Hello on our last full day in Uganda! Shavi, Marisa, and Emmanuel are in Ddegeya while Angela and Tess are in Kampala.
In Kampala, we have not managed to get the crates out of customs, but our customs agent continues to be hopeful and estimates they will be released on Tuesday. We have some more fees to pay, but things are still going fairly smoothly on that side. Tess has spent her time baking several batches of chocolate chip cookies, which are a welcome taste of home and a thank you present to Angela's family for being so generous while we've been here. Tess also went to a traditional Ugandan dance show with Alan, which was very fun. She got lots of good video. We wish we could be in Ddegeya to help wrap up, but we're making the best of the situation we have!
Back in Ddegeya, we hit a speed bump with our manual for the panels and electrical system, as it was unable to be printed in Masaka. We are going to email an electronic version of the manual to John, with the hope that he will be able to print it out later in a different format. Emmanuel and Shavi did a final look-over of the wiring system and everything looks good. They also went over the system carefully with both John and Elliot so they understand how it will work in the future. They also worked with John and Elliot to make a model of the solar panel mounts, so that John and Elliot can construct the mounts when they arrive.
The tank is being built quickly, and should be done by the end of Monday. When the tank is done, John is going to send us lots of pictures- very exciting! Marisa was sick yesterday but feels much better today. Hopefully she won't feel sick on the flight- that would be unpleasant. Tonight they are enjoying Ugandan soda and eating sweet bananas to celebrate their last night in Uganda. Everything is wrapping up well, and Shavi, Marisa, and Emmanuel are all coming to Kampala tomorrow to meet Tess and Angela. Then Shavi, Marisa, and Tess will go to the airport, and off to the US we go! See you all soon!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
August 26- Kampala and Ddegeya
So the crates aren't ready today, and I'm not sure they'll be ready before we leave. But they might get through- it depends on if the Uganda National Board of Standards (UNBS) needs to check the solar panels or not. Usually they do, but because these are donated by BP, it is possible (and according to our customs agent, probable) that the crates can be let through without inspection. When the crates do go through, either Tess or John needs to be there to pick them up from customs. So, since it is so unclear, Tess is waiting in Kampala for more news and hopefully for the panels, while Shavi goes back to Ddegeya to continue actually being useful. Tonight Tess will stay with Angela's parents and Angela will come to Kampala to join her tomorrow. We are preparing for the possibility that Tess will not go back to Ddegeya, which makes Tess a little sad, but if the crates don't come, might be necessary.
Last night, Tess and Shavi had a good time staying at Red Chili's, a hostel in Kampala. We played every card game we could think of, and had burgers and french fries (Shavi had a fish burger, I had beef). This morning we decided on our plan forward, found out that Shavi can go to Amsterdam without a visa (yay! He wants to go explore on our 5 hour layover), and found a rolex stand (a rolex is chapatti and egg and some veggies), so it was a good morning.
Back in Ddegeya, construction of the tank is still underway and making progress. All the material for gutters has been bought, and now needs to be attached to the house. The manual for the solar panel system is just about complete, and now needs to be printed out for John and Elliot and others at the clinic. Things are wrapping up as we try to make sure everything is done and explained before we leave on Sunday.
Let's hope for the best for our crates, and for the rest of our project as we wrap it all up!
Last night, Tess and Shavi had a good time staying at Red Chili's, a hostel in Kampala. We played every card game we could think of, and had burgers and french fries (Shavi had a fish burger, I had beef). This morning we decided on our plan forward, found out that Shavi can go to Amsterdam without a visa (yay! He wants to go explore on our 5 hour layover), and found a rolex stand (a rolex is chapatti and egg and some veggies), so it was a good morning.
Back in Ddegeya, construction of the tank is still underway and making progress. All the material for gutters has been bought, and now needs to be attached to the house. The manual for the solar panel system is just about complete, and now needs to be printed out for John and Elliot and others at the clinic. Things are wrapping up as we try to make sure everything is done and explained before we leave on Sunday.
Let's hope for the best for our crates, and for the rest of our project as we wrap it all up!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
August 25- Kampala and Ddegeya
Hello from Kampala! Angela, Emmanuel, and Marisa are currently in Ddegeya while Shavi and Tess are in Kampala. Some exciting things have happened since I last wrote.
