The Rusty Nail

Today was a special day.  After saying goodbye to my eMi team (the presentation went super well, I’ll write a post on that later), I headed off to a small village in rural Uganda to visit my Compassion International sponsor child.  

 Still trying to figure out what this sign means?

I have met Esther once before, three years ago.  Since she is 20 years old now and will be transitioning out of the Compassion program in the next 1-2 years, I wanted to pay her a visit this time.  It was so very meaningful.  After arriving at the Compassion project in a village called Makindu, Esther arrived to meet me.  She looked so happy and so beautiful. Her and I, we have been writing letters and sharing our hearts with each other for the last 12 years.  We sat and talked for a bit, had breakfast (even though I had already had breakfast).  Although I usually would adore having second breakfast, I knew that we were going to be having a feast in a couple hours at Esther’s house, so I didn’t want to eat too much.  After touring the Compassion project, and finding out that the staff and I knew a mutual person in Jinja (how crazy is that?), we headed off.  The project director announced that Esther wanted to buy me a present.  After I had heard about how she has been putting her meager savings away for a sewing machine (she has been taking tailoring at vocational school) in order to start a small business to support herself, I felt guilty about accepting any type of gift, but knew it would be very offensive to refuse.  We went to the market where she bought me a bolt of African cloth that I can have made into a skirt or anything else I choose to.  It is beautiful material and I feel so privileged to receive such a gift.

While we were looking for a place to buy material, we went down to the “landing stage” where they bring fish in.  It was so very African, and the fact that we were a full hour late, and the project director still wanted to show me around made it even more African.  But I decided not to let the lapse of schedule bother me, and immensely enjoyed walking around and seeing where they bring the fish in to land and then where they are then weighed, sold, and shipped all over Uganda.  Some of those fish are so huge! And I was definitely the only white girl for as far as the eye could see.

 Boats in the water

Boat Construction

 The fish

After the fishy experience, we then travelled on some very sketchy roads to reach Esther’s Aunt and Uncle’s house.  Although she now lives with her brother, she grew up with her Aunt and Uncle and this is the house where I had gone to visit her last time. Her Aunt was so excited to see me and came dancing out of the house and making loud noises to show her joy.  After greeting everyone, we went inside, and to my great surprise, there on the wall hung by a rusty nail was an old Polaroid of me at 17 years of age.  A picture I didn’t even remember sending Esther so many years ago, but faded and worn, there it was.  A rusty nail hangs my picture hangs my picture on the wall of a brick hut in a remote African village. Rusty nails hung Love on a cross. I felt my heart split right open in that moment.  And then I looked across and also hung on the wall was a photo that I had sent to Esther of me with her family the last time I had visited. The kind words her family spoke to me, the depth of meaning of the time I spent with them is something I will not soon forget. I just felt so welcomed and loved right there in the middle of all that. While we were eating lunch, villagers stopped by to catch a glimpse of me, and Esther’s Grandma proudly showed them all several photos of my last visit there (again pictures I had sent).  The project director told me that the whole village knows who I am and thanked me not only for making such a difference in Esther’s life, but also in the lives of all the villagers through her.

Is that actually me?

As I sat down with Esther, she showed me what she had been learning in tailoring school, and then brought out a photo album I had given her the last time I visited. Inside was several letters I had written her over the years. She flipped through the photos and at a photo of me and my Mom looked at me and said “that is your Mom” and then the same with a photo of me and my Dad.  It was a little surreal to be sitting there inside a small brick hut and looking at pictures of me and my friends in Brandon smiling back at me from our camping trip this summer.

If I want to leave you with this.  Don’t ever underestimate the significance of building into someone’s life, whether that is a child in rural Uganda or your next door neighbour. One rusty nail might just change a whole village.

 Esther's Aunt greets me.

 Greeting Esther's Aunt in the house.

 Greeting Esther's Jjaja (Grandma)

 Esther shows me the album I gave her last time I visited.

 Esther's Graduation picture.  Brandon friends- can you identify yourself from our Northern camping trip in the photo I'm holding?

 Looking at Esther's school work.

 I love this girl.

Crunch Time

Hi Everyone.  It’s nearing the end of the project which means crunch time.  I was feeling quite relaxed yesterday morning, the intern and I that are working on the sanitation design were ahead of schedule.  And then we met with the architects to go over the master plan, and suddenly we were back at the beginning.  As far behind as it made me feel, I think it was a good lesson in learning to be flexible and taking things as they come. Of learning to find more to give when I feel like I have nothing left. We talked this morning as a team about offering what we have and I was reminded of a book I read recently that said we are all broken, what matters is what we do with the pieces.

As the nights get later and the mornings get earlier, I can feel myself and the rest of the team getting more tired as the week goes on.  Designing an entire school in a week is really a crazy thing to do, but it is so amazing to see how things always seem to come together at the end.  Since on a project like this at home, everyone on this team would be a separate consulting company, it is so fun to be able to all work around the same table and just yell your questions to the appropriate specialist when you need to know something about say architecture or structural. 

