July 3, 2005

Dear Friends,
 
Here I am, stting in a foreign Internet cafe again, but in New Zealand! This won't be an N.Z. travelog, but in short Irene, Christine and I are here to deliver Christine to Massey University in Palmerston North where she starts veterinarian school on the 18th of July. She'll be here for four and a half years at which time she will graduate and be a full fledged vet! Irene and I will stay until the end of the month and tour a bit on South Island before returning home. We've spent our time in Palmerston North looking at homes to buy for Christine to live in and with extra rooms to rent out. It's quite a change going from summer solstice to winter solstice. It's cold and cloudy, not a bit like Uganda!
 
Speaking of Uganda, that's why I'm writing. When Christine, Chuck and I left Lira, Ken stayed on for a few more days. Our original goal was to build 10,000 stoves and we built about 500. But what we did is set up the infrastructure to keep our project going. Ken saw that the structure would continue without our direct oversight. JK, Mary and Francis, with Mathew supervising, are our employees for at least two months. I spoke with Mathew about ten days ago after he had returned from southern Sudan and a clean water conference in Kampala. He reported some very good news. They have built an additional 1200 stoves and he said there were two more kiln loads that would make another 1000 stoves to be assembled by the end of June. If we can continue on a course of 1000 stoves a week -- a bit optimistic perhaps -- we'll be close to our goal by the end of August. Ken has told me that he plans to visit Lira again after he finishes his time in eastern Turkey preaching the gospel of stoves there. It's just a hop and skip through Dubai to Entebbe and then a day's bus ride to Lira.

Mathew reports that all the residents of Boke and Erute camps have stoves and their usage rate is about 70 to 80 percent. He has moved on to yet another camp close to Lira to a larger camp.
 
We left Uganda Shillings 2,000,000 for health care. To figure out Ugandan shillings, just knock off three zeroes -- US$2,000. Many more people have received treatment for basic health care problems, but we did lose one baby to severe malnutrition. He was receiving cow's milk, but it was too late. Perhaps we will receive more funding through Aprovecho to continue with both the stoves and the health program. It's so cheap to make such a difference there.
 
That's the news for now. I keep thinking I have to be careful about brushing my teeth with the tap water here. It's not the U.S., but it's far away from Uganda here. The south side of the trees are shady!
 
Further reports as I get news. Mathew was supposed to write a week ago, but I've not received anything.
 
Peter