A New Country - South Sudan

I had packed Friday night so I was up at 5.00 am for a 5.30 am taxi ride to the airport and a flight to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, a country that is only two years old and one that has been racked by war for many years. An American woman and her son unexpectedly joined me in the car because a friend had not arrived in time - it turned out that his car had broken down the week before and had been repaired, but had broken down again that morning - he had borrowed a friends car but that had broken down as well - he was on his way in a second borrow vehicle but we were half way to Entebbe!

Juba Airport Waiting Area

Juba International Airport was a small building - immigration and customs were both in one small room and visitors mingled with the arriving passengers - John Chol, an Anglican pastor and my host, was there to meet me and help me obtain my visa - for some reason I was last out of immigration! We went to book our tickets an were told that there were no seats that day or the next. We went to another company and they said they could take us that day but were not sure when. So we waited in the waiting area in the heat and humidity for nearly 3 hours and then they cancelled the flight and told us to be back at the airport at 6.30 am the next day!

My Room!

So we went to our hotel, The United Citizens Hotel, not far from the airport.The cost was 60 South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) which is about A$16 per room per night - pit toilets and bucket baths, but each room had a fan. You don't exchange US$ into SSP at a bank because the rates are so low (about SSP 3.30 per US$1) - instead you just find anyone who wants some US$, and they give much better rates (about SSP 4.20 per US$1). There is no fixed electricity anywhere in South Sudan, so Juba has thousands of generators which come on about 6.30 pm each evening.

New Friends

I spent the rest of the day watching locals from around the hotel play cards and dominoes - both of which they play expertly. John and I had spaghetti bolonese at a local restaurant for A$5 per plate for dinner.

The Mighty Nile

We were back at the airport at 6.30 am and arrived in Bor at 9.15 am. The flight was in a 14-seater and only took 30 mins. I had great views of the Nile on the way, the river having a great flow of water at the end of the wet season (mid-April to late October).

We were taken directly to the local Anglican church which has partnered with Live Connection Aid, the organisation I was making this trip for. Please check out www.liveconnectionaid.org for more information. The church was a simple affair but the people were typically welcoming and gracious. After the preacher had finished, I was asked to address the congregation which was a great privilege. You can see 30 seconds worth of how they give their offerings here.

And if you ever think of complaining about the chairs at your church, please think again!

Finally, the kids were as cute as ever and absolutely loved getting their photo taken! This shot shows just some of them with Pastor Elizabeth.





After the service, we headed off to the Live Connection site. More on that in the next post!

Computers, Guttering and Kyambogo University

The last time I posted was Monday night and to be honest, I don't specifically know when I've done what this week, so I just make the following comments.

I know that Tuesday was a public holiday, so I had free rein to do whatever I wanted. I wanted to get the guttering done, so headed off to a supplier to get a length of plastic fascia board (5.8mt), a length of downpipe (4 mt) and a length of guttering (5.8 mt). To save money, I had it toed together, put it on my shoulder and headed back to Wakisa on a motorbike. There were two outdoor roofs that needed doing and it all went pretty well, once I finished getting one of the roofs level. Henry and Tested it out by pouring a bucket of water on the roof and it all worked just fine.





The computer shop was supposed to ring on Tuesday but what a surprise, they didn't, even though they were open. When I rang on Wednesday, I could tell they hadn't started the laptops but I told them I would be there in 30 minutes to collect them. Long story short, I picked them up, brought them back and found that they had not included the flash drives and had installed the wrong virus protection! Back again to get it all corrected. That night I also spent 3 hours updating the virus protection - 1 hour per machine.

Thursday morning I ran a new 20 mt Ethernet cable from the router in Vivian's office, across the hall and into the office and Suzan's PC - that fixed the problem on her machine. More work getting everyone onto Google calendar and docs and all of a sudden, it was lunchtime and I needed to get off to Kyambogo University to deliver the laptops to Christine, Winny and Peace. They were all so excited & grateful for these tools which will make their study & research easier and save them considerable expense. I recorded interviews with them to give to their sponsors when I get back.

