Environmentally friendly..

We try, in between all the other things we do, to be friendly towards the environment. We know we have to be good stewards, not only for the children or with the donations we receive, but also with our environment.

 

We try to do so, in small ways, I will share some things about this:

With our cooking: In Uganda most people cook on wood or won charcoal. Both are not very friendly for our environment, because many trees are cut down for charcoal. The price has gone up and the charcoal is not always from good quality, so the bag with charcoal will not last long. In Soroti is a project set up that makes charcoal from cow dung, shells of groundnuts and the  waste from the wood shops. They mix it together and form it in small coals (see picture) The people from the project came to build the special stove in our outside kitchen and you can see Auntie Grace cooking happy on the stove! The special charcoals are cheaper, last longer and all the trees are still standing!! And our food taste the same....delicious!!!!

With our electricity: We have been able to buy solar panels and use most of the time solar energy. We have done this some years ago, there are times when the electric power is unreliable, and with all the baby's and often very sick children, it is so difficult to work with paraffin lanterns. The batteries have been changed, with a gift from Metterdaad from Holland, now we have again solar power most of the day and night! It saves us money, which we can use for something else now. And.. we give shelter to a dove family. Under the solar panels we saw a nest from two doves, nowadays I can see more than two, there must have been a blessing in that nest!! You can see even one dove (if you have good eyes) sitting above the panels.

With our water: We get our water supply via the water pipes from Soroti town. It is going in two high water tanks, from there it is piped in our home, to flush the toilets etc. Our drinking water is brought in jerrycans, by David and Calvin, our two gardeners, from the borehole nearby. Borehole water is safe to drink, so we use that only for drinking. Then we have 5 big water tanks (see picture) in our compound, to catch the rain water.  This we can use for cleaning, watering the flowers, bathing laundry etc. There are sometimes days when there is no water coming from Soroti town, then we have at least the rainwater which can help us. 

In Soroti there is no service, which comes to collect your garbage, so we have to do something with it ourselves. Left you see the big pit, where we throw all the non burn-able waste. When the pit is full, David and Calvin cover it and dig a new one. This is behind our home. At the right you see our oven, we burn all the papers, plastics and other things we can burn. It is used every day and is again in need of repair!! It is important to really burn it completely, because at night the dogs are out, they love to take the half burned things and in the morning you'll find them all over the compound!

The last, but not least: our Mouse catcher!!! Since 5 days we have this little kitten in Amecet. His job is to catch mice! She is still very small, but we have good hopes, we have no name yet, there are several optioned, but not yet one chosen. At the moment we try to teach her not to jump on the sofa and to stay in during the night, because that is when her job starts and out are the dogs, who will kill her when they get the chance.