fixing the beetle

This week we are busy fixing the beetle. As the landrover broke down too, we are now completely without wheels, and it's very annoying. We rely on local taxis or the Bulungula shuttle, and we can't go on like that forever. So, the cars need to be fixed. The beetle was towed up to Mpame Store last week, and this week we were busy taking the old engine out, taking it apart completely, transfer all the good parts to the replacement engine (that also needs to be taken apart first), putting it all back together, and then get the fixed engine back into the car and hope that it starts. We're not quite finished yet, and we don't know if that thing is acutally going to start. Let's hope the best ... wish us luck!

digging out the spring

clearing and digging out the spring to make it deeper ... it's our resource of drinking water

some photos ...

our garden before the cow attack ...

 

high security zone

wow, it's been a while since this blog has been updated, sorry, we were quite busy here. Things have been going slow until now, it took a lot of time and effort to motivate the village to actually join in and volunteer their help to build anything. About two weeks ago I got really angry at a meeting and told them that they need to get their act together or this is never going to work. That without their help, it might take months on end to build that Lodge, but WITH their help in can be done in several weeks! We also handed over some funding to the committee, to use as they see fit, and explained what we need: building materials such as cement, poles, nails, thatching, bricks ... and there is only little money and it needs to go a long way. My getting angry, and us handing over some money, seemed to have done the trick. Shortly afterwards, some women appeard on the hilltop and started digging up the topsoil, to make bricks. Since then, more and more villagers come to help, and today we counted a total of 34 people working on the hilltop!! That's fantastic, we're very pleased with the new turn this whole thing is taking. The project has stood still for too long - for lack of funding and lack of help from the village. Thanks to some funding from friends in Switzerland, we could finally buy some materials again, and mobilize the workforce - and suddently things look different. Another reason for the people's sudden willingness to help might also be that the planting and harvesting season is over ... so they have some more time to spare. However, it's all looking very positive for now, and we're happy.

the other problem we had is the spring that supplied us with drinking water. At the end of the harvest, the farmers opend up their fields to the cattle, to let them eat the leftovers and clear the fields. To our dismay, they trampled not only through the fields but also through our spring, that lays between two fields and has therefore not needed a fence so far. Well, things change. When we came back from a weekend in Bulungula, we found our spring to be nothing more than a dirty, foul smelling mud hole. What a heartbreak. So we started fencing it in, with whatever scrap and leftover materials we had, but the cows kept on breaking through it, knocking everything over. Finally, thanks to the swiss funding, we managed to buy barb wire and build a strong fence around the water hole. The place now looksl ike a high security zone, and in fact, that's exactly what it's intended to be. No more destructive cows in there! Unfortunately, the sheep and sneaky goats might still get through, so we will have to make a plan about that. :-)