They all then wanted to take me to see when they lived so off we plodded. This photo is of when Peace lives with a friend. The single room is about 3.5 mt square and, as you can see, has two beds in it. It costs about 400,000 Ugandan Shillings a month (A$170) and they also have to pay for a little electricity and buy water in jerrycans. Sometimes they have to be at uni by 7 am to attend their first lecture. So they don't have it that easy. The good thing is that they are all passing well - their published results should be out next week for 2nd semester of Year 1.

After seeing Winy's place, I just happened to look at the time and was horrified to see that it was 5 pm - I had agreed to meet with Francis (the builder who is rebuilding the dormitory) for dinner and didn't get back till 6 pm - thankfully he was very gracious and we chatted till 8.30 pm.

Today (Friday) I finished off as much of the guttering as I could and then did some drawings of the water tank stand and cupboard base. The welder came at lunchtime and he promised to give Henry a quote on Monday morning. Hopefully he'll have the water tank stand finished by the time I get back from South Sudan (flying to Juba tomorrow morning). In the afternoon, I had a good chat with Vivian about Kisoro and also did some updating of her two computers.

I may not have internet connectivity in South Sudan, so if you don't see a post till mid next week, that's why!

More Visits & Back to Kampala

Even though we didn't get to bed until after midnight, I was up again at 6 am and had a quick bucket bath with about 10 litres of water - yes, it can be done! Hope picked us up at 7 am and we were off to Kbale. The new 75 km section of road over the mountains was absolutely terrific but still very windy.

Our first stop was Kigezi High School where we saw Fortunate who is in Senior 3 and was soon to sit a Chemistry exam. Unfortunately my camera's battery was dead and I had left my charger back in Kampala. Miriam used her phone to take some photos but I did not get a chance to get a copy of them before she headed off to Lira to spend a week or so with her family.


Next we visited Jolly at Hornby High School. It happened to be a visiting day but her family in Kisoro was unable to come. She did not know that we were going to visit and she was so excited that she was shaking - she's such a dear girl and she seems to be doing well. She is in Senior 5 and has been elected a prefect for sport & education. We had a good long chat and I also recorded a short interview for her sponsor.

At 12.30 pm, after a bite to eat, we said farewell to Mary & Hope and boarded a Jaguar coach for Kampala. Most of the road was quite good but there were patches where roadworks were taking place. We arrived back at about 8 pm and both headed off to our respective homes for an early night.

I think God knew that I needed a rest on Sunday because everyone that I tried to contact was unavailable, so I took the opportunity to have a lazy day, dozing and watching some soccer on TV.

Today (Monday) was another busy day. I spent the first hour or so catching up with everyone at Wakisa and then went into town. I needed to buy 3 laptops for the girls at university, get Suzan's PC fixed and upgrade a laptop for Dinah, another girl at Uni (the laptop was given to me by another Aussie supporter before I left home). Doesn't sound much does it - but it took nearly 2 hours - along with the language issues, Ugandans have a very annoying habit in shops - if they are serving you, all sorts of other people will butt in to get served as well, so they end up dealing with 5 or 6 issues at once and so they all take a long time! I then went to a travel agent to book my flight to Juba in Sudan and my return flight to Nairobi. Then to the bank (another 1 hour wait) and withdrew UGX 6,000,000 to pay for everything. This left me with a visit to see the carpenter, Shem, to see how the new cupboard was going (not that well!) and then to another business to find out how to order a granite benchtop (these are not so expensive and will be the most serviceable in the outdoor kitchen). Returning to the computer store, I was disappointed to find that nothing was ready (some good reasons!) and that I would have to return the next day. When I got back to Wakisa, I discovered that Tuesday was a public holiday, but I should still be able to get some work done.

Sorry there's no photos in this post! Should be some next time.

More Exercise!

Wednesday was Uganda's Independence Day and so was a public holiday. As such we were not able to visit the Refugee Transit Camp as planned. This gave us the morning with nothing to do so Mary's son Eric arranged for us to go on a canoe trip on Lake Mutanda which was only a short 15 min boda boda ride. Because there's not a lot of water where Miriam comes from, she wasn't initially very confident in the canoe, but she was fine after just a little while.

