So Monday morning our boss, Tim, drove out from Mbarara to check on our progress. He brought along Richard, the Ugandan construction foreman who was responsible for assessing whether the sources could be "captured" (that is, enclose the spring in concrete and funnel the water into a pipe so the source won’t be contaminated by surface activities).
As you’ll recall from my blogs posted earlier this month, despite some serious effort, we weren’t having very much success in finding potential projects. Well much to my surprise, by the time Tim and Richard showed up, we had five projects lined up. If you’ll recall, one has no road access and so would involve a 3 hr hike up to the source. This hike would be more difficult when lugging up a 25kg bag of cement. The second was along a very rocky, almost impassable road and a rather uncertainly committed local population (who would be the ones doing the majority of the work). Out of the three, we expected these two to be rejected out of hand. And of course we were nervous about the viability of the other two. Wes and I have never done this before, and so have an imperfect idea of what’s possible.
Much to our surprise, neither Tim nor Richard dismissed any of the projects. And so, while I still can’t believe I’m typing this, but we may have five potential projects in this district. If it turns out that each one of them is possible, and is approved, then in the end we could be responsible for getting water to more than 30,000 people.
Of course, since we expected two projects to be rejected and were uncertain of the other three, we’ve only done the preliminary stages of design and retrieved the minimal amount of information on each project. So it looks like we’ll be going back to Kasese next month, possibly for the month to complete the designs, get the necessary info and put together these proposals. I’m getting really, really psyched.
Headed back to Mbarara yesterday and am typing this blog from the Acts base in Mbarara, quaintly called Canada House. To be honest, this place almost feels like home in Uganda. It’s got a couch, I’m doing my own cooking, and its got enough books to keep me happy for another three months.
Setting up everything for four days off. Heading off to Ishasha plains, home of the famed tree climbing lions. This will hopefully compliment the tree climbing goats I saw in Morocco. And of course, if I see a lion chasing a goat through the trees, then that would surpass all of my wildlife viewings so far. Now that would be cool. Especially if the goat turned, mid-chase, and put up a fight with it’s mini-horns and hooves.
I’ll have the camera at the ready, just in case.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Clothing for travel and sketchy roads
The town of Kasese is in the rain shadow of the Rwenzoris, so most of the time it’s pretty dry here, except for the occasional week or two during the wet season. Daytime temperatures seem to get up to 30 -35 C on a regular basis. Except when I want to do my laundry, at which time it stays cool, overcast and usually rains. This makes the drying process a little slower, and of course I have to adapt accordingly. One of my methods of adapting is by washing as often as it’s nice out, but our schedule is rarely so relaxed as to allow me that option. Usually by the time we get back to the guesthouse it’s a hour to dark and we’re exhausted anyway. Which means Sunday is usually the only day I have time to wash. They don’t have dryers here. I also don’t have access to any washing machines (or more precisely, I haven’t seen one in this country yet), which means I have to wash everything by hand. Therefore, in order to reduce the amount of clothes I need to wash, I wear the same clothes every day. This isn’t actually as gross as it might seem. Or perhaps that’s just because I’ve perhaps adapted too much...?
From this frugal wearing pattern, I’ve re-discovered how few clothes I need when traveling. And am kind of annoyed I was duped by Acts into bringing two bags of luggage.
One thing I’m certainly wearing a lot are a pair of light synthetic socks I bought from MEC right before I left. I seem to be wearing the one pair daily and they are fantastic! Wesley and Asaph both wear gumboots all the time, and their feet are starting to pay. I’m forever grateful for the MEC employee who recommended light, quick drying shoes and associated socks. Those of you reading my blog will be delighted to hear that my feet are doing very well.
As I seem to be on a bodily discussion, I might as well send a word of praise to the vaccine Dukoral. The benefit plan for my company, URS, covered the vaccine, so I decided to get it even though I used to believe in letting my body adapt naturally to the new environment. But with Dukoral, I have yet to have more than a cold here in Uganda. The E. Coli protection runs out after three months though, so we’ll see how I do in December.
Speaking of vaccines, I’m starting to get annoyed with the daily dose of Doxycyclane. I now regret not taking Lariam (weekly), despite the strong request from Acts not to take it as it makes people have strong dreams/psychotic. Wesley, who I seem to be spending 90% of my time with, is taking it anyway, so if he snaps, I’ll be in just as much danger, right? And as for the dreams, I’m already one of the most active sleepers I know...
Two days ago we headed up north again to the sub-county of Kitswamba. The head (chairman) of the subcounty has been scouring his S-C as well as the neighboring ones for possibly GFS projects that could be feed his people. The cost of water in the main trading centre is currently ~$1 for 20 litres, which is a lot when the average income in the area is ~$200 a year.
The chairman indeed showed us a beautiful water source in the neighboring S-C which will be able to feed at least 10,000 ppl, but by the time it gets to Kitswamba, it’s doubtful there’ll be any water left. Spent the night up in Kaswa so we could collect a water sample first thing the following morning. Camped out in the front yard of the parish leader’s house and tested my little $35 Canadian Tire tent in some very strong winds and rain. It stood up to the wind, but rain collected in a nice puddle at the front door. I’ve since made some modifications with string, a garbage bag and a coat hanger. But the lack of sleep doesn’t seem worth it.
Due to the rain, the road out the next morning was kind of treacherous. It was Wes’ turn to drive and I was once again strategically placed outside giving him directions. At one point it looked like the back wheel might start to slip over the edge so we dug a new path into the side of the hill. First time I’ve constructed a road before.
Spent the morning in church after being duped by our cook into going. He made a special request that I go, but then ended going to a different church. And the English language services are at 7:30am! How do they hope to convert me if I’m not even awake yet? One funny thing though; they were having elections today and there was a position for Moslem converts assistant. Not sure what the duties are.
From this frugal wearing pattern, I’ve re-discovered how few clothes I need when traveling. And am kind of annoyed I was duped by Acts into bringing two bags of luggage.
One thing I’m certainly wearing a lot are a pair of light synthetic socks I bought from MEC right before I left. I seem to be wearing the one pair daily and they are fantastic! Wesley and Asaph both wear gumboots all the time, and their feet are starting to pay. I’m forever grateful for the MEC employee who recommended light, quick drying shoes and associated socks. Those of you reading my blog will be delighted to hear that my feet are doing very well.
As I seem to be on a bodily discussion, I might as well send a word of praise to the vaccine Dukoral. The benefit plan for my company, URS, covered the vaccine, so I decided to get it even though I used to believe in letting my body adapt naturally to the new environment. But with Dukoral, I have yet to have more than a cold here in Uganda. The E. Coli protection runs out after three months though, so we’ll see how I do in December.
