At the Handover Ceremony . . . .
Mountain Gorilla
Elder and Sister Bean
The Sefcik Exploration Team
A Tribal Wedding?
"Ron" and "Sandra" and the Beans too!
Dear Family and Friends,
We are finally sending the May edition of the blog. Somehow it is June already and May got away from us. We completed three projects in May and had three handovers to complete the work. The first project was helping a craft organization consisting of over 200 people. They meet together every Friday and sell their crafts on a very dirty, weed infested piece of land by the railroad track in Kampala. They have some shelter in the way of a few tents, but most sit on a blanket, rug or whatever out in the open in the hot sun or rain. Many of them weave their baskets, make their beads, carve or whatever they do with babies on their back or little children playing around them. Their representatives came to us and asked if we could help them improve their market to encourage more people to come and buy their crafts. They needed two outdoor toilets and some tents. We felt that this was a good project to help these people improve their market so as to attract more business and supply more money to them and their families. The humanitarian fund bought two outdoor toilets, a hand washing facility and three large tents. Their contribution to this project was to clear the land of weeds and debris, smooth it out for comfortable walking and dig two pits for the latrine. When this was accomplished, we delivered the toilets, etc. The market looks wonderful and when we occasionally drive by, we see that it is quite busy and many people are shopping. As a side note: they named the two toilets, Sandra and Ron. So we feel quite honored to have two toilets in Uganda bear our names.
Out second handover was to celebrate the completion of a pineapple project. This organization consists of 98 women living in a small village out in the bush, which is about two hours from Kampala. These women formed an organization and purchased five acres of land. Their intent was to plant pineapple plantation. A small woman with a small baby on her back came to our office and asked for our assistance. Her name is Rose and we have come to love her. She speaks on behalf of the woman in her organization and is a very hard worker. She has nine children and works out in the fields each day. She has limited English skills, but manages to make their needs known. They wanted assistance with pineapple tissues, fencing material, a chain saw, coffee husks (for fertilizer) pangas for clearing the bush and various other items. We went out and walked their land, checked on prices etc.
and had this project approved. It is now complete and we attended a very wonderful handover on May 17th out beside their pineapple field. They treated us to African dancing, music, talks, and many thanks of appreciation. We always invite the other senior couples to these handovers because they are so colorful, fun and you get to see rural Africa. The little children are the best part, they follow you everywhere you go and love to have their picture taken. After the proceedings, Sisters Giles, Libby and Wilkes and I gathered all the kids together and played games. We taught and sang primary songs like “Do as I’m Doing, Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, etc.” Kids are the same where ever you go. Even the big kids loved it and so did we. The handover ended with a big African dinner being served to us, which the women of the village had cooked outside behind the huts. When it was over they sent all of us home with large delicious pineapples that had been placed at each of our chairs. We feel so thankful to be here. You can hardly believe what you are seeing, hearing and feeling when you have played a small part in helping people help themselves. These wonderful women have so little, work so hard, and some of them have severe health problems, and yet are so genuinely happy and appreciative for all the Church had done to help them. It is a very humbling experience. We are so blessed to get to see the Humanitarian Fund in action.
Our third handover was to celebrate the completion and commissioning of 22 boreholes and the launching of the hygiene and sanitation initiative for the second half of the Jinja Water District project. This was particularly fun because our daughter Darcy and her husband Mark were here from Wisconsin and got to participate and see it firsthand. We visited two completed boreholes and officially launched them by pumping water. One was particularly fun because it was by a big elementary school and all of the children came to watch the proceedings. Mark and Darcy really enjoyed all the interaction with the kids. Darcy had brought candy to give to the kids, but there were just too many and the candy would have run out before the kids did. We then drove back to the place of the handover. Big tents had been erected and an African band was there supplying much drum beating and chanting. There were about 500 people in attendance. They had come from all over the district. We were treated to one of the best African dance groups that we had seen up to this point. There were speeches by many politicians and Ron and I spoke and then Ron asked all the couples to sing “As I have Loved You”. Ron even performed his version of an African dance and the people clapped and laughed and really loved it. The Church got a lot of press coverage. There were people with cameras everywhere. In fact we found out the next day that we were all on TV and also it was announced on the radio. Those who saw the coverage said it was fairly long and was a very favorable news report about the church and what it was doing to help the people here in Uganda. At the end of the proceedings a big African dinner was served and the party was still going strong when we left. We and the other couples had to drive back to Kampala and we wanted to get home before dark.
