Rhythms of Gulu

Man, it’s been a minute since I’ve written a blog. Sorry about that, I’m going to blame it on not having power and being busy and the traffic jam of cows on my way to work. Also my dog ate my homework. In all reality, it gets harder to write as time goes on because everything becomes normal and you get into a rhythm, so when I almost get in an accident, or get stuck in between a herd of cattle, I don't even think about saying anything about it because it's just life. Lots has happened since my last update, but don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a 20 page novel like normal. Or maybe it will. Yeah it probably will be. I think I’m going to aim to do shorter updates more often so I actually do them. We’ll see how that plays out. Where did we leave off? This is actually a legitimate question, I can’t get on the internet to reread my last blog… OK cool it loaded. Safari adventures with Brucie!

August was a pretty good month here, but sad at the same time.  A handful of good friends left Gulu, which sadly has become a trend. My three housemates left, one of them to go be a complete badass in the middle of a war-zone in Congo. Seriously, I wish I had balls like she did. The other two Rousseau sisters went back to the Northwest to move onto the next chapters of life. It was tough saying bye to them all, but I’m stoked for what God is doing through each of them. Restore lost another awesome member when Jenna got a sweet job running a hair stylist school, so that was also real tough. But we got a new volunteer that moved into the house, Hunter, who is here to do farming, but enjoys fishing. Hunter Farmer is a legit guy from Nashville who is really good at guitar and singing (very similar to my own talents). He's got crazy long hair, which if Jenna was still here, I would have convinced her to cut off. Along with Hunter, there’s some new interns for an organization called Krochet Kids, who you should check out if you haven’t heard of them. They employ women (not kids) who make beanies while going through a program that gives them life skills. It’s been fun making those new friends and going on adventures, making meals, or having Christmas in July together. One thing that is awesome about Gulu is how much time people spend with one another. When you don’t have TV, or power half of the time, your options become read by yourself (which I’m guilty of very often), or hang with people, make a meal together and have a candlelit game of Charades, Bananagrams, or some Mafia.  Plus, having everyone live one quick boda ride from each other helps too. Except when it rains, then you just stay home. It’s actually funny how the rain creates pretty legitimate excuses for a lot of things. “Ah, I didn’t make it to school today because of the rains” and people totally understand. Riding a street bike without good treads on the rain is like trying to line dance on an ice rink. Which I’ve never tried, it just seems pretty difficult. That can be pretty frustrating when it comes to getting construction work done, but it’s part of life and you just gotta deal with it. 

September was pretty freaking awesome. Brett came to visit for 3 weeks, and Evan Luchaco came for a couple weeks also. Brett got to come up to Gulu for a few days, meet the people, meet a crew of our workers and throw some bricks around at the school, and see the town. Unfortunately, my visa needed to be renewed a few days into him being here, so that meant going to Kampala. On the bus down, two windows were broken, one was shattered and tiny pieces of glass were falling out on the passengers, and the other one was cracked, so they were more of shards than small pieces of glass. This was the start to our pretty poor-luck of Ugandan public transportation. Half-way to Kampala a rather large shard of glass falls on the nearby passengers, luckily no one was hurt. Half an hour later, the bus conductor went and punched out the rest of the window so that no glass pieces were falling. Seems like a good idea, except then really fine pieces of glass were flying several seats back, so I had to wear a sweatshirt and pull the hoodie over my head. Good thing there was a lot of airflow on the bus that day or else I would have been extremely hot. So it was a pretty normal bus ride and then we get to Kampala.  Well I got denied for a tourist visa extension at the office, which was a bummer because that meant having to go to another country. Well, we decided on Kenya. I wasn’t feeling too great at this point, but had to get out of the country or else I’d be in trouble.

We hopped on a night bus taking off at 7, and the ride is supposed to be 4 hours. It started out pretty uneventfully, so Brett and I get some restless sleeping in. At about 10 at night, the bus breaks down. Sweet. They’re not able to fix it, so they have to send another one, which means waiting 3 hours for the next bus to come, then moving on from there. It’s about 3:30 in the morning by the time we get to Kenya. We cross over then look for a place to stay since we’re just going back to Uganda the next day. We’re walking towards what looks like the city center and some guy (he seemed friendly) talks to us and starts leading us to a hotel to crash in. We follow him into the “city center”, which isn’t much of anything, and is totally dark at this point because there aren’t streetlights over here for the most part. It starts to feel a little sketchy, but we keep going. We enter through a couple storefronts into sorta an alleyway, and it opens up into a courtyard. I notice that some guy had started to follow us as we crossed through this passageway, and on the other side of the courtyard the guy tries to direct us through an unmarked gate claiming that there is a hotel in there. Even though it was 4 am after a long day of traveling, Brett and I both knew better and decided to go off by ourselves and not go through this sketchy gate into a dark area with the empty promise that there is a hotel through there. I’m not totally sure, but I think we might have been mugged if we had gone in. Once we turned away from here, the guy stopped following us and we went to the nearest building with lights on. We get a room, and after entering into it and our nostrils being filled with the stench of some rotting animal, we request a new one. Second one seemed decent enough, so we crash there.