Speaking of vaccines, I’m starting to get annoyed with the daily dose of Doxycyclane. I now regret not taking Lariam (weekly), despite the strong request from Acts not to take it as it makes people have strong dreams/psychotic. Wesley, who I seem to be spending 90% of my time with, is taking it anyway, so if he snaps, I’ll be in just as much danger, right? And as for the dreams, I’m already one of the most active sleepers I know...
Two days ago we headed up north again to the sub-county of Kitswamba. The head (chairman) of the subcounty has been scouring his S-C as well as the neighboring ones for possibly GFS projects that could be feed his people. The cost of water in the main trading centre is currently ~$1 for 20 litres, which is a lot when the average income in the area is ~$200 a year.
The chairman indeed showed us a beautiful water source in the neighboring S-C which will be able to feed at least 10,000 ppl, but by the time it gets to Kitswamba, it’s doubtful there’ll be any water left. Spent the night up in Kaswa so we could collect a water sample first thing the following morning. Camped out in the front yard of the parish leader’s house and tested my little $35 Canadian Tire tent in some very strong winds and rain. It stood up to the wind, but rain collected in a nice puddle at the front door. I’ve since made some modifications with string, a garbage bag and a coat hanger. But the lack of sleep doesn’t seem worth it.
Due to the rain, the road out the next morning was kind of treacherous. It was Wes’ turn to drive and I was once again strategically placed outside giving him directions. At one point it looked like the back wheel might start to slip over the edge so we dug a new path into the side of the hill. First time I’ve constructed a road before.
Spent the morning in church after being duped by our cook into going. He made a special request that I go, but then ended going to a different church. And the English language services are at 7:30am! How do they hope to convert me if I’m not even awake yet? One funny thing though; they were having elections today and there was a position for Moslem converts assistant. Not sure what the duties are.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
A long walk, a long hike and a short bridge
Monday morning we returned to the Kagando region and after dropping our bags and equipment off at the guest house, met up with Yona the diocene engineer. He told us it was too late to see one of the big sources in the hills, but that we could map out the pipeline route for the source we had seen the previous week. He wasn’t able to join us so instead he set us up with his plumber, i.e. a pipeline repair guy. Unfortunately, the guy couldn’t speak very much English. This was alright at the start, but rapidly got more annoying as the places he took us, and the places we wanted to see, were quite a bit different. Further, this source is relatively low and so the areas we were walking in were quite a bit hotter than the foothills we’re used to. Further, after the first hour we found ourselves walking along a road, which, in a flashback to the previous week, we could’ve driven too and saved ourselves some time and effort. In the end we drove most of the proposed route, but were still exhausted by the end of it, partially due to the heat.
The next day we woke up at 6:30am and headed off to a source called Kahindagoma, which apparently is the birthplace of the Rwenzuru Kingdom. While Wes and Asaph headed up to the mythically voluminous source, I went off with the chairman of the village to scope out where they wanted their taps. It was an entertaining tour which, thanks to my Garmin GPS, I was able to determine that I climbed a total of 1,600 metres over a 19km walk. All the while, the chairman was telling me about how, despite having one of the first schools built in the sub-county (back in the early sixties), the elementary school hadn’t been used very much until the last ten years first due to the war of separation (when the Bokonjo people tried to separate the Rwenzuru kingdom from Uganda), and then due to the Allied Democratic Force (ADF), who used the foothills as a staging area for the civil war in the DRC. On the same visit we found out that Yona also used to live in the hills, but decided to move into the safety of the valley after seeing the ADF cut off a man’s head. Surreal to think this mild mannered engineer could’ve witnessed such a thing and yet still be such a normal character to work with. He’s a hard worker, smart and easy to get along with. Without him we would likely have one tenth of the success we are currently having.
And I can now say that we are having success. The yield and quality at Kahindagoma were both excellent, and the elevation was good. In regular English, we’ve got water we can use, enough of it, and it’s high enough up we send it to the people who need it. The only downside is that we won’t be able to bury the line very deep as there’s very little soil that high up, and there’s no road to transport the material (A road to village has been surveyed, they just need to build it. Which in this country means gathering all the villagers and their hoes and pick-axes and hewing a road out of the side of the hills.) If I thought the 1.6 km of vertical gain was hard, try doing it with a 20kg bag of cement on your head. Thankfully our proposals will be reviewed by the Acts construction foreman who will decide if this is a practical project or not.
Wednesday we went back to Kalonge parish, Kyarumba subcounty. This is the same project where we managed to get the truck stuck twice the previous week. This time, the road was merely washed out by a stream. So we ended up making a short bridge out of stones and cobbles and driving across that. The purpose of the visit was for me to check out three further sources, while Wesley went around to map all of the communities with a GPS. This is necessary as the maps we have for the area were all created prior to the 1960s (i.e. prior to independence), and so information that we have on the population centers is a little outdated. In fact, I would like to take a moment to praise the humble GPS; this handy little instrument makes the survey and preliminary design about 1/10 the labor it likely used to be. I love technology.
Unfortunately for Wes, the chairman who led him around wasn’t too enthusiastic about walking and only showed him three of the seven villages in the parish. It would seem that our constant hikes and exercise have strengthened us to the point where we are exhausting our local guides. The path between two of the sources took us along a ridge approximately 1,000 metres above the surrounding valleys. Another day of beautiful views. Unfortunately the three sources were all contaminated, but we’ve still got two sources in the parish that should be able to service a good number of people.
Spent today hiking up to two piddly sources, that were hard to isolate, had turbid water, and relatively low flows, which all point to contamination, but we won’t know those results until tomorrow afternoon.
After the last three days at Kagando, I’m now covered in insect bites, and the origin was subject to much debate at the dinner table tonight (including an exhibition by yours truly). I’m hoping it’s not mosquitoes because of the malaria (though of course I’m diligently taking my malaria pills), but on the other hand I would prefer malaria over the Bot fly. Now the common consensus is bed bugs. Another new experience, yay!
Please let it be bed bugs.
(For those who may be worried, I feel perfectly fine)
The next day we woke up at 6:30am and headed off to a source called Kahindagoma, which apparently is the birthplace of the Rwenzuru Kingdom. While Wes and Asaph headed up to the mythically voluminous source, I went off with the chairman of the village to scope out where they wanted their taps. It was an entertaining tour which, thanks to my Garmin GPS, I was able to determine that I climbed a total of 1,600 metres over a 19km walk. All the while, the chairman was telling me about how, despite having one of the first schools built in the sub-county (back in the early sixties), the elementary school hadn’t been used very much until the last ten years first due to the war of separation (when the Bokonjo people tried to separate the Rwenzuru kingdom from Uganda), and then due to the Allied Democratic Force (ADF), who used the foothills as a staging area for the civil war in the DRC. On the same visit we found out that Yona also used to live in the hills, but decided to move into the safety of the valley after seeing the ADF cut off a man’s head. Surreal to think this mild mannered engineer could’ve witnessed such a thing and yet still be such a normal character to work with. He’s a hard worker, smart and easy to get along with. Without him we would likely have one tenth of the success we are currently having.
