The Swing of Things

Hello All,

I hope everyone is well.  Greetings from Uganda.  We want to first off thank those that have already sent us a picture for our bulletin board!  We have gotten several in, and it has been quite a treat.  When Erin first suggested it, I thought it was a pretty good idea.  But now that we are actually getting some pictures in, it is really great.  My wife is actually quite brilliant.  Thank you all very much.  If you did not make it to the end of our last blog, we asked if you could send us a picture of you and the family for us to put up on our wall in our apartment – we would love to have a visual reminder of all the people we love back home!  We can accept mail at:   eMi, Attn: Gary Hightower, P.O.Box 3251, Kampala, Uganda.

Erin had a good week of school last week.  She is getting a system down for taking care of all the class planning, and she is making good relationships with her students.  The kids all seem to like her class.  Like a good science teacher, Erin has lots of activities and labs - which tends to make it hard for kids not to like her class.  …..And the labs will only get better.  There are a few laboratories in the area that we’ve been able to get some lab supplies from.  Erin was very excited when these were delivered on Monday.  It was a bit like Christmas …and I didn’t really have to do anything!!  So it was great, and now Erin is ready with fresh flasks, scales, pipettes, and test tubes to have kids blow some things up. 

View out of Erin's Classroom

This past Friday the school had an open house for students and their families.  I stopped by and took a few pictures and met a couple of her students and was impressed again with my wife.   

P&W Library

I’ve taken a few site visits to several eMi projects in the last few weeks.  One of which was to collect some existing conditions data for a project for a local university.  This project was right next to a library that was under construction and was designed by Perkins & Will, an architecture firm with an Atlanta office that my firm back home competes against quite often.  So my coworkers at POH will be amused, as I was, to know that over in Uganda, I still have to watch out for Perkins & Will. 

The Nile River

I also went to see a few eMi projects under construction in Jinja.  Jinja is a city 50 miles east of Kampala and may best be known for being the source of the Nile.  Maybe I’ll be able to convince Erin to do a rafting trip down some of the Nile while we are here.  Mainly these site visits in Jinja were to see some projects in various stages of construction to allow me to become more familiar with building practices.
 

In the office, I have been helping out with a variety of projects.  Most of my time this past week has been developing the design and construction drawings for the Western Ugandan Baptist Technical College. Their classrooms need a new roof system installed, and they also want to build a guesthouse to serve as a gateway for visiting supporters and guest professors. So I have been working away on that. 

Amazing Grace Christian Assembly

Erin and I have attended a couple different churches now since we have been here.  The church we have visited the past two weeks is a local church called Amazing Grace Christian Assembly.  Attending Amazing Grace does a good job of reminding us that we are really in Africa!  It has really been good experience.  …Though it is a little difficult for us to blend in.  Everyone is pretty active there, and we have to be ready to jump a lot and wave our hands.  I’ll let you imagine that for a while…Erin and me, the only two white people there, jumping and dancing around, moving our lips to words pretending we know what we are doing.  They spend a lot of time singing, and we have sung everything from old hymns to modern praise choruses to African tunes where we have no idea what we’re saying.  Everything is translated between English and Lugandan (a common local tribal language used heavily in the area).  Most songs, they will sing for 5 minutes in Lugandan, then sing for 5 minutes in English, then another 5 minutes again in Lugandan.  Announcements and the sermon are told often times switching back and forth between Lugandan and English, where one series of statements is said in one language and the next series is said in the other.  But a translator is there ready to translate either way.  Everyone has been very kind to us and eager to tell us how we can become more involved.  So potentially there will be some opportunities to help with the children’s ministry or with more vocational type mentoring.  We will try out some other churches, but we will probably continue to go to this church while we are here.  I tried to subtly take this picture before the building got too full.

We have definitely put some mileage (err, kilometerage) on our sandals since we have been here.  We’ve felt pretty good about our decision to just walk or use public transportation.  We have always enjoyed walking, and quite often our best conversations are had when we are walking together.  So it seemed appropriate, especially since most everything we need is fairly close-by, and catching a ride on a boda is never hard if we need it.  But walking around Uganda does make for some excitement!  Sidewalks aren’t exactly a common occurrence, and no matter where you are going, there is a pretty big hill between here and there, and traffic is seemingly always heavy.  We decided to walk to a grocery store and a market on Saturday.  It took half the day and we got home burnt to a crisp and worn out.  And on the way home from church on Sunday, we got caught in a downpour.  So it was a fun weekend for walking.  People think we’re a little odd for as much walking as we do – we are definitely in the minority of eMi staff or other local expats who don’t have a car or boda. The boy in me wouldn’t mind knowing that I can drive and navigate ourselves around here; but for the most part, we are happy with putting our sandals and backpacks to good use. Erin says we make great urban hikers.

Downtown Kampala

We are off to play a lively game of Uno since we actually have power tonight to see the playing cards.  Stay tuned for some Google Earth fun in our next update.  Take care!