Rats

Last night my roommates trapped a rat that had been in our apartment, and six of us were trying to decide how to kill it, when it escaped and the guard killed it with a machete!  Today, another guard killed its seven babies that were living in our director's office closet.  Ah, Africa.  Actually, that part reminded me a lot of my college dorm....

Gomesi Photos!

Helping Rachel put on her gomesi (all the extra fabric gets gathered up on the side and then held in place by a giant belt):

 

All the interns in our gomesi (me, Rachel, Megan) and kanzus (Matt, Travis, Josh):

The girls in our matching fabric:

Sipi Falls Weekend

I can’t believe I’ve been here almost four months already.  At our three-month/half-way mark, the six of us interns all went to Sipi Falls for an Intern Weekend.  Sipi Falls is a popular tourist destination, but of the more backpacker/hiker variety.  It’s right next to Kapchorwa in eastern Uganda, where I spent three weeks back in February.  It’s beautiful and super-green up there on the side of Mt. Elgon.  Sipi Falls itself is a series of four falls that make their way down from the top of the mountain.  We spent the first night a “Crow’s Nest,” a bare-bones backpackers site. We stayed in two “dorm rooms” (two bunk beds and a concrete floor) without any electricity.  But they had an amazing view of the lower falls across the valley.  We had a really awesome time (sitting outside in the dark around gas lanterns) of sharing how our three months had been and praying for each other.

The next day we walked down the road to the relatively-luxurious Sipi River Lodge (although that didn’t have electricity either).  They were located right next to one of the middle falls and along Sipi River.  The six of us stayed in a cute two-room cottage, complete with indoor plumbing!  The lodge served an amazing dinner and breakfast, and just being surrounded by tropical green and a waterfall felt so rejuvenating. Although I’m reluctant to live too much like a tourist with money to burn, I am realizing that some “pampering” now and then (like a good meal or a weekend getaway) really can help keep you going in a place that can be unfamiliar and sometimes stressful.

We walked to a cave behind the nearby falls and then the rest of the group hiked up to the top falls while I stayed behind and had a restful quiet time.  Later a few of us went on a coffee tour, where we learned how they planted and cared for coffee plants and then harvested and roasted them.  We got to walk through the whole process and even take home our own bag of roasted beans (which I gave away since I don’t like coffee).  But it was neat to see the whole process; it was somewhat like the cocoa process, which I learned about from Theo Chocolate in Seattle.

Even though Sipi was six hours away, and the transportation to and from was slightly stressful, spending the weekend surrounded by green nature was a wonderful refreshment and also a great time of fellowship for all the interns!

Big News

The big news is that I will be staying in Uganda through December (instead of returning home in July)!  I have decided to stay on for the "fall semester."  I have really enjoyed being here.  There are certainly hard and frustrating times, just like anywhere, but something about being here in Uganda just feels "right."  I've been waiting to move to Africa for six years, and now that I'm here, I know it's exactly where God wants me to be, at least for now.  I think it definitely helps that I did "the US non-profit thing" for four years.  I absolutely loved it, I loved my position and my organization and co-workers, yet I never felt completely satisfied because I felt a draw toward being in developing countries.  So, unlike most of the interns here who are recently out of college, I don't need to go back to the US and see what it's like to work there.  I've been there.  Done that.  And even though I feel less confident in the technical work that I'm doing here (still trying to learn how to be an engineer), I still feel more satisfied here.  I know it's not just a "feeling" created by being here.  I know this is the direction in which God has been molding my passions and heart desires.  (For example, one of our other interns has also always wanted to come work in Africa, and after being here, she knows that she DOESN'T need to be here, as she feels drawn to continue this type of work from the US.) 

I still have no idea what my future holds, but I'm glad be here for 11 months.  It will also give me more experience in civil engineering in developing countries, as I still feel like I'm just getting my feet wet (especially since I had an a-typical eMi project experience this semester).  Megan will also be staying for the fall, although she'll be doing construction management in Jinja, about 2 hours away.  And Rachel has decided to serve with eMi in the fall, but in the Colorado Springs office.  I'm also hoping that these extra few months will give me more of a chance to explore other non-profits in the area, and continue to seek God about what to do in 2011 and beyond!  It will also give me more of a feel for what it's really like to be at eMi and in Kampala, since much of my "community" that I've had these last several months will be gone, as a new set of interns and housemates will be here in the fall.

In other news, two of our interns and two of our staff families have just left/will be leaving in May, and we have a new staff family that just arrived, and two new interns that will be joining us for the summer, so lots of changeover around here!  We're all sad about the folks who are leaving, but I guess that's the way of life.  Hopefully I'll get to see some of them again at some point in the states.  The six interns really have become a family and have gone through so many life-changing experiences together, so I'm sure we'll always be able to keep in touch in some manner.