And I can now say that we are having success. The yield and quality at Kahindagoma were both excellent, and the elevation was good. In regular English, we’ve got water we can use, enough of it, and it’s high enough up we send it to the people who need it. The only downside is that we won’t be able to bury the line very deep as there’s very little soil that high up, and there’s no road to transport the material (A road to village has been surveyed, they just need to build it. Which in this country means gathering all the villagers and their hoes and pick-axes and hewing a road out of the side of the hills.) If I thought the 1.6 km of vertical gain was hard, try doing it with a 20kg bag of cement on your head. Thankfully our proposals will be reviewed by the Acts construction foreman who will decide if this is a practical project or not.
Wednesday we went back to Kalonge parish, Kyarumba subcounty. This is the same project where we managed to get the truck stuck twice the previous week. This time, the road was merely washed out by a stream. So we ended up making a short bridge out of stones and cobbles and driving across that. The purpose of the visit was for me to check out three further sources, while Wesley went around to map all of the communities with a GPS. This is necessary as the maps we have for the area were all created prior to the 1960s (i.e. prior to independence), and so information that we have on the population centers is a little outdated. In fact, I would like to take a moment to praise the humble GPS; this handy little instrument makes the survey and preliminary design about 1/10 the labor it likely used to be. I love technology.
Unfortunately for Wes, the chairman who led him around wasn’t too enthusiastic about walking and only showed him three of the seven villages in the parish. It would seem that our constant hikes and exercise have strengthened us to the point where we are exhausting our local guides. The path between two of the sources took us along a ridge approximately 1,000 metres above the surrounding valleys. Another day of beautiful views. Unfortunately the three sources were all contaminated, but we’ve still got two sources in the parish that should be able to service a good number of people.
Spent today hiking up to two piddly sources, that were hard to isolate, had turbid water, and relatively low flows, which all point to contamination, but we won’t know those results until tomorrow afternoon.
After the last three days at Kagando, I’m now covered in insect bites, and the origin was subject to much debate at the dinner table tonight (including an exhibition by yours truly). I’m hoping it’s not mosquitoes because of the malaria (though of course I’m diligently taking my malaria pills), but on the other hand I would prefer malaria over the Bot fly. Now the common consensus is bed bugs. Another new experience, yay!
Please let it be bed bugs.
(For those who may be worried, I feel perfectly fine)
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Fort Portal, Crater Lakes and other Ugandan tourist attractions.
Considering the pace and amount of hiking we’d completed over the week, we decided yesterday to take it easy. Instead of completing any further work (which I’m doing today instead), we headed up to Fort Portal. My Brandt guidebook describes Fort Portal as “one of the most alluring town in Uganda”. And while it was well paved, I’m not sure how it acquired that high qualification. My impression was of any other Ugandan town.
However, it does have a few factors in it’s favor, including beautiful views of the equatorial glaciers, its proximity to a pygmy village, some very nice game reserves, a beautiful road west of town which descends from the plains of East Africa and into the forests of the Congo and the Crater lakes.
Unfortunately the glaciers were obscured by clouds and thanks to the guidebook’s inaccuracy on the Kasese - Fort Portal distance, we didn’t have enough time to see the pygmy village (which I was having some ethical issues with anyway, it’s been described as a “human safari” and not enjoyable to either party), the game reserves or the beautiful road descending from the plains into the Congo.
So we had to settle on biking around the Crater lakes, which was actually quite nice, though perhaps a bit rushed. Apparently the crater lakes were formed as part of the rift geology when this part of the world was being torn apart (geologically, not politically, that’s a more recent development, relatively speaking). Incredibly steep banks fall into a series of lake no more than a kilometer in diameter, all set amid rolling hills. Unfortunately, it had rained that day, and the roads were basically clay, so traction was a challenge. I also ended up with the one Ugandan bike without gears and poor brakes, so hills were also a challenge...both ways. But this gives me a clue as to why Ugandans are always pushing their bikes up hills instead of pedaling. Those bikes are all steel, and about three times the weight of my bike. And they often have a load of plantains (likely weighing 100 lbs). I’ll never think of them as wimps again.
Today is Sunday, and therefore a day of rest. It’s funny, I would’ve thought after two months with a Christian organization, some of their faith might start to rub off on me, but I’m no less an atheist/agnostic than I was before. I’m not sure if it was because I was exposed to Christianity at an early age, and then followed it up with a good dose of philosophy? Or if it’s simply because I find church services to be kind of boring and uninspiring? Either way, thanks to this lack of spiritual awakening, I have no inclination to go to church today, despite living in the diocene guesthouse, living next to the bishop and working with a man (Yona), who attends two congregations on Sunday and is trying to build a church for one of them (all donations gladly accepted). Instead I’m spending the day updating the information collected last week, planning next week, washing my clothes and researching the nutritional value of matoke (again). It seems like it should be healthy, but I’ve heard from two separate sources (both unreliable), that it’s nutritionally bankrupt. Anybody out there know anything about the nutritional benefits of matoke?
However, one thing I can’t argue is how readily plantains and bananas grow here. They are the fundamental base of the diet. In fact, one observation I made while doing the community mapping for Kaswa was how close the people in the villages are to the earth. Based on the food I eat, and the crops I see, I would guess that 99% of the food consumed by the villagers is grown by them. The houses and structures they build are mud and wattle (I don’t know what wattle is, but from what I’ve seen, it’s basically tree trunks and branches). The trees are planted every year for this purpose, as well as to provide firewood. (I would like to think it’s also to help prevent erosion, but farming practices seem to indicate erosion isn't really considered). The only outside materials they use is cement, piping, corrugated steel for roofing and some foodstuffs. And batteries and radios. So funny to be walking along a foot path, surrounded by simple houses and farm land only to come across a guy walking along, carrying his 70s style radio listening to a soccer (“football” of course) match between Manchester United and Chelsea. In response to queries, I keep saying Man U is my favorite team, when really I have no idea who any of the players are, an certainly not how well they’re doing.
Anyway, I’ve obviously got too much time on my hands as I’m starting to ramble. So I’ll stop here.
However, it does have a few factors in it’s favor, including beautiful views of the equatorial glaciers, its proximity to a pygmy village, some very nice game reserves, a beautiful road west of town which descends from the plains of East Africa and into the forests of the Congo and the Crater lakes.
