Save the Church 2

Well what an eventful 2 weeks it has been.

We had a storm at the beginning of this year and had a lot of damage done to the buildings here.  I believe I already wrote this before but I will do it again.

 

The new growth from our herb garden.

 

With the type of construction here (brick)  there are different methods for construction needed than in other parts of the word (where construction is done with steel / wood and so on).

One of the methods practiced here is, after constructing a wall, at the top of the wall put a protective layer of cement on top (called a cement coping).  This protects the top of the wall.

Now in most circumstances this practice does not make sense, since eventually the top of the wall will be covered with a roof and the roof will protect it.

Unless......

You have a giant storm which rips off the roof exposing the wall to the weather. 

And in the case of this building there was no cement coping installed on the top of the wall.

So what happened was that after the roof was ripped off the rains (4-6 hours each day) deposited so much water on top of the wall that the water infiltrated down between the mortar joints in the wall. 

This led to the structure of the wall becoming weak.

 

Re-building the duplex

 

So starting last week we began with demolition on the duplex.

This week we have begun to re-construct it, with a few changes.  Which has been quite a task onto itself.

Things in the villages this week have been a bit disruptive as a higher amount of people have been dying.  So we have not seen much of some chiefs because they have been away at funerals.

Our church which we go to is St. Cecelia Catholic Church.  It is located not to far away from our compound.  We had a meeting last week and agreed that we needed to clean up the church.  So yesterday morning Araceli, Timeyo and I woke up around 5:30 and headed out to the church at 6.  We had a plan to clear everything out.

The plan was for everyone to show up at 8 but we wanted to get an early start to avoid the sun.

As we started working we cleared most of the brick and weeds out of the inside of the church. 

 

The crew working away

 

 

We then began to break the bricks up on the inside to make a suitable floor.  Tis is until we can raise the money to but a proper floor in.

Two things happened which we did not plan for:

 

The temporary floor finished up

 

 

1)  Rain decided to come on Saturday so we did not see any sun but instead got a nice bit of rain.

2)  There was a funeral on Saturday so nobody else showed up.

It is quite a bad thing, culturally, if people do not show up to funerals.  So whether you know the deceased or not you are required to go.  This is not true for everybody but most everybody.

 

The crew relaxing after (Man, Man, Timeyo, Araceli)

We finished up around 8 and then headed back for some breakfast.  The rest of the day we spent relaxing.

We are looking forward to start our next week of work but also because our anniversary is coming up and we are planning on heading out somewhere, not sure where yet though.

I have been writing this blog on and off today as we have been outside working to expand our garden.  Timeyo did good when we were gone and planted some plants but we have been working to plant more.

 

The extension of the garden.  Cactus on the front left

 

We found some cactus the other day while clearing some brush to we decided to add them.  Along with that some flowers which we brought from back home, although we will have to wait until those grow.




 

A Slight Delay

Well I had to make a trip out to the city tonight.

We have been without internet out at our compound for almost a week now.  I did not think it was that bad until I came in tonight and loaded my e-mail and saw all the e-mails which I missed.

I do not have much time on the internet because it is expensive here but I guess I can comment on what is on my mind right now.

We have transported a bunch of materials to Kasese and have started demolition on one of the duplex's here.

We got harassed by a policeman yesterday.  I believe he was taking advantage of me, at least trying to, because I was white.  After Timeyo explained it to me later he said that the policeman thought I was new in the country and that he could have his way with me because of that.

Well in the end I think that the amount of English which I threw at him frustrated him enough to let me go.

 

Taking Linda to school

 

As it turns out, he was a new on the job and wanted to do a little flexing of the muscles.  It was a rare occurrence as I have not had that happen too many times.  But it was strange today as I was driving to the city a policeman asked me for a bribe.

Two of these happening so close together was the strange part.

Besides that, Araceli and I came across some avocadoes yesterday and we devoured them.  They were awesome.  But we saved the seed and are planting it tomorrow so we can have more later.

 

We hung out a planter outside of our kitchen window and planted herbs in it, just yesterday there started to be tiny little sprouts coming out of the dirt.  This was the most eventful thing which happened yesterday.