The next day we go back to Uganda and decide to spend a night at Sipi falls, which is this beautiful retreat place where the weather was cooler (like, maybe even in the 60’s at night) and there is some beautiful waterfalls to hike around, and also freshly roasted coffee available to buy. It was pretty crazy realizing how refreshing it was just to be around mountains of some sort and not the flat landscape of Gulu. Back to Kampala the next day and we have Evan picked up from the airport and taken to the house we were crashing at (which was on top of a hill overlooking Kampala, maybe the coolest view in the city). Ev gets in around 2, so we all get some good sleep, get some breakfast the next day, then head on to Fort Portal, which is the city where we’re doing a triathlon the next weekend. The week was an awesome mixture of some outdoor adventures, randomly meeting a guy I’d been corresponding to over email about renting bikes, then biking to some caves, seeing lots of smaller crater lakes (nothing compared to ours in Oregon), a safari, and also just relaxing and enjoying having some time together.

The safari was pretty sick. We went to a different park from the last time I safari’d with my Dad. We got to go on a boat tour and also drove around the park searching for the elusive lion. Unfortunately, no such luck. But, on the way back to Fort Portal, we saw a group of elephants. I think it’s technically called a herd, but I prefer the term hellaphants. Over ten of them crossed within 20 meters of our car, including one straggler, who was smart enough to look both ways before he crossed. Impressive, especially considering a ton of people in this country don’t even do that. We stopped at the equator point, took some touristy photos and then went back.

Our country director John came down for the triathlon, which was one of the more fun days I’ve had yet. The swim was in this crater lake with clean, perfect temperature water, then the bike ride was around the surrounding villages (more of a BMX race than a road race, which made it extra fun and extra sketchy at the same time, considering the quality of bikes). The race finished with a run around the rim of the crater lake where the swimming leg of the race was. John got 2^nd behind the guy who coordinated the whole thing, and I was pretty average. At least I beat that 9-year old. The rest of the day was spent hanging with all the other contestants, then heading back to Kampala so we could get up to Gulu the next day.

The plan was to grab some breakfast then go to Gulu as early as possible, except we didn’t account for the biggest storm I’d seen in Kampala hitting. Luckily we were stuck in a café with a group of Gulu friends, but there was some serious lightning happening within a kilometer of where we were.  That delayed our departure until 2:00 where we went to the bus park and prepared for another bus adventure. Well 2:00 turned into 4:30 by the time we left, then we got stuck in traffic and didn’t end up getting out of the city until 6:00. Not the best start. The rest of the drive was extremely slow, so it was 2:00 am before we got back. Oh the joy of a crammed 12 hour bus ride.

Well something hit Evan pretty bad and he felt like crap the whole time he was in Gulu, which was a bummer. He was a trooper and made the half-hour boda ride to the school but I could tell he wasn’t feeling too great. Unfortunately, sickness is just part of life here but it sucked that it had to hit him during his short stay here. We got to celebrate his birthday together, probably not one of his best, but a memorable one none-the-less. He took off the next day but luckily some of my friends were heading to Kampala and were able to accompany him during his ride. Brett and I had a handful more days to julk around in Gulu before he went back to Switzerland. One day we decided to go to the abandoned railcars. We left Epona a couple miles away and started walking on the tracks. We meet Michael, a friendly teacher who turned out to be a primary school teacher. Mid-conversation, an old lady comes up and speaks Lwo to Michael and says hi to us, then walks off. A couple minutes later we’re still talking with Michael and this old lady comes back screaming bloody murder and swinging her arms above her head wildly. I wasn’t immediately sure what was going on, maybe she was trying to put a curse on us, or it was some new Acholi dance. When she got closer, we realized she had a swarm of bees attacking her. Brett and I looked at each other and realized we couldn’t really do anything to help her and started to run away like little school girls. I’ve heard that bees can sense fear, which is probably why they went after Brett and not myself, he was fearing seriously, I was just fearing somehow. Torn between trying to help this lady and not wanting to get killed by a swarm of African bees, we’re asking people around to try to help this lady, but we seemed to be the only ones concerned and most people were just laughing about it. Sometimes I just don’t get this culture, although I did receive an email a week later from Michael saying the lady survived so that’s good.

