Well here I am again trying to fit weeks of experiences into a few paragraphs. I'll do my best. But overall, I think I need to say this: you had to be there. It's hard for me to really relate to you how things have been here in Uganda. But here we go.
So like I mentioned in my last update, a few days after we returned from our project trip/safari adventure, me and another intern Travis got recruited to travel to Ssese Island (on Lake Victoria) with a ministry called Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). A quick little background on these guys. They're an international ministry (locations all over the world) that transports missionaries and humanitarian worked to hard to reach areas so that they can share the gospel and help those in need. Their mission statement is "sharing the love of Jesus Christ through aviation and technology so that isolated people may be physically and spiritually transformed." Really cool ministry. Well MAF wants to put an airstrip on Ssese Island to provide safer access to that island and the smaller ones around it. Apparently around 5000 people die a year in the areas around Lake Victoria due to unsafe transportation to the islands. Also, the islands are not a very strongly churched area, and providing safer means to get these would open up lots of doors for the church (and the gospel) to grow there.
So eMi has worked with the MAF Uganda office in the past, so we were asked to assist in locating the property line that is critical in locating where the airstrip can go. Property lines oddly enough end up being a big part of what we do in terms of surveying. Property issues are kind of a nightmare in Uganda, with lots of property "surveys" being drawn by hand and property corners not necessarily existing anymore. Anyways so our job was to figure out this line based on a few documents they had and then lay it out (approximately) in the field. This wasn't an easy task, and required some less-than-perfect surveying, but in the end we got the approximate line to within about 45 meters. That's pretty big, I know, but when the airstrip is a kilometer long and you have the amount of space they had, its good enough. We gave them the best we had, though.
This is the boat we took to the island, not too bad!
The village where we had the meeting
So the trip itself was really interesting. We left from a dock in Entebbe (where the airport in Uganda is, which is right on the lake) around 7. The boat we took was a safari ski boat, which is apparently a lot better than the inflatable boat that was used for the last trip they took. The boat took about an hour to reach the island, where we the met the leaders of the local village. The last trip out there MAF met with leaders of another village on the island (I think there's 3 total) to explain some things. We did the same thing this time basically. Apparently in the past mzungus (what white people get called here, it's not derogatory, it's just what they say) have bought smaller islands on the lake and then kicked off all of the Ugandans and made it their own private resort. Awful, I know. Well we wanted to make sure the locals understand what we're doing, so we had a village meeting. These are interesting. Introductions are a big thing here, so about 30 minutes of the meeting consisted of just that. Once we were all introduced, the meeting itself went smoothly, and we were done in about an hour and a half (not too long, I guess). After that we went out to the field of the proposed airstrip, and started looking for survey markers that we had been told were there. After a brief scare of not finding them, we found them and got to work, which ended up with us getting a decent line. After this, we had to walk a total of a few miles through tall grass to plant bamboo poles to mark the line. Praise God for His protection from snakes, we didn't see any! There were plenty of locals with us to help, so we had fun trying to speak a little Luganda (their language) with them. They thought mzungus speaking Luganda was hilarious. So after we finished the line, the MAF guys with us had already staked out where they wanted to strip based on the property line. We did some simple soil tests to see if the ground was appropriate for airplanes to land on (it'll work) and then the locals got to work on clearing the land. The cool thing about the strip is that it will be completely owned by the community, and MAF will just use it. That way it can be used for all types of community development. So after some clearing, it was time for us to go. Overall, it was a great experience. I see some great ministry going on in the island villages in the future.
Some boats on the shore of the island.
Well, I think I'll keep this update at that. I'll be updating soon about some other recent occurrences. I hope you're doing great wherever you are, and thank you again for your prayers and support!
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