The construction of a 10,000 L tank started on Monday and is now well underway. The foundation is done and the walls of the actual tank have now been started- last I saw they were 5 layers of bricks up. It looks beautiful so far- its cylindrical- and I'm very excited to see it when we're back in Ddegeya. We have been helping mostly by doing the physical labor- mixing cement with shovels- but yesterday Tess got to help put mortar between the bricks of the tank which was extremely exciting. We are also in the process of attaching gutters to the house, but it's kind of a process because it requires 161 feet of gutters. It hadn't really rained since I got here, but it has been raining the past two days, so apparently the rainy season is starting. With the rainy season starting up, we really can't get this tank and the gutters up fast enough!
The community has been really helpful- donating money and bricks and food for the workers. We have had to buy some bricks to move the process along faster, but the community is going to pay us back for those bricks. We hope that the community really gets to feel ownership for this tank and keeps it in good shape while we're gone.
Also, we got a TIN for Engeye!! Good job John! Tess and Shavi are currently in Kampala to pay taxes on the non-solar panel crate, and hopefully to bring the crates back. Our customs agent thinks they'll be ready to go tomorrow, but we'll see if that's true. I really hope so. It would be great to get the crates there before we leave, even if it's just 2 or 3 days before we leave.
We all can't believe we're leaving so soon- 4 days!- but we're also very excited to see our friends back at MIT. And also for hot showers, American food, rooms without bats, and internet! And also getting to eat entire chocolate bars by ourselves, instead of splitting one Snickers or Cadbury bar 7 ways every night -that one might mostly apply to Tess =).
To all our friends back at home- see you soon! And to everyone else who is reading this- thanks for your support through this trip! Hopefully we will get the crates through before we leave so that we can adequately teach the clinic staff to put up the panels. And hopefully the tank will be almost done when we hop on our planes home.
I'll try and post again to keep you updated on the crates, but if not, see you in Boston!
The construction of a 10,000 L tank started on Monday and is now well underway. The foundation is done and the walls of the actual tank have now been started- last I saw they were 5 layers of bricks up. It looks beautiful so far- its cylindrical- and I'm very excited to see it when we're back in Ddegeya. We have been helping mostly by doing the physical labor- mixing cement with shovels- but yesterday Tess got to help put mortar between the bricks of the tank which was extremely exciting. We are also in the process of attaching gutters to the house, but it's kind of a process because it requires 161 feet of gutters. It hadn't really rained since I got here, but it has been raining the past two days, so apparently the rainy season is starting. With the rainy season starting up, we really can't get this tank and the gutters up fast enough!
The community has been really helpful- donating money and bricks and food for the workers. We have had to buy some bricks to move the process along faster, but the community is going to pay us back for those bricks. We hope that the community really gets to feel ownership for this tank and keeps it in good shape while we're gone.
Also, we got a TIN for Engeye!! Good job John! Tess and Shavi are currently in Kampala to pay taxes on the non-solar panel crate, and hopefully to bring the crates back. Our customs agent thinks they'll be ready to go tomorrow, but we'll see if that's true. I really hope so. It would be great to get the crates there before we leave, even if it's just 2 or 3 days before we leave.
We all can't believe we're leaving so soon- 4 days!- but we're also very excited to see our friends back at MIT. And also for hot showers, American food, rooms without bats, and internet! And also getting to eat entire chocolate bars by ourselves, instead of splitting one Snickers or Cadbury bar 7 ways every night -that one might mostly apply to Tess =).
To all our friends back at home- see you soon! And to everyone else who is reading this- thanks for your support through this trip! Hopefully we will get the crates through before we leave so that we can adequately teach the clinic staff to put up the panels. And hopefully the tank will be almost done when we hop on our planes home.
I'll try and post again to keep you updated on the crates, but if not, see you in Boston!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
August 22- Ddegeya
Hello everyone! Angela, Marisa and Tess are in Masaka looking for supplies and taking out money, while Shavi and Emmanuel are visiting the welder to try and fix the drill bit, which broke last week. This afternoon we will dig more. Fun, fun!
