DIY Bundibugyo

Bundibugyo is a place of many things.  And in terms of the "comforts of home" it's absolutely a DIY kind of place.  Anna and I moved into our place in Nyahuka back in October.  We've been working on it "slowly-by-slowly," as they say here, to turn it into a home while at the same time trying to cover our other mission responsibilities.  One of those creature comforts we tackled in January was getting some water pressure in the house.  

I spent some time in Jan removing the rust from my mech engineering studies and working through the beam and truss mechanics to make a custom tower design for the unique installation situation that our house presented.  I worked with a local welder to have the tower fabricated in parts and then installed in position (since I didn't have a crane to lift it up in one piece).  

(I recruited a few good men to haul the column up to the roof)

(The column was 10ft tall and approx 150 lbs)

(We lifted the column into position...)

(...and bolted it to the concrete base)

(still bolting)

(Kiiza and Gideon fabricating the supports)

(Power stance for some power drilling)

(Elevated welding after teaching the guys how to using climbing harnesses)

(The final deck position is a little over 20 feet above the ground)

(Lifting the 1000 liter tank into position)

(here we figured out I should have made the crane just a little taller...)

(So it took two tries to get it to the top)

(And a big sigh of relief once we got it onto the top deck)

One-thousand liters of water weighs over 2200lbs! So it's quite heavy when full.  I'm really appreciative of my missionary colleagues who took a little time to help me get this on the roof and my Ugandan colleagues who spent hours strapped to my roof welding and painting.  Anna and I are both really glad for the good water pressure!  Another DIY home improvement project off of the list-