While we wait....

Not much has really happened since my last entry, but I have the opportunity to post again and I figure it's a good idea to do so while I have the chance, I'm not sure when the next chance will be.

Last Sunday - hard to believe it's been almost a week - we were invited to attend Church with the local community. Emory asked that we all attend as it was an invitation extended to the entire group and seemed like a good way to let the community know we are and why we are here. I'm not sure what denomination the mass was, but I know it wasn't Catholic. The service lasted for about two/two a half hours - and was very nice. During the service, we (the volunteers) were all asked to come to the front of the church and introduce ourselves and our reason for being here. The town elder introduced us to the community and had each of us tell everyone where we were from and our names. One of the interesting things I found at the service, not just our inclusion and introduction, was the offortory. Everyone is asked to give to the Church whatever they can and for some families that means some of their harvest as they don't have any money they offer. So, at the end of the service, members who can conver the perishable goods into money for the church are asked to do so through an auction. It's a very good concept and I'm a little surprised we don't utilize something like it in the US.

Also on Sunday we went for a "walk" wherein we climbed a "mountain" near our house. It wasn't really a mountain, but certainly bigger than a hill. As we approached it from the road, I realized that we were actually going to be climbing through a granite mine. Unfortunately, the images that confronted me concerning the mine were very much like those images that I have seen from the DRC mining - mainly children working without protection or shoes and no equipment or tools, grinding larger rocks already harvested from the mountain or harvesting new ones. While we were climbing some of the children helped guide us to the top - which I decided not to climb as I didn't think I could get down (I made it about twenty feet from the top). The view was amazing and I took a lot of pictures.

So far, as far as work is concerned, we have been focused mainly on the culverts - placing them in the ditch and working on creating a level driveway. When we first arrived our driver had to drive across a ditch about two feet deep created by the water draining from the wet seasons. So, in order to help the vehicles last longer and prevent trucks and cars from getting suck in the ditch (or falling due to imbalance) we purchased culverts to place in the ditch for the water flow and are working with the local community to level out three truck loads of dirt on top. We are currently waiting for the mason to come with cement to finish the culverts and ensure they last. This was suppose to happen around 8am this morning and it's now a quarter to one - I'm slowly getting used to the flexible/fluid time concept - I just hope I can revert back once I return to the states. . . .

We have also been working on constructing a grill outside the kitchen to be tested on Sunday - the 4th of July with a whole chicken (maybe one fo the roosters if he continues in this manner). We gathered some bricks and cemented the top, sides, and bottom yesterday morning. Then, we took apart a broken bed for the bed spring and wrapped it with chicken wire to cook on. We'll see how the metal and sun-baked bricks take to the heat soon, but hopefully it will work well.

We are working on decidinng where to go for our travel week and we are thinking of going to either Queen Victoria National Park or Murchison Falls National Park. We would like to go to Murchison Falls but that's very north and would require we pass through Gulu - so depending on how our hosts feels that may be where we end up. We're hoping to hire a guide or go with a safari/tour group in order to get the most out of the experience, but the cost of doing so may require we pass....

A few things I've noticed since arriving:
1. Poverty is very apparent and surrounds us at all times. Just outside the gate of the compound are many families who live as subsistence farmers, only growing enough to feed their families and not enough to sell at market. This is a bit ironic because there are a lot of wild, harvestable plants that grow everywhere and could be sold at market if they were on someone's land....
2. Children are generally the friendliest people - probably from a healthy dose of curiosity - and are usually teh first to approach us (mzungus) and ask questions or follow us. Whenever we venture off the compound we tend to have a large crowd of children following or watching us.
3. Road conditions are very poor - many roads have been washed out and are just a series of holes and dirt. The roads in Costa Rica seem like perfectly good and servicable roads after driving on these. Even where there are paved roads, they are barely large enough for two trucks, have people walking and biking on the sides, and contain many, many holes.
4. Women do the majority of work here - cooking (which can take upwards of three hours to prepare a simple meal - vegetables (cabbage), rice, potatoes, chipati, cut fruit)), cleaning, laundry, farming, harvesting, managing children and animals, etc. IC mentioned this as a primary reason why breaking the cycle of poverty is so difficult, and now I understand why that is.

There are a few people waiting to use the computer, so I'm going to end this post here - besides it's almost time for lunch and then a nap on the cool concrete floor (afternoon temperatures are incredibly hot here).