A lot has happened since I last wrote. We have decided to construct a brick 10,000 L rain water collection tank next to a house that has a lot of roof area to gutter. We are hoping that this rain water collection can help support at least 5 households during the rainy season, cutting down on the need to go to the borehole, and providing the families with cleaner water for drinking during that time. Of course, we only have one week left until we leave, so we are busy getting materials together for that. The Water Management Board has been incredibly helpful, and the whole community has been donating bricks and time to the project. The tank will take approximately 3 weeks to construct, including making the foundation and the physical tank. We are hoping that because a lot of the community will help in the construction, they will learn how to make brick tanks, and will be able to make their own smaller versions themselves. There are a lot of brick makers in town, so it is not very hard to find supplies. Hopefully we'll get the last materials today and will be able to start construction tomorrow!
In other news, the TIN that we finally managed to get apparently is useless. We got a TIN for John (the manager of the clinic) thinking that his TIN would be good enough. We chose to do this because it is much easier to get a TIN for an individual than it is for an organization, and we had some miscommunications with our customs agent. But once we got the TIN, we found out that we can't use it, and that we have to have a TIN for the organization as a whole. John has been working amazingly hard to get us these TINs, and has spent a lot of time in Kampala working with the Uganda Revenue Authority for us. We have applied for a TIN for Engeye, but it will probably take some time to get through all the bureaucracy here. Basically, we are not going to get either crate while we are here. We were hoping to get the crate that does not have the solar panels because it has the mounts, which are the hardest part to install. Now, as a substitute, we are going to create a kind of miniature version of the solar panel mounts so that John and Elliot (the manager and a fellowship student who is here for 9 months) can use the model as a reference when they put the mounts up. So we are also working hard on getting that model of the mounting system together.
We pretty much finished wiring yesterday, which is awesome. We were very excited. Maybe one more hour of that left in total. Very cool! We are also hoping to do more digging in the next week, but that has taken a smaller priority than the tank and the model mounts at this point.
In other news, Tess got a pretty bad stomach bug and was unable to work for about 2 days, but is now feeling very good. Hooray for medication! Angela has also been sick with a flu, but seems to be getting over it, although she still has a cough. The medical mission left this past weekend, so it is really quiet at the clinic now. It's odd at meal times- very empty and quiet. Besides that everything is good. We're all getting excited to go back, although we're also anxious to get all our work done first. I'll try and keep you posted. Only seven more work days left including today!
A lot has happened since I last wrote. We have decided to construct a brick 10,000 L rain water collection tank next to a house that has a lot of roof area to gutter. We are hoping that this rain water collection can help support at least 5 households during the rainy season, cutting down on the need to go to the borehole, and providing the families with cleaner water for drinking during that time. Of course, we only have one week left until we leave, so we are busy getting materials together for that. The Water Management Board has been incredibly helpful, and the whole community has been donating bricks and time to the project. The tank will take approximately 3 weeks to construct, including making the foundation and the physical tank. We are hoping that because a lot of the community will help in the construction, they will learn how to make brick tanks, and will be able to make their own smaller versions themselves. There are a lot of brick makers in town, so it is not very hard to find supplies. Hopefully we'll get the last materials today and will be able to start construction tomorrow!
In other news, the TIN that we finally managed to get apparently is useless. We got a TIN for John (the manager of the clinic) thinking that his TIN would be good enough. We chose to do this because it is much easier to get a TIN for an individual than it is for an organization, and we had some miscommunications with our customs agent. But once we got the TIN, we found out that we can't use it, and that we have to have a TIN for the organization as a whole. John has been working amazingly hard to get us these TINs, and has spent a lot of time in Kampala working with the Uganda Revenue Authority for us. We have applied for a TIN for Engeye, but it will probably take some time to get through all the bureaucracy here. Basically, we are not going to get either crate while we are here. We were hoping to get the crate that does not have the solar panels because it has the mounts, which are the hardest part to install. Now, as a substitute, we are going to create a kind of miniature version of the solar panel mounts so that John and Elliot (the manager and a fellowship student who is here for 9 months) can use the model as a reference when they put the mounts up. So we are also working hard on getting that model of the mounting system together.
We pretty much finished wiring yesterday, which is awesome. We were very excited. Maybe one more hour of that left in total. Very cool! We are also hoping to do more digging in the next week, but that has taken a smaller priority than the tank and the model mounts at this point.