But we weren't just passengers - we also needed to paddle! We did a round trip of about 8 km so next morning, by bum and shoulders were quite sore (poor baby!) We first went to Snake Island where there are meant to be lots of pythons, but we didn't see any. Then we paddled over to Punishment Island - in past years, if a woman was found to be pregnant and unmarried, she was dropped off on this tiny island. If a man wanted another wife, he could go and get one of these women and wouldn't have to pay the normal dowry. I wasn't able to find out how long they usually had to stay there!

Yes, I actually Paddled 8 Km!

Just as we were going to leave Punishment Island our guide told us that it was going rain. However, we didn't really have time to wait for it to pass so Miriam got the umbrella and I got wet (my choice!) I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back and a warm basin bath was most welcome.

Me, Sam, Hope, Eric, Joanne, Jacquie, Mary & Benon

At 4pm, the Wakisa Kisoro Committee all came to the office, with the exception of Ezra and Immaculate. We introduced ourselves and I asked each one why they had chosen to be involved with Wakisa even though it was a voluntary position - naturally there were a variety of responses. We had a quite open discussion of all things Wakisa over the next 2 hours, focusing on the specific challenges the Kisoro Committee were facing. We had a late supper and turned in about 11pm.




Thursday was not a full day so Miriam went to have her hair washed at a local salon about 10am while I headed off to Hope for Orphans & Vulnerable Children, just a 10 min walk away. Tim & Margaret at my church are sponsoring 3 children in this project and I said that I would go and visit them and record a short video. HOVC takes the most needy kids and gets them back into school, with all the sponsors coming from Australia. They also provide each family with a 1500 lt water tank to improve their hygiene conditions and for the most desperately poor families, a mud house with a  tin roof. It seems like a very well run project and is doing a great work with many of the challenges similar to those of Wakisa. The Director is a 28-year old man called Innocent. He was like one of the kids now under his care - her was sponsored via Compassion through a lady called Marion who attends Parramatta Baptists - she and Innocent are the driving force behind what is done and I plan to meet with Marion when I get back.

For the past 6 months or so, there has been trouble in the Congo again and so refugees have been escaping across the border into Uganda. The Ugandan Govt has established a transit camp about 10 km out of Kisoro. Some months ago, Vivian led a team of counselors to Kisoro and they trained about 30 people in the basics of trauma counselling. Since then these people have been going out to the transit camp three times a month to encourage them and where necessary, provide counselling.

Amazingly some friends in Australia have provided about $1000 to support these people by way of transportation costs. These faithful ladies (and some men) travel out there on the back of a pickup. They are so grateful for the funds as some live some further distance away. They may also use some of the funds to provide emergency clothing where this need presents itself.

We had dinner in the near dark at Hope's place because one of the transformers in town was struck by lightening a few weeks ago. We had a lovely meal with good food and conversation.

Friday morning were due to visit a school so that Mary and Joanne could talk to both the boys and girls about the dangers of early pregnancy. There were about 300-400 kids and they were quite attentive. I was so impressed with Mary and Joanne - most people when talking on issues of sex usually talk around the subject hoping the kids will get the point - Mary and Joanne were courageous enough to talk on the subject in a very direct manner and pulled no punches. Good on you ladies!

After lunch, Miriam and I went and visited Potters Village, a project run by an English lady - they mainly take in orphans whose mothers have died in childbirth. They currently had 31 babies from one week to almost two years. Many mothers still died during childbirth because they live in remote areas and don't make it to hospital in time when complications occur. Jackie, a member of the Kisoro Committee, is the administrator and is also the sister of Patience, the administrator at Wakisa in Kampala.

On the way back we stopped at the local market so that I could say hello to Fortunate's mother - Fortunate
 is on of the Wakisa girls who is sponsored to attend a high school in nearby Kbale. She ekes out an existence by buying large sacks of bananas or potatoes and then selling then in smaller quantities at a slightly higher price.

Miriam & Mary at the Coffee |Pot

Finally we went home via the best coffee place in town - the Coffee Pot!

While at the market, we bought some smoked fish, g-nut paste and cassava for our last night's dinner in the west of Uganda.