 

Araceli and I taking scones and coffee to have breakfast with Timeyo (she baked them)

 Besides that all else is Africa.  Our dog was attacked by a rabid dog and died a few days later.  Somehow our cat is still alive although it runs around all the time.  but we keep it inside at night as she is good at catching the cockroaches.
 

 

I was sorting through some things the other day and came across my collection of smoking pipes which I whittled last year.  I went and got some tobacco from one of the huts in the village and tried smoking it but the design of the pipe is not the best so it did not work.

When we get internet back I can write a more thorough and less scattered post.

The sun is setting now and I need to get on the road and get home before it gets dangerous to drive.

Save the Church

What a fast-paced two weeks it has been. 

One of the objectives Araceli and I have had since we are at Kasese now is to become more involved with the Catholic Church here.  So last Sunday we went to mass at the local church.

As before (when we lived in Bowe with the priests) I was expecting a typical mass.  Lots of people, unique odors and lots of singing and dancing.

The church is a mere 2 minutes away for the house so it did not take us long to get there.  Once there we got out of the truck and I began to wonder where everyone was.

Well as it turns out, because of a series of unfortunate events, a lot of the parishoners had left the church.

At the beginning of this year there was a giant storm.  One which did some damage to Kasese but along with that it almost destroyed the entire church.

 

The Remains of the Church

The villagers were in the midst of finishing up the church.  They just needed to build a roof structure and put a roof on and it would be finished.  The storm stopped that from happening.  After the storm most of the side walls were destroyed and the interior of the church was weathered by the rain.

So we ended up having mass here.  There was no priest and in total there was about 10 of us.  But it was a good feeling to be able to spend time with the villagers.

At the end we sat around in the church talking about life and such and began on an idea of re-building the church.  At that point Araceli, Timeyo and I asked to be part of the committee for the church so that we could become more directly involved in the business of the church.

We continued to talk and then finished that day with high hopes and aspirations.

The rest of the day was spent building new storage shelves in our utility room for our clothes.  One of the problems we ran into last year was that we moved to Kasese in a rush and did not have any time to organize our belongings.  So every room was full of boxes and unorganized.

 

Storage shelves for the utility room

 

So we have been gradually cleaning everything and almost have the whole house cleaned.  It is funny now because it looks like an empty house without any of those things.  But it is more comfortable than with junk everywhere.

 

Timeyo and Araceli clearing an area for a gathering space

 

We continued through the week working.  Elections are coming up this year in Malawi and there have been massive displays of "support" for each presidential candidate.  I emphasize "support" because it is a false kind of support.

 

Timeyo and I sitting in the newly created gathering space

 

I would have to put more thought into this to make any political statements but I can just say that based on my experiences and observations I have seen people persuaded for Causes by objects rather than the ideals and values of the Cause.

Enough of that.

We have been chugging through the week.  We had our student who we sponsor, Linda Phiri, come and stay with us out at Kasese.  It was a great opportunity for her to get to know us more, interact with different people and of course, practice her English. 

 

Sitting around having dinner : Timeyo, Morris and Betha and Araceli and Linda

 

We enjoyed having her around as we could also learn more about her and what she wanted to do with her life, which is set on becoming a doctor.

We took her to school on Tuesday.

I cannot say too much of what else has been going on as we have been doing a lot of busy work preparing to start a whole plethora of projects here.  Our goal is that within two months we can begin hosting mission trips here.  There is quite some work to be done before that point.

It would be boring to list out all the projects here and would be better to update on here as we progress through them.  One of the major ones I am looking forward too is to build a wall between the shower and the kitchen.

As of now, when showering, the overflow water from the shower drains into the kitchen, which is gross.

So that will be one of our first projects next week.

As for the rest of today we are meeting up with another student who is sponsored and having lunch with him.

After that I am going to build us an exposed pantry so we can store all of our food and such there.

 

Visiting George a his University

 

I do have to laugh because as I am typing this a chicken jumped up on our window and is trying to get inside.  For some reason the chickens like the area around our house.  And the cat loves chasing them around.  There is something comforting about having them around.