Unfortunately the glaciers were obscured by clouds and thanks to the guidebook’s inaccuracy on the Kasese - Fort Portal distance, we didn’t have enough time to see the pygmy village (which I was having some ethical issues with anyway, it’s been described as a “human safari” and not enjoyable to either party), the game reserves or the beautiful road descending from the plains into the Congo.
So we had to settle on biking around the Crater lakes, which was actually quite nice, though perhaps a bit rushed. Apparently the crater lakes were formed as part of the rift geology when this part of the world was being torn apart (geologically, not politically, that’s a more recent development, relatively speaking). Incredibly steep banks fall into a series of lake no more than a kilometer in diameter, all set amid rolling hills. Unfortunately, it had rained that day, and the roads were basically clay, so traction was a challenge. I also ended up with the one Ugandan bike without gears and poor brakes, so hills were also a challenge...both ways. But this gives me a clue as to why Ugandans are always pushing their bikes up hills instead of pedaling. Those bikes are all steel, and about three times the weight of my bike. And they often have a load of plantains (likely weighing 100 lbs). I’ll never think of them as wimps again.
Today is Sunday, and therefore a day of rest. It’s funny, I would’ve thought after two months with a Christian organization, some of their faith might start to rub off on me, but I’m no less an atheist/agnostic than I was before. I’m not sure if it was because I was exposed to Christianity at an early age, and then followed it up with a good dose of philosophy? Or if it’s simply because I find church services to be kind of boring and uninspiring? Either way, thanks to this lack of spiritual awakening, I have no inclination to go to church today, despite living in the diocene guesthouse, living next to the bishop and working with a man (Yona), who attends two congregations on Sunday and is trying to build a church for one of them (all donations gladly accepted). Instead I’m spending the day updating the information collected last week, planning next week, washing my clothes and researching the nutritional value of matoke (again). It seems like it should be healthy, but I’ve heard from two separate sources (both unreliable), that it’s nutritionally bankrupt. Anybody out there know anything about the nutritional benefits of matoke?
However, one thing I can’t argue is how readily plantains and bananas grow here. They are the fundamental base of the diet. In fact, one observation I made while doing the community mapping for Kaswa was how close the people in the villages are to the earth. Based on the food I eat, and the crops I see, I would guess that 99% of the food consumed by the villagers is grown by them. The houses and structures they build are mud and wattle (I don’t know what wattle is, but from what I’ve seen, it’s basically tree trunks and branches). The trees are planted every year for this purpose, as well as to provide firewood. (I would like to think it’s also to help prevent erosion, but farming practices seem to indicate erosion isn't really considered). The only outside materials they use is cement, piping, corrugated steel for roofing and some foodstuffs. And batteries and radios. So funny to be walking along a foot path, surrounded by simple houses and farm land only to come across a guy walking along, carrying his 70s style radio listening to a soccer (“football” of course) match between Manchester United and Chelsea. In response to queries, I keep saying Man U is my favorite team, when really I have no idea who any of the players are, an certainly not how well they’re doing.
Anyway, I’ve obviously got too much time on my hands as I’m starting to ramble. So I’ll stop here.
The Rate Has Picked Up!
As you may note from the title, this has been an eventful five days. And so for that reason, I’ve decided to split this into two posts, the first covering up to Friday and the second (posted below) covering yesterday and today. This is mainly to appease the more attention deficit readers in the crowd (I’m thinking mainly of my girlfriend here).
Wednesday was entertaining and a good follow up to Tuesday’s debacle. We were following up another report given to us from the district water office. We started the morning in Kasese at 1,000 metres elevation, and in the span of 40 km managed to climb to 2,000 metres to the community of Mahango. My amazement at our little Toyota Hi-Lux only grew that day as we climbed hills a Humvee would’ve had issues with. Once at the top, the road continued along the ridge with a panorama of the plains of Ugandan rift valley extending to the left (some 1,000 metres below), the Rwenzori mountains to the right and the town of Kasese behind us. And despite the 60 degree slopes on either side of the ridge, houses were spaced evenly all the way down to the valley floor.
One of the things I love taking away from traveling is being able to put a real image to a place. Before I visited south America, I had an idea that the amazon was a large, tropical rain forest and that the Andes were quite high. But I had no idea how much the identity of the entire continent was shaped from the relationship of the two. Apparently the five highest peaks on this continent are here in East Africa, and the Rwenzoris are the highest range in Africa. West of here the land descends into the Congo basin and the associated jungle. North of here, everything eventually drains into the Nile. (I’d love to be able to do an expedition into the Rwenzoris and see the equatorial glaciers, but at $600 for the mandatory six days, that seems like a very expensive undertaking at this time. Besides, every time I look at them, they look covered in clouds, so I can’t imagine the view from up there would be that great. On the other hand four of the peaks have glaciers, and seeing snow at the equator is always a cool undertaking.)
Once we reached Mahango and hiked to the source, it was, of course, half the flow reported, but we’re getting used to that. Certainly hones our patience.
It’s funny, for the most part the last two and half weeks have been a long, hard slog to find feasible springs. Our success rate is dismal (we’ve now visited approximately 40 springs of which 6 will be useful to us), and yet I’ve been finding the whole exercise incredibly rewarding. At the same time, I feel more pressure to succeed than any of the interns. Their time here is paid for by the Canadian government, whereas I’ve been entrusted with the money of my friends and family. I’ve never felt like such a workaholic and yet loved it so much.
So we headed back to Kasese at the end of the day, once again pessimistic about our chances for a good project.
And then Thursday our luck changed.
We headed off to an area south of the Rwenzori mountains called Kagando. Our resident engineer, Yona, met with us at the rural hospital in the area and then showed us to the spring.
What a beautiful sight! Water gushing out of the soil everywhere! Enough to provide 25 litres/day of water to 18,000 people (to put this in perspective, Canadians consume approximately 400 litres/day). Most importantly, the test results came in today and they were clean!
However, the downside of this source is that it’s located quite low in the valley. But that’ll be an engineering challenge as opposed to a resource challenge. At least we’ve got enough water to feed people. Which means in one day we’ve gone from 0.5 of a proposal to 1.5 proposals. Things are looking up. But then again, we always start the day of with reams of optimism. (We haven’t learned cynicism yet, we’re saving that for next month.)
Friday was also good, we headed back to the same area of the Kasese district, only further north this time. Arrived at a parish called Kalonge. Managed to get our truck stuck to the point of almost rolling off the side of the road (I was strategically outside and away from harm at the time...directing of course). No worries though, with the help of some seven local Ugandans and a pick-axe, managed to get the truck back on the road.
Parked the truck at 1,500 m and started ascending the side of the valley. Reached a beautiful source at ~2,000 m forty minutes later (while almost being passed a Ugandan grandmother carrying a huge load of fire wood - in my defense it was 34 C).
