Throw Back Thursday: Pictures from Uganda

In honor of {Throw Back Thursday}, this Thursday I am posting from our blog The Hutcheson Headline that we used while living in Uganda from 2012-2013. The post below was originally published by Drew on January 19, 2013. You can view it here if you'd like to see the original version.

From 2012-2013 our family live in Kampala, Uganda where Drew served as a Church and Community Relations fellow with International Justice Mission. During this time, Drew got to experience first hand the life I grew up living as a missionary kid in Africa! The pictures below give you a little glimpse into our life while we lived in Uganda and what Drew's day to day work with was like with IJM (pictures are narrated by Drew). We miss Uganda so much and can't wait to go back overseas again if God should so lead us! 

Perhaps this is not the most appealing photo to begin with, but this is what a bathroom out in the village looks like. Make sure to bring your own toilet tissue!

We were at a field function on this particular day. As I was heading to wash my hands after eating, I could see this black line in the distance. As I approached it, I could see it was moving! It was a herd of ants crossing the path.

We didn't finish our work in the field until late this particular evening. On our way back, I was driving us down all of these village dirt and bumpy roads. Along the way I was trying to  snap some pictures of the village nightlife and this boda guy made one of the photos.

You see a lot of cows out in the village, but usually only about one per a family. Cows are very expensive, but are one way people both feed their families and make money. When I saw this guy, only one thing came to mind: A spicy chicken sandwich from Chik-fil-a.

The night life, even in the village, can be pretty vibrant. This was a group of people who were cooking up some fried fish to sell. We couldn't resist, so we stopped to buy some.

This fish was delicious!

Here's part of the team I work with - some of our stellar IJM lawyers - reviewing some notes for the legal education program we were conducting this day.

This was at a church we were asked to speak at. On this Sunday, some of the youth did a dance a drama for the church.

This was at our last WMBR event for the year. Our office has team challenges each month called "WMBR" (We Measure By Results). We're on the same team for the whole year and our last challenge which would determine which team came in first place for 2012 was a couple of rounds of bowling. The team I was on came in second place. Maybe next year we'll take home the #1 ranking.

This is the team I work with everyday - great and amazing people! A couple of them were pregnant at the time and we were having an out-of-office lunch to celebrate their pregnancy.

Some more returning from the field late, more driving on Jinja Road at night. Jinja Road during the day can already make for quite the adventure while driving on. At night, it's nearly outright dangerous.

We are big believers in measuring our performance so we know if our work is making a difference. I see these graphs each day and they motivate us all the more to work hard for our clients and those we're serving. Our end results for 2012 are much higher than  what you see here as this graph was made half way through the year. We well exceeded our goals for 2012!

 

Sometimes you just never know what you'll find around the office. I walked in to the kitchen to make some tea and found our mascot, until he became someone's dinner.

Speaking of chicken for dinner, this is Uganda's best chicken! In our project area, there's a place we sometimes pass by called Namawajallo. They have several workers who cook all kinds of food and sell it for people making the long trip to Jinja. This chicken is always sauteed with salt or some seasoning and then grilled. It makes for some good and inexpensive eating.

Coffee is one of the main crops in Uganda, it's actually their largest export. On our way to the field on this day we passed a coffee harvester who had picked the beans and was now letting them dry out.

Although this photo is not from the field, I couldn't resist posting this amazing checkmate setup. For Christmas I asked Amber for a chess set and board and she found this amazing hand made soap-stone one in the local craft market. Although this was one of Amber's first times playing chess, she fared well. In the end, however, my Knight and Rook conquered her King. For those who know chess notation, Am's King is on G5 (the blue lion facing right).