Christmas Eve

For my birthday last friday, I took a bus into Kampala and saw Liz again for the first time in 3.5 months. She managed to book a room at the Sheraton on points so after 3.5 months of 'roughing it' in Kasese and Mbarara, I was whisked into luxury and opulence for two days. I'd forgotten how nice a non-bilharzia swim could be. The other fun thing was introducing Liz and her friend Claire to Boda Bodas (aka motorcycle taxis). Thankfully two rides was enough.

The down side of course was the 12hr round trip to Kampala, but certainly worth it.

Returned to Kasese on sunday night and found out from my colleague that the proposal the district had given us, and that we'd been waiting two months for the consultant to finish, was based on some faulty assumptions. This will be the third proposal we've been given by the district that has turned out to be faulty.

Spent monday and tuesday further investigating the source we'd discovered the previous week. Forgot how much hiking this type of investigation involved, but did manage to hike over a 1,000 metre pass and found another source we'd first discovered in October. That moment felt like a crowning achievement, like we'd walked every metre of that little (but mountainous) part of Uganda. We've certainly hiked a lot more than most of the inhabitants of the area (they're more interested in more mundane things like growing food so they can eat).

This source may have enough water to satisfy our partner's dreams. The south Rwenzori Diocese is hoping to bring water to a subcounty called Kitswamba where some 16 people died of dysentary over the last six months. If we can bring some water there, it could reduce those incidences quite well.

Wednesday met with this subcounty to find out where they needed water the most and what the populations in those areas were like. And then headed back to Mbarara that afternoon for the Acts company christmas party. Certainly different than most company christmas parties I've been to (never played a game of pictionary in two different languages before...)

And then today attended a conference on groundwater resource mapping in Uganda put on by the federal government. It was actually two days long but of course the christmas party takes priority over a conference. On the other hand, if I'd registered yesterday, I would've received $30 for attending and free lunches and dinner's both days. Also confirmed with a consultant the cost to complete a design and proposal was more than $10,000. Actually more like $25,000. Which goes to explain why most of these systems aren't working very well. The government is spending all of the money on poor designs and conferences.

At least it gives Acts a good basis for being here.