one of those days 7-29-10

No, it wasn’t one of those days. That would admit that such days happen more often than they should, that is to say, sometimes. Days like this should never happen. Never ever.

We are building the boat in open air. I think most of you know that. And that works here in Uganda since the weather is perpetually summer. The heat of summer, the humidity of summer, the thunderstorms of summer. We have figured out which way the weather comes from so we keep a weather eye out for thunderstorms. Today dawned bright and sunny. A few clouds here and there, but that’s always the case.

The goal today was to get 4 of the 2nd floors epoxied together starting from the back and the bottom beam epoxied on. we got a shipment of epoxy yesterday so we had everything we needed. my patience has waned to the point of not being able to take…well, anything going wrong really. Floors, 5, 4, and 3 went on ok. Issues with drills and Ugandan screws aside, it went swimmingly. I worked on the floors with my team while Bryce and his team worked on the beam. Bryce says something about rain. I want to get floor 3 on before we tarp the thing since I see a very small cloud above us. And it goes together, and the raindrops get bigger, then they are everywhere. I yell for everyone to get the tarp over the boat fast. Not fast enough, but when its raining, its never enough. I look up again to see how long the rain will last, and all I see is gray in every direction. I cant see very far because of all the rain. What happened to the blue sky? Bryce comes up and we just look at each other as the rain starts coming between the floors we haven’t put together yet. right thru the tarp. I go out to check the rain, its still coming. And the tarp has blown off part of the boat. So Bryce and I clamp it down. where did this rain come from?!? I go to the other section and grab the corner and pull it down. I feel like I should be sailing with the tarp catching that much wind. Did I mention im soaked by this time? Don’t think about the rain pouring down your face and down into your already soaked shoes, just catch the sail and tie it down. Ask someone for a clamp, makes sure it wont fly up again. Then turn to the sky and yell at it. Give it the finger. Sing “oh Africa”. Go down and tell the workers they are free to go eat lunch if they want to brave the rain. Here I am, soaked several times over, telling the dry students hiding underneath the boat that they can go have food. Oi. Go back up and try to consol Bryce who is feeling sick with the situation.

For those of you who haven’t ever worked with epoxy, let me explain the situation. Water does not mix will with wet epoxy. We didn’t know how bad it might be for the epoxy. It could have been enywhere from ok to useless. The team back in America assured us that as long as the epoxy attached to the wood before the water soaked it, the epoxy is fine. And that’s what happened. But we didn’t know that at the time. We thought all our work that day might have to be redone. We sat there looking at a week of extra work to fix the issues one freak rainstorm dropped on us.

I had to jump in all the puddles on the way back to the dorm. Nothing else to do when the world rains on you like that. There is no explanation, no way, no words to explain the day. and our brain power had shorted with the sheer magnitude of our situation.

Update;7-26-10

So we have the economy cabin reassembled. That’s the first story of the ferry. The boat looks fairly strange with all the joints waiting for fiberglass. The second floors sit leaning up against each other on top of the boat. Each day we get closer to the end. We have started the part where we cut holes all over the boat for vents and water intakes. After I pushed the first piece out I yelled “stop blowing holes in my boat!” it seemed fitting all things considered.

The student interns we have hired are all Ugandan engineers freshly graduated from university. But none save one have ever held a job. So basically they have the theories of how things work in their brain but have never seen the actual functioning. They have the work experience of most American 16yos (which is to say, none) but a much higher maturity level. It’s very interesting to teach them carpentry and how to use tools. We have had some interesting times when we ask for a tool by name and they give us a blank look instead. It isn’t even a specialized tool either. It’s just that they either have never heard of the tool, or they have never heard our name for it. Things like an open ended wrench (they call it a spanner), or a Phillips screwdriver (plus-sign or star, as opposed to minus sign). We informed them that actual star screwdrivers are different. Unfortunately, it’s the same with all our Ugandan workers, not just the students. I inventoried the tools one day with a worker. I would call out the name, and how to spell it, and he would write it down and also on a little cheat sheet which he took home and memorized.

