Uganda - Equator - Needy Schools - Huge Lizard - Sickening Hospital - Joy of Water - Lightening Kills Children in Schools - Nile River Source

 

This will be a BIG blog.

We were privileged to go on a humanitarian trip to Uganda. Part of the purpose was to view completed projects, evaluate effectiveness and view potential new new projects. It was also part of our annual planning and training meeting.

We started in the City of Kampala. Our hotel had some fun Christmas decorations.

7:00 AM the first morning we headed for a city called Masaka. Part way there we had the opportunity to stop at the EQUATOR. It was a little tourist stop and a fun break. 

Some cows along the way added to the interesting drive.

We went to one of our church buildings to pick up a site manager. This is a hired person. 

Interesting church building design.

This school benefited from our Church donation to rebuild buildings and add a kitchen building.

These tanks collect precious rain water from the rain gutters.

Looks like a friendly stork.

They are anxious to use their new stove in the school kitchen. 

Is this the music room? We encouraged them to play for us and Elder Steiner tested the drums out. They sang a cultural song playing the drums for us. 

A nicely re-built primary school.

We visited primary schools and one health center to access needs and evaluate if it should be considered for a future project based on several factors such as sustainability. Communities and governments must agree to maintain infrastructures that are built or improved. 

The "No A/C" van that we all squished into was quite an experience. A two hour estimated ride usually doubled to four hours or more.

It was actually a safari van. It felt really great when then popped open the top.

 

This is a picture of the boarding school beds. 

Notice how the children in Ethiopia learn about the importance of praying in school. God is very much in their daily lives. Many schools and classrooms depict God or pictures of Jesus Christ. 

I found this interesting that the children made dolls to learn the English names of family members. 

The next day we traveled to a city called Jinja. 

This was a small country hospital that the Church had donated some incubators, ultrasound, special lab equipment, and other hi-tech medical equipment. Some of the equipment made this hospital more advanced than the city hospital, making it high in demand. They were very grateful for the donations. 

The hospital services over 250 people per day. They have only lost one preemie since they received the donations. They have a lot of property they want to expand on because the need is so great.

This is a newer ultrasound that replaced an outdated old one.

This was a special refrigerator donated through the Church to store blood. Because they had this equipment, the government realized that they were capable of handling high-level kidney test and gave them a brand new kidney machine. It had just been delivered and was still in the box when we got there. 

Anyone coughing is asked to go sit under this tree..."Cougher's Point".

Smile for a group pic. One of the joys of our mission is meeting wonderful senior couples. E/S Steiner are from Idaho Falls serving in Tanzania and E/S Marx are from Roosevelt, Utah serving in Kenya.

Anyone ready for a smoothy or shake? It was quite good.

We visited a school that the Church had helped to improve and remodel. We were looking at the children getting ready for a program. They were all dressed up. 

They put a plaque on the wall with the Church name.

Nice new bathrooms.

On our long ride visiting these sights, Sister Martin used a squatting pit toilet for the first time at some random gas station.

Kitchen.

They were super excited about their new Computer room. It was hot in there, no A/C or fans.

Here's a few of the happy beneficiaries. They said enrollment goes up when schools are improved and this one was no exception.

A few community leaders joined us as we toured some of the improved sites. Again they were so appreciative of the new classroom buildings and restrooms for their school. 

Our next to the last stop for the day was a college that wanted help renovating a 50 year old building. This is an all boys 12-18 year old boarding school.  

The college overlooked Victoria lake and the Nile River so there were some nice photo ops.

The person at the right was the stake president of Jinja.

Isn't Uganda beautiful?

We visited a hospital clinic that had extreme needs. In my opinion it was just one step above a tent.

I don't think anything here would pass OSHA. No hand railings...

Labor and delivery room was too scary to take a picture of, but someone else did, so here it is below.

The immunization area was also the overflow labor room.

The hospital outdoor latrines you could smell a mile away.

They have a lot of needs here.

Why not have a group picture in front. We hope this project gets approved for some funds to remodel.

