VISIT TO UGANDA AND THE NILE RIVER

We went to Uganda the 21st of July through the 25th to do training for a new couple who just arrived there a couple of weeks ago.  They are Ralph and Madilyn Howard from South Ogden. 

Ralph and Madilyn

 We also went with Bruce and Melinda Kinghorn, who are the other couple we work with here in the Area Office.  Normally, just one couple would travel to do training, but because this is the first training Susan and I have done, Phillip asked us all to go.  Besides, the Kinghorns will be finishing their mission in September, so Susan and I  will be doing all of the training in the next several months to come. The Howards had a couple of weeks of “crossover” with the previous couple.  We like that to happen because if gives the new couple a chance to explore their new country and visit some of the projects that have been done. 

We arrived there in the evening and were picked up by Godfrey, who works in the mission office, and the Howards.  We were surprised to see large crowds of people out on the streets still shopping in the dark.  Godfrey said that most of the shops are open every night until midnight and then re-open at 6 a.m. the next morning.




These are some fancy couches and chairs

Some beds for sale

There are about 100 bananas in each of those bundles

 He said that everything is cleaned up and stored for the night. Many of the shops had huge amounts of different things (shoes, furniture, clothes, etc.) for sale sitting out on the ground. It would be an enormous job each night to clean it all up.   I was amazed to see the throngs of people, adults and children.  We commented that it almost looked like a parade.

The neighborhood lumber store

Does anyone have a toothache?

InstaCare?

 The driving, traffic congestion etc. is crazy there.  We thought Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was bad, but the driving in Kampala makes that look like a Sunday ride in the park.  Cars, trucks, motor scooters (boda bodas) and pedestrians everywhere, and the only rule of traffic is that whoever gets his nose in first owns that spot in traffic.  Driving, even for passengers is not for the faint of heart.

 

 

One of the many taxi stands

Notice the 'no parking' sign

 

She must have a strong neck

 

The Howards live in a nice apartment building.  There are apartments for the young Elders and Sisters also.  Each morning at 6 a.m. we could here the Elders having a great time playing soccer in the courtyard  below our window. As it was in Uganda, there is a high wall surrounding their building with electrical wires and a 24 hour guard at the gate.

 

Each apartment has it's own water tank.  When Elder and Sister Howard first arrived, their water was brown and they thought that was normal. One of the sister missionaries visited them and told them there was something wrong.  They were able to get their water tank cleaned and it looks much better now.

 

The missionary apartments

 

A tree full of avocados waiting to be picked

 

 

 

View out the window.  It was very lush and green.

 

 

We went to the Mission Home and visited with President Chatfield for a few minutes and then went to a nice mall for lunch and did some grocery shopping.  Even though the traffic was crazy, Elder Howard did a great job and we saw lots of interesting things on the way.

 

A cart full of chickens going for a ride on the back of the bike

 

A typical shopping area

 

We worked really hard, training E/S Howard from 9am till 8pm Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday evening from 7 to 10 to finish up some financial stuff.  They were great students, anxious to learn and eager to get busy trying to help people there in Kampala.
Stay tuned for Part Two, our trip to the Nile.

 

A Visit to Zambia

As part of our responsibilities we visit the senior couples out in the different countries.  Each of these couples are called to the mission in the country in which they reside, but as Welfare Service Missionaries.  That means that the mission president is their ecclesiastical leader, but their work is all directed by the our Area Welfare Office in Johannesburg.  Sometimes it makes for a very interesting dynamic.

Last week a new couple, Elder and Sister Howard arrived in Uganda to replace E/S Hannan who are just finishing their mission.  After they've had a couple of weeks to settle-in, we, along with E/S Kinghorn will travel to Kampala to do training with them.  We'll teach them how to find projects to do, how to contact partner organizations to work with, how to implement and monitor these projects and how to pay for them.  This will be our first trip to do training.  Actually, the Howard are the first new Humanitarian couple we've had in our Area since we arrived.

A few weeks ago Phillip asked us to travel to Zambia.  We flew to Lusaka, Zambia to visit Elder and Sister Howard and Cynthia Bodily who are from Tempe Arizona. They have been on their mission for 9 months now.  They had nine children in 12 years and now have 36 grandchildren!  The oldest grandchild is only 14.  Last year they had 8 new babies born.  Cynthia is a wonderful cook and we had some delicious meals and in all, had a really great time with them.

They are working on a maturation kit project right now and took us out shopping with them for supplies.  They are working with some Women's organizations who will learn to make the kits. 



