blog « Hackers For Charity

On Tuesday we started digging holes for poles, setting them in place and leveling them. A ridiculous amount of work went into this including grading, measuring, leveling, digging, cutting and in some cases undoing a wall or two because we screwed something up. This building stuff is so foreign. Jessie is teaching me so much.

But even understanding basic building techniques is not enough. For example, once we know exactly where a pole needs to go and we put in a market, someone has to dig. So they generally take out the stake and start to dig. A rock might knock them off course, or each person might decide to dig in the left or right of the stake. The result can be a mess. Ugandans are very smart about building in their own way, but most structures are relatively small, like a 16′ x 8′ building split into two homes or “rooms”. Most buildings are not bigger than that because wood is cut at 8′ lengths and larger projects require a small margin of error. In our case, we are saving money by building larger structures (each with 8′ x 8′rooms) with shared walls. But this means smaller margins for error and “western” techniques that are frankly hard to explain to the locals. We are trying to pass on the techniques but also trying to keep to a relatively good pace so this doesn’t turn into a longer project than it needs to be.

That’s the poles. Now the politics. Jessie, Kelli and I spent some time talking to the land owner representative. It turns out the land the entire village is using is owned by the Ministry of Works/UNRA. So all the hundreds of residents, including the fire victims are squatters. And to make matters worse, UNRA sent them a legit eviction notice effective Jan 9th, 2012. The people grumbled, and sought a reprise. The UNRA rep mentioned that the residents have never asked to stay on the property and if they worked together and asked to stay (say for a year) they would likely be granted a reprise. The LC1 is the people’s government representative so the task of organizing this falls to him.

The afternoon went like this:

UNRA: “The bulldozers are coming. But if you produce a letter asking to stay maybe we can stop this. If you can’t organize enough to produce a letter then we’re sorry.”

Us: “Thanks for the offer. We’ll get right on it.”

LC1: “I will schedule a meeting with the whole village, then draft a letter an meet with the LC3 (his boss’ boss) and get this signed by the Mayor.”

Us: “But the bulldozers are coming!”

The Mayor was beaten and stoned earlier this week. I’m sure he’s busy. And this has nothing to do with the LC3 or the mayor, but the local politicians want face time and community “vote for me” schmooze time. Sound familiar? So construction is on hold.

Here’s a fisheye of the progress today:

We began the day painting the poles with wood sealant. This is nasty sticky stuff.

Jessie began working on a prototype for a daytime interior light. This bottle of water (with a teaspoon of bleach) is recessed into the ceiling. When the light hits the bottle it diffuses into the room and can give off as much light as a 55watt bulb.

The hard work today was running the remaining site lines and clearing rubble from the worksite. This was really tough work. We all have more than our share I inhales dust, blisters and aching muscles.

Even the children were hard at work carrying the heavy poles from Calvary.

By the end of the day, the site was looking really good. Click this image for a fisheye view of the site:

And here’s a standard view of the site:

The day ended with the thunder of teargas canisters from riots in the market and thunder from the sky as rain and hail (hopefully) marked the end of the hot season and the start of the rainy season.

More of your donations in action:

Continuing with Saturday, I also met with an engineer from the US named Bryce who helped us with some details about building. We need to do some serious grading to prevent water erosion and our design needs cross braces.

I met with Grace, our carpenter and foreman, to figure out what tools we need for that work. We used HFC donated funds for that equipment which included rakes, hoes, pick axes, shovels, post hole diggers, rebar pieces and twine for marking the site.

Jen and Kelly were busy organizing the massive pile of donations from the community into separate groups for each family that lost their home. This was a lot of work as the donations were of all sizes and types. They spent several long hot hours working with all this in preparation for the distribution Saturday night which went really well. This photo shows the group that received donations. Each is acting as a head of household.