Well Brett and I take yet another Post Bus ride back to Kampala which just happened to be on his birthday. We went out for a nice dinner where we ate different type of game meat, mostly types of Kob (deer looking things) but also had some crocodile and stuff. Pretty delicious. As the car pulls up to take Brett to the airport, we’re bracing for a goodbye, which may have been sad if the driver wasn’t playing backstreet boys in the background. It was hard not to laugh at the situation. That is one positive of Uganda music, they still play those hits from the 90’s and 2000’s. There’s been a handful of nights where I drive home singing backstreet boys  out loud because it’s stuck in my head, and I’m not even ashamed at it. Everyone things we mzungus are crazy anyways, so might as well reinforce the stereotype!

The next month was pretty uneventful besides moving houses and playing spikeball. I am now living with 4 other guys (Don't call it a frat house) in another part of town than before. Two of the guys work with Krochet Kids, one with Restore, and one with another company called Remnant. We have our own compound, which is pretty sweet. We have room to play spikeball, and are also in the middle of making a sand volleyball/spikeball court. It’s going to be sick. I’ll put up pictures once it’s done. Spikeball has become a favorite pastime here and everyone is getting pretty good at it. It’s a nice stress reliever at the end of a long day.

At the end of October we had a group of people comKK, 31 Bits, and an Invisible Children project called Mend. You should all buy Christmas presents from them, it’s a great way to give great products that also contribute to helping not only fund the work here, but also teach the workers life skills like saving, budgeting and planning for their futures. Ouch. Just sprained my ankle jumping off of that soap box. Anyways, the group was in Uganda for over a week, and 4 of those days were in Gulu. The graduation at the school was pretty awesome, and also a bit sad. I knew quite a few of the graduating students, and although it was awesome to see their faces as they got their diplomas, the thought that I may not see some of them again wasn’t easy to think about. After a long day of picture-taking on corny backdrops, we all head back into town for a dinner with the group. The next day was going to be our traditional healer graduation.

e with Bob for our school’s graduation. We got to spend some quality time with some really great people, showing them around Gulu, checking out other organizations like

Small backstory: traditional healers, or witch doctors, are pretty common over here and they often resort to things like animal sacrifices, or in extreme cases human sacrifices as a means to receive “powers” from evil spirits. Bob has been working with traditional healers, running sting operations, convicting them of murders, and holding regional meetings to let all the witch doctors know that Uganda now has a law in place and they’re not afraid to put them in prison for life for any illegal activities for their practices. But this practice is shunned in the majority of Uganda, and therefore these traditional healers are seen as outcasts of society and not accepted into the community. They don’t go to schools, and don’t allow their children to go to schools so they’re not educated and can’t speak English. This is where some former Restore students got involved. They held bi-weekly classes to not only teach them English, but also share God’s love with them and show that they’re not stuck in their practices and can continue to learn in order to rejoin society as a contributing member, not someone who is feared by the local village people. All that to say, we had a graduation for this group who had gone through our program. The graduation was great, even some local news came to do a story but we turned them away. They put on graduation gowns, got certificates (Ugandans LOVE certificates), and even presented a drama for us (they love those too). Although it was long and drawn out (much like my blogs), it was interesting to see. The story basically was showing what their life had been like when participating in child sacrifices and when they were involved in their former practices. The group of visitors took off after this, and I then had about 5 hours to make a Halloween costume for the party we were hosting at our house. Luckily I had the easiest costume of the group and went as the Yellow Brick Road from Wizard of Oz. I thought it was funny, but people took advantage of the situation and made fun of me. I really got walked all over. We ended up having like 50 people over and had a really fun night.

And that brings us to the present. I’m sure I missed some fun stories, but you got the highlights. The Sportscenter Top 10, if you will. I’ve decided to commit to another year over here continuing construction projects, doing some accounting, and whatever else I find time to do! I’m really excited to come back and keep the work going. Oh yeah, I’m coming back to Oregon mid-December for a month to visit, so I hope to see you all around! I don’t think I’ll have a cell phone, so Facebook message might be the best way to get ahold of me. I’ll update you all if that changes. Anyways, thanks for spending time reading this, sorry I took so long between updates, I’ll try and be better in the future! Here's a couple bonus pictures that I think are kinda cool.