Looking for fabric in the outdoor stalls in Lusaka



Beautiful, bright fabrics (you are seeing the entire shop)

The kits are for young girls and women to use when they are having their menstrual periods.  Young girls often times can't attend school during that time and many of them end up dropping out.  The women can't afford to buy disposable pads but these fabric pads can be washed and used over and over. They were getting prices for materials so we went along with them. 

Produce for sale

...and more



The sidewalk in front of the nicer stores

 

 



She seemed excited that we wanted to take her picture

 

The streets were very crowded with people and cars.  Lots of the shops were in buildings on the main drag, but then there was also alley after alley with just stalls set up.  At one point we were told there was a seller down a side alley who had some of the materials we were looking for.  We walked off the main street down a narrow, dark alley and then a smaller, darker side-alley that took off from that one.  It was almost too dark to see where we were walking.  We passed stall after stall of men and women trying to sell most everything you could imagine.  The further we walked the more nervous I (Susan) got. 

When we finally reached the right stall, there was really nothing there to look at.  I was sure relieved and couldn't wait to get back out into the sunshine.  The biggest shops were still small but full of all kinds of things.  There were things on shelves that were way above our heads or just hanging from the ceiling.  The proprietors would reach up with a stick and lower the things people wanted to look at.  They made use of every inch they had.

The Bodilys live in large apartment that is part of a 'tri-plex' .  There is a 2 bedroom unit for the young sister missionaries, one for the Bodilys, and one that was empty at the time for us to use.  There is a gated wall and electric wire around it with guards 24 hours a day.

Nice big tri-plex



Dan, the security guard for tri-plex

 

 

 

 

Door lock plus door padlock plus 2 bars padlocks

 



 We didn't ask why all the locks when there's a high wall, electrified wire and a security guard

 

They padlock themselves in, at night, then hope there's no fire

 

 

 

This is Malaria country so we got to sleep under this cool net

 

 

The Bodilys are the ones in this photo that are not us

 

The Bodilys also drove us out into the countryside, to visit a tiny building where two nurses have set up a clinic. There is no electricity and when they deliver babies at night, it is by candle light. The Bodily's are also providing maturation kits for the clinic. These two women are the only medical people for an area of about 10,000 people.

The health clinic

Bodilys with one of the two dedicated nurses/midwives

  The Church had drilled a well for them but somehow it became contaminated with chromium.  The pump has now been chained up until someone can find a solution for the contamination.

The contaminated borehole with hand pump

During our 3 days there we reviewed with E/S Bodily, all the projects that are ongoing in their area.  Besides Zambia, the Bodilys also have responsibility for the neighboring country of Malawi.

When the Bodilys first arrived on their mission one of the first orders of business for them was to sort out problems with a water project in Malawi.  They were introduced to the contractor, Brother X...... who also happened  to be the branch president there. 

Brother X...... presented E/S Bodily with a very nice hand-carved plaque with a cut-out of the African continent and which says: "Welcome to Malawi Elder and Sister Bodily."  Sister Bodily said that made her suspicious right away (think, bribe)  and that she had a very bad feeling about the man.

They're too embarrassed to take this plaque home

The previous senior couple had used X...... to drill many wells with apparently, very little oversight. The Church had by now, made him a very wealthy man.  The year previous to Bodily's arrival, X...... was supposed to have drilled 5 boreholes near a village in rural Malawi.  As the Bodilys were looking at photos of the 5 new wells, they noticed that some of the photos were actually just of the same borehole, only taken from a different angle or direction.  They suspected that the contractor really hadn't even drilled two of the wells.

Each water project we do is supposed to have a Site Monitor hired by the senior couple.  This Site Monitor is an independent contractor who visits the various worksites to make sure things are being done correctly and honestly.  Well, they also discovered that the Site Monitor for these boreholes was X......'s brother-in-law.  This contractor was shut down and further payments were suspended, pending an investigation.

One Sunday during this investigation, the people of the branch came to church only to find that the gates to the church grounds were shut and padlocked.  Branch President X......'s car was parked in front of the gates and he announced that nobody was getting onto the grounds until the Church paid him for his boreholes.  The police were finally called and he was taken away to jail.  X...... is no longer the branch president.

Needless to say, this has become a big issue and there are now suits and counter-suits going on. 

This is just an example of the problems that can happen when the senior missionaries do not follow correct procedures as they do a project.  These water projects often run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and it just creates so much temptation for some of the people. 

