Having trouble finding the words.

If you look down the chain of blog posts to last year you will see that I saw Uganda through a different set of eyes.

This year the words aren't coming as easily.  I feel terrible for the life that I have assembled in the light of the life I know that people are living here.  It has to do with the fact that last year I came to help Johnny with the leather shop.  I spent more time with just him and Johnson.  This time, because of the Hacker Space I have met the Mirembe Cottage girls and have fallen in love with their excitement and smiles.

Yesterday was a very heavy day.  Today I am having trouble finding motivation.  How can I walk around in my over entitled world, knowing what I know.  I watched a TED talk from a wonderful woman in the WHO that summed it up, its a burden of knowledge.  Another great talk talked about seeing these children gives you a disease of the soul.  Sounds powerful, I challenge you to pick up this disease.  It is powerful.

While we have been here Beruit had a bombing that killed 40 people, per the CNN article, and Paris had a terrorist attack.  Similarly there was a school in Kenya shot up and more people died in that attack than died in Paris.  No one reposted their facebook profiles for Beruit or Kenya.  The world turned Blue, White and Red for the Paris attacks.  Was it tragic, certainly.   Is it news worthy, of course.  Should it be all we care about, NO.

This has started an US against Them thread in the American psyche, can't be having "those terrorists" in our country.  Of course, we are the radical extremists that killed a huge portion of the Indigenous North Americans.   Then we setup shop with rule number 1, you can have any religion and speak your mind.  I think that if you are speaking your mind against someone else's religion, you are doing it wrong.

As you can tell, I am angry.  Angry at the fact that we don't want to get along.  Angry that we have this one rock we are all stuck on and we all want to get ahead of one another.  Rising tides float all boats.

So on to what this post is about.  I am calling to everyone that reads this to travel.  See this rock.  See that we aren't alone.  See that American's aren't nearly as free as we think.  See real freedom.  See what people that are feeding us go through to make that happen.  Go see the children.  Go see the temples, the churches, the mosques.  See with your eyes the happiness and pain of life.  Its how I got to where I am in my life, its how I understand that we aren't alone in the world.  7 Billion of us are competing for resources that we could all be easily sharing.

Once you get back home you will have a new appreciation for everything you have.  You might even decide that your 4 bedroom house out in the burbs is pretty posh compared to the 1 room hut your coffee farmer lives in with his wife and 4 kids.

I'm purposefully not putting photos in this post because if you want to see it, you know where to buy tickets.  Go.  See.  Feel.

I think I am allergic to these girls, they make my eyes water.

I have to say that getting here isn't easy.  Being here is way harder.  There is so much help that is needed.


If you look back at the history of Uganda you know its not that positive.  Idi Amine, Colonialization, Wars, Famine, its probably one of the most unstable places in the world's history.  This means a few things.  One of them being, there is nothing holding this place up.

Electrical infrastructure is barely in place, the power fluctuates constantly.  100v - 400v over the course of a week is pretty hard on everything.  The people don't have much banking or finance infrastructure so credit is hard to come by.  AIDS killed many people, so there are many orphans.  The instability creates poverty, creates more orphans.  Basically the infrastructure here IS the people.

The "public schools" all require fees to be paid by the students.  Additionally because of the last horrific ruler, Idi, the school system is meant to hold people down.  Add to that the fact that today's teachers were students under his rule, the education system is basically un-changed.  Memorization is the rule of the school, not learning.

Over the last few days we have been focussed on working with "Street Kids".  We have had the pleasure of working with smiling faces, humble girls that just want to have a better life.  John, Becky and I have been doing STEM learning projects with Lego Mindstorms and Edison robots and have been amazed.  Some of the girls, with a very basic education, have really picked this up and ran with it.

How they can do anything, really, is beyond me.  Some of these girls have had parents that beat them bloody and sent them out begging because they look worse and will do better begging.  Most of the girls have spent countless hours sorting through trash piles and garbage to find scraps of food or "recyclables" like steel and aluminum which have value.  Often if they return with nothing they are beaten some  more.  These girls have come from rough beginnings and the sad fact is there are hundreds more just like them, that tonight will sleep on the street and run and hide from demented men who would use them for whatever they like.

I have looked into the eyes of the rescued and cannot see the pain.  They are joyful.  They are eager to learn.  They are children again.  They dance and smile and hug you and thank you for teaching them.  I think I am allergic to that because they keep making my eyes water.

