First real project!

Finally something to sink our teeth into.

A community approximately 45 minutes southwest of Mbarara sent Acts a letter a month ago, with over 400 signatures, asking us to come and please bring the community clean water. They mentioned that they also had a large spring nearby that would be able to supply the water.

Wes and I left first thing monday morning and met up with the (partially self-appointed) community representative at a gas station on the main road. Nelson then led us back to his community of Nyaruhandagazi. When we arrived, a whole contingent of community representatives were there. There were six existing springs in the surrounding countryside, and as these would likely be the water sources for the community, we had to evaluate each of them. This meant we had to ferry along all of the community representatives. At one point we had some 20 people piled into the back of our very small pick-up.

Unfortunately, only four of the six springs had a sufficient elevation to be able to service the town, and all of those springs would only be able to supply 5,000 of the 7,000 people. Further, once we completed the bacteriological tests, three of the four springs contained E. Coli, a bacteria which indicates that harmful pathogens are present in the water. Therefore, after careful consideration we had to abandon the idea of installing a pipeline in the valley. Not looking forward to telling Nelson. The hard part is that we also examined the main source of water the community currently uses, and it's got one of the highest bacteria counts I've come across so far. Kind of depressing, but I guess this comes with the territory.

Anyway, we started our five day break last night, and I type this blog update from Kigali! Beautiful city, and so much order. Gotta love a good military dictatorship/democracy.

cheers,

mike