Looked at three more sources and all had high yields and what appeared to be good elevation. (Also met a very drunk local leader, entertaining, but also kind of annoying – always asking for money). Just found out last night that two of the four sources had good quality. Plus there are two more sources on the other side of the valley that’ll take another day to assess. Depending on those results, we may be up to 2.5 projects! The only issue may be building the line. If we had issues just hiking it, than building it could be overwhelming. On the other hand, as the Ugandan grandmother proved today, these may be idle concerns.
Had a brief (but typically incredibly strong) rain storm which turned the roads into a slip and slide. Managed to get stuck at the exact same location on the way out. But some quick road re-construction and we were on our way.
At the start of next week we’ll be heading back to Kalonge to do some community mapping (where to locate the tapstands, etc) so we can complete a preliminary design and cost estimate. Also, Yona has promised another good source, (this time a 2hr hike up), so by the end of next week, we may have three and half projects. One can dream.
Strange how one’s dreams can change depending on the circumstances.
Wednesday was entertaining and a good follow up to Tuesday’s debacle. We were following up another report given to us from the district water office. We started the morning in Kasese at 1,000 metres elevation, and in the span of 40 km managed to climb to 2,000 metres to the community of Mahango. My amazement at our little Toyota Hi-Lux only grew that day as we climbed hills a Humvee would’ve had issues with. Once at the top, the road continued along the ridge with a panorama of the plains of Ugandan rift valley extending to the left (some 1,000 metres below), the Rwenzori mountains to the right and the town of Kasese behind us. And despite the 60 degree slopes on either side of the ridge, houses were spaced evenly all the way down to the valley floor.
One of the things I love taking away from traveling is being able to put a real image to a place. Before I visited south America, I had an idea that the amazon was a large, tropical rain forest and that the Andes were quite high. But I had no idea how much the identity of the entire continent was shaped from the relationship of the two. Apparently the five highest peaks on this continent are here in East Africa, and the Rwenzoris are the highest range in Africa. West of here the land descends into the Congo basin and the associated jungle. North of here, everything eventually drains into the Nile. (I’d love to be able to do an expedition into the Rwenzoris and see the equatorial glaciers, but at $600 for the mandatory six days, that seems like a very expensive undertaking at this time. Besides, every time I look at them, they look covered in clouds, so I can’t imagine the view from up there would be that great. On the other hand four of the peaks have glaciers, and seeing snow at the equator is always a cool undertaking.)
Once we reached Mahango and hiked to the source, it was, of course, half the flow reported, but we’re getting used to that. Certainly hones our patience.
It’s funny, for the most part the last two and half weeks have been a long, hard slog to find feasible springs. Our success rate is dismal (we’ve now visited approximately 40 springs of which 6 will be useful to us), and yet I’ve been finding the whole exercise incredibly rewarding. At the same time, I feel more pressure to succeed than any of the interns. Their time here is paid for by the Canadian government, whereas I’ve been entrusted with the money of my friends and family. I’ve never felt like such a workaholic and yet loved it so much.
So we headed back to Kasese at the end of the day, once again pessimistic about our chances for a good project.
And then Thursday our luck changed.
We headed off to an area south of the Rwenzori mountains called Kagando. Our resident engineer, Yona, met with us at the rural hospital in the area and then showed us to the spring.
What a beautiful sight! Water gushing out of the soil everywhere! Enough to provide 25 litres/day of water to 18,000 people (to put this in perspective, Canadians consume approximately 400 litres/day). Most importantly, the test results came in today and they were clean!
However, the downside of this source is that it’s located quite low in the valley. But that’ll be an engineering challenge as opposed to a resource challenge. At least we’ve got enough water to feed people. Which means in one day we’ve gone from 0.5 of a proposal to 1.5 proposals. Things are looking up. But then again, we always start the day of with reams of optimism. (We haven’t learned cynicism yet, we’re saving that for next month.)
Friday was also good, we headed back to the same area of the Kasese district, only further north this time. Arrived at a parish called Kalonge. Managed to get our truck stuck to the point of almost rolling off the side of the road (I was strategically outside and away from harm at the time...directing of course). No worries though, with the help of some seven local Ugandans and a pick-axe, managed to get the truck back on the road.
Parked the truck at 1,500 m and started ascending the side of the valley. Reached a beautiful source at ~2,000 m forty minutes later (while almost being passed a Ugandan grandmother carrying a huge load of fire wood - in my defense it was 34 C).
Looked at three more sources and all had high yields and what appeared to be good elevation. (Also met a very drunk local leader, entertaining, but also kind of annoying – always asking for money). Just found out last night that two of the four sources had good quality. Plus there are two more sources on the other side of the valley that’ll take another day to assess. Depending on those results, we may be up to 2.5 projects! The only issue may be building the line. If we had issues just hiking it, than building it could be overwhelming. On the other hand, as the Ugandan grandmother proved today, these may be idle concerns.
Had a brief (but typically incredibly strong) rain storm which turned the roads into a slip and slide. Managed to get stuck at the exact same location on the way out. But some quick road re-construction and we were on our way.
At the start of next week we’ll be heading back to Kalonge to do some community mapping (where to locate the tapstands, etc) so we can complete a preliminary design and cost estimate. Also, Yona has promised another good source, (this time a 2hr hike up), so by the end of next week, we may have three and half projects. One can dream.
Strange how one’s dreams can change depending on the circumstances.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
My first pipeline design
It has been a long week, so this may be a long blog. Last time I uploaded a blog, I was writing from a church in the foothills of the Rwensoris. We returned to Kaswa the next day, and while I spent the time mapping the entire parish, Wesley and Aseph went off to look at the new sources the parish leader had found. At the end of the day we had a file of GPS points that included all of the cells in the parish, and had found a new source producing a respectable 0.45 L/s of water.
Thursday afternoon returned to Kasese and celebrated Uganda’s independence day by having a beer and a stoney, a ginger ale/root beer that has to be my favorite beverage in Uganda. However, that might be a biased view as I’ve only really had four beers in the country since I’ve gotten here. The perils of working under the umbrella of the Church of Uganda (COU), (the upside is that we’re staying in a COU guesthouse with an awesome cook. Friday morning we were supposed to meet with the district water officer for Kasese, but that meeting was postponed. While we were driving to his office. Twice. Just another thing to get used to in Africa. People you meet with are rarely on time. Finally met up with him and he was able to give us some good prospects that we should check out. Ended the week on a high note.
Saturday and Sunday I spent working on the design for the Kaswa project, and finally came up with a cost estimate Sunday night. Problem was, it was far too low for a CIDA sized grant, we need to come up with something like $250,000 and this one will likely cost less than $100,000. Which means we need to find more sources in the area and try to feed the entire parish. So we’re going back next week.
Took a break from the design work on Saturday night and headed out for a real night on the town in Kasese in my new dress shoes I’d paid $12 for (well the final tally was $25, but that’s another story).
