"In-Between Time"

Well, this in-between time (between the summer and fall semesters) has been a lot more eventful than I had thought it would be.  I thought the 5 weeks would feel like a long time, and I would start to feel lonely, but they've just flown by!  (And it's been great having fellow-intern Megan still around.)  My mom left Tuesday.  We spent the last few days of her visit going shopping for various items for my apartment/office and for crafts and gifts for her to take home.  We went down to Entebbe (an hour from Kampala, where the airport is) the day before she left and went to the zoo and stayed at a nice bed and breakfast.  The craziest part was that they had satellite TV, so we watched American movies and TV shows!  Occasionally, random little experiences like that (or like going to see Inception at the theater on Saturday) will put me mentally back in the US, and it's really weird to try to get my head around the fact that I'm still in Uganda.  I'm really glad my mom got to visit me and see where I live and what it's like here, as well as give me the opportunity to do some fun things around here that I otherwise wouldn't have done.  (Thanks mom!)

I'm now back in the office working hard.  We're still working on finishing up our summer project (drainage and landscaping design for Uganda Christian University), which means I've been working non-stop on AutoCAD drawings of the drainage plan.  We're hoping to print and bind the final report by the 20th.  A couple weeks ago, I also reviewed the wastewater section of the report for the Kijabe Hospital project (which I traveled to Kenya to be a part of in February and June).  It's exciting to see these design projects coming together!  (My project in the Spring was an "as-built" report, and didn't involve much design.  I also wasn't part of publishing the final product, since the project was based out of the Colorado office, so I've enjoyed being in the thick of things this semester.)

I found out that my Fall project will be in Midigo, way up in the NW corner of Uganda.  Our "client" is Safe Harbor International, an evangelical relief organization.  In addition to working in many other countries, they focus on serving people groups in Southern Sudan and NW Uganda (a primarily Muslim region) that have been affected by civil war and disease.  They have been moving more towards focusing on long-term development solutions.  Their Midigo ministry includes a church, hospital, and primary school, but they want to add an agricultural element.  They have recently obtained 90 acres of land, and our project will be to help them develop a working farm and training center that can be used to train the local community in agricultural production and processing.  It will also be a potential source of funding for the church, hospital, and primary school.  This sounds like an exciting project.  (See this link for more information about the project.)

On Sunday, I get to go up to visit the project site with the project co-leaders, Pat and Janet, so that we can be somewhat familiar with the site and possibly do some preliminary surveying.  We're going to take public transportation, which means probably a 10 hour bus ride, but it should be a neat experience to get to go on a pre-trip site visit!

And then the next weekend, I might go do some surveying for an orphanage project a few hours away, while all the staff are at their annual staff retreat.  And then the new interns will arrive on the 24th, and there is a lot to do to prepare for their arrival.  So all that to say, I certainly am keeping busy!

It's important to take time for fun, too, so last night we had a Pride and Prejudice night.  We were going to watch the first 2 hours of the 6 hour BBC version, but we couldn't find the DVD, so we watched the newest 2-hour version instead.  We had 8 people total, and I made pineapple upside-down cake from scratch (and a fresh pineapple)!  The night was a lot of fun.