I’ve been having fun designing dual ventilated improved pit latrines and I’m so happy I have an intern to work with and help me out.  Although this time the intern I’m working with is from New Zealand with an accent that is hard to understand, so I’m sure he probably thinks I’m either slow or deaf since I keep asking him to repeat himself.  It’s been an interesting week with all these accents around.  One of the Australians told me I sound funny and I’m still trying to figure out if that was a compliment or not?

I’ve still been having fun taking some time everyday to visit the babies home.  I just love cuddling with those cute little people for a bit everyday.  Yesterday I had 3 of them sitting on my lap and it was so fun.

Today we attended one of the youth gatherings at Amazima. I met one of the staff members who used to work for Compassion International and knows the child I have sponsored here for the last 12 years.  Isn’t that crazy?

Sorry no picture today, the internet is quite slow so those will probably have to wait until we’re back in Kampala with faster internet.

 

Having Fun

Hi Everyone!  It seems like I always write these posts when I’m on the run these days.  I have been reminded every minute of every day how much I absolutely love being in this place. Being here stirs something in me.  I'm not sure how to even explain it.   Things have been crazy, there isn’t a free centimetre in our work space with all the drawings, computers and calculators, but I so love being a part of this process of designing and creating and seeing potential where there is nothing. 

I should explain our situation a bit better.  Although we are designing a secondary school for Amazima Ministries, we are staying at an babies and children’s home called Good Shepherd’s Fold.  I have loved being in this place of raw beauty.  Our work space is on a veranda with an incredible view, and there is a babies home a few hundred metres away!  The other civil and I went and hung out with the babies for an hour yesterday and it was so much fun.  They stole my heart for sure. 

One thing I love about a project like this is being a part of an engineering community in the middle of Africa.  Figuring out how 10 people with very structured personalities can function and work well together in a culture where that type of personality is not always an asset.   And yet still figuring out how to complete an inordinate amount of work in the space of a week.  I love and thrive on that challenge. This being my 9^th eMi project (how is that even possible), I’ve been finding that I’m still learning so very much, however, I’ve also been finding that I’ve become much more confident in my abilities to design water and sanitation systems in this part of the world. I’ve been so enjoying working with the other civil who I also worked with in Haiti.

I’ve also been enjoying the somewhat cultural discussions between the members of our team (United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland and Nigeria).  Especially this one from last night:

E (United States): Do you cook with a lot of herbs (pronounces it “erb”) in Australia?

P: I’ve never even heard of that, what is it?

E: You mean you’ve never hear of an “erb”?

P: No, spell it.

E: H E R B

P: Oh, you mean like a herb (pronounces the hard h).  Yeah I totally know what those are I’ve just can’t understand your English.

Do you want to hear something crazy?  I met someone in the middle of Jinja the other day from Blumenort, Manitoba.  How is that even possible?

Anyway if the internet is fast enough I’ll leave you with some pictures of those little ones who have enlarged my capacity to love.  Aren’t they sweet?

 Viola loves cuddles:)

 Me & Viola

 Miracle.  I scared the living daylights out of her by trying to play peek a boo.

 Auguring holes for percolation testing.

 David and Tom perform a DCP to test the bearing capacity of the soil

The Day I met Katie Davis

Guys I have like 2 minutes to write this so it will have to be quick.  I arrived in Uganda safely and it is so very good to be back in this place that holds so much of my heart.  I love my team, we are from 7 different countries and I'm the lone Canadian.  We’ve definitely been having fun together so far.  It’s going to be a crazy busy week we started into work already taking a walk about of the site, looking at site plans and hearing the vision of the ministry.

I got to meet Katie Davis and four of her daughters yesterday.  I had read her book “Kisses from Katie” which I highly recommend if you haven’t read it.  It was a New York Times best seller.  Although she is not that well known in Canada, this girl is a rock star in the US.  She has had a lot of publicity but is so down to earth.  Katie has such a heart for Uganda, is articulate and well spoken and has a vision for her ministry.  Just a few reasons why her ministry has been so successful and been able to do so much. Although we’ll mainly be working with her operations manager rather than Katie herself since she is very busy with 13 daughters and the director of the ministry, I’m looking forward to seeing more of the heart and vision of this ministry.

We are staying at a lovely orphanage 5 minutes from the site.  They tell us we can drink the water straight out of the tap, but the lot of us cynical engineers are waiting until we do the water quality tests.

Today I'll be doing soil testing out at the Amazima site and I think it will be a lot of fun!

Anyway, must go, since internet is so bad and there is much work to do, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to blog this next week, but I’ll try to keep you all up to date.

 We went to Gaba Church in Kampala.  Check out the size of that fan!  It kept the place so cool.

 Rock anyone?

Katie Davis explains her vision for the site.