We have aced our midterms

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.