Safari Adventures with Brucie

Seems like it’s that time of the month. Yeah, blog time. I don’t know what you were thinking, sick-o. Dang, it’s July and I’ve been here about 4 months. I can’t tell if feels like it’s been longer or shorter than that. I look back and it feels like I just got off that plane feeling completely lost and trying to figure out why the heck God wanted me in Uganda, arriving to Gulu and walking around not knowing a soul, showing up to Restore and not knowing what I would even be doing. On the other hand, I look back at all the friendships I’ve made, people I’ve gotten to be good friends with and have to say bye to, and all the time I’ve spent at the school working and it feels like 4 months isn’t enough time to fit that much life into. So averaging those two out, four months feels about right.

This last month has been packed! First of all, my dad came to visit which was a blast. This idea for him to come visit started when Emma mentioned her family was coming on June 9^th, my Dad’s birthday. Brucie is adventurous, but sometimes need a little prodding, so I temped him by the question, “How would you like to spend your next birthday in Uganda?!” which was the catalyst that got his gears turning, which turned into him going to see Brett in Austria for a handful of days before he made it down to East Africa! So, on June 9^th, Brucie landed in Entebbe on his birthday! We spent a relaxing day by a pool, eating some delicious food, trying local beers, and just catching up.

It was so great seeing him, and almost unbelievable at the same time. The fact that we were hanging out, talking about normal stuff about things back home, yet being halfway across the globe, was great to experience. It was fun hearing about his Sportclips shops, about how the step-siblings are doing, about old SNL skits, Arrested Development season 4, or how the Broncos are going to win the Superbowl. Even these casual conversations helped feel like I was back home for a bit. Emma’s Dad and Sister also got in that day. Brucie’s first full day here was pretty awesome. We got picked up by a private hire company in a super legit old land cruiser with 9 seats, a roof that pops up, and bars on the top that allow us to sit on top and feel the fresh African air flow by us as we pass baboons, giraf…sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. You’ll have to wait until that part of the story.  We drive to Murchison falls, and get to stand next to this amazingly powerful waterfall.

The waterfalls here are much less vertical than those in the northwest, but nonetheless it was a pretty amazing piece of nature to behold. After that we continue on and reach the Nile river and wait for a ferry to take us  across and get to see hippos swimming around and see some elephants upstream. We arrive to Paraa Safari Lodge, which is a super beautiful lodge on the Nile river and we all put on our bathing suits and hop into the pool complete with a swim-up bar where we of course order Nile beers, because you have to have a Nile on the Nile. A delicious dinner and some quality time later, we all head to bed and prepare for our morning safari. 

So yeah, that was a pretty awesome day. We then make it to Gulu. Over the next few days I show Brucie around my new home, the school, Sankofa (our favorite restaurant) and a little bit of everything that is part of the Gulu Life. We go Geocaching one afternoon and almost found our treasure, except that there was a nest of bees guarding it. Since hospital care is, well, not that great here, we decide that getting stung by a swarm of bees with a possible allergic reaction isn’t worth signing our name in a little book. Defeated, we climb back down the hill and ride back to Gulu and get home just a few minutes before a big storm hits us. Unfortunately, Hoke’s timing wasn’t as good as ours and he had to activate Jetski mode on his boda to get home. 

A few short days later, it’s time to take the dreaded bus back to Kampala and say bye to Dad. As terrible as taking the bus it, it’s sorta something you gotta experience while you’re in Uganda. It really makes you appreciate having your own car, being on paved roads without potholes, and not being in near-death experiences on the regular.  But, the redeeming factor of it all is that Kampala has good food, so we get a meal and then say goodbye. It was sad saying bye, but I felt so blessed that he even had the opportunity to come and see me and see what my life is like now. After the 6-hour ride back up to Gulu the next day, I decide that I’m going to avoid that bus ride whenever possible.