This week, I went on a short 2-day "project trip" to an organization in Jinja (Good Shepherd's Fold), which houses 90 orphans and has a primary school, a church, and a small clinic.  The organization was really cool, and the setting was absolutely beautiful!  We're helping design a few new buildings for them (a new larger clinic, a staff house, and a children's duplex), and I got to experience the typical work that the civil engineers do on an eMi trip: the perc test!  We dug a 9-ft deep hole (don't worry, it was only 3 inches wide), then filled it with water, and waited to see how fast the water was absorbed in to the soil.  This will help us calculate how to design the septic system for each of these buildings.  (Yep, the architects get to design cool-looking buildings, while the civil engineers get to figure out how to dispose of the waste!)  =)  This is the project that Megan will be construction-managing in the fall, so it's exciting to know that our designs will actually get built, and soon!  (Sometimes you have to wait for several years while an organization raises money then gets around to building a building before you can see the product of what you worked on.)

Rafting the Nile

And now I still need to write about my Sipi Falls weekend, which was beautiful and relaxing!

But I don't want that to stop me from posting, so I wanted to quickly say that I went white water rafting on the Nile this weekend!!  The source of the White Nile is in Jinja, Uganda (comes from Lake Victoria), which is only a couple hours away from where we live.  I was rather apprehensive about going, but was willing to join my fellow interns, and I'm really glad that I did.  I had a really fun time, and never quite thought I was going to die, even when I was sucked under the rapids and tossed around for a while before coming up grasping for air (several times).  That was actually all a "normal" part of the experience, and I definitely enjoyed myself.  The Nile itself was also extremely beautiful, as we were surrounded by green trees and bushes and all sorts of birds.  I'll post some pictures soon!

Off to Sipi

I still need to write about the Ugandan Introduction ceremony and wedding, and post pictures of all of us in our traditional Ugandan dress.  But that will have to wait because all of the interns are off tomorrow to Sipi Falls for a 3-day "Intern Weekend."  Sipi Falls is in eastern Uganda, very near Kapchorwa where I spent most of February.  It's supposed to be very beautiful and have amazing waterfalls.  I'm also looking forward to the fact that it should be very cool, maybe even COLD!  It's actually been pretty cold here in Kampala the last couple of days (which is WONDERFUL) because we're in the middle of rainy season.

On an unrelated note, last night we ordered pizza delivery!  It's great that you can still get that here.  It's a little pricey for us, but nice for an occasional treat.  Tonight we had "Panera night."  We made potato soup from scratch and fresh bread in our bread maker.  Yummm.

Easter

The Thursday before Easter is called Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, as that is the day that Jesus had “The Last Supper” with his disciples.  Having participated in a Seder Dinner once with my church in Boston, I decided I wanted to host one for my coworkers here.  The Seder Dinner is the main dinner event of the Jewish Passover and is designed to remind the Jewish people of their history and God’s faithfulness, specifically recalling the Exodus from Egypt.  Many Christian churches have started holding their own Seder ceremonies based on the Jewish tradition and order of service (Seder means “order” because there is a set order and script for the evening) but also incorporating some Christian themes of how Jesus is the Messiah that the Jews were waiting for.  This ceremony helps remind us of the history of God’s faithfulness to the Jews back in history and to us today. 

I had a lot of fun preparing it even though it turned out to be a lot more work than I expected.  I spent several evenings working on the “script,” which I adapted from a church’s version that I found online.  I then went to a few stores around town looking for "unusual" things like parsley, horseradish, matzah, grape juice, apples, and walnuts.  In the end I used grape koolaid (left with us by a volunteer who visited), fresh ginger instead of horseradish (representing the bitterness of suffering), paid a boatload for walnuts, and I made my own matzah from scratch!  The ceremony was both fun and meaningful.  We had the youngest interns play “the children’s” role and some older staff play some of the leader roles.   

We later had a ton of matzah, peanut butter, and banana (or apple or jelly) sandwiches for dinner (the homemade matzah turned out thick, kind of like unsweetened shortbread).  And just a few days ago I used the leftover fresh ginger to make some really good soft ginger cookies!

On Good Friday, Rachel and I went up to a nearby hotel in the afternoon just to relax.  We ordered soup and naan (it was an Indian restaurant) and just sat outside under the trees overlooking part of Kampala.  It was nice and refreshing.  I’m realizing that these times of refreshment and comfort are necessary to keep you going here.  We’re definitely encouraged and motivated whenever we let ourselves go out for a treat or make some good food or something.

Easter morning, we were planning on having our own sunrise service on top of a nearby quarry (i.e., big cliff with a great view), but it was raining all morning so we ended up not going.  The girls were up at 4:30am, though, and were singing and dancing to gospel praise music for a couple hours waiting to see if the guys were going to come join us.  (We had planned to sing some songs together.)  It kept raining, though, so we watched the sunrise (at about 6:30am) from our covered porch, then eventually the boys came up and we sang some songs around 8:30am. 

We went to church and then afterwards went to a potluck at a staff member’s house.  She served goat that we had actually watched being slaughtered on Saturday!  They brought the live goat to our compound and then slaughtered, gutted, skinned it, etc, while we (or whoever could stand it) watched.  After I saw the cute helpless goat come in, I just wanted to pet it and not to kill it, so I couldn’t watch.  It was a rather gruesome reminder of where all our meat comes from.  But it was also a pretty real illustration of “the lamb to the slaughter” – the complete innocence of the goat that was about to be killed brought to mind the complete innocence of Jesus as he went to the cross.