27 May 2012

Health Clinic In Kampala


A couple of weeks ago, a few of us went to the capital of Uganda (Kampala) to meet with Rotary Club members about an upcoming family health clinic. We went back to Kampala on Saturday to help out with that clinic. This has been advertised for several weeks over the radio and on posters around town etc.

People could come to get HIV testing, dental checkups/teeth pulled, male circumcision counseling, blood donations, etc... I mostly helped out in the dental camp took place in a church.

All together, the dentists pulled more than 80 teeth that day. There was a lot of crying in that church. Children waiting on the benches to get teeth pulled would watch as other children, crying and fighting to break free were being held down by their parents and doctors. They saw other children crying and fighting as doctors yanked at  their teeth and stopping up the gap with cotton. After watching all of this, when it became time for those children to get the same shots/tooth extractions, they cried even louder and fought harder. By the end of the day, it took 4-5 adults to hold some of the children down.

Dentists giving shots

Dentist giving a shot to a crying child. People in the background watching and growing less and less excited. 

This little girl was fighting, kicking and screaming bloody murder. Her father held her down as the dentist pulled her tooth free. Little boy in the corner with cotton in his mouth. 

Little girl in the grass outside the church. Lucky for her, she doesn't have teeth yet. 

Here's a look inside the other health clinic. I didn't get to spend much time there.

Here I am with "Sweet Collins" He's a cowboy-boot wearing, smooth singing, hip gyrating singer/performer who played to entertain people at the camp. He also played at the Rotary Club meeting a couple weeks ago and I think I'm his biggest fan. There's a chance the lucky people of Kampala might see the two of us performing together before the end of this summer. Uganda may not yet be ready for that level of awesome. 

26 May 2012

Friday


On Friday, Sanga Moses wanted to meet up with us and see how the Power Point presentation is coming along which I have been preparing. He decided it would be boring to meet in one of our stuffy houses so we jumped in his car and headed for the rain forest. It was pretty cool. We were trying to find monkeys and ended up seeing only one or two. Eventually we ended up at this really cool Rain Forest Lodge place where rich westerners like to go to sleep in little bungalows  and hear all of the sounds in the middle of the rain forest. (Personally I wouldn't sleep much if I heard all those sounds all night.) We were the only people around so we just followed a path till we found cool chairs by the swimming pool. It was a good meeting location. (and might end up being a good pool-hopping location later this summer)

On the path, we heard a loud pop and snap and crack. Sanga looked down to see what he said was a huge tail of a black snake. We looked for a little but it must have gotten away. Walking through the rain forest was pretty awesome and crazy. It was like I was Indian Jones. Only... I wasn't.

Chillin at the all but vacant "Rain Forest Lodge".  Future honeymoon spot..... Check

Friday afternoon, we went to our friend Pastor Francis' school to be instructed by some guys from an organization whose name I forget. They work with youth in Uganda who face a lot of issues that we do not have to worry about as much in USA. They were training us on how to interact with the youth here especially when we are faced with tough questions regarding super sensitive topics.  

25 May 2012

Thursday the 25th Pastor Lane Visit's The Ladies of "Musana"




Most weeknights, we hire a few local women (and longtime Help International friends) Betty, Rosette, and Eve to cook dinner for us. A couple of weeks ago when this trip was very new to all of us, I decided to join them while they cooked on the back porch of our house. (On small charcoal-burning stoves) They really like singing so I decided it would be fun to sing some good ol' fashioned gospel music. Before I knew it, everyone was standing in a circle clapping, stomping feet and belting out "Amen"s and "Hallelujah"s.. I really wish I knew more gospel songs now because it has become quite the tradition. The women-- and their friends-- now refer to me as "Pastor Lane" and they always ask me to lead them in boisterous songs. It's kind of fun.

Thursday morning, I went with Abby to the Musana store (Help International helped them start a business making jewelry which they sell through Help International volunteers in America and now here in Lugazi). Abby and other Help Int girls are helping these women learn English. As usual, they required that I lead them in a song or two and then we got down to business learning English and talking. They are awesome women.

Sitting in the front room of the jewelry company "Musana". Eve is the closest woman facing the camera in the white hat. 

Abby giving Betty an English lesson

Proud To Be A Girl

Some of the Help International girls are doing a program called "Proud to be a girl" where they lecture at schools teaching empowerment and sexual health. I have been pretty blown away by the things that Ugandan women go through. Some of us guys go along to teach (talk sense into) the boys in the high schools and try to help them understand that they need to respect women. It has been interesting and eye opening. 