A few days later, Emma has a group of 4 guy friends from back home come and visit for 10 days. These guys were a blast. Hanging with them felt close to hanging with my bubs back home, and even had senses of humor like them. I’d say we got along pretty well, and hopefully they would say the same. Their time was filled with some fun adventures, riding 3-deep on Epona (my boda), some secret oaths, and plenty of children’s gifts for the boy-king. Don’t worry about it. They got to go to Ft. Patiko (it’s the location that they filmed the Lion King at) and even got to meet Rafiki. He’s aged quite a bit since the movie was filmed. I think Hoke’s favorite part of them being here was that they brought baseball gloves and a ball, so he got to toss the ol’ pigskin around with them. Wait, I mean, pass the rock. Or whatever sports analogy fits with baseball. Hoke was a happy camper after that though. After a few more days of Good Neighbor Stuff quotes, hanging out in Hammocks, and playing a few card games, it was time for them to return to America and back to their lives as they knew them. And on our side of things, it was back to focusing  on the projects we have going on at the school and keep things progressing. Well, for Hoke it was his last week before he went back home and got to surprise his Dad for his birthday. A group of us wanted to make it a special going away, so we planned a fun dinner night at Sankofa which consisted of his favorite meal here, Sam’s Pesto Pasta and some garlic bread. We made him a custom Menu from Sankofa which included the pizza he invented along with some other inside jokes scattered throughout. For his second gift, a group of us decided to put together a little calendar for him. I don’t think there’s a way to describe this without it sounding really awkward, because that’s what it was, but basically I did a few modeling shots for him and we added “Hey Girl” captions to each one. They’re basically bad pick-up lines (I would know, I’ve tried all of them and yet I’m still single.) for example, “Hey Girl, If I walked around you seven times would you fall for me?” If you want to have the full calendar, I’m thinking I’ll be doing a fundraiser sometime later this year. For all those special people in your lives, just save a little cash for the perfect Christmas present.

We had a little going-away deal for Hoke at the school with the construction workers where they got to share a bit and say goodbye. I think I’m learning about the culture because I knew that I should probably stop the speeches after the first handful or else all 50 of them would have said something. I’m glad I didn’t stop it before then because there were a few guys who really had some awesome, Godly wisdom and encouragement to share. After swearing to avoid Kampala just a couple weeks back, I find myself in the car with Hoke and the two John’s going back but first stopping at a guest house run by one of our partner organizations, Cornerstone. We shared one last night of debriefing, playing cards with some new friends, and some pillow talk after an amazing meal. One thing I’ve learned is to appreciate a good meal, because they don’t come around too often here. That next night we all got dinner at Hoke’s favorite spot in Kampala along with some fruity cocktails. We’re just getting back into the car and buckling up when Sarah looks over an says “Oh, look at that girl!” in a rather surprised voice. So I turn that way but before I see the girl she is talking about, I see a massive spider on the window, like probably 2-inch diameter including the legs. So I straight up mom-bar Hoke and Sarah into the seat and I look at the spider and try to see if it’s on the inside or the outside. John Niemeyer, who is in the passenger seat, doesn’t see the spider so he’s picturing some scene from The Exorcist of this girl having something terribly wrong with her. John Pfeil sees the spider and thinks it’s on the inside, so he rolls down the window to let it out. Turns out that the spider was on the outside, but starts moving really quickly once the window gets rolled down. I yell at John for him to roll it back up and by the time he does this the spider had crawled to the top of the car. John Niemeyer goes to turn on the light on the inside of the car and accidentally hits the moon-roof which starts to open. Niemeyer screams a little bit (but a super manly scream, more like a war cry) and then smashes the button the other way. A pretty hilarious series of events. We get back to the house and Niemeyer opens the door and runs away from the car as fast as possible to avoid any chance of a spider attack. Hoke, although not a fan of spiders, joins the crew of us surveying the vehicle to see if it lasted the car ride back. As we get to the back of the car, we see him, standing there all smugly on the back, taunting us with his large legs and venomous fangs.

 

But, despite his intimidation, he’s no match for the sole of my shoe. After that whole debacle, it’s time to say farewell to Hoke. Gulu and Uganda won’t be the same without him, what an awesome guy and follower of Christ. I could say a lot of other great things about him, but just take my word, he’s solid. It was sad saying bye, but at the same time I know we’ll continue to be friends as life goes on. As I’ve said before, it’s not goodbye, it’s a see-ya-in-a-bit.

We have a meeting while in Kampala with an engineering company about their design for a running water system at Restore, which the idea of that itself is a dream come true for so many! So I put on my engineering hat and get to be a part of this meeting with some amazing people about their vision to bring us running water. It reminded me a bit of my work with CH2M Hill, but on a much smaller scale. It’s honestly a bit hard thinking in the small scale of a school versus a chemical factory and trying to reduce my thinking to tens of gallons per minute rather than thousands. The prices would actually be comparable if you took away the conversion factors, like a valve here would cost 15,000 shillings rather than 60,000 dollars. Small differences. After feeling like an engineer again, it’s time to head back to Gulu. Home, sweet home. This last Friday the engineering contractors began their work at the school, so I’ve been doing some engineering with them and trying to direct some of the work and make a few decisions. It’s actually been a lot of fun being back involved in engineering stuff and being with the project from the beginning and hoping that I can help make it as awesome as possible!