So our group here has changed a bit. Only Bryce and I remain of the Americans. Jon-Paul and Rob both left last week. Our cook has stayed with us, and we have elevated her title to goddess of all things edible and tasty. We have Nicholas our faithful foreman and interpreter who lives nearby. Francis also lives nearby, but should not be confused with mo-zay (old man) Francis who is our driver. He prefers to clean the car at least 2x a week in his spare time even though we live on a dirt road. Then we have opus, who changes his hair style every week but wears a yellow bucket hat over it constantly to protect it.

Then our student interns. Paul, who I swear should have gone to seminary instead of becoming an electrical engineer. The guy talks constantly, either about scripture, or about how we need his help. he has one of the slenderest builds I have ever carried by a guy. Therein lies the joke when he offers his help to Bryce. The others are mechanical engineers. Chris, who has held a job and somehow has a very steady personality. He is quiet, but has a great sense of humor and irony. He shakes his head every time Paul starts talking again. Vianney, who is even quieter than Chris, and taller than the others. His English is the most understandable. Those two never complain, even though both have had malaria since meeting us. Then comes Moses, the small one. Blyce is arways his fliend, but blyce arways makes fun of his accent. All are faithful born again believers who don’t drink, smoke, or swear and don’t believe in spontaneity.

The last addition to our team here has been cloud (spelled Claude). He has traveled a bit and knows a bit about western culture which the others have somehow missed completely. Things like Rudolf the red nosed reindeer and Winnie the pooh and Zeus. He was a Buddhist monk in Thailand for a while, but has since decided to go with Catholicism out of respect for his family. He has asked how to read the bible so I supplied him with his first. His accent is the hardest to understand. Try to imagine a French African with elements of Thai and a southern twang.

I have gotten some interesting comments this week. “Julia, you must be half man.” Or “if only we were as peaceful as you look when you lie down.” I continue to surprise Ugandans for some reason.

Bryce and I get to go away next weekend to get a break. Western Uganda here we come. Hopefully we see the animals on a safari. My first African safari. Ill let you all know how it goes.

and im back

Sorry all. I have been away for a while. The internet shut off shortly after the bombings. Then when it did turn on again, my power cord had stopped working. No power to the comp. hence, no writing blog posts. So I have posted two very late posts that I wrote before all that happened. I have dated them so you have some idea when they were supposed to be posted.

Dad (Will) speaking

Julia asked me to let you all know that she is ok. No more bombings for now. They have had internet problems, so she has not been able to post. She and Bryce went to Queen Elizabeth Park over the weekend; relaxed there and saw lions, hippos, zebras, etc.

prayer

Many people minimize spiritual warfare. No one should. Its real and it affects everyone.

Are you a believer in Christ? Then someone hates you. It is his purpose to destroy you and his goal is for you to not want to do anything to the glory of God. He will make war against you till one of these things happens. And then he will celebrate. As whittaker chambers said, “You have enemies? Good. You have stood up for something.” Or something like that.

But for those of you who are Christians, there is good news too. For every war must have at least 2 sides. As much as you have an enemy, so much more do you have someone who will fight for you and protect you. So many people ignore the fight which God wages for us. In doing so, they diminish God and his place in the universe. He is more than your champion, He is more than your savior, He is more than anything He is to you. He is God. He is the Lord of life. His existence isn’t about you or for you. But He fights for you and saves you because He loves you. And that is awesome. It takes all the pressure off your actions and off your persistence. He is going to fight for you whether you think He should be happy with you lately or not. He just loves you.