Yesterday I had the pleasure to have a few minutes with Daniel, the man that wanted to save them and has set his life in motion to do it.  Starting 4 years ago he has created a place for the girls to be safe and have food and get education.  He has a faith based program going and has taken 25 girls off the street and put them into his program.  He's putting that good energy out there and getting it back in terrific ways.  Watch the video and listen to his story and how he felt drawn to give back.  https://youtu.be/tivYRh8qsSM

Why STEM education for girls that barely have a grasp of basic education?  Because Hackers don't ask these questions.  Hackers look for the end and then work on the means.  If you watch them building Mindstorms you see them counting the number of holes in a piece or assembly and placing connectors so many holes from the end, etc...  You see them talking to each other, correcting and guiding each other.  They are Hackers in their own right.  They don't take on computer systems like the TV Hackers but they use their resources and solve problems.  They are curious and want to know things.  These girls have unlimited possibilities and I am proud to be even a small part of Hackers for Charity and know the good work that is being done to make sure these girls are cared for.

There are so many exciting things on the way for these girls, the future is now bright for them.

Please keep the Mirembe Cottage in your heart, if you pray - here is a subject for you to bow your head over, if you have the means, donate to a cause that will help a fellow human that hasn't had the advantages you have had.  I know I will be doing more with this group but they are such great kids I cannot do enough.

I am humbled and grateful.

Thank you.

Yesterday Johnny and I talked about the really huge fee that Emirates assessed on the HFC items I was transporting to Uganda.

United is my frequent Airline and as a 1K I get loads of perks.  Its why I flew the first leg of my journey via United, all our luggage was free.  The flight was free as well using points.

Connecting via Dubai meant I would move over to Emirates.  I looked their excess baggage fees up online and figured it would be several hundred dollars.  After all luggage was tallied, the cost was $2600 (odd number for a hacker right?)  Then on the way to the plane I had to weigh my cabin luggage, that has never happened to me before and let me tell you I have flown a bunch.

I looked around and saw a huge yellow dumpster for you to throw away your overweight items.  That's right, they have this weight problem so often that they know you will pay or throw away.

Now I am not the average person going through there and did have an expectation of fees.  I was prepared to pay and we had expected it to hurt a bit.

Johnny posted about the fees on his blog and asked for a rally of donations.  I have caught that before, the Hacker Space A/C, Parts for various things, I jumped to action when I could.  I was shocked that 5 minutes after the blog post went out donations started coming in.  So and So from Atlanta, such and such from the Netherlands and on and on.  Then it happened.  A single donor wrote away the problem.

This gives us a problem.  We now have more than we need.  My thoughts are this, we can take the overage and get it into the hands of the HFC and use it for the upcoming VEX Robotics stuff.  It was something my 10 year old wanted to help with and started a lemonade stand to help out.  That or help with the 3d printed hands that Johnny is working so hard toward.

We are a community, we all help each other and today I am more aware of that than ever.  Thank You to all that jumped in.  Thank you to anyone that read the post and felt it wasn't right.  Thank you to my community of curious folks that want the world to be better.  Thank you.

...didn't even have to use my AK...

...I guess you could say it was a good day.

I slept like a log.  No AC, lots of creatures discussing various ideas loudly, like a log.  Getting to East Africa is a long journey.  Being here goes FAST. 

Today we got up and got moving by having breakfast at The Keep with some perspective discussion.  

(Hey, America, this is what coffee should look like.  It also tastes way better.)

I really enjoy talking with Johnny and Jen about where they have been led and how its working.  They told me about how some of The Keep staff has come and gone and we focused on those that have flourished.  One of the waitresses finished school and is working as a book keeper at a big hotel.  She was given a hand up to a new life in part by her desire to get ahead and part by having a first opportunity.

Others have stayed on and been promoted to new position with more possibilities down the road.  Henry is constantly looking to give back.  He's doing great work at the hacker space and is always learning more so he can help more.  He doesn't see the work he is doing as work and if you ask about his day its filled with teaching classes and organizing more Street Kids to come to the Hacker Space.  Such a good heart.

Sometimes it's about having just one chance, giving chances is why I come.

Today I watched Johnson stitching with the machine I brought last year.  I cried.  Only Johnny knew how to use it when I left, now he's passed the knowledge on (pebble in a pond, ripples, that whole thing). In the grand scheme it's small, it's not small to those you help. 