Sam, Eva, Assumpta, Mary, Miriam & Eric

We will be sad to leave this place where we have been made so welcome - Ugandans really know how to show hospitality and we have been humbled by their care for us.

New Experiences & Some Much-Needed Exercise!e

Aunt Gloria, Grace, Doreen, Irene & Rebecca

Sunday morning started with me walking into the taxi park in town and boarding a taxi heading to Mukono, about 20 km away. I got off at the road leading to St Michaels High School and then traveled by boda boda. Aunt Gloria was to meet me there but was a little late. So I asked random students to go and find Grace (S5), Doreen (S1), Irene (S4) & Rebecca (S4). They had not been told that I was coming so they were all very excited! Irene & Rebecca will be doing their S$ external exams next week so they are also studying hard. Grace & Doreen have both grown on confidence and assurance in the time that they have been at the school which s great to see.

I left at about 11.30am as we were to go and visit with Mildred, the former Sponsorship Coordinator. Miriam was about 30 mins late and then it took forever to get there by taxi and then boda boda - we were supposed to be there by 1pm but were probably about i hr late. She had prepared lunch for us and we spent a good couple of hours catching up on the last 3 years and getting to know her son Aaron. It was great to see her again! She is also caring for her orphaned niece, Joanne. I had made arrangements to have a coffee with Florence at 5 but that meant getting off the taxi in the middle of nowhere and getting onto bodas. I then had to race up to the guest house, pack, sort out my bill, leave most of my things and then rush to leave some things at Wakisa before getting to the bus terminal in time to get the 8pm bus to Kihihi - Miriam met me there. The road was great as far as Mbarara and then it deteriorated into basically a bush track. I don't think that either of us got much sleep and we arrived at about 5.15am. We met a lady on the bus called Honest and low & behold, she turned out to be Ismael's cousin!

I was pestered by guys to get a special car or a boda (which would have been expensive) but Honest organised for us to come with her in a taxi - I thought that meant the usual van for 14 but turned out to be a ute sort f thing. The owner, Mondo, loaded it up with all sorts of goods and luggage as well as maybe 10 passengers in the back. Miriam shared to front seat with Shallom and her baby as well as Mondo. I'm not sure how the vehicle stayed together on the horrendous roads and about 3/4 of the way there, we got a flat tyre! I prayed that the spare, which didn't look to good, made it to at least Buhoma, our destination - it did.

We met up with Ismael who showed us to our accommodation at the Bwindi View Lodge (and got our room charge halved to US$50 each - some lodges are charging US$520 per person per night!). We then saw his house, met his wife, Josilyn, and they showed us their chickens, ducks, goats and mushroom house. He works as a wildlife guide and works in Kisoro for 21 days and then has 8 days at home. They then took us on a tour of Buhoma/Bwindi which included their kids' school. The choir/dance group did a special presentation for us and you can see a short part of it by clicking here.

Next morning after breakfast, we got the appropriate permits and headed off into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

The forest were incredibly luxuriant and the track was very well maintained. At the end of about 2 hours, it was necessary to take off our shoes & socks and ford a small river.

After the river, we had to walk up the other side which was very steep. Half way up, we met a group of locals (men, women & children) cutting a new road with just hoes, spades and picks - and they were doing a great job.

At the top we were meet by a driver and car - and started 2 hr 60 km drive to Kisoro over a range of mountains on rough dirt tracks. We were tired by the time we got back, but it was the best A$50 I have spent so far! We booked into the Heritage Guesthouse and then went down town and ate at a local restaurant. We then met Mary and visited the Wakisa office which is Bishop Cranmer's personal home. I was supposed to meet up with Ezra, the Chair of the Kisoro Committee, but he was busy finishing up some things before he traveled to Kampala the following morning at 6am. An early night was much appreciated!

