Community meetings

I feel like I’m currently in “wrap up” mode. I’ve put so much effort into the proposals in Kasese that I’m having a hard time coming up with the energy to put together a similar proposal here in Mbarara. Unfortunately that would be mean less water for the people here, so I’m trying to get motivated. But it’s not easy.

We spent last Friday meeting with the communities in Kasese to whom my projects would be supplying the water. The first meeting did not start off well, with us being 1.5 hrs late, but that paled to the community leaders who were themselves 2.5 hrs late. This was a crucial meeting, where the leaders were to indicate whether their constituents would accept the agreement to provide the manual labor for the construction in return for piped water to their communities. So the fact that they were late was not a good sign.

But once they’d all arrived, things began to get better. The leaders had indeed consulted the populations and returned with such comments like “the people in the hills and all over are singing with praise for water and for Acts!”

This was good until one of the leaders from one of the more water-stressed areas communicated some very effusive praise for both the GFS system and Acts, and how grateful they were that the GFS was coming to their community.

Only one problem, it wasn’t. And it wasn’t because it couldn’t, but rather a choice between the most efficient use of the resource. I could’ve designed the line to go to their community, but it was far more sparsely populated and then the route I choose. I stick by the decision, but still, it doesn’t make me feel warm and cuddly.

Other than that, the meetings went well with the communities promising lavish buildings around the tapstands and to run the operation like a sustainable business (which is what Acts is looking for, otherwise these systems tend to fail due to lack of operation and maintenance).

We spent Saturday with our boss Tim at a basket shop near Fort Portal. These baskets are pretty cool, apparently take up to 30hrs to make and sell $5-10 each. So basically the women making these baskets earn about $0.30/hr. And while that may seem like a lot (Im joking), let’s keep in mind that these women are likely also supporting their family. Tim spent an hour accumulating approximately 80% of her stock and then 20 minutes trying to convince her that he wanted to pay more for the baskets. He’s hoping to start selling these baskets in Canada and needs to be able to say he paid a fair price for them.

Sunday we returned to Mbarara and I was able to pick up my gorilla tracking permit, once again from a man in a side alley of Mbarara, but this time from his van. The permit looks official though the original name and nationality are crossed out and my name put in it’s place. So while I doubt this man would go to the length of forging a permit to steal my $500, I’m still slightly skeptical that I’ll see the gorillas. If everything does work out, I’ve promised I would post his name and number on this blog. I also can’t be sick that day or else I will either have to switch to another day or take a 50% refund. So I’m going to spend Thursday and Friday loading up on cold FX.

Monday was spent visiting a new district just north of Mbarara called Ibanda. The past week has been a little disheartening in that we’ve seen very little that was promising in the other districts. But in Idanda, the district water officer showed us a source, proposal and design to feed 20,000 people. Unfortunately, the project is estimated at $4,000,000CAD, which is a little higher than we’re used (we’re aiming for $500,000CAD. Still, we’d prefer to be faced with a project that’s too big rather than one that’s too small. We may just try to break it up into phases. Which means my last two weeks have turned from coasting into full throttle. For which I’m grateful.

I think.