I also asked Johnson to show Becky and John some basic leather tooling techniques.  X-Carve assembly was going well with Johnny and Henry.  Johnson is a good and patient teacher.  I can't wait to see the finished goods. 

After working on the x-carve assembly a while we decided to spend some time in the AC at the hacker space.  I brought some Arduino boards, shields, and neo-pixels.  I had the opportunity to teach Henry about the Fastled.io library.  Of course he immediately zipped right past my level of knowledge and started extending his coding experience.  Henry has no time for libraries simplifying tasks, he's more about how it works and making it work just like the library in pure code.  He has a thirst for knowledge.  Talk about smart, so smart.

Finally, Africa has a very poor electrical grid.  Before we came the Longs had a waffle iron blow up.  I realize its an odd thing for people to fret about but, its a connection.  Sometimes the Missionaries that the Long's cater to just need something that reminds them of home.  Johnny figured it was a Varistor as it was completely charred.  He put out the word for parts and John was able to locate them in Columbus and transport them here.  I learned to solder in the Navy and did lots of it in my first job out as an electronics tech, I have repaired this type of thing before and knew the traces and barrels were shot.  Let's just say that Donkey will get his wish, in the morning.

Today was a great day.  I'm touched by how small things make huge impacts. 

I hope your day is full of helping because this feeling is amazing and I want everyone to have it.

(X-Carve Assembly, Leather Tooling, so much awesome.)

Stress, packing and some pop-tarts.

We have had a huge amount of FedEx, UPS, and USPS traffic over the last few weeks.  Johnny discussed in his blog post ( http://www.hackersforcharity.org/hackers-for-charity/zero-to-3d-printing-robots-and-prosthetics-in-uganda-with-the-ultimaker2/ ) that I would be bringing another 3d printer to help with Prosthetics Printing.

Add to this the XCarve I donated and all the normal stuff, plus all the Thanksgiving prep and we have a world class case of too many suitcases.  If you read United's policy you see a per-piece policy.  If you read the Emirates policy, they do it by weight.  This means I will probably get charged twice and in various ways.  (I just checked into the United flight and it didn't flinch at both Becky and I having 3 bags so we may have dodged a bullet.)

Here is a crazy amount of stuff to pack.

(Lots and lots and the X-Carve isn't in the photo.)

So we have been packing, planning packing and stressing about packing so much we aren't able to enjoy the fact that we are taking a journey, one with challenges and one that will be rewarding.

I hope you have way less stress in your day.  Here is a video of a time-lapse we did for the initial hour long packing session.

  or via googledrive

I'll get to the pop-tarts later.

Back at it.

I haven't written here for a while and figured I would put a few words down.

I am going to be back in Africa in less than a week and this trip has been the most difficult to prepare for.  Challenges.  

I spoke with Johnny for 10 precious minutes at DEFCON and we discussed what we would be doing this year.  I think he's at the point where he believes me when I say I will help.

We decided that an XCarve could be a good thing to have and we on the spot named a few projects for it.  The Inventables X-Carve is a "pro-sumer" grade CNC that is available as a kit.  I ordered it.

(Here is the machine built out)

Once the kit arrived I had to assemble it.  Luckily I have a place called the Columbus Idea Foundry I can use and have rented a space there for this.  This means I have to truck everything I need to make it work.  It also means that I understand what I will need in Uganda when I get there.  After assembly in the standard fashion I had to think about shipping/Uganda.

(It didn't take long to assemble, to de-Uganda took a bit of time.)

(At one point I dropped a split washer on the floor and sent out a BOLO for it.  I found it the next day.)

(Carriage getting closer.)

(Spoil board installed, this is the biggest challenge as it will be hard to check in luggage.)

So I started crimping terminals so I could unhook and reassemble and so maintenance later wouldn't be difficult.  

I had to start considering use and ways to make the machine as useful as possible.  I decided Mortise and Tenon furniture fabrication might be good.  So I cut a tenon hole for the spoil board.  I also decided that the base under the machine would need strengthened.

After like 4 orders for stuff from Inventables (Terrific customer service, great people) I think that I have the machine together.

Recently Johnny asked if I would mule another item.  A 3D printer.  This, added with the items for the keep and to get folks going with projects means I have crazy amounts of luggage.  Well the good news is there are 3 of us going.  My wife Becky and my friend from High School John will be there too.

This trip is going to be bigger, going to be better, going to be amazing.