In other news, Tess got a pretty bad stomach bug and was unable to work for about 2 days, but is now feeling very good. Hooray for medication! Angela has also been sick with a flu, but seems to be getting over it, although she still has a cough. The medical mission left this past weekend, so it is really quiet at the clinic now. It's odd at meal times- very empty and quiet. Besides that everything is good. We're all getting excited to go back, although we're also anxious to get all our work done first. I'll try and keep you posted. Only seven more work days left including today!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
August 17- Kampala and Ddegeya
Hello from Kampala and happy belated birthday Shavi! Most of the team is in Ddegeya, but Angela and Tess are in Kampala at the moment. Angela has been in Kampala since we came back on Thursday and has been getting her visa to go back to school. Tess only just got here today. Since I (Tess) last wrote, we celebrated Shavi's birthday with a nice dinner in Jinja on Saturday and then joined Michael and Elliot (a friend from the clinic) for dessert and cards and heard lots of fun stories about their white water rafting experience. On Sunday we headed back to Ddegeya. We arrived in Ddegeya after a long and uncomfortable day of traveling, but full of delicious chapattis and happy to find out that we were having chapatti for dinner as well. I had a yummy rolex (a chapatti with egg, avocado, cabbage, onion, and for everyone else, tomato, wrapped up in it), as well as many plain chapattis that day. I think I will need to learn to make chapatti back in the US because they are delicious.
Yesterday we did a lot of work. Marisa spent the morning finishing the biosand filter, so that it is now fully assembled and not even leaking! Woo! Shavi and Alan went to Masaka to pick up more materials and to get the metal that we bought in Kampala on Thursday turned into a drill bit so we can dig. Tess, Emmanuel, and Michael spent the morning walking around with the one of the hosts, Mrs. Mwenika, finding and measuring the houses that the Water Board suggested for rain water catchment. It ended up being a 3 hour hike on probably the hottest day so far, so by the end of it we were very excited for lunch. After lunch, Marisa, Emma, and Tess decided to go back to those same houses with a GPS to make sure we knew exactly where they were. At the same time, Shavi and Alan continued working on making the drill bit, and Michael got to do some of his work, which was good. At dinner, I happily announced to everyone that it was Shavi's birthday and we sang him a birthday song. 21! Very exciting.
This morning, Michael, Marisa, Alan, and Tess went to a broken borehole with 2 carjacks, with the hope of fixing it. This borehole had been repaired by the previous EWB group, but when putting it back together, some part of the pump had stuck, and so it still wasn't functioning. Unfortunately, even with carjacks lifting this pump up, the pump was still very much stuck and we did not see a way to unstick it. We will have to abandon that pump until we know more about it or can get a rig in to fix it (which we probably can't do since it's in the middle of nowhere surrounded by crop fields).
At the same time, Emmanuel and Shavi went back to Masaka (poor Shavi- going in again) to get one more thread put on a pipe, so that the drill bit can be attached. I also called Eunice (our customs clearing agent) and found out that we need to get a document to Entebbe, and it can't be faxed or scanned- needs to be the original document. So John gave me the paperwork, and I headed off to Kampala after lunch. Before that though the guys got a lot more wiring done and we also got about 30 free bricks from a local brickmaker so we can experiment with making a brick water tank for rainwater catchment.
The trip took a long time and there was a lot of traffic because of rain, so I didn't get a chance to drop off the document today (it ended up taking 6 hours from Engeye to Angela's house). Tomorrow morning I will drop the document with our clearing agent so she can keep working, and Angela needs to go get her passport at 2:30, so we're not sure exactly when we're heading back, or if we're heading back together. Tomorrow evening is the second Water Management Board meeting, so hopefully that goes well, and hopefully I'll be back before that. I finished my book on the drive here, so I'm not quite sure what I'll do on the 3 or 4 hour journey back, but I'm sure I'll manage.
Time is getting short! Michael and Alan leave our team on Friday, and the rest of us leave the following Sunday. Amazing how time flies!
