hiked around the Rwenzori Mountains

This weekend was intern weekend and i traveled with six other interns to the western part of Uganda, Fort Portal. we left friday early morning and took a 6 hour bus ride to Fort Portal. We spent the night in town and then in the morning the guiding company picked us up and brought us to base camp were we left most our gear and then hiked around the Rwenzori mountains for six hours and then headed back to base camp and spent the night there. there were amazing views! we just got back to Kampala this evening and i head back to Jinja tomorrow morning! it was a great weekend seeing more of Uganda and experiencing God's awesome creation. I am going to watch the USA soccer team play Brazil tonight! Go USA!!!

two weeks left...

This week was a short week out at the construction site as all the EMI staff here in Uganda were getting together for a day of prayer in Kampala on Thursday. So all of us staff living in Jinja drove to Kampala for the day. This week at the site we have been able to completely finish one of the exterior walls to see what it will look. We also were able to raise the remaining five trusses on the babies living quarters. This weekend is called intern weekend and most of the interns are headed to Fort Portal for the weekend so I will be joining them with that.

This is the Nile River. The Location that we started are rafting atA sunset out at the construction site that i am living at. Every day i wake up and eat breakfast during sunrise and eat dinner at sunset and the views are absolutely amazing!
A view from on top one of the ridges at the site where the orphanage is being built
This is Mukisa (one of our laborers) and a member of the workteam that came from florida mixing some concrete.
Some scaffolding that that workers made using rope. I had to take a picture cause nothing like this would pass back in America

pictures from the past week...

This is sleeping area in the big room that i am staying at the construction site. Also in this room i have a little two burner cooker and store all the expensive tools that we use at the sit.This is use putting up the trusses for the babies living quarters. Definitely Ugandan style
This is the nine trusses that we put up the first day. We just put the last five up this week.
This is me drilling the anchor bolts to help hold the roof trusses down

Extreme Weekend

So this weekend has been probably the most extreme weekend of my life. I went with some friends and we bungee jumped over the Nile River. After the bungee jumping was over we spent the rest of the day white water rafting down the Nile River. The Nile River is said to be one of the best white water rafting locations in the world. We rafted 30 km and were able to experience rapids ranging from nothing to class 5. Some of the class 5 rapids were pretty intense. Our raft flipped once and a bunch of us were thrown out of the rafts during some rapids.

work continues on the Orphanage

This week at the site went really well. We were able to finish all the manhole boxes of the sewer lines and also start prepping some of the stonewalls for some finish work to be done on all the joints. A couple of my jobs this week has been helping the guys with questions about the manhole boxes, doing some truss layout, and helping organize their material storage shed. Organizing the material storage shed has probably been one of the most interesting experiences of the week. When I got there it was a complete utter disaster. Junk everywhere and everything piled on top of each other. So I took one of the laborers that we have and we worked on taking stuff out of the shed to see what we actually have in there. I also built some racks and shelves to organize some of the tools that we have. One day while cleaning out some junk we came upon a huge rats nest and when the worker picked up a old cement bag, rats started running everywhere. He called for me and we both got some weapons and started beating rats. We must have killed over 10 and there were still tons that escaped out the door and deeper into the shed. The shed is about half cleaned out so far and it will be interesting to see what other things we find as we venture deeper into it.

weekend in Kampala

This weekend I headed down to the city of Kampala and spent some time with some of the other EMI interns. On Friday night we had a going away bbq for a guy. Then on Saturday I went with some people and watched the Ugandan National Rugby team play against the Tunisia National Rugby team in a Rugby World Cup qualifier match. Uganda lost pretty bad. After the game was over we went over to the soccer stadium where the other half of our group was at and was able to watch some of the professional Ugandan Soccer teams play. So it has been a busy weekend but it was great to see friends again and spend some time with them. Also great to be able to watch some Rugby. I am headed back out to the construction site tomorrow and will be living out there all week.

Another week at the site

This week at the construction site went really well. We had a work team of 6 people from a church in Sarasota Florida. My main job was finding things for the team to be doing and keeping them busy throughout the week. The team put the sewer lines in the trenches that were dug previous week and then back filled them all. Praise God we were able to complete all the sewer lines. The last day the team was there we raised 9 trusses for the living quarters all by hand. I have some pictures but haven't had time to upload them yet. Hopefully i will be able to do that soon. This week i traveled to and from the site with the team so i went back to civilization each night.

On friday i ended up leaving the site a little early and took public transportation back to the guest house we are staying at in Jinja and the 1 hour trip ended up taking 2 hours and 15 min. Then i turned around and headed to Kampala with a friend and that typically 2 hour trip took us 4 and half hours. so yesterday i spent almost 7 hours traveling on Ugandan public transportation... it got old real quick. I am spending this weekend here in Kampala hanging out with some friends.

The Source of the Nile River

Today i took a boat ride with a work team that is here to help with the construction site i am overseeing to the source of the Nile River! We also saw a monument were some of Gandhi's ashes were spread. This picture is of the marker which indicates the start of the Nile.

First week was great!

I just finished my first full week living out at the construction site. This week due to some scheduling items I ended up staying out at the site working until Saturday afternoon. A typical day for me consisted of getting up at sunrise (6:30) and making some instant coffee. I would then get some materials out that we needed for the day that were stored in my room. The workers would come by at around 7:30 and we would walk about 5 min down to the construction site. One of the biggest struggles at first was getting used to the Ugandan’s work schedule because we would all head to the site around 7:30 but work would not usually start until 8:45 as they would spend time cooking their breakfast. Once work finally started they would work until around 1:30 and then take a lunch break. After a 30-45 min lunch break we would go back to work and work until anywhere from 5:30-6:45 depending on what the guys were doing and what we needed to get finished.

It has been so neat being able to live at the site with the guys and get to know them. I am the only white person within a 45 min drive so I am forced to get into the culture and learn. I have been keeping a journal and each day I have the guys teach me a couple new words or phrases that I right down in my journal so I can remember and use throughout the day. They enjoying teaching me and hearing me speak their language.

God has truly blessed me with some awesome guys working for me. I usually have 8 guys on the site working but this week we hired a 3 man trench digging crew to dig the trenches for the sewer lines we are going to be putting in.

Pictures from first week living out at the construction site

This is a picture of the place i am staying at during my weeks out at the construction site. The building on the right is where my room is located. There is no power or running water in the building and the "bathroom" is about 50 yards away.Some of the guys that are working for me

This is one of the two nursery buildings on the site. I did the layout for the doors and interior walls. They are using quarried stone for the exterior walls and red mud bricks for interior walls.
The building on the right is the living quarters for all the children living at this orphanage. The building with the trusses up is the kitchen/dinning room where all the kids will be eating

surveying picture i promised

So here is a picture of my first week of surveying that i did at the Bukaleba property here in Uganda. The property we surveyed was for a facility that would be used how to teach Ugandans how to farm efficiently. I just got back from a long week at the construction site and i will write more about that tomorrow when i have time, but i did want to post this surveying picture i promised.