Ivan

Investing in the kids around here is pretty rewarding. This is Ivan:

From Ivan

Ivy

I probably spent 45 minutes with him the other day just messing around with the webcam so he could see himself. (Funny thing, you would have thought I could get a decent picture in that time, but I didn't...) I've been rewarded for that by his presence at my desk every day just to hang out. Ivan's only in P1 so his English is just starting to come along, but every day he'll slip in the door and give me a 'good morning', then give me a hug and start to communicate through hand signals. We've had enthralling conversations, such as "My name is Ivan" and "the drums are loud."

Anyway, I'm enjoying it and thought I'd post up. Otherwise things are good, though a bit slow. Jamie and I have had a great time over the past few weeks taking our office staff out for dinner at a local restaurant called Hajjat's. The restaurant has somehow perfected this fried beef thing. I couldn't even begin to describe it, but it's amazing. Amazing enough to balance out the fish-head soup.

Oh yeah! The Farm Borehole is finished.

From Ivan

Water all up in my farm

Remember that post? Things weren't going smoothly. Drilling company went, broke their rig, welded it and broke it again, finished, came back to install the pipes and all that came out was sludge. So they redrilled, installed, and dropped the pipes. Keep in mind - this borehole is 100 metres! Came back to get the pipes back out, and had to put so many other pipes back in to retrieve them that 15 of our builders couldn't lift them out - too heavy. Used a truck to lift them, broke the truck. Came back one final time with a huge crane and, after briefly breaking the crane, managed to lift them out and finish the install. End result is there is water on the Farm.

And not a moment too soon. Dry season continues, and though we've had a spattering there are just no words to describe the dust.

Cheers from Kibaale.