Yesterday we did a lot of work. Marisa spent the morning finishing the biosand filter, so that it is now fully assembled and not even leaking! Woo! Shavi and Alan went to Masaka to pick up more materials and to get the metal that we bought in Kampala on Thursday turned into a drill bit so we can dig. Tess, Emmanuel, and Michael spent the morning walking around with the one of the hosts, Mrs. Mwenika, finding and measuring the houses that the Water Board suggested for rain water catchment. It ended up being a 3 hour hike on probably the hottest day so far, so by the end of it we were very excited for lunch. After lunch, Marisa, Emma, and Tess decided to go back to those same houses with a GPS to make sure we knew exactly where they were. At the same time, Shavi and Alan continued working on making the drill bit, and Michael got to do some of his work, which was good. At dinner, I happily announced to everyone that it was Shavi's birthday and we sang him a birthday song. 21! Very exciting.
This morning, Michael, Marisa, Alan, and Tess went to a broken borehole with 2 carjacks, with the hope of fixing it. This borehole had been repaired by the previous EWB group, but when putting it back together, some part of the pump had stuck, and so it still wasn't functioning. Unfortunately, even with carjacks lifting this pump up, the pump was still very much stuck and we did not see a way to unstick it. We will have to abandon that pump until we know more about it or can get a rig in to fix it (which we probably can't do since it's in the middle of nowhere surrounded by crop fields).
At the same time, Emmanuel and Shavi went back to Masaka (poor Shavi- going in again) to get one more thread put on a pipe, so that the drill bit can be attached. I also called Eunice (our customs clearing agent) and found out that we need to get a document to Entebbe, and it can't be faxed or scanned- needs to be the original document. So John gave me the paperwork, and I headed off to Kampala after lunch. Before that though the guys got a lot more wiring done and we also got about 30 free bricks from a local brickmaker so we can experiment with making a brick water tank for rainwater catchment.
The trip took a long time and there was a lot of traffic because of rain, so I didn't get a chance to drop off the document today (it ended up taking 6 hours from Engeye to Angela's house). Tomorrow morning I will drop the document with our clearing agent so she can keep working, and Angela needs to go get her passport at 2:30, so we're not sure exactly when we're heading back, or if we're heading back together. Tomorrow evening is the second Water Management Board meeting, so hopefully that goes well, and hopefully I'll be back before that. I finished my book on the drive here, so I'm not quite sure what I'll do on the 3 or 4 hour journey back, but I'm sure I'll manage.
Time is getting short! Michael and Alan leave our team on Friday, and the rest of us leave the following Sunday. Amazing how time flies!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
August 14- Jinja
Hello from Jinja! Shavi, Marisa, Tess, Emmanuel, and Michael are all in Jinja, while Bryan is back in the US and Angela and Alan are in Kampala.
This past week the whole group got a lot done. We were sorry to see Bryan leave, but we kept busy washing and sieving sand and even starting to dig test holes for boreholes. We finished the sand and attached the PVC pipe for the filter, so when we get back from Jinja we can actually construct our filter! Very exciting. We also started digging a test hole after buying 3 steel pipes in Masaka (the pipes we bought in the US are currently stuck in customs). It is very tiring work as the ground is apparently entirely made of clay in Ddegeya, but so far we've dug 9 feet into a pre-existing shallow hole, so our test hole reaches 13 feet into the ground. No water yet, but when we met with Uganda Village Project (another NGO in the area), they told us that the harder it is to find the water, the cleaner and more abundant the water ends up being. So we're going with that theory for now.
Then on Thursday the group headed to Kampala and shopped for metal to make a drill bit so our digging is easier. Angela and Alan then went home and Michael went to meetings regarding other NGO's that he's a part of, and Emmanuel, Shavi, Marisa, and Tess went shopping for gifts for people back home. Emmanuel was a great tour guide, and we saw more mzungus than we had in a while. We met up with Michael for dinner and (after some searching) found a restaurant that many of Michael's friends had suggested. When we got there the place was full of mzungus, but we figured that was normal. Apparently, it was not normal. We got drinks immediately, but ended up waiting an hour before they asked us what food we wanted. It then took another 2 hours before we got any food at all. All the mzungus ordered steak and were very excited about it. However, we were less excited when it was 10 pm and we still hadn't even been given bread. Anyways, the food finally came (after Tess went down and talked quite angrily to the manager) but the food was a much smaller portion than they usually give, they didn't have soup or dessert and they didn't have half of the sides that the meal was supposed to come with. Obviously, we were a little annoyed, but the food that we did get was delicious, and we ended up paying the equivalent of $3.50 for quite a lot of steak. So it kind of worked out in the end. We then went to the hostel (except for Emmanuel who went to his Kampala home) and slept very well.