October 3rd +

Had a bit of a frustrating day today. Went up to see how Christine was at about 8.30am and found her in some pain but in good spirits. I waited around for about 45 minutes, expecting a doctor to come and evaluate her but none turned up. I went back to get my gear and do my teeth but when I returned, nothing had changed so I went to Wakisa. I spent some time training the ladies (by the way, that means Patience, the administrator, Suzan, the centre manager & Gloria, the new sponsorship coordinator) on Google calendar & Google drive - I think they will be quite useful to them. I also tried to get Suzan's PC connected to the internet, without success! I was basically waiting for Christine to call to say she was being discharged - a friend on mine had provided some funds to be used at my discretion and so I was going to pay the $200 for her operation. No news by lunchtime so I decided to go to the bank - of course, as soon as I when outside it started to rain. At least this meant that one of the storage tanks was filling up now that we had cleared out the inlet.Vivian also wanted a new cupboard in the outside kitchen area and so I drew up a rough design, and after the bank, moved on to Nsambia where a lot of carpenters work. I tried to find a guy who had done some custom work for me before, but I was told that he had died and his offsider had moved away. So unfortunately, I was working with someone new again - always a risky situation!

As soon as I got back, everyone was waiting for me to pay the hospital bill and collect Christine, which I proceeded to do with Henry, Vivian's driver. By the time we got back it was 5pm and time to finish up.Had dinner with an English guy called Hamish - he was in Uganda working on connecting high schools in the two countries - quite interesting.

Friday morning I slept in! Still made it to the centre by 9am. It was still raining a bit so I checked that the water was now getting into the tank - and it was. After catching up on emails, Henry and I got out the tool box that I left behind at the end of 2010 - it didn't look as if it had had much use and most of the equipment was still there - except a hammer. I then headed off with Henry to the other side of Kampala to meet up with an American guy from Sub-Saharan Drilling to see if he could advise me on what was necessary to upgrade a borehole with a handpump to one with a solar-powered electric pump. He wasn't able to help but gave me two reliable contacts. In trying to find his office, I tried to work out how the lots were numbered? At one stage the numbers on the left went 52, 38, 101, while the property on the other side was 614 - I gave up. This together with the fact that most of the streets have no street signs, means that finding any address is a major challenge!

On the way back, we stopped to pick up a three-pin electrical plug, a hammer, some bolts and a drill. Lunch was really good as it included chapattis! After lunch, Vivian and I sorted out some issues with my visit to Kisoro next week - let me tell you, I will never make a diplomat. I then walked down the road and organised a welder to come and fix the main entrance gate, leaving him in Henry's capable hands. While this was going on, I headed off on a boda to buy a length of 6" x 2" timber. It was only available in 4mt lengths so I had them cut it in half, strap it onto the back of a boda and we headed off home - and before you ask, yes, the timber did hit the road and other things on the way!

Finally, just before 5pm, I walked 200mt up the hill to the Sanyu Babies Home to deliver a donation from Linda, a friend of mine who is just as in love with Africa as I am.

Sorry this is all a bit wordy without any photos. Saturday was a busy day. I was the first one at the bank at 9am to withdraw UGX 3,500,000 - sounds impressive doesn't it but it's really only A$1470. Some of that was to pay part of my bill at Namirembe Guesthouse and part was to pay a deposit on the new cupboard that Shem, the carpenter was going to build (so I had to go to Nsambia again). The rest was for my trip to Kisoro - Miriam started 3 weeks holiday today and as she really had nothing to do I invited to come along. Before we get to Kisoro, we'll be making a diversion, but I'll tell you about that when it happens. I then when to buy our bus tickets to Kihihi at the Jaguar bus terminal but they don't go to there - they directed me to the main bus park in town, a 1km walk away. They then directed me to the Kisenyi bus terminal and suggested a Savana Coach - finally booked our tickets with Joan!

After making a few phone calls to organise things for Sunday, I finally got to Wakisa to do some work. I wanted to put gutters on the leanto roofs in the cooking and laundry areas. To my dismay, the larger one in the cooking area was sloping the wrong direction by more than 6". So I started on the laundry one which needed some 6" x 2" timber nailed and bolted on, to which the fascia could be fixed - this went fairly smoothly. I then attacked the other one and got a long way toward leveling it out but I didn't quite finish before needing to go into town to buy a bit larger backpack for my upcoming trip. I finished the day exhausted.

I'll have some photos for you tomorrow!