I met again with the chairman to sort out the list of fire victims to figure out who lived in each home. This helps with the distribution but also with an attendance list so we can learn who in the group might not be helping with the work. We learned that some perfecty healthy residents are sitting around “letting the Mzungus build them a house”. These people are in the minority and the chairman knows who they are. I have no idea what he’ll do about it but so far he’s been honest and fair.

We also had a nice lady come and distribute clothes on her own. We heard the ruckus over in the field and investigated. She told us she was only giving donations to victims but I didn’t recognize any of the crowd from meals at night and none of them had our bracelets on. I’ve been working for hours on the list of victims with the chairman and we don’t even have it completely sorted, but she was convinced she had it sorted. Also, the heads of practically every household and many of their children were at Calvary working on the poles so they all missed out. She did a good service for the community and has a good heart and it reminded me of myself three years ago when I would just jump in and recklessly do something good even if it wasnt well planned, coordinated or sustainable. Good is good. Anyway we were glad to see some benefit for the surrounding community.

We also started cutting rebar to act as stakes and did the initial layout of the individual buildings. It’s cool to see the buildings taking shape.

The night wrapped up with the meal
Service and Calvary showed the Jesus film to about three hundred people in the village. It ended up being a 16 hour day, but it was wonderful.

Saturday was a really long day. I arrived at Calvary around 8:30 and met with the local chairman and the fire victims to begin stripping the eucalyptus poles.

Having never stripped bark from a tree before, I watched the process for a while and decided it looked easy and fun.

They used machetes to separate the bark at the base and then peeled it away from the tree with their fingernails. Once they had a couple of inches to grab, they pulled the bark in long strips revealing the gorgeous white wood underneath. All in all it looked like they were peeling massive bananas. They chatted in Luganda as they worked. Beyond fun, it looked somehow therapeutic. I decided to jump right in.

The first thing I realized was that it was getting very hot in the sun. I also realize that the trees were extremely heavy. I already knew this from pulling the poles off the truck on Friday, but that was easier.. we only had to drag them off the truck bed. This was tougher because the trees had to be rolled around to get access to all the bark and the poles weren’t straight. My first tree smashed several toes and nailed me in the shins just to let me know who was in charge. That first tree took me an hour as I peeled tiny spindly pieces of bark one layer at a time. The chairman, working beside me, finished five in the first hour. By the time I got to the second tree I had figured out one of the secrets was to get every layer of bark in one shot. I dug deep for my first piece an before I knew it, I had completely stripped a third of the tree in one long strip. It took time because I had to stop every now and then to work around a branch or a knot, but the result was worth it. Eventually I completely stripped that tree in three long strips. (check out the picture of the tree and the three strips).

After two hours I had stripped four trees and I was soaked with sweat. No one else had even broken a sweat. These guys are tough. I’ve got chunks of bark jammed into my nail beds and I was told the will have to “grow out”. By eleven I was already pretty exhausted but it was time to meet with Nile Ply to see about their wood donation. Jessie and I headed over there.

As it turns out they are donating almost all the wood we will need except for about 50 sheets which thanks to your donations we can afford to buy if we need to. The wood will be available on Tuesday.

My best pole: three strips, about 45 minutes of work:

The 214 poles you donated arrived on Friday straight from the eucalyptus plantation. The were piled in a 50 year old Ford that looked like Mater’s grandfather. (The movie Cars, right?)

After the amazing response from many generous donors, on Friday we bought not only the poles but also hammers, nails, saws, wood sealant, plywood for the doors, etc.

This is a lot of the necessary stuff we forgot about.

Thanks everyone for the donations!

A sixteen hour day. Every muscle wasted. Scratches, scrapes and scars from stuff I lost track of today. I don’t recognize my own hands. Too tired to blog anymore. Strangely good day.

Disclaimer: Hackers are making a huge difference in Uganda but we are certainly not alone in this effort. Read on for the whole story.

When I witnessed the fire that destroyed twenty-six homes a stones throw from where we live in Jinja Uganda, my heart sank. I felt hopeless.

