Designing a World of Hope: Engineering in Mityana, the Village of Forty Trees

I meant to post this last week, but someone stole the internet cables down the street. We're still trying to get that fixed so in the meantime I'm using the office 3G internet stick. Anyways, enjoy this blog post.

I hope you've enjoyed the volume of pictures that I have been posting, but I figured I should take the time to tell you about my experience of the past four weeks.

It started with a week of "getting settled." There were some routines I was trying to get in, like volunteering at the "Doors" ministry, or getting 8 cents somosas for breakfast. It involved familiarizing myself with the public transport, and learning ways to greet people in Luganda (the language spoken here). I started to understand how office work at Engineering Ministries International works, and how to interact with people.
All the while a question kept floating around in my head:

"Can I do this for the rest of my life?"

I have found myself asking that question a lot. Not every answer is the same, but it is amazing to see how God keeps throwing things my way, refining my character.

An ant hill overlooking the "Father to the Fatherless" site.

Once that routine started to feel comfortable, it was time to shake it up again. We left for our project trip at the end of that week, and Gods timing could not have been better. The trip was quite an adventure. I am so grateful that as a civil engineer, I was able to spend a lot of time on site, and not in a room like the architects. We were about 2 hours north west from Kampala, near the city of Mityana. Father to the Fatherless wants to build a ministry for street kids and widows there. In order for the architects to effectively create a master plan, Darren, Brett and I conducted a variety of tests on the soil. We determined the permeability and bearing capacity in multiple locations on the site. In addition, I spent a good portion of time surveying the land. I used 15 year old GPS-RTK equipment. It wasn't working properly and we had to splice some wires on site, which had us seriously concerned. Nobody had thought of packing electrical tape, and we had no idea where to get any. Fortunately our local friend and Father to the Fatherless executive director John did it for us with just a match and a plastic bag. It worked like a charm.

Muchibii "John" fixing the survey equipment for us.

The next few days were similar in terms of engineering. We finished up the survey and tested the water quality of a variety of water sources. First we tested a hand dug pit that was absolutely disgusting. Cows with 3 feet long horns were drinking from the muddy water at the bottom of the pit. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that the villagers had been getting their drinking from here for most of their lives. The water turned out to be filled with E-coli, which is a serious health hazard. Probably the craziest thing about the whole situation was that only 200 meters downhill was a borehole with a hand pump that had clean, bacteria-free water. It was put in by Living Water International a few weeks before. Some of the people still got water at the hand dug pit for whatever reason. Maybe it was habit, or maybe they were lazy, or maybe they were not going to drink it, I don't know. If I could have I would have closed that pit of muddy water right then and there. I realize now that I was not culturally sensitive, and there are much better ways to encourage the villagers towards a healthier lifestyle.

The next day the villagers selected a council to govern the new borehole. Not only did most of the village attend, but so did a representative of the Buganda Kabaka (the tribal king). After the peaceful elections there was a ceremony and the borehole was prayed over. It was a privilege to be a part of the ceremony, and it made me realize just how big of a deal it is for them to have this water. Everyone still has to walk a kilometer into a valley to hand pump the water, but it really is a huge step up from what they previously had. It was a wonderful sight.

At the end of the ceremony the Kabaka representative (who had been very serious before) stands up with a huge smile on his face. He throws of jacket to reveal a shining white football jersey. Demanding for attention he yells: "Now who is ready for some Football!" Our team had been setup for a soccer match against the village team, and we were not expecting this level of excitement from the village. The entire village watched as we were beat mercilessly. The final score was 3-0 for the home team.

Despite the beat-down, it was an amazing opportunity to gain trust from the community. Any time any of us would refer back to the game later that week, it would always be responded with laughter and smiles. This allowed the final presentation for our design to run more smoothly, and the community was more accepting of the big changes we had proposed.

That was a pretty broad look the first half of my project trip. In my next post I will share with you how God used culture shock to refine my character. In the meantime allow me to leave you with some additional photo's from the project trip.