Homecoming! (Wednesday, Jan 21)

No, I don’t mean Canada, yet. But since Saturday, we’ve been back in camp, the place we called home during our first month in Uganda. It’s the first time the roving team had been back to camp since wayyy back in September and I’d definitely forgotten about some of the harder aspects of camp life. At camp, electricity is directly proportional to how sunny it is, peanut butter is a rare and highly sought after commodity, the drums begin beating at 0630 each morning, and washing is done via the classic bath-a-la-sponge. After our fourth night back, I’m really counting my blessings of the luxuries that I’ve taken for granted while working in other areas of southwestern Uganda over the past few months. And I’m also much more sympathetic of the girls, who have been in camp for pretty much their entire time in Uganda. I really do like matooke, rice, and g-nut sauce, but if I don’t know how much I’d still enjoy it if I had to eat it twice a day, everyday. Even more respect goes out to Bern and Nancy, who are retired from their engineering and teaching careers and could easily to be relaxing somewhere nice and comfortable, but have instead chosen to come to Uganda for six months and live in a camp with no running water, intermittent electricity and the same food day in and day out. Even more, they were here last year and decided to come back again this year to help out with this year’s batch of interns as well as the current water project. Bern is the senior engineer on the ground, and Nancy is in charge of the child sponsorship program; additionally, they are the official camp bosses that we turn to when we need advice or authorization about anything. So many thanks and appreciation goes to them for all of their assistance and knowledge and above all, their commitment and willingness to continue serving the Ugandan people.

This is camp! (well, the old camp in Kinyamafura anyway. We've just moved camps to our new project site in Nyarugera, but for the most part, the camp is pretty similar.)

Over the past week, we’ve been working on a source near camp (it’s about an hour’s drive away but at least it’s in the same district as the project we’re currently working on in the Nyarugyera Parish). We’ve pretty much gathered all the information and met with all the community leaders that we need to and will probably be heading back to Mbarara and Canada House (and a warm shower!) tomorrow. Being at camp is definitely refreshing though, we get to see the rest of the Ugandan crew as well as spend some time with the other interns; this time might also be our final time in camp since we have just over two weeks left of work before our once seemingly long five and a half months of work will so quickly come to a close.

In other news, a group of fourteen new arrivals from Canada just came to camp on Tuesday afternoon. The group includes David, the director of ACTS, and his wife, two nursing students, a family of six, two engineers from Urban Systems (an engineering consulting company) and the wife of one of the engineers, and Chris, the engineering intern who originally came with our team in September but returned home for a few months after his grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. The family of six, as well as David and his wife, left the same afternoon for a different ACTS project, where they will be working during their time here. The rest of the group has stayed in camp though, so there’s been a bit of excitement with a new group of faces around. Every tent is occupied, the office is bustling, and overall, the camp’s just been a little livelier.

Urban Systems is one of ACTS’ bigger private donors and the two engineers are here on behalf of Urban to see the projects that their company is helping to fund. With me and Mike being in camp this week along with the arrival of the two Urban engineers and the return of Chris, the number of engineers in camp has multiplied sixfold! It’s nice to have the more experienced engineers from Urban Systems on hand so that me and Mike can ask questions that we’ve had with some of our project proposals as well as get some verification about the overall designs. We’ll also all be going to Kasese, (yes, again) next week, in order to show them the sites of the proposed projects. One of the engineers has also worked with Kevin from eMi Canada, who I worked with in Calgary and was my project leader in Haiti last summer. What’s more, Kevin’s next project trip, which is coming up in a couple of weeks, is to, where else, but Uganda! Haha, sometimes this gigantic world just doesn’t really seem that big after all!


One prayer request that's come up is for Charles, one of the construction crew members, and among the most nicest and personable of an overall friendly bunch! But he and his family are going through a bit of a trying time right now and could use a little extra prayer. Over Christmas, his wife had a miscarriage, and just this past week, one of his daughters was bit by a dog. Charles went home for yesterday to take her to the hospital but they didn't have any rabies vaccinations available. The doctor has gone to Kampala to get some and Charles hopes that he'll be back by Saturday so that his daughter can get the shots then.

and a couple of pics from camp, way back in September...
Trying to learn to carry things the African way! I'll be sticking with my backpack though... =p

Our first engineering task in Uganda was to build a zipline in camp! It was our first weekend in camp and we think that the Ugandans thought we were crazy, but Edward and a few of them managed the courage to try it out in the end!

In the rainy season, it can really rain...

And more rain....


Finally, this is one of the skills I've learned here in Uganda. It's called slacklining, and Chris actually brought it with him from Canada. Just a couple of carabiners and some webbing, but it's a lotta fun (especially once you get the hang of it) and it's an awesome workout too. Oh, and some Ugandans are uncannily good at it!