House Building Part 3: Brick Making

Our home is being built with compressed earth bricks, all of which were made on site from the dirt in our yard. It was really interesting to watch how these bricks were made and to see something that came right from our yard being used to construct our home. The first step in the process was to dig large holes in the ground to locate soil with the right composition for bricks. As we dug deeper and deeper, we eventually got to a reddish layer of dirt (marrum) that is ideal for brick making.

Marrum

After locating the right type of dirt, it was passed through a sifter to break down the large chunks into fine particles.

Freshly sifted marrum

The marrum was then mixed with a small amount of concrete to add strength to the bricks.

The mixture of marrum and concrete was fed into a compressor to make the finished product. It was really impressive to watch these guys hand press all of the bricks that were needed for our home - about 8,000 in total!

Freshly made bricks were sun dried for several days and then stored underneath a building to protect them from rain.

Hand made bricks from our backyard. Pretty cool!

House Building Part 2: Water Access

It is easy to take for granted having reliable water access in America. Not so in Uganda! One of the big obstacles we faced in building our home was getting water to the construction site. World Harvest Mission first brought running water to Nyahuka 20 years ago. Our team's water engineer oversaw a project that channeled water from a local waterfall to large storage tanks on the mission property. The water was then distributed to public water taps that were built in many locations in the community, providing the first clean water access for Nyahuka. Prior to this, drinking water came exclusively from the Nyahuka River, which is also used for bathing and washing.

Nyahuka falls, which brings water to our community via the Nyahuka river

Our initial plan was to bring water to the construction site by connecting to underground pipes from our neighbor's yard. 

We dug a trench about 50 meters to connect to existing pipes.

We bought two 1000L water tanks to store the water for brick making and concrete work. Here our local plumber is building temporary stands for the water tanks.

We hit a snag when we discovered that the water pressure was not high enough to fill our tanks. This was partly due to construction beginning in the dry season when there was not much rainfall. The other factor was that our water system is now 20 years old and is overly stretched by the current population.

With no water at the construction site when our building team was working on the foundation, we were forced to carry water uphill from the river in the valley behind our home for several days. One morning I was up at 6am carrying water in the dark up the hill from the river. After just a few trips, I was exhausted. I gained a deep respect for the women and children that I see carrying water on their backs everyday to take home for cooking and washing. When the construction team told us they would need 2000L of water per day for several weeks to pour a concrete foundation, we quickly realized that carrying water in jerry cans was not going to work as a long term solution.

After consulting with our missionary team's water engineers, we decided to buy a generator pump that would allow us to pump water directly from the river into our water tanks. We had to find the shortest distance from the river to our construction site and then negotiate with the local land owners to get permission to place a pump and pipes on their land.

After measuring the distance from the river to our water tanks, we bought 300 meters of plastic pipe in Fort Portal (2 hours away) and then bought a water pump in Kampala (8 hours away).

We were thankful to have a large roof rack on our car so we could transport the hose pipe.

When the water pump finally arrived we carried it down to the river to see if it would work. It was pure joy when we turned the pump on and filled our 2000L tanks in about 5 mins! It had previously taken all day (literally!) to carry this much water by hand....

House Building Part 1: Land Clearing

As our housing project is nearing completion, we wanted to add some posts to show how the house was made. Thank you so much to everyone who had a hand in this project - from design, to financial gifts, to encouragement, and prayer support. We could not have done this without you and are so thankful for your support. We are so looking forward to the completion of this home (hopefully by late August) so that we can finally transition in to a permanent location and turn our full attention towards ministry. Building this house has consumed a significant portion of our time and energy over the past nine months, but we felt it was an important step to getting our family settled. Thank you for partnering with us in this work! Here's a glimpse of how the house was made....

The land we are building on had previously been a cocoa shamba (farm) and was covered with cocoa and banana trees. Eli is standing under a banana tree in a small clearing. Much of the rest of the land was so densely planted that you could only see a few feet in any direction.

Our first task was to clear the land to get it ready for building. We hired a crew of local friends to help with this process. We had to cut every tree and pull up the roots by hand with axes, pangas, and hoes. It was quite an ordeal that took about three solid weeks of work.

These guys were amazing, doing all the work by hand and with no shoes.

One of the most gratifying parts of our building project has been providing jobs for many people in the community. Unemployment here ranges from 50-90%, depending on the time of year. More work is available during the peak cocoa harvesting season, but even then only about half of people have regular jobs. It has been a joy to see this housing project provide regular work for many people in our community over the past nine months. We have seen many of our workers using the money to provide food, clothing, school fees, healthcare, and housing upgrades for their families.

Eli getting in on the action by cutting banana trees.

Isaac "helping" pick up leaves.

Eli and his buddies enjoying a place to play on the freshly cleared land.

After clearing all the trees and roots by hand, we were able to bring in a tractor to level the ground in preparation for building....

Memorable Patients

During one of my village health days, the man pictured below graciously allowed me to use his home (in the background) to see patients. Over the next four days, I worked in his living room and bedroom to diagnose and treat patients and to do ultrasound exams. I was amazed to see someone open his home so freely to sick people. Many of this things I saw and treated were not typical things you would welcome into your living space!