Speaking of interesting, physical contact is an interesting cultural difference here. In this picture, we see Joseph (one of our local friends) holding hands (interdigitating) with Whitney. This is totally normal for friends to do. Even boys hold hands with other boys who are friends. (pretty sure it will take a lot more than 4 months in Uganda for me to embrace that cultural difference)

I took all of these pictures on our way to the school where we had the "Proud To Be A Girl" assembly.

 These kids cracked me up so I had to take a picture. While walking, I spied this little-dude with a banana leaf cape and the other little-dude tying a bonnet around his little brother. Kids here are hilarious and very imaginative with how they create fun without elaborate toys. 

Hey, you'd be ticked off too if your older brother forced a banana leaf on your head against your will. Beware the evil behind the smiling eyes. 

Here is the same Joseph from the previous picture where he was holding Whitney's hand, now with his arm around Elaine. I think I am going to make a hobby out of taking pictures of affection like these. 

Awww snap, Interdigitation... holding hands now.... Don't hate the playa, hate the game. 

 Abby posing with some kids who ambushed us on our way home. I've never been hugged on the knee caps so much in my life. 

22 May -24 May

Eco-Fuel Africa

I can't quite remember what day it was last week but on one of the days from Mon-Wed a few of us who are working with Sanga Moses went to the place where they make charcoal briquettes out of bio waste. Sanga really is going to have an enormous impact with this venture. It is fun to be working with him. I am currently making a PowerPoint presentation with animations depicting the charcoal briquette making process which we will attach to his application for a grant to help develop this machine. 

If any blog readers out there have a knack for engineering and know of a good solution to this bulky hard to make machine, let me know.... I'm toying with an idea using some sort of caulking gun technology to compress the mud into briquettes and remove the moisture one at a time that any person could use to make their own briquettes. The problem is finding anything that even resembles a caulking gun around here. 

Here's Rebecca filling the cylinders with char-mud. 

Next, close the lid and pump the car jack which lifts a plate full of rods/pistons up against the mud and the top plate compacting the briquettes and extracting moisture. 

Finally, open the top and continue pumping the car jack till the compressed briquettes come out of the top ready for sun drying. 

 

Rebecca likes playing in the mud. Pretty sure the kids in the background think we're crazy. And I'm pretty sure they're right. 

Sanga took us to a plot of land where they are planning on training people. They are also growing corn on the land using excess char-powder (from bio-waste) as fertilizer. 

Stewart and Rebecca also pictured.

21 May 2012

The Seya School


Monday morning, a few of us took motorcycle taxis "Bodas" (which entails riding on the seat behind the driver of a motorcycle) to a village called Seya. I have seen some beautiful landscapes in my life, but I have never seen anything like the hillsides and back country on the way to Seya.

This is where Pastor Josiah lives. It is not only his house but is also an orphanage. 

Little orphan kids peaking around the corner at the funny looking bald guy taking pictures

We later went to the Seya school to hold a meeting with community members and school staff about building a new school for the kids in Seya (many of them are orphans) Right now they just have this veranda-like structure with a tin roof. In Uganda, in order to get government funding for a school, you have to have a permanent structure and this doesn't qualify so they do not get assistance from the government. 

Random pictures of me trying to talk with the kids. Most kids don't know English aside from a few phrases they memorize in school. But it's fun to practice the Luganda language that I'm attempting to learn. 

Lane to the child--in English: "What's your name little dude"

Child to his friends--in Luganda: "Wow, I didn't know funny looking ogres came in the tall bald and white variety. 

After a while, children started to gather. They like singing songs and clapping along to them so we sang a bit and then had them sing for us. I'll try to upload that if I can. 

Here you can see the current Seya School. Just some logs, a tin roof and chalk boards.

"Say Cheese"

The kids said they would sing us a song. It sounded like the tune of that "Where is Thumbkin" song...
here's the lyrics in case you can't hear.

"Baby Jesus, Baby Jesus, I love you, I love you. You are my Savior, you are my Savior. Every day. Every day."

 

Trying to learn the local language. Children are a big help.

 

 

 So much for personal space

Kids playing soccer at Seya school

20 May 2012

Team Meeting

 Once or twice a week, we have team meetings to discuss things like projects we are working on and making new house rules/chores.

It's not so cramped when everyone is sitting down but it gets crazy when everyone is moving around.

Inspiring Friday

18 May 2012

I have a lot of heroes here, but Sanga Moses (TED Fellow, spoke in Long Beach in March) with whom I spent the first half of Friday, may take the cake so far. Sanga Moses is my age and is making a HUGE impact in Uganda, so much so that TED Talks flew him in to speak about it.

I could type pages and pages about my morning with Sanga. He started Eco-Fuel Africa. http://ecofuelafrica.com/  One day, when he came home to his village from college, he found his sister carrying a pile of sticks on her head (she walked 10 Kilometers to get them) They needed wood to cook food. He was frustrated that she and many African children could not go to school because their families needed their help with this necessary chore.