Some Work To Do and Some Visits

Monday morning saw the end of Miriam's graduation activities and a start on Wakisa issues. I spent the morning with Vivian and Anne Start (the lady from Belgium) catching up on what was happening and what had happened at the site. I also had a look at the vegetable plot just down the road and all the vegies (cabbage, tomato, corn, beans, carrots) were growing luxuriantly. I wont't go into the building works much because this is covered in Vivian's Sept Newsletter which I will send out shortly. Suffice to say that things are progressing. I did chat briefly with Francis, the builder, and he explained that building in Kampala was much more difficult and expensive now because the City Council had vastly increased their overview and progressive inspection of new works because of the poor quality of previous works.

Because of the building works, no rainwater is being collected in the 10,000 lt tank and given that it's the rainy season at the moment, that's an issue that I'll be trying to address. So after lunch, I went looking for a water transfer pump and was successful. Then the skies opened up again and I got caught under a bus shelter for 30 minutes! I then visited Miriam at her work and was shown around. It's a private medical clinic and even though the facilities are way short of what we have in Australia, they do offer a good range of services including general medical, cardiology, dental, laboratory, imaging and all sorts of specialist consultation and a small amount of surgical work. Miriam finished work just after 4pm so we went to a cafe for what ended up being dinner and a chat.

I went to Wakisa at 9am on Tuesday morning with a rough plan but unbeknown to me, the ladies had organised a full day of visiting school kids. The first were Dorcas, Sarah & Mary at Buloba Primary - they were all very excited to see me again and showed me all around the school including their dormitory and classroom. Mary was initially very shy but after just a few minutes, she came out of her shell and was quite animated! They start their final external Primary 7 exams in 2 weeks time, so are studying hard.



We then moved on to Buloba Senior School - it performs very well in national exams and is very well kept - I was even told that we were not allowed to step onto the grass! We'd come to see Justine who has a very sad story and she was very reserved. However, she is preparing for the equivalent of our School Certificate and is studying more than hard - all these kids have the same daily schedule - can you believe it!
4.00am - wake up
5.30am - first class
10.40am - breakfast
11.00am - classes
1.00pm - lunch
2.00pm - classes
5.20pm - personal duties like bathing
6.00pm - supper
7.00pm - classes
11.00pm - bedtime

Betty, Geraldine & Dinah

Next we traveled the short distance to the Kings School Budo to see Aaron and check out his laptop situation - he needed some extra software. Then on to Mrs Kawuma's place - she is an old friend of Vivian's who always seems to have some ex-Wakisa girls staying with her. At the moment it is Betty who completed a Hospitality Course a few years ago and Dinah who has been sponsored to university to do a Business Administration degree. Betty had been working in a restaurant run by Muslims - they treated her badly and so she felt she had to leave - she is now trying her hand at raising chickens and had bought 100 chicks just over a week ago. A supporter in Sydney sent me with a laptop for Dinah and she was very excited to hear that she would soon have one to help with her uni work.

The last call was to Patience at Vision College. I personally sponsor her and she is also about to sit for her external Senior 4 exams.

We got back to Wakisa just after 5pm which was just as well because Christine, one of the girls doing uni, was to have a small operation the following day and Vivian asked if I could take her to Mengo Hospital and make sure she was admitted OK.

Wednesday morning was a bit of a waste of time because it rained heavily until just before lunchtime. I had wanted to go to town to buy some siphoning gear but it was not to be. So I discussed sponsorship admin issues with the ladies. After lunch I was just about to head to town when Vivian came and said that the hospital had called to say that Christine was in theatre and could I go up to be with her when she awoke. When I got there, Miriam was there with the same idea - they are good friends. She was in quite a bit of pain when she came out of the anesthetic but was soon provided with some painkillers.

Soon after I was off to town where I got some plastic hose and an old padlock to act as a weight. Back at Wakisa I needed to siphon all the water out of a storage tank, so I showed some of the girls how it was done - I never miss an opportunity to teach some science! There was also another tank which remained empty, even thought we had had a lot of rain in the last few days. It turned out that leaves, mud and a growing weed were blocking the inlet to the tank from the downpipe - a couple of minutes work cleared that up.

And a further check on Christine wound up the day.