Walked into a bar and of course, being Muzungus, were greeted by everyone there. Our neighbor at the bar turned out to be a very happy go-lucky sergeant in the Ugandan army who very quickly bought us a beer. So of course we bought him some beer and some goat on a stick from a street vendor outside (which I highly recommend, delicious). We became fast friends after that to the point that we were all dancing at a neighboring “club” (the quote mean it was actually just a bar with the music cranked so loud that some felt obligated to dance). Very cultural immersed night to the point that the only song I recognized was “Ever-blazing” by Sean Paul, and I was invited to dance repeatedly by our soldier friend who also insisted on holding Wesley’ hand at various points through the night. That’s one thing I’m still going to take some getting used. Still had a really good time, even if the only ones dancing were guys, and I had to spend half my time avoiding their groping hands.
Monday morning, headed out to a GFS project commissioned by the district water board. The system takes water directly from a larger river and was originally designed to supply 70,000 people and was augmented last year to supply 140,000. The system goes through four filtration steps. Unfortunately, the new intake gets clogged every time there’s a large rain storm. Which means the operators bypass the filtration. Which means 140,000 people get muddy river water. We didn’t see the system at it’s finest.
And today. Where to start. Today was the very apex of the Ugandan experience. We wanted to follow up on one of the prospects given to us by the Kasese water district office. The proposed GFS is in a sub-county called Kitswamba, and we met the chairman of the sub-county. Of course he was an hour late, but that’s how things work here. No big deal. We told him how we wanted to see this source and possibly put in a GFS in his sub-county. Considering how hard it is to get water here, he was very happy and was delighted to guide us. But he informed us we couldn’t take the shorter road because it was in a very bad condition. So we took the longer road. One of the issues with this project was that the source originates in another sub-county. So we stopped by the offices of that sub-county and picked up another high level official, the secretary of social services. Once we had our entourage, we drove a little further and reached the start of the trail. We then started hiking. At the 1.5hr mark we reached the crest of the ridge, and a saw a very nice road, likely only 5 minutes from the source. The chairman had wanted to talk to the “leadership” of the neighboring sub-county to make sure no feathers were ruffled once we started to walk around there looking for water. That little detour added approximately 4hrs of walking, and 1hr of driving to our day. The worst part was that the source was dry when we’d arrived. Not a productive day. We’re going to another source tomorrow, hopefully we’ll have more luck then. Because we now have to come up with three CIDA sized proposals before we leave and we’re currently at 1/3. At this rate we’ll leave in 16 weeks. Unfortunately I’ve only got 11 weeks. So hopefully the rate starts to pick up...
Thursday afternoon returned to Kasese and celebrated Uganda’s independence day by having a beer and a stoney, a ginger ale/root beer that has to be my favorite beverage in Uganda. However, that might be a biased view as I’ve only really had four beers in the country since I’ve gotten here. The perils of working under the umbrella of the Church of Uganda (COU), (the upside is that we’re staying in a COU guesthouse with an awesome cook. Friday morning we were supposed to meet with the district water officer for Kasese, but that meeting was postponed. While we were driving to his office. Twice. Just another thing to get used to in Africa. People you meet with are rarely on time. Finally met up with him and he was able to give us some good prospects that we should check out. Ended the week on a high note.
Saturday and Sunday I spent working on the design for the Kaswa project, and finally came up with a cost estimate Sunday night. Problem was, it was far too low for a CIDA sized grant, we need to come up with something like $250,000 and this one will likely cost less than $100,000. Which means we need to find more sources in the area and try to feed the entire parish. So we’re going back next week.
Took a break from the design work on Saturday night and headed out for a real night on the town in Kasese in my new dress shoes I’d paid $12 for (well the final tally was $25, but that’s another story).
Walked into a bar and of course, being Muzungus, were greeted by everyone there. Our neighbor at the bar turned out to be a very happy go-lucky sergeant in the Ugandan army who very quickly bought us a beer. So of course we bought him some beer and some goat on a stick from a street vendor outside (which I highly recommend, delicious). We became fast friends after that to the point that we were all dancing at a neighboring “club” (the quote mean it was actually just a bar with the music cranked so loud that some felt obligated to dance). Very cultural immersed night to the point that the only song I recognized was “Ever-blazing” by Sean Paul, and I was invited to dance repeatedly by our soldier friend who also insisted on holding Wesley’ hand at various points through the night. That’s one thing I’m still going to take some getting used. Still had a really good time, even if the only ones dancing were guys, and I had to spend half my time avoiding their groping hands.
Monday morning, headed out to a GFS project commissioned by the district water board. The system takes water directly from a larger river and was originally designed to supply 70,000 people and was augmented last year to supply 140,000. The system goes through four filtration steps. Unfortunately, the new intake gets clogged every time there’s a large rain storm. Which means the operators bypass the filtration. Which means 140,000 people get muddy river water. We didn’t see the system at it’s finest.
And today. Where to start. Today was the very apex of the Ugandan experience. We wanted to follow up on one of the prospects given to us by the Kasese water district office. The proposed GFS is in a sub-county called Kitswamba, and we met the chairman of the sub-county. Of course he was an hour late, but that’s how things work here. No big deal. We told him how we wanted to see this source and possibly put in a GFS in his sub-county. Considering how hard it is to get water here, he was very happy and was delighted to guide us. But he informed us we couldn’t take the shorter road because it was in a very bad condition. So we took the longer road. One of the issues with this project was that the source originates in another sub-county. So we stopped by the offices of that sub-county and picked up another high level official, the secretary of social services. Once we had our entourage, we drove a little further and reached the start of the trail. We then started hiking. At the 1.5hr mark we reached the crest of the ridge, and a saw a very nice road, likely only 5 minutes from the source. The chairman had wanted to talk to the “leadership” of the neighboring sub-county to make sure no feathers were ruffled once we started to walk around there looking for water. That little detour added approximately 4hrs of walking, and 1hr of driving to our day. The worst part was that the source was dry when we’d arrived. Not a productive day. We’re going to another source tomorrow, hopefully we’ll have more luck then. Because we now have to come up with three CIDA sized proposals before we leave and we’re currently at 1/3. At this rate we’ll leave in 16 weeks. Unfortunately I’ve only got 11 weeks. So hopefully the rate starts to pick up...
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
I write this blog from the front of an open air church at approximately 1500m altitude in the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains. The Rwenzoris apparently have some of the highest peaks in Africa, and unlike Kilimanjaro or Mt. Kenya, are a range instead of solitary volcanic peaks. I’ll have to check my guidebook, but I believe they go as high as 5,000 metres, and there are glaciers up there, which is impressive as they lie within 50km of the equator.