Eco-Fuel is preparing to give kilns to thousands of farmers who take agricultural waste (branches, corn husks, etc..) and char the waste. The farmers use the larger chunks to fertilize their gardens. Eco Fuel buys the remaining powder particles from the farmers and hires local boys on bicycles to collect and deliver it to the place where charcoal briquets are made.

They mix the charcoal powder with water and sticky substance and pour it in a machine that compacts it all together to make briquets. They then dry the briquets and sell them. More than 95% of Ugandan's buy charcoal for their everyday cooking. Sanga's "green charcoal" will cost 20% less than normal charcoal and will help alleviate the huge deforestation problems that Uganda is facing since it will take away the demand for lumber (People illegally chop wood and use large logs to make charcoal to sell for cooking)


In addition, he donates profits (for tax deduction purposes) to a nonprofit that he formed whose purpose is to plant trees. This keeps the corrupt political leaders from using his tax money to line their pockets. His venture is already extremely successful. It is remarkable how many people's lives Sanga is impacting/helping. He really driven by desire to help people and could care less about the money. He lives in a communal house with a pit latrine like the one we have. I am helping him to write a grant proposal to try and get funding to make the charcoal making machine more efficient. I really hope this gets huge.  Who says one man cannot affect millions. I was telling him how big of a deal he is and he dismissed it saying that he didn't even ever plan on going to college and feels like it is a miracle that he did and that he is where he is now. I felt like I could relate a lot to him.

 This is a pile of the charred agricultural waste

 These ladies are mixing the powder with water and sticky stuff and putting it into this machine (which uses a car jack to compress the charcoal briquets) If any of you out there have engineering experience and want to help with ideas, and technical writing (he is having a hard time explaining in his proposals how it works to Chinese engineering companies whom he wants to make more efficient versions) let me know.....

 Rebecca and I examining some briquets on the drying rack.

 Guitar Lessons: Rockin With The Neighborhood Kids

For those about to rock, we salute you...

Friday afternoon, Stewart and I went to Eric's house-- (He's our neighborhood buddy who helps us out with a lot of things--shown below with the guitar) He and his friend Isaac want to learn how to play guitar. We taught him a lesson and then he asked if we would play. Stewart and I played guitars and sang while Isaac and Eric played percussion. It was probably the first time most of the neighborhood have seen a guitar and it was definitely the first time any of them have heard songs from Bob Dylan, The Eagles, CCR, Led Zeppelin, Audioslave, and the Doobie Bothers. By the end of our little jam session, quite a few neighborhood kids had gathered. Introducing Ugandans to rock music wasn't exactly one of the goals we had for this summer, but it was a fun afternoon. And for the record, they really dig the Doobie Brothers.

 Our friend Eric, pictured with the camera, posing for the camera along with a few of our neighborhood fans

"Down on the corner, out in the street, Willie and the poor boys are playin, bring a nickel- tap your feet"

Kampala Rotory Club Meeting

17 May 2012

Thursday night, a few of us went to Kampala (the capital of Uganda) to discuss our upcoming Eye and Dental Camp project with members of the Rotary club. It was pretty interesting, one of the most entertaining meetings I've been to. They even had one of their members get up and play guitar/sing a song that he made up totally impromptu, and it was actually really good. (people here have a lot of soul power) There are so many awesome people here.

During the meeting, one of the members -John- showed up late and everyone gave him a hard time. He seems to be the jokester in the group. In the middle of the meeting, the club president made us both stand up. Everyone poked fun at him when they realized I'm a bit taller. "Looks like you can't play the 'tallest guy in the country' card anymore" they said.

 After the meeting , we laughed in the hotel lobby and posed for a couple pictures

This lady decided we needed to take one more picture with her in it.

First Business Class

16 May 2012

Wednesday afternoon, a few of us who are working on a program teaching business classes, began advertising and inviting people to do take the course. Several of last year's graduates have had a lot of success with their businesses since implementing the things they learned. We teach the classes on Monday and Wednesday nights. During our lesson this Wednesday, I asked a lot of questions about how business is conducted in Uganda and I am learning that many things work differently here. It's going to be fun. 

 

Rebecca and I (and a straggler we picked up) walking to the school for business classes.

 

Jessica and Rebecca walking to the school for business classes.

Yours truly: Posing in front of the school before business class

 This is Pastor Francis. He's one of the partners that we work closest with. He helps spearhead a lot of the programs that we do in Lugazi in schools. Here he is opening our class with a little motivational pep talk. 

 

Sorry for bad picture quality. Stewart and Rebecca teaching their part of the first lesson.