July has been a bit uneventful for the most part, but good. I’ve been spending more time being an introvert and getting refreshed than I had the past few months which has been a healthy change. It’s been fun though, plenty of small things happening but I don’t want to bore you with them. We’ve been raising some kittens, playing some football, having Christmas in July parties, and other cool things with the community around here. Still, it doesn’t compare with my Oregon family and friends. Don’t think I’m replacing you all. I certainly feel like I’m in the groove of things here, now more than ever, and I’m so excited about what God is doing here in northern Uganda. I do miss you all and appreciate all the prayers, support, and encouragement! I’m pretty confident that I would have been in a handful of accidents if I didn’t have your prayers protecting me over here. Keep enjoying the beautiful Northwest summer, eat some delicious meals, drink a few microbrews, and enjoy the small things in life for me. Also, congrats to all my friends who are getting married, have already gotten married, or are celebrating their anniversaries this summer! I’ll be praying that God continues to be with you all. Love you all.

Picture Update Time!

Welcome back my friend! So I'm going to mix it up this time and do a lot more pictures with some descriptions, rather than me rambling on and putting my mom and Grandma to sleep. I apologize because the formatting options of this Blog are super limited, so it looks like a 4th grader did it, but I'll try my best to make it look nice. But first, just a general update of life here in Gulu. It's been so awesome finally being healthy, especially after nearly a month of being some sort of sick. It's nice and humbling to know that even when I'm not able to work as much that things still get done! Everything work related is going well, construction is moving along quickly, I'm up to date on accounting stuff which is a breath of fresh air, we got some comfortable couches for our house that I'm currently sitting on while listening to ESPN radio of Game 7 of the Heat-Pacers (Go Beavs!), so overall, life is pretty great! Most of all, my dad is going to come visit in 5 days! I'm pretty stoked!  Well enough words, let's get going with some pictures. I think we'll start with some construction stuff!

The first building I'm going to do an update of is Hoke's main project, the primary school classroom. This first picture is the classroom (with some cool clouds) from about 2 weeks ago. Mostly finished, needing roofing, painting, plastering and some other small things, but pretty close to being done. It was a long fought battle to get the roofing material up to Gulu, but after finding an alternate material, different supplier, switching delivery methods and plenty of prayers, the roofing material came! We were pushing really hard to get it done by the time this group of visitors came to visit last Friday (5/31), so Hoke worked extremely hard making it happen. The materials came in the Saturday before the visitors came in, so we had less than a week to make it all happen. The Sunday after the roofing panels get there, Hoke, Emma and I go out to one of our worker's church that he started on the Sunday and had to pass by the school to get to the church (the rest of that story later). As we pass the school, we see that the roofing contractors are putting on the panels which gets us really excited. We get home after the church service and Hoke gets a call from the roofing contractor saying they've almost put all of the material on the roof and they need more nails! We deliver the rest of them, and by the end of the day the whole roof is on!! And they say Rome wasn't built in a day. This second picture is from May 27th, just two days after the roof was delivered. So yeah, all the hard work getting this building up and running paid off! That building was our primary focus, so having that all progress so quickly was really constructive for our morale.

 

  

 Next, the teacher houses. These have been done for a few weeks now, but they look awesome so I want to talk about them. Plus we're doing landscaping, which is kind of a big deal in Gulu. I don't have any crazy epic story about how we had a deadline for these and barely made it before the clock struck midnight, but they are pretty awesome and the teachers are moving in soon so it will be so great to see them being used and enjoyed! They're really nice buildings and it will be very helpful having more staff on campus all the time. We just planted grass around them tomorrow and are going to continue planing trees to make the area really nice for the teachers, plus it is near the entrance to the school so having that be one of the first thing people see when they come will be really nice. The group we had come in last week was an awesome crew from Texas who helped us out a ton for a couple days. They did a lot of beautification of the school including these fences and tons of other stuff around the campus.

Next on the list is the Administration Block. It's a close second for my favorite building on campus. The current staff are in a building about 1/3 the side of this one, sharing offices and not having enough space to work or have doors that close and lock. This is going to be an awesome upgrade. And selfishly, I'm excited to have some extra room when I go and work with our accountant. This building is unique because it has so many partitions in it whereas the classrooms just have one interior wall separating the two classrooms in one building. This first picture is where the building was at on May 11th, not a whole lot to look at. The second picture is from May 23rd and is a low-flying bird's eye view of the layout, and the third picture is taken of the doors and windows being put in. If we had gotten the doors and windows when they were supposed to be delivered, this thing would almost be done. Vincent, our leader for this crew, is legit. His English is probably the worst of all our leaders, but at the same time when we try to convey an idea, he really understands the plan and executes it extremely well. I don't know where we found this guy, but he is such a blessing! 

