13 April 2009

Post date: Apr 13, 2009 1:41:48 PM

13 Mar (Monday) Afternoon

I was supposed to do a Journey with Herman - the school teacher at Kibiri that I'm working with - but it was raining for a while this morning and the roads out to Kibiri were not passable. It wasn't a heavy rain - just a steady one for a few hours and that was enough. It's been a busy few days - even with the Holiday and all. Businesses and Schools are closed Good Friday through the Monday after Easter. Nathan and I came into Mango Tree on Friday and Saturday to continue working on the Inventory database. As his skills are improving the number of errors are decreasing and I can see he has good comprehension with the overall database and how it works. He's beginning to get a good understanding of how errors happen and what they cause.

Stephanie got a job last week working Micro-finance. She was a volunteer before. It was pretty timely. She and Matt and Lilly were looking for a place to stay with two bedrooms --- and Stephanie's new job came with a two bedroom apartment. It's all new construction and a really nice place. The three of them now live less than mile from me as the crow flies - - but we haven't figured out a short cut yet so it's about a 2 mile walk. I had dinner at their house Friday night, the second night after they all moved in, and we all played cards. Matt and Stephanie said they had a great meeting with Lisa and talked about the ISSB technology for building. Matt has since met with Dr Moses Musaazi three times to talk about ISSB and BioSand filters. Sounds like a good match!

On Sunday, Eka invited Ryan and Pearl and me to an Easter picnic with her extended family - about 60 relatives. Her whole family was very friendly and welcoming. We went to her father's farm about an hour Northeast of Kampala, towards Jinga. Her mother is in the process building a little resort on the property. It will have a small lake with a sand beach, some fish ponds, a nature walk, and a place for bike riding/racing. Eka is an architect and designed the guest house and restaurant for the resort. Here's a picture of the whole group. Those two big mounds of dirt between the white SUV and the tree are ant hills. I have expected them to march out and take away the whole picnic - tables and all. The ant hills are pretty common site throughout the country - I've never been really curious enough to go invistigate them more. I do know that the way to get rid of them is to dig deep into the hill and kill the queen - then they all leave -- imagine that. I only had my phone camera with me, and the color is pretty washed out in these pictures, but Pearl took some great shots and I'll get a copy of those sometime. More about Pearl on another day - she's a photographer and journalist so I anticipate she will come with me on a few classroom visits in the near future.

Here's a Picture of Eka holding her oldest brother's baby. Her friend Julie to the right, and her brother Eric is behind. That's a Tusker in his hand, not a Mountain Dew, so don't let him tell you he doesn't drink. Lol - that's the only time I've seen him with a beer. Spending the day with relatives can get to anyone ;o)

Angela has six children. It took me a while to count them all. We went over to Angela's house before and after the picnic. The kids were climbing up the walls with excitement over Easter, the big day at the farm, and going on a 'jungle' hike. At some point I realized that I wasn't seeing double - yes - their are six children, including a set of twins. Here's a picture of Ryan and I with Angela's oldest, Adrienne, and her two twins.

One last shot -- here's a picture at Angela's house that Eka designed. Eka's holding Angela's youngest. If you're counting, you've only seen four out of the six so far.