As we mobilized with donations from the hacker community to feed the victims who had lost everything, I began to feel hope.

But we couldn’t sustain the food program forever so we started looking for a longer-term solution. We started investigating options for rebuilding.

Yesterday afternoon I was really questioning why in the world I got involved in this. The food money was running low, and the estimate for the poles (which represented the very beginning phase of the construction) was around $1000. That meant we were $1000 from even beginning to help the victims with their long term needs. Less than a week into this project I was already discouraged and the blessing of the food program already seemed inconsequential because it wasn’t sustainable.

I should have had more faith. Really.

In the span of twelve hours, the hacker community responded and we tripled our financial need for the poles!

I had to check and recheck my math because I couldn’t believe it. The math was right, and just like that I witnessed a miracle. I should have more faith. I say that a lot.

After nearly 25 donations ranging from $5 to $1,000, the hacker community stood in the gap once again for the people of Uganda.

Today has already been a really busy day. We met with Grace, a carpenter recommended by Jessie and David and Edmond, a carpenter and engineer recommended by Barb, and we planned out the acquisition of the poles. We sat down and drew up a list of all the other materials needed to rebuild the village (excluding the lumber and iron roof sheets which may be donated) and the total for everything including the poles cost around $1,500.

This includes hammers, saws, pangas (machetes one for each home to be used as a cutting tool and for defense), nails, plywood, hinges and latches for doors, etc.

I put a rather sensational, exclusive-sounding title on this post. But I want to be perfectly clear: this is a group effort.

- HFC donors have provided the majority of the funds.
- Local missionaries from so many organizations have tirelessly provided labor, funds, household items, transportation and support.
- Ugandan tradesmen are working very hard gathering materials and their skills and effort will be critical as they oversee the building phase.
- Calvary Chapel staff has donated their compound and their staff has been working tirelessly cooking, distributing food and working as liaisons to the community.
- Jessie Rich from Calvary has put in countless hours on this project. His construction experience is invaluable and his connection and interface to the community has made a real difference. I’m really enjoying working with him. He’s been here in Uganda for 14 years and his experience is invaluable. I’m learning so much.

This thing is really coming together. We are actually rebuilding a village. Crazy!

Thank you all for your donations. Big and small, each one is making a huge difference.

I’m also proud to say that the overhead on this project is near-zero. Other than PayPal and ATM transaction fees, all the donation money is going right into rebuilding the homes, stocking them and feeding the owners. Thanks again everyone. This really is a miracle.

As we wait for the companies who may donate building materials, I began to price the stuff that we would have to buy to rebuild these homes. By far the largest expense will be.. Sticks. Well, more accurately 10-18 foot eucalyptus poles for framing and supporting the roofs. They will be stripped and stained with used motor oil to protect from insects and provide fire protection.

I knew going in this was going to be expensive but right now I’m stunned at the cost. My trusted carpenter quoted me 25,000/= per pole. Barb, a wonderful lady I met yesterday took the matters to her crew and got a quote of 7,000/= per pole. I’d like to take a moment to thank our trusted carpenter.

Anyhow, that gets us to 2,100,000/= or just under $1000. This is a big number. After a generous private donation of $200 from someone here in Jinja we still need about $800 which would drain the HFC Fire Relief fund.

This photo shows a thinner version of the poles we need. This Photo shows approximately where six homes would be placed, as each home was approximately 8′ x 8′ x 8′. The lady in this photo guards her poles (which she had as spares and saves from the fire) all day and all night. I’ve never seen her leave the remains of her home.

This photo shows some of the children who lived in the burned homes. They are standing inside the square that made up the boundaries of one home.

So that’s where we are. We are either going to drain our fund or someone will step in and help with the foundation of the homes: the poles.

Thanks for following along with us on this journey. We are moving ahead in faith. :-)

As always, we are thankful for your donation.

I started the day with lots of goals. Most of them involved technical things. By the end of the day, I had only accomplished one of them, indirectly: I talked my technician through a POE bullet install for Gately, a popular local guesthouse.