This next one is another of the two classrooms we're adding adjacent to the two existing classrooms. It's coming along really well and I got to help the crew with stacking the bricks the other day which was fun. The crew leader is a cool dude so it's fun hanging with him and chatting. He was teasing me about not being married and said that I could marry his sister. I was trying to be polite and say that I didn't have the money for the dowry (which is actually true, nine cows and gifts for all her relatives is not something I budgeted for coming over here), but then Godfrey said I didn't have to pay the dowry, and I wanted to be culturally sensitive, so ladies, it looks like I'm taken, sorry. And Mom, I'll introduce you to my new wife once I meet her!  Alright, where was I... Well yeah, here are two pictures.

 And finally, here's my favorite building, the guest house. Which is actually 3 buildings, but who is counting? Hopefully the workers, it's pretty essential that they know they are working on 3 separate structures. Overall, there will be 10 rooms with a legit common area in the middle with a kitchen, living room, open veranda and firepit. It's already my favorite spot on campus and so when it's actually done I think I'll be hanging there a bit when we don't have guests staying there. Right now the 1st wing of the house is shelled and now they're working on painting the inside, doing electrical and plumbing work and detail work like that. It's going to be super legit. I don't know why but I didn't take any pictures of the 1st wing yet, but the building in progress is the center common area. The first picture is the building shell almost complete, just need a little something to go over the top. And windows and doors... Ok, so maybe it's not almost complete. The second pic is from the other angle showing the interior partitions. I'm taking the picture from the open veranda and shooting into the living room, and then past that opening is the kitchen area along with some closet space and a bathroom.

So that's the majority of the construction pictures! Hope you enjoyed them. I'll do another update in a while so you can hopefully see the progress! 

Next up on the agenda is describing the aforementioned church service that Hoke, Emma and I were invited to. First of all, a little backstory. So one of our construction workers started a church as a 15 year old a while back when he was in an IDP (internally displaced person) camp, and now that the war is over he has continued with pastoring this church that is just a few minutes down the road from the school. Our VP gave him some money to help finish building a roof on his church building so once their community finished putting the roof on he invited us out there to be a guest at their service. There was another one of our workers who was at the church too so it was great seeing them outside of the worksite. Here is a picture of the hut. It isn't the best angle, but it's actually an oval shaped which is unique since most huts here are circular. It was a really nice church and well made and we later learned that our head forman helped them out which was great to hear too! On the way there we saw a camel. Like a legit camel just being walked by the road. I barely got my phone out in time to take this picture (I was riding on the back of the boda, don't worry mom), so sorry it's so blurry. 

So we get to the church after a rather pleasant sunday morning boda ride and arrive to only find kids. We all use our Acholi greetings, but you can only say hello to someone so many times before you run out of things to talk about. So Emma calls up the pastor/construction worker and he shows up a few minutes later, but he also doesn't speak english very well. His co-pastor does though, so he translates for us the whole day. They welcome us into the church, give us some seats to sit in, welcome us again, and then the service starts. Church in Uganda is slightly different than church back home. The morning is filled with singing, dancing, preaching, reading the bible, and then doing it all again. We read out of Psalm 1, and then they asked if anyone had anything they wanted to say about it. And pretty much all the men in the church did. I also stood up and spoke for a bit, directing it towards the kids because at least half the building was full of kids and babies. And as we all know, babies get hungry and need to be fed, and these women just make it happen in the middle of church, which was slightly distracting while I was giving my little talk. After I speak, then Hoke talks, except he does it much better than I did. He was a youth pastor back in Atlanta, so he had had a little more experience than I. Excuses, excuses, I know, but it was really awesome to see him in his element just killing it up there with this group of kids who couldn't even understand him, but within the first 30 seconds he had them all laughing, throwing their arms in the air and having a blast! So after all this wraps up, we're about 2.53 (always gotta use 3 sig figs) hours into the service and it feels like stuff is winding down. We had all preached, the sang, prayed, and the kids were getting anxious to go. All the kids leave the building, and we're expecting to do the same, because where I'm from, we need coffee to survive a 1.50 hour service. Well apparently we had just completed the sunday school portion of the service, and now it was time to start the adult service. It's pretty toasty in this building at this point and it's about 11:30 in the morning so it's not getting in colder out. Then the craziest thing happened and the building caught on fire!!! I snapped a picture below as this curtain went up in flames. The kids were rather calm through it all, and Hoke sprung up into action to put it out. Craziness! 

