The work is underway

This will be a quick blog entry because dinner is almost ready and this is the first time in a week that I'm actually hungry enough to eat a decent meal.

The work has finally begun, albeit slowly (for Americans at least, for Africans we are right on task). We have finished clearing and digging holes (two feet deep and nine inches in diameter) for the fence posts. The boys cleared most of the fence line, as they wanted to use their new toys - pangas (a.k.a. machetes) and we dug holes with a vertical pole that was jammed in the ground to loosen dirt while someone laid/sat/sprawled on the ground to dig out the loosened dirt from the newly created hole. Believe it or not, this was only terribly difficult when the hole was next to a bunch of bramble bushes (hard to scoop out the dirt) or when the dirt was actually a layer of sunbaked brick that had to be pounded on until the makeshift tool broke through. We are currently waiting on supplies to build the actual fence - supposedly they are coming this week, but we have learned that that actually means they will be here near the end of next week, but only if the funding comes through.

Today we worked on finishing the culverts with a 'technical' person from Uganda. I'm not sure if I've mentioned before or not, but when one enters the compound from the road, the vehicle one travels in must drive through a 1.5-2 foot ditch the reach the driveway (the ditch has been created to catch and funnel water during the wet season. Since this slowly but surely degrades vehicles and, quite possibly, may/will cause a vehicle to tip over. We bought four culverts that we transported from town in a school bus and FDNC bought three truckloads of dirt (we'll need one more now) and another culvert to complete the project. Today we began putting the finishing touches on the culvert ends by adding stones and cement to prevent the dirt from being washed away and ensure cars/trucks don't damage the culverts too much. We are waiting to complete the sides as we ran out of cement, hopefully we'll have more tomorrow. In order to work on the culverts, we had to carry 20-40 pound rocks/stones from the back of the compound to the end of the driveway as well as bricks, water (in 5L increments), and sand (via a wheelbourgh with a flat tire that necessitated one person to push and another to pull with a string). I don't think I've been this dirty....

I took a shower earlier and realized that because of how we shower, I don't think I'll be clean until we hit either a hotel for a night (hopefully this weekend) or the hostel in Kampala where I fully intend to take a shower before the two plane rides. In order to shower, someone lugs a 5L jug of water into the bathroom, you pour out enough water for yourself into a basin, and scoop water over you to clean/rinse off. All water is cold - washing ones hair and face are the worst parts.

We have booked our adventure safari for July30-August2 through Murchison Falls National Park including a boat trip along the Nile, game drives, camping in the park, possible night game drives, as well as, if wanted, chimpanzee walks/tracking and a rhino walk. I'm not sure what extras we'll do, but we're all very excited. We are doing a private safari with just our group, so the organizers have said they are willing to cater to our desires for the four days in the national park. We're all very, very excited - gives us something to look forward to as the days begin to drag out.

Food is out, so I'm signing off. I'm sure the next time I post we'll all be suffering from some degrees of culture shock, as we are drifting (some of us, soon all of us) down the slope.