Gordon and Stephen survey the well site on the ground where the new diocesan center will go. The truck behind them is one of the 4 or 5 Sumadhura trucks it takes to put in a new borehole.
Here workers are removing drilling pipe so they can install water pipe.
Here you can see he actual drilling rig and waiting water pipes.
This young man played for us at Lui Parish on Pentecost. He was from some other part of Sudan -- not a Moru and didn't speak the language. He was very intent on making music.
Here we have Bishop Bullen, Rosemary the director of the midwifery school at Lui Hospital, which is located in a building that Jim and Mary called the Lui Holiday Inn, and Stephen Dokolo. They're sitting inside the office fence at the tea party that followed the VSAT dedication.
This is Festus Gyinaba, the archdeacon of Lui Archdeaconry. He celebrated the Eucharist at Lui Parish on Pentecost. Festus is taking more of a hand there for now; Sylvester Mazawa is currently studying at the Ngalamu Theological College in Mundri, so Repent and Christina are the priests in charge at Lui Parish. While we were there, though, Christina was in Juba.
Here is the Mothers' Union English class, which meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 2 to 4. The white woman is Heather, half of the CMS missionary couple stationed in Lui. She's from Ireland. Usually there are Moru teachers too, but on this day Heather was on her own.
These children have nodding disease. They live in the IDP camp at Wito (IDP=Internally Displaced Persons, as opposed to refugees, who by definition are outside their home country). There is a lot of nodding disease among the IDPs, and a lot of concern about it. The adults there almost begged me to take photos and tell their story; they desperately want doctors and public health researchers to come and figure out what's causing this horrible, deadly Moru-specific illness and how to cure or prevent it.
For me this little girl was the most poignant figure of the trip. She too has nodding disease.
Cooking and laundry in the IDP camp look pretty much like cooking and laundry in our compound.
The IDP camp stretches for a great distance -- I heard that there are over 1000 people there now.
The buildings at the IDP camp seemed sound, and it was one of the neatest, cleanest places I saw. Unlike Lui, it wasn't divided into compounds -- families seemed to have just one tukul apiece.
Our three conferences all occurred in the same space -- the transept of Fraser Cathedral. We had a blackboard and plenty of chalk. This is the youth conference; Jim is at the board and Mary is sitting up front.
A project we celebrated with a dedication ceremony was the installation of the VSAT system for Internet at the office, which is currently only a semipermanent building, constructed of mud but with a cement floor and corrugated steel roof. The VSAT dish (do you see it to the left of the office?) is much larger than the BGAN one, which still sits atop the office roof.
The grinding mill in Kediba is the new initiative of the Mothers' Union, funded by a grant from the United Thank Offering of The Episcopal Church. Here it is, below, in its semipermanent structure, left. Stephen is going back to the mill vendor in Kampala to replace a few parts that were damaged during installation; currently the mill isn't in use.
Uganda is much richer than Sudan. The soil seems richer, and so do the people. One day here and Lui seems very far away indeed.
Yesterday on our way to Mundri we saw a group of monkeys running across the road. We weren't fast enough to get photos.
Being at the source of the Nile was like coming to the place where the world began - for me, anyway.
Yesterday on our way to Mundri we also saw an accident. A car that had sped past us lost control and flipped over. Jim's medical adrenaline kicked in, and we stopped, but luckily the people in the car were only shaken.
Stephen and Lillian have taken in Lillian's niece Vicki because her mother died. Her father had put her with family members who were making her dig their garden instead of going to school. Vicki is seven years old.
We are just about 10 km from the Entebbe airport. We'll see you on the other side of the air travel time warp.
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This evening Stephen's wife Lillian brought their son David, niece Victoria, and friend Jennifer to visit us and have dinner at the guesthouse. It was great fun debriefing with Lillian! David, at four, is fluent in English, Arabic, and Moru. They have another three semesters here before moving to Lui.
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