We learned that X...... actually started out as a Site Monitor for the Church, but when he saw the huge potential for profits, he formed he own "company."  Being familiar with the processes of doing a water project, he simply got the couple to give him a project, and then, acting as a General Contractor, just arranged for various other companies to come in and do the actual work.

Don't get us wrong, there really are a lot of great water projects that have been done in our area.  Most of the senior couples really are very conscientious about following correct procedures and they do try to initiate projects that help and bless the lives of the people.  We love and appreciate our senior couples.

FINDING MS RHINO

When last we left our story, our helicopter was just arriving.  It landed and picked up the vet, one of his interns (there were 3 young ladies from the US), and a niece of Sean’s.  Brenna is from Indiana, and had just been home from a mission in Thailand for about 3 months.  She graduated from BYU (communications) before her mission, and since coming home already had a job as a news anchor in a smaller city in Texas.

 

After about 10 minutes they radioed back and said they had spotted 2 black rhinos.  The black rhinos are extremely rare so everyone was very excited about that.  This vet had tagged 232 rhinos up until that time, but had never tagged a black rhino.  The pilot said there was a mother and a larger calf together and the calf had an injured leg.  The vet wanted very much to treat the calf’s injuries along with tagging it.

 

The veterinarian

 

The helicopter flew back, the vet prepared the tranquilizer dart and they took off again.  The rest of us piled into three vehicles and headed to the area where the rhinos were spotted. 

Off we go

 

While following the helicopter, we came across the largest herd of giraffes we had ever seen.  There were close to 20 giraffes with their babies.  We didn’t have time however, to stop and get a good look at them or take decent pictures.

 

As we drove, the helicopter flew back towards the black rhinos again.  But they flew around searching for almost 30 minutes, until we thought they were going to run out of gas and have to abort the whole activity.  That was very nerve-racking for all of us.  Finally it was decided they had to give up on the black rhinos and look for a white one. 

 

Within about 5 minutes they had two spotted and were chasing them to where our vehicles were parked.  All of a sudden we saw this rhino come crashing out of the brush towards the road right by us.  We could see she had a dart stuck in her rear.  She came to a stop about 20 feet from the road and just kind of stood there frozen. 



Why does my butt sting?

Her sister then appeared out of nowhere and ran circles around her several times, trying to encourage her to get moving.  At one point the sister even nudged her.  The helicopter had to swoop down to try to scare off the sister.  After several attempts, the sister ran off into the bush.  The darted rhino’s knees buckled and she just kind of collapsed, going down in a kneeling position. 

 

One of the senior sister missionaries had the assignment of throwing a towel over the rhinos eyes, and another one stuffed socks into each of her ears.  That was to try to soften the impact of what was going on around her.
 

The vet asked us to try to tip her on her side because he was worried about the position in which she went down.  He was concerned about her legs because evidently they don’t have great circulation.  About 8 of us got together on one side of her to try to tip her over.  We had no luck.  It was like trying to push over a truck.

 

One of Sean’s nieces had the job of sitting by the rhino’s nose and keeping track of her respiration (about 6-8 per minute).  A nephew helped insert an oxygen tube into her nose.

 

 

The vet inserted a pick line behind the rhino’s ear in case he needed to administer any emergency drug in a hurry.  He then proceeded to mark the rhino’s ears. 

Marking and cutting the ears

 They marked each ear with a marker for 3 notches in a particular pattern.  The number and position of the notches makes it possible to identify the rhinos from the air.  Our rhino was number 233.  He then took a big pair of cutters and cut the notches in her ear. 


Putting ointment on her ears

 That was just like cutting into a heavy weight leather belt.  They then put some ointment on the ears to clean the cuts and help stop the bleeding.



 

The next order of business was to drill about a 3/16” diameter hole into each of the two horns and insert a microchip.  If police ever found the horns in someone’s possession, they could prove their origin in that way. 


This horn is worth $65,000 to poachers

 Another microchip was inserted beneath the skin behind one of her ears.  A piece of hair was pulled out of her tail to use for a DNA sample. 

 

They always name their rhinos and this one we named “Lady Grace.”

 

All during the time the rhino was down, Sean’s niece, Brenna, was doing little “interview shots” around Lady Grace.  Sean would turn on the camera, and she would say something like “you can see now that Doctor Everett is drilling a hole in the horn of this 7 year old White Rhinoceros.”  That was kind of fun to watch too.  She will take the footage back home and put together a little rhino piece.