And I want to apologize to all of you who pray for me and for this team. Especially those who persist to pray every day. im sorry. you pray for us in America, yet we rarely if ever pray as a team for ourselves. Sure, we pray as individuals, but that’s not the same. It is wrong to rely on you to pray for us, yet to not pray for ourselves. Im not usually part of the spearhead of a project, im used to being part of the support system. I am responsible to you all to take care of myself as much as possible so that your prayers can reach that much further in support of us. And we as a group are responsible to take care of ourselves as a group. But we haven’t been. This situation really struck me last week as a group gathered at my parents’ house to pray for us. I became very embarrassed of my lack of action towards our self-preservation in this most crucial of dimensions. The next day we began to pray as a team before each day. so we have entered the fight for us as a team. Not just as individual pray-ers. Sorry it took us so long.

bombings

For those of you who have heard the news, we are all safe and well. For those of you who haven’t heard the news, kampala has experienced several bombings. The death toll has reached 76, many of them not Ugandans. The night of the final game of the fifa world cup, somalian suicide bombers exploded in the middle of several gatherings of futball fans. We know every place that was bombed. We have been to most of them, but we rarely hang out there.

Oddly, that night, Sunday night, we are usually in kampala hanging out. But that day we left around 6pm because we were bored. I went to watch the game at the local resort down the road. The only reason we knew about the bombings was cuz someone in seattle called at 2am asking where we were. Sleeping, like we always are at 2am. Of course we are safe, why wouldn’t we be. Well, cuz there were bombings in kampala. …oh.

So now few people in kampala are out after dark. All the bars close at dark. President musevani has declared a week of morning. And obama has condemned the attack. Thanks obama, that will really show them. I remember a time when bombings which killed Americans would elicit a fairly blunt and explosive reaction from my country. Americans felt safe going to random countries. Now people who blow up Americans are merely verbally condemned. That’s just sad. Nearing pathetic actually.
Here at the sight, we feel safe. We are the only mzungus on our peninsula. They would have to actually come looking for us in order to find us. We don’t hang out much at major mzungu hang-outs. And we are going to stay out of those areas for a while.

So, we are safe. We are ok. Don’t worry about us.

lifting walls

The question is how to get the pre-fabricated walls on top of the ferry. In the Everett shop, we had cranes to do all this sort of work. The only figuring we had to do was how to strap each piece so it doesn’t break. But here we don’t have cranes of any kind. We work in the open air, working on our tans during sanding and epoxying. So how does one lift a wall on top a 7 foot tall hull?

Well, when lifting, we separate people into three categories; short, medium, and Bryce. Im in the short group. So we gather around the wall next in line to be hoisted up. After a bit of headscratching and bolstering up the courage to move the wall, we sigh. Bryce begins with a short synopsis of the plan to get it up the boat and mentions whether its breakable. Then he gets at one end of the wall and everyone else sorta sidles up around the wall awaiting instructions. Unfortunately, we are never evenly spaced so we have a few minutes of ordering people to places, much like a seating chart. Then we are ready to lift. And one, two, three, lift! Up goes the wall, and much grunting ensues as we walk towards the hull. Perhaps we spin the wall so that Bryce is at the front, but only by instruction. And lift! Bryce, with the meager help of everyone one in the medium category lifts one side to barely above the edge of the hull. Careful not the drop the other side to the ground. Short people lift with lumber to extend their arms, or run around the boat to help from on top the hulls. That route takes us up the eucalyptus ramp, onto the upper hull wall, down the makeshift steps, over the other walls lying on the floors, and over to the edge where we can see a bit of the wall sticking up over the side. Our job is to lift on the top edge while the others lift from the ground and pull the wall onto the floors. As the wall moves more onto the floors, medium people come up to help the short people. But we all must remember to not break or bend the wall. And those on top the boat must watch out for all the foam pieces and to not step on the other walls. Place the wall in the correct place with foam underneath it. Then gather around the next wall and repeat the process. Its really fun with bendy walls. They can look like this ~ sometimes getting them onto the boat. But with the bends spread out a lot more than that symbol.

We are beginning to realize that almost all the phrases we use to describe movement and direction are in fact colloquialisms not found in Ugandan vocabulary. Such as “move down” or “spread out evenly” or “what are you doing there?!”. Ah the joys of English and engrish coming together.