The next day, Shavi, Michael, Marisa, Emmanuel, and Tess went to Jinja to meet with an NGO called the Uganda Village Project (UVP) and have a vacation. Meeting with UVP was very interesting- they made us think more about water storage, which we hadn't considered much before, and they showed us a successful shallow well that a village dug, which made us hopeful that we could do that in Ddegeya. We also got to try a rolex (not the watch- its chapatti and omelet wrapped up) which was yummy, but could have used some spicy curry or peppers or something. We then went with that NGO to the Mabira forest outside of Jinja, where they were having a goodbye goat roast for one of their members. We walked around the rain forest and saw a ton of monkeys, and then got to eat delicious goat meat and popcorn. Everyone but Emmanuel then headed to a hostel in Jinja, while Emmanuel went to his house near Jinja. When we got to the hostel, we were hungry because we hadn't had that much goat meat, so Marisa and I ordered burgers and french fries (it's been so nice getting mzungu food!!), Shavi got a tuna sandwich, and Michael got a salad. It was really yummy and we topped it off with smoothies. We then were really full, and headed to bed very happily.
Today, Michael went white water rafting on the Nile, while Shavi, Marisa, and Tess wandered around the Jinja area. We don't know yet how rafting was, but we're sure he had a good time. The rest of us had pancakes this morning (I have actually been craving pancakes for a week) and then went to Bujagali Falls, which were beautiful. We spent some time there and took lots of pictures, and then headed into Jinja town. We got some money and then wandered around for a while. We ended up finding a mzungu place to eat and got sandwiches and hummus and salads and even ice cream! We're really spoiling ourselves while we can. It was awesome. We then headed to the source of the Nile where we saw lots of cormorants and went on a boat ride around the source and a little bit of Lake Victoria. We then did a little more gift shopping (we've become experts at bargaining) and then headed back to the hostel. We are now relaxing and getting ready for a birthday dinner for Shavi, who turns 21 on Monday. We've been having a really good time, and I think we all feel much more energetic heading towards our last two weeks.
In official news, we got a TIN!! Wooooooooo! John put a lot of work into it on Friday (he's been great) so now our customs clearance agent should be able to get one of our crates through before we leave! We're very excited about that.
Tomorrow we head back to Kampala and then Ddegeya to get back to work, but we've had a great weekend off. I'm sure our new found energy (both from rest and from finally eating protein!) will allow us to get a lot done our last two weeks. Hard to believe only 2 weeks left!
This past week the whole group got a lot done. We were sorry to see Bryan leave, but we kept busy washing and sieving sand and even starting to dig test holes for boreholes. We finished the sand and attached the PVC pipe for the filter, so when we get back from Jinja we can actually construct our filter! Very exciting. We also started digging a test hole after buying 3 steel pipes in Masaka (the pipes we bought in the US are currently stuck in customs). It is very tiring work as the ground is apparently entirely made of clay in Ddegeya, but so far we've dug 9 feet into a pre-existing shallow hole, so our test hole reaches 13 feet into the ground. No water yet, but when we met with Uganda Village Project (another NGO in the area), they told us that the harder it is to find the water, the cleaner and more abundant the water ends up being. So we're going with that theory for now.
Then on Thursday the group headed to Kampala and shopped for metal to make a drill bit so our digging is easier. Angela and Alan then went home and Michael went to meetings regarding other NGO's that he's a part of, and Emmanuel, Shavi, Marisa, and Tess went shopping for gifts for people back home. Emmanuel was a great tour guide, and we saw more mzungus than we had in a while. We met up with Michael for dinner and (after some searching) found a restaurant that many of Michael's friends had suggested. When we got there the place was full of mzungus, but we figured that was normal. Apparently, it was not normal. We got drinks immediately, but ended up waiting an hour before they asked us what food we wanted. It then took another 2 hours before we got any food at all. All the mzungus ordered steak and were very excited about it. However, we were less excited when it was 10 pm and we still hadn't even been given bread. Anyways, the food finally came (after Tess went down and talked quite angrily to the manager) but the food was a much smaller portion than they usually give, they didn't have soup or dessert and they didn't have half of the sides that the meal was supposed to come with. Obviously, we were a little annoyed, but the food that we did get was delicious, and we ended up paying the equivalent of $3.50 for quite a lot of steak. So it kind of worked out in the end. We then went to the hostel (except for Emmanuel who went to his Kampala home) and slept very well.