Alright, so I was just kidding. The building didn't catch on fire. But it really looks like it from this picture, doesn't it? So the service goes on another couple hours, and includes a program put together by the kids of songs they performed for us, along with sodas and cookies (a Ugandan hospitality tradition), and this group talking with/to us, expressing their thankfulness. During their prayer right before the service was done, (4.5 hours in) they thanked God that Hoke and I could come and be a part of their service, but then they went on to pray that Emma would become a believer. There is always a language barrier here, but all three of us were pretty sure we understood the same thing. As rude as it was, it made us chuckle a bit during the prayer. So as the service ends, we talk with James to try to clear the whole not-being-saved deal with Emma, and it turns out that James had asked her if she was a pastor, and when she said no it apparently means that she isn't a believer to them. Funny little miscommunication. It looks like their prayers were answered that day!

That next week on Tuesday through Thursday, Hoke and I both filled in as English teachers at a school that our friend directs, and another two of our friends work at. With a little bit of prep time, including some of their favorite songs to sing, Hoke and I were up there teaching/reviewing English! The students had just gotten back from a break and had forgotten a lot of the English they learned, so they called in the big guns to help review. In case you didn’t know, I was double majoring in education for half a term of college at which point I had almost signed up for two education classes, so yeah, you could call me an expert. I really did enjoy those few days, the kids were awesome, we had a lot of fun together, and made some good memories. One of my favorites was when we were reviewing different home/kitchen items. Quick preface, the letter “R” is a difficult sound for them, and it often makes its way in and out of words seamlessly. As we’re reviewing utensils, we get to the fork, and the “R” disappears out of this word, so it essentially sounds like twenty-something Primary 4 students yelling the F word at me. At this point, I resorted to the maturity level of the students I was teaching and started laughing. I compose myself after a few seconds, and try again. “Alright, let us emphasize the “R” sound, so say Fo-rrr-k” (I really, really exaggerated the R, but to no avail). They once again yell the F word at me, so I just flip them all off and walk out of the room. Or maybe I just moved on to the next letter. One of the two. Thursday afternoon came around and the goodbye was full of tears, but I sat the kids down and told them that big girls don’t cry. They didn’t understand that song reference. I then tried Cowgirls don’t cry, and that one was also lost in translation. They actually didn’t cry at all. These pictures was from right after my last class with them, and they all seem really happy so I was probably a crappy teacher and they were glad to see me go. At least my construction workers pretend to like me!

During this same week, I was rushing out to Restore and doing my other job in the afternoon. It was about an hour in the other direction from the school I was teaching at, so by the time I got there it was about 2 in the afternoon. I’d grab a quick lunch, then move on to all my construction and accounting duties, but more focused on construction because we were making a big push this week to beautify the campus for the group of visitors coming in. This included finishing some work on a few buildings, slashing (mowing) the campus, creating a border on roads, and other random tasks. It was a lot of motivating students, teachers, and other faculty to get everyone pitching in on it all, but through mostly the hard work of Jenna and Emma, we were able to get the place looking rather spiffy by that Friday. The visitors got in and helped us even more by planting a ton of trees we got in Kampala around the campus, helping it looks even better. A big goal of ours is making the campus feel less like a construction site and more like a school, and after this one week I’d say we made some good strides toward that goal. Saturday night after a long day of work, the group came back out to the school that night with 1,000 glow sticks and we had Restore’s first rave/dance party/bonfire/worship session.  The students taught the group some of their songs, and the group played some of their songs for the students, complete with lightning in the background and some light showers, bringing everyone under cover of the large assembly structure at the school. This picture doesn’t even come close to showing how awesome it was seeing all of those students with glow sticks sharing in this experience with this group from halfway across the world. 

Well, I’m sorta cheating because as I wrap up this post, there has been 2 weeks since that rave at the school, but the rest is going to have to make it into the next one. Even construction is in better spot than these pictures, but oh well. This one is way too long as it is, but hopefully the pictures make it more entertaining for you! But, here’s a sneak preview for next one: I went on a Safari with my dad and celebrated his birthday in Uganda! Pretty awesome stuff, get excited. Tell you friends. Go to the midnight premiere. See you there.