It was wonderful to have Darcy and Mark visit. We took time out for a three day safari at Murchison Falls, where we saw many giraffes, elephants, warthogs and a big surprise and treat of driving along a dirt road and seeing 12 lions laying on the road sunning themselves. The guide had told us that they had not seen lions in the park for the last few weeks because the grass was so high they were totally hidden, so we really lucked out and took many pictures. The guide also told us that some people a few months earlier had been hurt when an elephant tipped over their pickup truck and stomped on it. As we were coming around a bend in the road there were several big elephants standing on part of the road and eating the bushes. We were very close to them and Darcy and Mark and the guide were standing up in the bed of our truck. It was pretty stressful. The guide had us backup and then make a run for it past them on the road. I have decided that elephants are not very nice and we would like to keep them at a distance.
We had lunch with the Editor of the Salt Lake Tribune a few weeks ago. She and 11 editors from major news papers and magazines in the United States came to Uganda to observe and write about some of the political situations, poverty, humanitarian work being done, and other issues that are facing this country. Salt Lake e-mailed us and said that she would like to contact us and discuss what the Church is doing in Uganda in the way of Humanitarian projects. She is not LDS, but is friendly toward the Church. She called us and we arranged to meet for lunch at her hotel. We found her to be a very charming, intelligent, open and easy person to be with She told us that years ago she had served in the Peace Corp. She was very interested in our projects and asked many questions about our work and what the Church was doing in the way of humanitarian work in Uganda. We had typed up a very long list of our projects and gave her a copy, so she could see how much the Church is doing here. The interview went very well and we felt a nice connection with her. She asked if she could send a cameraman and a reporter back to spend a few days and see our projects first hand. We have since received a very nice e-mail from her thanking us for meeting with her . We are looking forward to having people from the Tribune come to visit and showing them some of our projects
We had a wonderful experience a few weeks ago, we and three other senior couples including our mission president and his wife, President and Sister Christensen, took a few days off and traveled sourth to see the mountain gorillas in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. This trip had been planned for many months as permits to see them are scarce and have to be obtained many months before hand. These gorillas are the world’s most endangered apes. They are found only in a small portion of protected forests in Southwestern Uganda, Northwestern Rwanda and Eastern DR Congo. There are only about 700 individuals left in the world and about 320 are found in Uganda in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Only eight people a day are allowed to hike up to where they are and can only observe them for one hour. The threats to the mountain gorilla population and its habitat are many and one of the threats is the possibility of disease transmission from humans to gorillas so there are many rules to follow when and if you are lucky enough to even see them, as they travel back and forth from the Uganda side to Rwanda and the Congo. There were no promises that we would get to even see them. It is the rainy season here so they told us the gorillas tend to stay farther down the mountain and are sometimes easier to find. The group we were assigned to see was made up of ten gorillas and one silverback. It was a very strenuous climb, they were in a very large rain forest and the terrain was wet and very busy, when our guides finally found them they used pangas and machetes to chop their way through the dense undergrowth so we could even get to where they were. One thing they forgot to tell us was that it was the season for ants and they were everywhere, biting us through our clothes going up our pant legs to bare skin, they were terrible, but we did get to see the gorillas and took many pictures. The climb back down was slick and all of us fell a few times on our bottoms. Back at camp we nursed our ant bites and our stiff bodies, but thought the experience was wonderful, so we didn’t even mind. We have been working very hard and have many projects on our plate to work on. We all felt justified in the few days we took off to see these wonderful gorillas. It was an opportunity of a life time. They were very calm and seemed to be comfortable around us, but they really made us work to see them and take pictures. They kept moving around and climbing up higher and we had to keep climbing to keep up with them. All in all it was a wonderful experience. This Gorilla trip was a mother and father’s day present from Kami and Brent and it was much appreciated and something we will remember always. Also Ron and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary at the gorilla camp. The other couples arranged for us to be served an anniversary cake and they even sang to us. How can we top that next year?
We are excited about some of the new projects that we have also recently started. We are finally drilling new boreholes and not just rehabilitating boreholes that have broken down and need to have major repair work done (everything pulled out, replaced with new and the aprons repaired). The Kamuli project is the furthest from Kampala and is the most extensive and costly water project that the church has done in Uganda. Thirty five thousand people will have access to clean water, ten schools will have water systems, and a major hygiene and sanitation issue is a major component. Another cow program was started for four villages, vocational help has been purchased for a wonderful little school in the form of sewing machines and materials, and another upland rice project in partnership with the same farmers group we helped last year has been launched.
Our time here is going too fast only about 5 months left.
Love to all of you.
The Beans
