Tim is also the soccer coach for New Hope.) He is a really good kid, and soft-hearted; He helps his mother and obeys, and has fun and laughs with us in the evenings. He actually reminds me of Phoenix my nephew in some ways.

Anyway, i saw him running at soccer practice yesterday doing laps with the team, and he seemed to be having a hard time running. I asked Tim about it today at breakfast, and he and Joseph told the story of how he had been abused by an aunt or someone he was staying with for a while. He had done something, and she beat him with a stick on his feet, and "dislocated" his foot, and his other foot was deformed during birth.

I had never noticed before, but now i see that he limps when he walks. Tim noticed when he would hide in the bushes when the team had to run laps, because he didn't want the other kids to make fun of him for the way he runs.
So tim got him some cleats instead of sandals to help him run better, which he said has helped.

But what a sad story. Florence said that he is still terrified of the name of the person who beat him; there was a teacher at New Hope who had the same name, and he had to be dragged to school because he refused to go.

I would hate to have something like that; everytime you move, you are reminded of the hatred of another against you.

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I played in a soccer match with the Institute students against the younger New Hope soccer team this afternoon. It was good clean fun, and it felt great to run around a bit. We trounced them 7-2, but they gave us a run for our money considering they were 10-14 year-olds. Some of them made us look like complete fools with their quick feet. Brian (with the hurt feet) played also, and I noticed again how he ran funny, painfully. Speaking of running, most of the kids play barefoot or wearing flip flops. The goalkeeper wears sandals until he makes a save, then he kicks off his right one to punt barefooted. Some of the older ones have cleats, and especially on the older boys team.

One funny thing about the food here I was thinking about today: chicken is a delicacy. Just having meat at all is somewhat luxurious, although less so here in this district because of the many cows. But to have chicken is a real treat here, we're used to beans, matoke, the occasional beef stew sauce, and a Ugandan attempt at spaghetti sauce with ground beef that is more like a sloppy joe with italian seasoning. Tasty, but different. So today at lunch we had chicken, and we all line up expectantly. There is always an annoucement "please only take one piece until everyone has had one" because it is such a rarity and expensive, which is strange, considering the quantity of chickens walking around making noise. So we've been here long enough to get excited about chicken, which is quite different from home. Home was " not chicken again, aw Dad we have that every night!!" And of course the chicken here doesn't have as much meat on it as a tyson hormone-injected headless meat factory chicken, so they have darker and tastier meat. The only thing that is more pricey is pork. I think a piglet is worth like $120

Guesthouse update: big surprise, we didn't finish last week. I was thinking that I could get the guys to pick up the pace; didn't happen. New estimate is wednesday or thursday. It can't be much later than that, the rainy season is very near. It has already startening looking threatening every afternoon pretty much. One of the goals having 2 guys work with me continuously is that they would pick up the skills to be able to carry on after I leave. They have some other building expansions planned in the near future, so Uncle Jay is hoping to hand over the roof contract to them. I'm not sure they're ready for that, but I've been trying to teach them. They know how to use a speed square, and they could probably make a roof hip, but i doubt they make a valley without help. Roof framing is quite different here: the valley is the last thing you make. I'm used to making the valley, then all your jack-rafters go to it. As I've said before, working with green noodle-wood that varies in thickness and width every few inches makes it tough to make a straight and flat roof. It's hard enough with the lumber in the US, this is just silly. But we've managed quite well. Of course, wait till the wood dries (and warps) over the next few years, and then we'll see. The contractors that are setting up the forms for the ceiling are going around, and when they get to the long side, they are going to have a time making a straight form, because the beam goes up and down a good inch and a half in various places over the 30 foot lenth.

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here's Isaiah, who stayed with us for around 24 hours. Ellie didn't sleep much saturday night because he couldn't lie down without crying and choking; he's quite a sick two-month-old.








We get a lot of these beautiful nights here. Hot days, cool nights.





More local fauna.




Hope you all are doing well.

A day in the life of.....

March 1st

Someone requested a "day in the life of" entry from us. So here it is. (in john's style of presentation- linear, bullet points. :-)

6 am- Bathroom break
7 am- get up
7:30- Breakfast at the institute (40 feet from our hut.)
8:30- Head off to work on the guesthouse for John
8:45- Ellie goes off to the baby house
1:00- Lunch (usually rice, beans in a sauce of some kind, matoke)
1:30- A handful of trail mix, and back to work for John
5:00- quitting time for John, back to the house to bathe
6:00- Dinner (varies. the meal rotation is about 5 or 6 days before repeats)

After that, it depends on the day. Last thursday, we went over to Uncle Mike's and watched The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Some days we just hang around, read, write, or talk with friends. Something that is commonly done in the evenings that we don't do very much (which we're planning on changing) is visiting the family groups.

By the way, here is the website of the ministry we are working at. I thought some of you might like to check it out.

http://www.newhopeuganda.org/


Ellie wanted to take a baby from the baby house, so since this morning till tomorrow night we have little 2-month-old Isaiah, who is quite sick. He has a very hard time breathing, and it makes you feel awful because you can't do anything to help him. Ellie is trying to get him to go to sleep right now in the other room. He doesn't like lying down at all, probably because it's harder for him to breathe. So he wants to be held all the time, and that doesn't happen very much if at all at the baby house. That's one of the reasons Ellie wanted to take him. We'll let you know how the night goes. I'm thinking it might be a bit rough. It might be good to explain the baby house also. I'll let Ellie do that since shes working there.

peace



Feb 26th

Ellie and I just watched a movie with Rose and some friends called "Freedom Writers" , which is a mostly-true story about a teacher in inner-city California. It was a good movie, in a pull-yourself-by-your-bootstraps kind of way. Anyway, as we walked from Rose and Julia's hut to ours we both (independently of each other) had the odd sensation of stepping back into reality. Movies can be immersive, and we had briefly forgotten that we were in the middle of the bush in the middle of Africa. As we stepped outside the hut, we stepped back into reality. Of course I've had that sensation before, but it's more striking when the disparity between the story of the movie and the story of life around here is greater; greater than walking out of the movie theatre back to your car. Here there are people a quarter mile away who will never travel more than 10 kilometers from home their whole life, just milking cows and growing casava.