A really great and disappointing trip

Our son, Scott, joined me for a project scouting trip to northeastern Uganda in the Karamoja region. We were visiting on behalf of CLIDE Consultancy and Dr. Val Shean, a missionary supported by our home church in Corvallis. She's a vet but has broadened her work to help start the national CLIDE Consultancy, which provides animal health, human health, HIV/AIDS, education, agricultural and other development services. Dr. Val came to know and serve both sub-groups of the Karamajong people during her many years in this area and eventually helped to broker forgiveness and resettlement of the two groups in what have become known as Peace Villages.

It's a dry area. Many of the Peace Villages are too far from water. That's where EMI and I came in. It had been reported that there were productive springs and the thought was that we could help design collection systems to protect the quality of the water and capture a greater quantity of it. Unfortunately, after many kilometers of hiking over two long days and visits to four springs, we found that none were too productive. There's a chance that we can develop one but it's not what we had hoped. It was very disappointing because the people living in these villages have risked their lives to help settle the conflict that had raged for decades and they are truly desperate. They have so little.

The great part was to visit Dr. Val, the villages, and interact with the people. Their culture and experiences are so vastly different from ours. It was like no camping trip that I'd ever been on, with our tents placed right among their huts. The other photo shows two very happy and excited Pauls when they learned that they shared the same name. (They had an awful time saying "Scott.")

Paul

(Check out CLIDE Consultancy's website and watch the YouTube video on the Karamajong Peace Villages.)