The work is finished and it's time for some photos

Lady Grace

 

After close to an hour, we all got back into our vehicles and the vet gave Lady Grace an antidote shot.  Within 1 minute she was up on her feet, and within another minute, she trotted off into the brush.

 

 

She was in and out of our lives just like that, but we'll certainly never forget this experience. 

 

RHINO RESCUE

At the area office is a church employee named Sean Donnelly.  He is the Public Affairs director for the Africa Southeast Area.  For the past 10 years or so, Sean and his wife Diane have been involved with helping to save the Rhino population in Africa.  We’ve probably mentioned it before, but more than 1,000 rhinos were poached last year just so people could cut off their horns.  They are smuggled to China and Viet Nam mainly, for their supposedly medicinal powers when they are ground up.  Four or five weekends a year, Sean organizes a group to go down to the Kruger National Park area to tag, and evaluate rhinos.  If he gets a group of about 15-20 people together, the amount each person pays, is enough to cover the cost of the “Rhino Rescue.”

             

The Klaserie game preserve is a 6-7 hour drive from Johannesburg.  It is a private reserve of about 200,000 acres.  That sounds pretty big until you figure that the Kruger National Park game preserve is more than 4,800,000 acres.  It borders right on Kruger Park game preserve.  There are no fences between Kruger and Klasserie, meaning the animals are free to roam between the parks.  The difference is that because it is private property, the owners have more leeway with what they do on their property with lodges, hotels, etc.

 


A pod of hippos at the watering hole

One of the many beautiful birds

We left Johannesburg at 6 am Thursday morning.  We reserved/rented a van from the area carpool and rode with two other couples. 

 

Mama baboon giving her baby his daily bath

 

We got to our “modest” bungalow about 2:30, and Diane Donnelly fixed a nice Dutch oven dinner for 21.  We left at 6am the next morning and drove about 30 miles to Kruger Park and did a “self-drive” in the park and saw lots of great animals.  We met up at a picnic area in the park at 11am and Donnellys had prepared a nice bacon and egg breakfast on gas barbecue grills.  After breakfast/lunch, we drove some more in Kruger Park then went back to our place in the Klasserie Reserve.  Donnellys fixed us another great Dutch oven dinner Friday night.

 

A crocodile sunning at the watering hole

 

Saturday we left at 5:30am and drove into the Klasserie reserve.  We rode with guides in their open safari vehicles.  Two people in front then 3 rows of 3 people each in open vehicles.  They did have nice sturdy canvas half doors on them in case a lion wanted to jump in.  At 6:45 am we met up in a big clearing.  Waiting for us was the warden from Klassserie Reserve along with a veterinarian, his daughter and 3 interns from the US.  The vet showed us all the drugs he uses to make the “cocktail” to bring down the Rhino.  Because these drugs are so powerful, he doesn’t mix the dosage until they have identified just how big the rhino is that he has to dart.  Right at 7am, the helicopter arrived, then the grand adventure really began.

 

NEXT TIME:  FINDING MS RHINO

 

BOTSWANA

On Wednesday, April 29, Susan and I went to Gaborone, Botswana along with Phillip Moatlhodi, the Area Welfare Manager and immediate "boss."

Gaborone, the capital of Botswana is just about 10 miles across the border from South Africa.  It is about a 6 hour drive from Johannesburg.  The purpose of the trip was to evaluate a wheelchair project that had been started there the previous year. 

In happier times with Flat Stanley (may he rest in pieces)

The trip to Botswana was really interesting and fun also.  Susan and I got the chance to visit with Phillip that whole time and we learned lots about him and his family, as well as about the culture of South Africa.  I think that sometime soon we'll do a blog entry just about Phillip.  He's a very interesting guy with a lot of responsibility in the Africa Southeast Area.  I don't know why our area is called Africa Southeast.  There is nothing in the "Southwest that is not in our area.  Everything South of Sudan, Chad and Nigeria is in our area.  They should really just call it the Africa South Area.

We had a meeting scheduled with the people from the Ministry of Health for Botswana for 2:30.  We were also going to meet John and Marcia Dow.  They are "Short Term Specialists" for wheelchairs.  They are actually serving as missionaries, but are stationed at their home in California.  They make several trips each year to Africa (and also Brazil) to implement these wheelchair projects.  Between trips they spend a lot of time online with partner organizations (like Ministries of Health) in several countries organizing these projects and evaluating the reports from on-going and previous projects.  They really are good people and very well organized.  We get copied on a lot of the emails they send back and forth (probably about 20-30 each week).