Midway through the week, he told me that he was having tooth pain. When he opened his mouth, I could see that his teeth were severely decayed and two of them were on the verge of falling out. There were so loose he was having trouble eating. I am certainly not an expert in dentistry, but I had a little bit of training in tooth extraction during my fellowship year in International Medicine. It looked like his teeth would need just a little tug and his pain could be alleviated. I did the extraction in his living room under the light of a headlamp and it turned out to be very easy (phew!). When I saw him the following day, he had a big smile on his face and was happy to report that his pain was gone and he was enjoying food again. 

At the end of the week he took me aside and whispered in my ear to ask if I could give him something in exchange for letting me use his house as a clinic. I had trouble understanding what he wanted and had to get some help from my translator. As I waited for clarification, I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to meet his request. My translator came over to talk to the man and told me that all he was requesting was a bar of soap. We have found that soap here is a bit of a luxury item. Many people cannot afford to buy it. I was relieved that his request would be easy to meet. Stephanie wrapped up several bars of soap in a nice package and we were able to give them to this kind man as a gift at the end of the week. It was a vivid reminder to me of how few material possessions many people here have. This man was very content at the end of the week to have a few bars of soap and to be eating without pain again.

This little guy pictured above was having abdominal pain, distention and vomiting for 2 weeks. He was very tender and I was worried that he might have a ruptured appendix or bowel obstruction. I did an ultrasound to try to clarify the diagnosis. I was unable to see much of anything because his colon was full of air. I suspected a bowel obstruction. There was not much that I could do in a remote village that was far from the hospital. While thinking about what I could offer, I remembered that a common cause of bowel obstruction in African children is a parasitic infection called ascariasis. Inside the intestine the worms can become so large and numerous that they completely block the intestinal cavity. I decided to treat him with albendazole (an anti-parasitic medication) and recommended that his family take him to the nearest hospital for further evaluation in case he would need surgery. I prayed with the boy and his family because he looked very sick and I was concerned for his survival. I was delighted to see him one week later on follow-up. He no longer looked sick and his family told me that he had made a full recovery! His parents decided not to take him to the hospital and simply gave him the albendazole that I prescribed. He was cured with one dose, which is typical of ascaris infection.

Another memorable patient was a new mother who was in her late teens. She had delivered a baby 3 months before and had been getting progressively sicker during the course of her pregnancy. She was single and the baby's father was not involved in her life anymore. She looked to be near death when she was brought into clinic. She was unable to stand on her own and had to be carried in and out of the room. To make things more difficult, she was unable to speak. I found out that she had been mute since birth. I struggled to get a history, but found out that her main complaints were weakness, weight loss, poor appetite and cough. I had her caretaker help me to lay her down on a mat on the floor so I could examine her and do an ultrasound. When I lifted her, I estimated that she weighed about 75 pounds. After completing the exam, I still didn't have a firm diagnosis, but my best guess was that she had HIV, TB or an unidentified cancer that was causing her to waste away. I recommended that her family take her to a local hospital for further testing and I gave her a few medications that I hoped would help in the meantime. I knelt down next to her to pray and asked her name. Her friend told me that she was called Fragile. I got choked up when I heard this and had to take a few moments to compose myself. I thought it was so fitting for the patient lying in front of me - a 75 pound single mother who had been mute since birth and was wasting away from an unknown disease - to be named Fragile. I prayed that God would help this fragile woman who was teetering on the edge of life to receive an accurate diagnosis and treatment, or at least to receive comfort and compassionate care in her last days. I prayed also for the new baby that she was unable to nurse. I have not seen Fragile again since that clinic day, but I am comforted by the fact that God knows her name and by Jesus' words in Matthew 10. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." May God continue to be near to Fragile, one who is worth more than many sparrows.

I first met this lady above in Bubukwanga at a camp for Internally Displaced Persons. She had to flee her home when it was burned down by a neighboring tribe during a recent conflict. She lost everything she had and was living in a tent city with 10,000 other people. She had many physical complaints that day that I think were the result of the recent psychological trauma that she had been through. I also found that she had high blood pressure, so I started her on a medication and asked her to follow-up with a local healthcare provider in 1-2 weeks. About 4 weeks later I saw her again at a village health clinic I was doing about 45 minutes drive from the camp where she was living. She said she heard that I was having a clinic again so she found a ride to come and see me so she could follow-up on her high blood pressure. I was amazed! We had a good laugh that she was able to find us from so far away. I asked her if she had been able to move home, as many people from the camp were able to return several weeks after the violence ended. She replied, "I am never going back after what my neighbors did to me." I asked when I would see her again and she said she would find me at my next clinic site. I was happy that she had been able to keep her sense of humor through all her trials. I like to think of her as my first continuity clinic patient since she is the first one to follow-up with me for a chronic condition.

These two babies were born to friends of ours in the past few months. I did ultrasound exams for both moms to provide a due date and to make sure that the babies were growing normally. Stephanie and I also saw them several times for pregnancy related concerns as they approached delivery and have been providing routine and sick care for them ever since. We were thankful that both moms delivered healthy babies with no complications, a blessing in a culture with high maternal mortality. Hailey was given the honor by the families of naming both babies! She chose Ruth for the first girl and Rachel for the second. How many five year olds get to name two babies in just a few months time?!?

Just a glimpse of what I have been seeing on the medical side of life lately. We are thankful God has us here to serve and look forward to meeting many more memorable patients.