Just now folks from our team are scattered in various parts of the house… some are sitting here in front of me chatting; some are working on the internet which is now working, and others are helping with the dishes; others are just chillin'. We are getting to know each other better each day and that has been a blessing. Very cool experience in itself. And okay, we've been holding out on you just a bit. Some have probably heard from various family members about the "little hut" where we are staying. We were a little shy of telling you about it, not because you'd stop worrying about our accommodation arrangements but because you might all want to come! This place is the next thing to a mansion. It has large spacious rooms, lovely veranda out back and also verandas off of some of the bedrooms; beds for each of us with mosquito nets around each one; the kitchen is well equipped by comparison to many in the city and the girls who work here, Christene, Olivia, and Doreen, manage to produce tasty wonderful meals. They cook breakfast and evening meals for us and we are on our own for lunch. We have had very tasty African vegetables and other dishes in addition to a lot of things we recognize. Tonight, for example, we had homemade pizza and it was fantastic. We can have pop or bottled water with the evening meal and bottled water or juice with breakfast. In addition we are able to have all the bottled water we want to drink. The girls also do our laundry, by hand, and some of our clothes are incredibly dirty coming back from the work site. For example, I washed a few articles in the sink... it took 2 washes and 3 rinses to get all the color (clay) out of the clothes! There is coffee every morning for those who need it and now as I send this, beautiful sunlight pouring in the door to the dining room. So, you see, we are in lovely accommodations. Sometimes the power goes off (all over Kampala - was off about 3 times last night). Sometimes the water isn't heated or there isn't much water pressure but for those who remember Cameroon (we loved Cameroon but showers, electricity and drinking water were a little tricky), or have pictured less than ideal housing for us, you can relax. It is really lovely here and we totally appreciate both the house and all the staff. The dogs barking at night and the feral cat fights that take place at 4:00 in the morning aren't so cool but it is beautiful… palm trees in the back yard, wonderful song birds to awaken the dawn… lovely indeed.
Today is Thursday. Monday, as mentioned, we raised 7 courses (rows). As we went along over the next few days our house was also starting to take shape on the outside and we could see things develop to get ready for the inside walls that separate the rooms. Once the 7 rows were up we had to set up staging around the outside walls in order to reach. The bricks are just slightly smaller than Canadian foundation blocks but solid instead of the two holes they usually have. They build the steel doors and windows at another part of the site in what they call the Production Centre… they train young people from the villages there as they get older so that they learn a trade and welding is one of the trades. We watched in fascination (as we worked) that things just continued to progress with a very organized and well planned manner. When a door was needed, it appeared. When it was time for a window to go in, they kept an eye on us so that when we built up to it, it was timed for a break or end of day then it would be in place when it needed to be there …. I don't know how they did it but there was no fluster, no panic, just calm and everything ran like a well-oiled machine. "Musenyo, musenyo" (sort of sounds like me-send-you all run together) that's what you would often hear throughout the building site… calling for mortar from the guys who were mixing it. So we learned to say that … and then "waybala" (thank you) or waybala nyo which means thank you very much.
Work continued along so that by today at lunch time the house was almost completely finished of the brick-laying part. It will be several months before the roof and all the finishing, painting and yard work is done but we will receive a photo when that is done. For now our part is finished. "Right on schedule" James said. James was the foreman of this house project. And it looks pretty nice… we are a little proud of it for sure. It was a good thing we came close to completing it because during lunch the rain started. Now, we had a bit of rain on Monday near the end of the work day. It was heavy but didn't hold us up for long. We were (mostly) all excited to experience African rain so a few of us stood out in it, purposely getting wet. It is pretty cool as you will see from the photos we bring home… guess you will have to wait for them as it seems uploading them is not going to be possible. I would like to know how some of the other teams got their photos up but they must have spent a lot of time doing it or someone on the team made that their exclusive job… with the timing we have experienced, it is just not going to happen. Sorry, I know many of you were waiting for that but we will get them loaded to the journals when we get home and you can walk back through our time in Uganda with us.
So back to the rain… the photo explanation was just a bit of a rabbit trail…the rain started at our lunch break today, usually from 1:00 to 2:00. It started light enough with some wind but the clouds were pretty dark. Then it got heavier and the wind picked up. Heavier still until it was a total deluge with thunder, lightning, hail, the whole works! While this was going on we are sitting in our picnic shelter (the one the men carried down the hill for us) making our peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. Our picnic shelter consists of a rough table with seats with several pieces of tin over top of it. Open on all sides and most times, just dandy as a place to get out of the sun and take a break. However today the ones sitting on the side of the wind and rain got pelted… completely soaked to the skin. Everyone got more than a little bit wet but the ones getting hit with the hail, etc. were on the windward side and they were the ones shivering in the cold by the time it was over, about 30 minutes later. As soon as the sun came out, James came down the hill… he was worried about us but we were still singing and laughing. You see, we were there by ourselves. Our bus usually stays at the bottom of the hill with us but when it started to rain, the driver, Moses, always has to go further up as the hill is too steep to get up when it is slick. We all thought it probably was just a shower so they had no qualms leaving us there as we were going to go back to work for a very short time then say our farewells to the local workers. As it turned out after the storm we walked up the slip-sliding hill with our sneakers so caked with mud that we had to take them off to get in the bus, and then sit on jackets or bags as our clothes that daily get coated with mortar dust were now a muddy soggy mess. Oh well, an hour ride home to a shower and it was forgotten (almost)… but it was a truly spectacular storm, one we will not soon forget.
Now, we really want to tell you about the men at the site that we are meeting but for the most part we will have to leave that for another time. This is getting too long and I hear my bed calling…but I do want to tell you a bit about James. I have said he was the foreman on our site. He is very tall with a great smile and a gentle, patient personality but he has full command of the site and all that is happening. Full of faith, he simply trusts the Lord for everything and so many things he has said to us reveal his heart for God and cause us to feel that we are infants with so much to learn. In all of this his manner is so quiet and unassuming. He is really more like a project manager on the site. He is always walking around either checking on the progress, looking ahead to see what has to be ready to put in place next so there is no hold-up to the work, or training some of the younger workers… there are always new workers being trained on the site. Just from the house we are building we could see the foundations being laid for 4 more houses that will be built in the future and we understand that Sam alone has about 30 teams this year, plus the houses that will be built by donations without teams coming... in fact, about 80 houses for 8 children each are in the works for this year.
Now to make it perfectly clear, the men could build the house much faster and probably straighter if they did it themselves, though it does look pretty good to us, and the men in charge have said some nice things to us. They are taking the time to allow us to "help" to provide us with this amazing experience and so we can then go and tell others what we have seen of this very unique and vital ministry. One thing that has totally blown us away is the organization itself, the breadth of the work, the number of people involved, the way they reach into their community. Guess that is more than one thing but what I mean is, it is the witness of this organization in this area… so hard to explain but we'll try again verbally when we come home.
So I'll sign off for now. If there are things you would like to know about specifically, just mention them on the blog comments. We'll try to get to all of them though we may be back in Canada when we do.
Of course, next week (Tues, Wed, Thurs) we go on Safari. We were to go to Murchison Falls but now are going to Queen Elizabeth Park… more on that later.
Love from Uganda
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