Nothing Compared to Eternity

Hospital style bed with adjustable incline on both ends.

We having been working the last 6 months or so on getting a small nurses office built.  It is our goal to register it as a clinic and be able to treat our sponsored children internally.  Well at least first diagnose and treat the minor issues and refer out the more complicated or serious cases.

I.V. pole and examination table

Both Jackie and Katie are excited to get this up and running because of their draw to medicine and health care.  For me it has been more fun getting it built.  Here in Uganda we face an interesting situation that is so different from what most of you identify with.  In the U.S. everything is mass produced and if you can't find a shop to buy what you want you can always order it online.  Here most everything is made from scratch.  This is a blessing and a curse.

Seating for reception area of nurse's office

 I will start with the negative side of this.  It takes longer.  Sometimes much much longer and can often be frustrating if you are in a time crunch.  Oh and I suppose sometimes you may struggle to get the same quality of item if it is something weird or complicated to make.

Long lasting night stand

Now for the good stuff.  I absolutely love to design and create.  Everything can be built to the exact specifications you desire.  It is always a fun exercise in creativity and ingenuity.  Obviously, the longer I've been here and the more practice I get the better the outcome is. 

Desk

 It makes a huge difference knowing where to go for what.  A few examples:
1) I have 3 carpenters I use. Knowing their strengths and weaknesses is helpful in choosing who to go to for what.
2) Having a connection with the guys at the foam factory.  Who woulda known how often that comes in handy.
3) I can't take any credit for this, but a friend of mine connected me with the best welder in town.  We have become very close.

Medicine cabinet

Heavy duty exterior bench for outside our nurses office.

In this one there is the clothesline, water tank stand, and nurses office windows.

It has also been a blessing to have Chris Kramlich here working with us.  Being able to bounce ideas off each other and having two people thinking about solutions makes a big difference.  These last two designs were more him than me and I am very pleased with the outcome of both.

On top of this building we had to design a homemade roof vent.

This is the roof vent up close.  It was a bit of a challenge to make it waterproof, bugproof, and rust resistant.

This is a hand cart Chris had made to help with our farming project.  A bit physically intensive, but did the job well.