When I was last able to update, I’d just arrived in Kasese. On Friday morning, we met up with Yona, the diocene engineer, and headed off to investigate a source in the northern part of Kasese district, just north of the Kitswamba parish (the Ugandan geographical political order goes District, county, sub-county, parish and village). Unknown to us, the source had already been tapped 20 years earlier and a long pipeline with approximately 90 taps had already been installed. However, only 20 of the taps currently worked, and the system was losing a significant amount of water due to leakage. So it appeared that they were wondering if we could fix the pipeline rather than install a new one. Unfortunately, from our understanding of CIDA grants, this would likely not fly as CIDA is looking for sustainability in it’s project, and repairing a pipeline implies it wasn’t maintained/sustained very well in the first place.
Plus the coliform counts from the water sample came back high.
On Saturday we headed off to the southwest of the Kasese district and investigated approximately 5 sources over a 6 km route(on foot of course). As this was still in the foothills, the terrain was pretty heinous. Evaluated all five sources and together they might supply water for 2,000 – 3,000 people, but the need is to supply 10,000. It seems that the majority of the people in the area have to complete a daily 5km walk to get water. And of course the test results came back indicating all five sources were contaminated with bacteria. So it was another exhausting (physically and emotionally) day.
As we were staying in the bishop’s guest house, we were invited to church service on sunday. I declined and instead choose to visit some chimps at the Kyambura gorge. The gorge descends from the Rift valley plains in QENP into a tropical riverine forest. Dense tall trees, baboons and colobus monkeys everywhere. We also came across quite a few hippos, which explained the AK47 the guide was casually carrying along. The guide had promised a 2-2.5 walk, but after 3.5hrs we still hadn’t heard a thing, and so turned back disappointed. Just as we were heading out of the gorge, we heard that distinctive chimp hoot/scream. Turned back and found the chimps! So cool. Much larger than I was expecting and able to get up really close. Currently top of my list for wildlife sightings. I’m currently banking on the tree-climbing lions of Ishasha plains to top that.
Monday met with the district water board and found out they have a few plans for GFSs, but none that we could look at that moment, and none that we could use. But we could get the plans for the currently installed ones in the areas we’re interested in...but we’ll have to come back on Friday.
Yesterday headed back out to the northern area of the Kasese district and visited the Kaswa parish. The chairman of the parish (known as local chairman II or LCII for short), had mapped out four sources, and a rough sketch of a GFS that he was hoping to get funding for. This map included all of the villages, trading centres (larger villages where, you guessed it, people trade) and other crucial information Wes and I keep attempting to get. Most importantly he showed us two sources that had a relatively good yield, and test results today showed were relatively clean. The yield would only support about 4,500 people, but thankfully the parish only has 3,500. So we might just have a project we can finally write up. Or at least half of one. It’s something, and for the past three weeks, we feel like we’ve gotten nowhere, so it was important.
Spent today assessing four other sources in another parish, of which only two had sufficient flow to bother looking at, and even then were rather pathetic. So that brought us back down to earth after the half triumph of yesterday. Still, we seem to be getting somewhere, it just may take far more time than we have to get there.
As I write this (still in the church), I’m surrounded by thirteen kids who are all fascinated by a computer. It’s kind of eerie because they’re all within four feet of me, and they just stare at me or the computer in complete silence. Personal space has a different meaning up here. This place has no electricity, no running water (we’re working on that part), and of course no tv. So we seem to be the most interesting thing happening.
Going back to Kaswa tomorrow to see if we can develop this half proposal into a full one by finding more sources. But the more we search the more it seems that perhaps we may have to change our overall approach. All of the big sources seem to have been found and tapped. Trying to combine the smaller sources may add up in numbers, but reduces the efficiency of the system, and in the end, may still not be enough. Which has me pondering another philosophical question. If we manage to turn this into a water project, and likely raise the standard of living for the population served, the population will likely grow to the point where the water is not enough far faster than we designed for. Which seems to me Uganda will have this same problem of not enough safe water in less than 10 years. And at that point, the solution will certainly not be solvable by natural springs because they’ll all be used which would mean more expensive pumping or treatment systems. But that’s a problem for ten years from now and perhaps technology will solve that problem. Right now I’m just trying to find some water.
When I was last able to update, I’d just arrived in Kasese. On Friday morning, we met up with Yona, the diocene engineer, and headed off to investigate a source in the northern part of Kasese district, just north of the Kitswamba parish (the Ugandan geographical political order goes District, county, sub-county, parish and village). Unknown to us, the source had already been tapped 20 years earlier and a long pipeline with approximately 90 taps had already been installed. However, only 20 of the taps currently worked, and the system was losing a significant amount of water due to leakage. So it appeared that they were wondering if we could fix the pipeline rather than install a new one. Unfortunately, from our understanding of CIDA grants, this would likely not fly as CIDA is looking for sustainability in it’s project, and repairing a pipeline implies it wasn’t maintained/sustained very well in the first place.
Plus the coliform counts from the water sample came back high.
On Saturday we headed off to the southwest of the Kasese district and investigated approximately 5 sources over a 6 km route(on foot of course). As this was still in the foothills, the terrain was pretty heinous. Evaluated all five sources and together they might supply water for 2,000 – 3,000 people, but the need is to supply 10,000. It seems that the majority of the people in the area have to complete a daily 5km walk to get water. And of course the test results came back indicating all five sources were contaminated with bacteria. So it was another exhausting (physically and emotionally) day.
As we were staying in the bishop’s guest house, we were invited to church service on sunday. I declined and instead choose to visit some chimps at the Kyambura gorge. The gorge descends from the Rift valley plains in QENP into a tropical riverine forest. Dense tall trees, baboons and colobus monkeys everywhere. We also came across quite a few hippos, which explained the AK47 the guide was casually carrying along. The guide had promised a 2-2.5 walk, but after 3.5hrs we still hadn’t heard a thing, and so turned back disappointed. Just as we were heading out of the gorge, we heard that distinctive chimp hoot/scream. Turned back and found the chimps! So cool. Much larger than I was expecting and able to get up really close. Currently top of my list for wildlife sightings. I’m currently banking on the tree-climbing lions of Ishasha plains to top that.
Monday met with the district water board and found out they have a few plans for GFSs, but none that we could look at that moment, and none that we could use. But we could get the plans for the currently installed ones in the areas we’re interested in...but we’ll have to come back on Friday.
Yesterday headed back out to the northern area of the Kasese district and visited the Kaswa parish. The chairman of the parish (known as local chairman II or LCII for short), had mapped out four sources, and a rough sketch of a GFS that he was hoping to get funding for. This map included all of the villages, trading centres (larger villages where, you guessed it, people trade) and other crucial information Wes and I keep attempting to get. Most importantly he showed us two sources that had a relatively good yield, and test results today showed were relatively clean. The yield would only support about 4,500 people, but thankfully the parish only has 3,500. So we might just have a project we can finally write up. Or at least half of one. It’s something, and for the past three weeks, we feel like we’ve gotten nowhere, so it was important.