This installation replaced about six beat-up Linksys routers and blanketed their property with wifi for the staff and guests. For those of you that haven’t used Ubiquity gear, it’s decidedly NOT SOHO stuff. I’m really impressed with the features and the power of this thing (When tied to a 15db antenna) is quite impressive, although it’s not nearly as user-friendly as Linksys. This gear is also MUCH more robust than Linksys junk.

But like I said, I had a whole pile of tech stuff I needed to dig into, but my day would not be about tech. Instead, I started the day with Jessie (@CalvaryChapel) at the fire site. Jessie drew this diagram:

I know it looks a bit dodgy, but this sketch represents a LOT of work and a lot of ground covered in a short period of time.Yesterday morning we were swimming in questions. How many homes were burned, exactly? Were the homes owned by the residents, or landlords? Was the property owned by the residents of the landlords? If the homes or property are owned by a landlord, we would need to secure their permission before rebuilding? How much material would we need? What did the original site look like? What would the new site look like? Since local building suppliers have verbally agreed to donate materials, how much would they donate?

It took a couple of hours on site to get the answers to these questions.We walked around with local leaders and saw each and every plot. We met many of the residents and got what we needed.

I delivered the building material list here:

This is Nile Ply, one of the largest local sources of wood and timber. They have graciously agreed to donate building materials to the relief effort. We won’t know until Saturday, but we are hoping they will donate all of the materials.

In the evening we served another meal, this time to about 65 people.

Some of the early arrivals

It was a busy, exhausting day.

That, in a clinically presented nutshell, is basically what I did.

But my day wasn’t clinical. Some things happened to me, especially as I walked around the fire site..

When Jessie and I approached the site, I heard the familiar cry of, “Mzungu, Mzungu!” I ignored this, because in towns like Jinja, “Mzungu” has come to mean “give me money”. One of the kids caught my eye and I realized they were calling us to show us their brightly-colored “meal ticket” bracelet. The kids were excited because we were visiting them, and excited about what they had, not what we could give them.

I remember a time, about three years ago, when, for this very reason, I left the US with my family to head to Uganda for just this reason. I’ve told countless people that during Jen’s first trip to Uganda she filmed kids who, “had nothing but Joy” and that by contrast I, “had everything and was miserable”. That’s what started this whole adventure.

In the past years, I’ve lost touch with that. I’ve gotten wrapped up in “trying to do more”, then in “trying to have a greater impact”, and step by step, I got too wrapped up in myself. I became suspicious of those in need because I had been taken advantage of over and over again by “town people,” the Ugandan “middle class” who were separated from the village who had become somewhat self-sufficient (and materialistic.. greedy). I got wrapped around the axle over the abuses I had suffered at their hands. Combined with my own selfishness and several other factors, this bitterness slowly consumed me. The result was that I became someone I didn’t recognize. I spent too many weeks and months wrapped up in my selfish, bitter cocoon than I care to admit to.

Yesterday, I saw light. In the eyes of the children and the smiles of the grateful parents, I recognized a long-forgotten purpose. Isaiah 58:6-11 blasted through the cobwebs of my heart and yesterday I remembered what I had too easily forgotten. I came here with a vision to “break the chains of injustice”, to share my “food with the hungry, [invite] the homeless poor into [my home, to put] clothes on the shivering ill-clad.”

And along the way, I hoped it would have something to do with computers, something to do with technology so that those supporting HFC could feel connected, valued. But it wasn’t ever about HFC, and it wasn’t supposed to be about me and my ideas, my wants, my needs, my desires.

I’m so glad my day was about more than technology. I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve at this most basic, fundamental level. I’m proud to stand alongside others (like you) who are united in this cause, caring for the “hungry, the homeless poor and the shivering ill-clad.”

Thank you for your continued support, for your encouragement and your donations and comments that thrust me into this situation that’s reminding me about what I had forgotten.