On the right, the blue, white and black Botswana flag

The Dows were flying to Botswana from previous meetings the day before in Namibia and their plane was about 2 hours late.  That was actually a good thing because Phillip got us there about 2 hours late also.  Nobody though, seemed to make a big deal about the time (hey, it's Africa).

We met in a conference room at the Health Ministry building.  There were 3 ladies from the Ministry as well as us from the Church.  Brother Dow started the meeting by saying that the Church is in the process of evaluating "Partner Organizations," choosing just the best ones to be able to continue working with.  He noted the problems with ongoing projects (late, and incomplete reports) and asked if they were really interested in continuing with the partnership.

Well, that really put the fear into them, because the Church's donation of 500 or so, $200-$300 wheelchairs is worth a great deal to them.  And to a smaller country like Botswana, that really is a huge deal and means all the difference as to whether or not they are able to help their disabled people.

A wheelchair recipient's house in Molepolole

The Botswanans begged forgiveness and promised to get their reports up to date by the end of May. They were told that if that went well and also the field evaluations the next day, the Church would consider another donation of about 500 chairs.

[The current wheelchair program consists of getting a "Memorandum of Understanding" (contract), signed and then ordering the wheelchairs either from China or South Africa.  Once the wheelchairs are "in country," the Short Term Specialist couple comes again to the country.  This time they bring a team of 2 or 3 trainers with them.  These trainers are physical or occupational therapists who are currently working, but use their vacation time to come train the therapists in the countries.  The Church pays their expenses, but not any salaries.

These trainers teach usually about 15 therapists who travel to the training site from all over the country.  They're taught a very comprehensive training course on how to properly prescribe the chairs.  They have to understand the nature of a person's disability, and how and in what environment the chair will be used.  There are different types of chairs for indoor use, outdoor use, active (sports) use and even ones that are best for going in the sand or rough terrain.  They take measurements of the person to make sure they get the correct size chair.  A chair that is incorrectly prescribed can actually do a person more harm than good.  We've seen pictures of people, that because of sitting 16 hours a day in an ill-fitting chair, have spines that have become grossly deformed. 

The therapist then records lots of information about the patient and chair that was given him, on the Church approved spreadsheet.  Each therapist is then responsible to forward this information to the Health Ministry where it is compiled and sent on to brother and sister Dow.  The Church insists on knowing the identification of each recipient, because people in the past have abused the system.  Some people would go to therapists and get more than 1 chair and then sell them.]

Recipient #1 and his visitors

On the second of our trip, we met again at the Ministry of Health and loaded into a large van.  There were us 5 from the church, and 6 from Botswana, including 2 therapists that had been trained the previous year.

We traveled 50 kilometers north to the city of Molepolole.  We first stopped at the regional center for disabilities where we picked up their therapist.  Our purpose was to meet with random recipients, evaluate them, their chairs and the donation process. 

This is our whole group with Phillip next to Susan

The first gentleman we met was about 20 years old and very active.  He even played basketball in his chair.  The Dows interviewed each person and went over a list of about 30 questions.  Among other things, each person was asked if they had to pay anything to get their chair (against Church policy).  His chair was 6 months old and the seat and back were already tearing.

The second person was about a 70 year old lady who was missing both legs just below the knees.  She actually came walking out of the house on her knees (she wore kneepads).  Her chair was almost like new because she seldom used it around the house, preferring to walk on her knees.

Recipient #2 with her daughter and grandchildren

Without her chair

The third gentleman was about 40 years old, had a large yard with a nice garden that he tended.  His chair fabric was also tearing.  In his yard was an Acasia tree which is one that elephants really love to eat even though it has thorns that are 2 or 3 inches long.

These thorns are wicked

The fourth person was a 17 year old student who we visited at his school.  He also had his chair for about 6 months but it was determined that he'd had a chair(s) previously that had not been correctly fitted.  His spine was deformed from slumping sideways in a chair that was too big for him and did not properly support him

Marcia Dow interviewing, John Dow in shirt and tie

He was very happy to have his picture taken

After the visits we went back to the Center for Disabilities, had another meeting where they served us a nice lunch, and then rode back to Gaborone. 

We stayed another night at our nice hotel there, then drove back to Johannesburg on Friday.  It was a very instructional trip and we're so glad we were able to do it.  (Wow! What a long entry!)

By the way, the Dows said that the therapist who prescribed these 4 chairs had done an excellent job, both with the fitting, and with her paperwork.