Stayed at an interesting hotel next to the Victoria Nile River. 

When we were walking to our room, I caught a glimpse of this huge lizard. 

The lizard's tail alone was about 2+ feet long. Wow.

View of the Victoria Nile. 

The hotel offered a few fun things.

Hurry take the photo!  Before we melt!

We have not slept with a mosquito net in our apartment, but apparently it was much needed staying near the river. There were lots of frogs or toads. Some in our party had frogs in their rooms. 

The Joy of Water!

Our second day in Jinja we had the opportunity to visit a water bore hole project that helped a farming community have enough clean water to thrive.

Solar powered pumps.

Running water supplied to several places around village. Sustainable. Each farmer contributes monthly to a fund so they may buy replacement parts and keep it running indefinitely. They bring their water containers like this to refill. We saw children of all sizes filling various sizes of jugs for water depending on how big or little the children were. They start with small jugs and work up to larger ones. 

One of the things they need for these children is a school. They have no schooling, because they live so far from the school that it is unsafe and too far to walk. One thing at a time, first water, than maybe a teacher who can come to them and begin classes. 

We went to a model home to see ideas they came up with for better hygiene. Water-Aid was the company that the church paid to install the water system. They also promote sustainability and self-reliance by having a competition. The villagers are divided into groups of 50. Then they all try to come up with the best way to improve their homes using resources around them. Instead of just giving them everything, they have them think of what they can do. Below is one of the winner's and the ideas she came up with. 

Proud of her pit latrine...no smell.

The villagers were taught basic hygiene principles and given incentive to be constructively creative.

Here is the floor of her private shower, using the rocks and stones to keep the feet from getting muddy and using sticks and plants for an enclosed shower. 

Fun little Community. Making brooms to sell. our project manager bought some brooms from her. 

Is this turkey dinner?

The water tower was way out in the field but added to provide a backup supply. That's Denis, our area self-reliance and humanitarian assistant manager who arranged this trip. 

June 2022 - Uganda

"When the rain started one afternoon at the Bunya Primary school in Mayuge, it was time to go home. Instead, the children watched through classroom windows as the tropical downpour turned the dirt roads into muddy rivers. That was when lightning struck the school, killing 20 of the youngsters and injuring almost 100 more. Sadly, this is not a rare occurrence in Uganda. Located on the Equator in Central Africa, the nation has one of the highest rates of lightning strike deaths in the world. Kampala, the capital, has an average of 280 thunderstorms a year. Moreover, meteorologists think that climate change is affecting extreme weather conditions – increasing the likelihood of even more lightning strikes".

This story was written in a project proposal I read. I googled and found several more articles online showing children being killed inside school buildings in Uganda during lightening storms. One article claimed that lightening killed four rare gorillas. Here's a link to one of those:

Lightening Kills at Least 18 in Uganda School

The Church decided to get involved with the following project: Installation of lightning arrestors in 30 public schools in Luuka, Buyende, Jinja, Kamuli, Kaliro and Namayingo Districts. 

The project was expanded to another 70 schools in 2024, so we had the opportunity to visit two of those schools in the Jinja area that received lightening arrestors. 

They used to install these wires on the outside of the buildings. Now they cut a gap in the building to install the copper wire, and then fill it in. This is because thieves would steal the copper and go sell it.

Since we were near the source of the Nile River that eventually flows to Egypt, and had finished seeing all of the projects on our list, we had the opportunity to take a boat ride to see it. 

It was interesting how the water was churning and spinning around at this spot where water is gushing from a spring below, into the river. The river does not flow from Lake Victoria, but from natural springs at the border of the lake. 

We shopped for some food items at CarreFour Supermarket at a mall in Kampala and found an ice cream store. We just couldn't resist indulging.

We also had dinner with the Uganda office couple, Elder and Sister Anderson, from California. Since we had served in the Mission Office on previous missions, it was fun to share experiences. We can't find the picture of them. 

Finished with our humanitarian trip and time to say goodbye to everyone.