Uganda Project Gallery

EMI Project UG-0257 — Restoration Gateway, 2021

Note: In the middle of my visit to EMI Uganda, I joined a project team which was performing an infrastructure assessment at Restoration Gateway, a multi-ministry centre in Northern Uganda.

I was told Kampala’s daytime population swells to nearly double, as people from outlying areas come into the city to work. A disproportionate amount of travel time to the project site was spent escaping the capital.

The first property tour is always disorienting, even when the site is smaller than the 80+ buildings and 500 acres at Restoration Gateway. That may be why Project leader Tom is frowning.

RG Founder Dr. Tim looks on while EMI Electrical Engineer Andy chats with Mama Rosa, RG’s first children’s home warden. Since 2008, RG’s children’s home has grown to 3 pods of 7 homes and over 150 children.

Though schools were still closed in Uganda due to Covid, RG’s live-in students and staff can hold classes outdoors essentially because they are viewed as one big family.

Architecture affects experience and mood. It’s alright if one insists on dabbling with the art, but one’s ‘design work’ should be restricted to one’s own home. Live with your own dismal results and kindly spare others.

16-year-old Francis, a secondary school student, invented and built this slow burn device to harvest gas. Our team’s engineers listened with interest. ‘Give that kid a scholarship’, I said.

This tree had wonderful composition, but I never happened to pass by during morning hours, when the sun angle and lighting would be most advantageous.

Originally from Texas, Dr. Tim still enjoys a good tractor ride to cut down the brush. God called them to Northern Uganda in the mid-2000s in response to the Lord’s Resistance Army conflict and its violence and abuses against children in the region.

Reports, drawings, plans, assessments, and investigations by various parties have built up over the years into huge files at Restoration Gateway. We carefully reviewed this body of material as the EMI team prepared a fresh infrastructure assessment.

Andy and Elly begin to investigate the solar power station designed and shipped from abroad and installed by others. No one on site had working knowledge to maintain or troubleshoot the system.

Civil Engineer Volunteers Lee and Olivia consult from the team workspace — an enclosed veranda overlooking the Nile.

It took a handful of engineers the best part of a week to unpack — through measurements, experiments, interviews, and observations — how exactly water is supplied from water tanks through myriad pipes and valves on the campus.

Meanwhile, the electrical engineers installed their data collection equipment without incident. We noticed several rodents had not been quite so successful.

EMI Uganda CE intern Melanie reports water pressure readings during field investigations, which also included water sampling and quality testing.

On a strict timetable to harvest beans, Emmanuel was able to talk while his field workers unloaded the trailer. In that short interval, he told us about the 220 RG acres in various states of cultivation, the greenhouse for perishable vegetables, the precisely 78 goats, 618 birds (chickens), 31 beehives…

We took a day off to go on a safari near Karuma. Standing up in the ‘hard-body’ Land Rover is far more exciting.

Giraffes tower against the skyline.

The whole campus came together in the RG auditorium for the team presentation. Afterward, the team held a question and answer session for the RG staff.

Pastor Expirito is RG’s General Manager and his wife Justine works in administration. He came to Northern Uganda during the LRA conflict, and was part of the Restoration Gateway story from the beginning. Now God has brought him back to shepherd RG in the days ahead.

September, 2021. All photography by author.