Spent today assessing four other sources in another parish, of which only two had sufficient flow to bother looking at, and even then were rather pathetic. So that brought us back down to earth after the half triumph of yesterday. Still, we seem to be getting somewhere, it just may take far more time than we have to get there.
As I write this (still in the church), I’m surrounded by thirteen kids who are all fascinated by a computer. It’s kind of eerie because they’re all within four feet of me, and they just stare at me or the computer in complete silence. Personal space has a different meaning up here. This place has no electricity, no running water (we’re working on that part), and of course no tv. So we seem to be the most interesting thing happening.
Going back to Kaswa tomorrow to see if we can develop this half proposal into a full one by finding more sources. But the more we search the more it seems that perhaps we may have to change our overall approach. All of the big sources seem to have been found and tapped. Trying to combine the smaller sources may add up in numbers, but reduces the efficiency of the system, and in the end, may still not be enough. Which has me pondering another philosophical question. If we manage to turn this into a water project, and likely raise the standard of living for the population served, the population will likely grow to the point where the water is not enough far faster than we designed for. Which seems to me Uganda will have this same problem of not enough safe water in less than 10 years. And at that point, the solution will certainly not be solvable by natural springs because they’ll all be used which would mean more expensive pumping or treatment systems. But that’s a problem for ten years from now and perhaps technology will solve that problem. Right now I’m just trying to find some water.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Kasese Again
So this blog should be much shorter and sweeter as it’s only been three days since my update. First, I’m happy to state that my malarial friend Naomi has recovered and seems to be at 90% of her former strength. Still, malaria seems like a very bad thing to get. She looked like the worst I’ve ever felt with the flu, but for two days straight. I’ll be doing my best to avoid it.
Spent Wednesday getting ready for the trip up to Kasese, including a 3 hr round trip to the Kinumefura Camp and back to pick up the supplies we’d need for a month of roving. The road is only 50kms (100km round trip), and it’s all paved. The thing that slows us down to an average speed of 33 km/hr is all the potholes. Potholes of all shapes and sizes. And most importantly, potholes that span the road on a regular basis.
The first week we were in camp we were put through a driving test by Tim Specht, the regional director of Acts, a Victorian who’s lived in Mbarara for the last two years. Three notable things stood out:
1) It’s sometimes good to swerve all the way to the wrong side to avoid potholes.
2) The horn is an essential tool on Ugandan roads, without it, you have only have half a car.
3) The largest vehicles on the road are the passenger buses, and if approaching from the opposite direction, they’ll plow you off the road...unless you hold your ground, just so the bus driver knows you’re there and moves over. In essence, a game of chicken with a bus. We are driving mini pick-ups. Thankfully I haven’t needed to establish my presence to a bus driver yet.
This morning we had a meeting with the regional office of water and sanitation. They have a far different manner of going about the installation of water pipelines than Acts currently does. The budget for initial project installation is taken from the federal government. However, order to ensure sustainability of the pipeline, they give the option of household metered hook-ups for $31, but also install public metered taps at the cost of $0.01 for 20 litres. This is to ensure that enough money is collected to pay for the system operation and maintenance and possibly pay for a new system at the end of the project life.
Acts installs the pipeline using CIDA funds. During the installation, tapstand committees are set-up to collect funds from the community in order to maintain the system. It seems to be a far softer system, and therefore open to abuse, than the government sanctioned approach. However, the government wasn’t very forthcoming on how the very poor (widows and such) pay for the water.
After the meeting, headed up to Kasese to investigate two projects suggested by the diocene engineer (I have to admit, this is the first time I’ve heard of a church region having it’s own water engineer – I know it’s wrong, but I’m tempted to try some Moses jokes, or maybe something about baptism, when we meet him tomorrow morning).
On the way to Kasese, we passed through QENP again, and this time saw some Ugandan Kobs and a leopard. The leopard was within 10 metres of the road and was stalking the kobs. However, once we stopped, it looked at us for a few moments and then took off. Might be the coolest wildlife sighting I’ve seen so far.
Arrived in Kasese without incident and are eager to set out tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed that it’s got a good flow and has no faecal matter.
Spent Wednesday getting ready for the trip up to Kasese, including a 3 hr round trip to the Kinumefura Camp and back to pick up the supplies we’d need for a month of roving. The road is only 50kms (100km round trip), and it’s all paved. The thing that slows us down to an average speed of 33 km/hr is all the potholes. Potholes of all shapes and sizes. And most importantly, potholes that span the road on a regular basis.
The first week we were in camp we were put through a driving test by Tim Specht, the regional director of Acts, a Victorian who’s lived in Mbarara for the last two years. Three notable things stood out:
1) It’s sometimes good to swerve all the way to the wrong side to avoid potholes.
2) The horn is an essential tool on Ugandan roads, without it, you have only have half a car.
3) The largest vehicles on the road are the passenger buses, and if approaching from the opposite direction, they’ll plow you off the road...unless you hold your ground, just so the bus driver knows you’re there and moves over. In essence, a game of chicken with a bus. We are driving mini pick-ups. Thankfully I haven’t needed to establish my presence to a bus driver yet.
This morning we had a meeting with the regional office of water and sanitation. They have a far different manner of going about the installation of water pipelines than Acts currently does. The budget for initial project installation is taken from the federal government. However, order to ensure sustainability of the pipeline, they give the option of household metered hook-ups for $31, but also install public metered taps at the cost of $0.01 for 20 litres. This is to ensure that enough money is collected to pay for the system operation and maintenance and possibly pay for a new system at the end of the project life.
Acts installs the pipeline using CIDA funds. During the installation, tapstand committees are set-up to collect funds from the community in order to maintain the system. It seems to be a far softer system, and therefore open to abuse, than the government sanctioned approach. However, the government wasn’t very forthcoming on how the very poor (widows and such) pay for the water.
After the meeting, headed up to Kasese to investigate two projects suggested by the diocene engineer (I have to admit, this is the first time I’ve heard of a church region having it’s own water engineer – I know it’s wrong, but I’m tempted to try some Moses jokes, or maybe something about baptism, when we meet him tomorrow morning).
On the way to Kasese, we passed through QENP again, and this time saw some Ugandan Kobs and a leopard. The leopard was within 10 metres of the road and was stalking the kobs. However, once we stopped, it looked at us for a few moments and then took off. Might be the coolest wildlife sighting I’ve seen so far.
Arrived in Kasese without incident and are eager to set out tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed that it’s got a good flow and has no faecal matter.
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