The next day, Shavi, Michael, Marisa, Emmanuel, and Tess went to Jinja to meet with an NGO called the Uganda Village Project (UVP) and have a vacation. Meeting with UVP was very interesting- they made us think more about water storage, which we hadn't considered much before, and they showed us a successful shallow well that a village dug, which made us hopeful that we could do that in Ddegeya. We also got to try a rolex (not the watch- its chapatti and omelet wrapped up) which was yummy, but could have used some spicy curry or peppers or something. We then went with that NGO to the Mabira forest outside of Jinja, where they were having a goodbye goat roast for one of their members. We walked around the rain forest and saw a ton of monkeys, and then got to eat delicious goat meat and popcorn. Everyone but Emmanuel then headed to a hostel in Jinja, while Emmanuel went to his house near Jinja. When we got to the hostel, we were hungry because we hadn't had that much goat meat, so Marisa and I ordered burgers and french fries (it's been so nice getting mzungu food!!), Shavi got a tuna sandwich, and Michael got a salad. It was really yummy and we topped it off with smoothies. We then were really full, and headed to bed very happily.
Today, Michael went white water rafting on the Nile, while Shavi, Marisa, and Tess wandered around the Jinja area. We don't know yet how rafting was, but we're sure he had a good time. The rest of us had pancakes this morning (I have actually been craving pancakes for a week) and then went to Bujagali Falls, which were beautiful. We spent some time there and took lots of pictures, and then headed into Jinja town. We got some money and then wandered around for a while. We ended up finding a mzungu place to eat and got sandwiches and hummus and salads and even ice cream! We're really spoiling ourselves while we can. It was awesome. We then headed to the source of the Nile where we saw lots of cormorants and went on a boat ride around the source and a little bit of Lake Victoria. We then did a little more gift shopping (we've become experts at bargaining) and then headed back to the hostel. We are now relaxing and getting ready for a birthday dinner for Shavi, who turns 21 on Monday. We've been having a really good time, and I think we all feel much more energetic heading towards our last two weeks.
In official news, we got a TIN!! Wooooooooo! John put a lot of work into it on Friday (he's been great) so now our customs clearance agent should be able to get one of our crates through before we leave! We're very excited about that.
Tomorrow we head back to Kampala and then Ddegeya to get back to work, but we've had a great weekend off. I'm sure our new found energy (both from rest and from finally eating protein!) will allow us to get a lot done our last two weeks. Hard to believe only 2 weeks left!
Monday, August 9, 2010
August 9 - Ddegeya
The medical mission arrives today and Bryan leaves tomorrow so there are lots of changes happening soon. The wiring is pretty much done, except for the panels of course, and the sand sieving is coming along, although very slowly (that's actually all I did yesterday and we're still only 2/3 of the way through sifting the sand, let alone washing it). Today, Shavi, Alan, and Tess went to Masaka to shop for a few more electrical parts to neaten the wiring and to look for several parts for the water project- pipes to dig test wells, gutters to do rain water collection, tarps and cement and rebars to make a prototype concrete rain water collection tank, and more. Meanwhile, Emmanuel, Marisa, and Angela went to talk to some villagers who we think are potential water board members, while Bryan came along for the ride so he could get to see more of the village before he leaves. This afternoon will be focused on transitioning and planning (and of course sieving more sand) so that we're ready for the coming weeks.
Things are still all on course, although we're still experiencing hiccups with the crates- apparently we have a certificate of registration, which is not a TIN, but will allow us to get a TIN in 4 to 28 days. So that's progress, but we're not as close as I had hoped. Sifting sand is a very long process, but we are making it fun by listening to music and drumming to the beat. It takes a long time, but we're getting great sand so we're hopeful that the filter could work.
Things are going well- we've covered our misquito net with tin foil so that the bat can't pee on us and we're having a very good time together as a team. The night sky is amazing here- you can see the milky way!- so that's been fun. As always, the kids are great, and everyone at the clinic is very nice. Let's hope the medical mission transition goes well!
Things are still all on course, although we're still experiencing hiccups with the crates- apparently we have a certificate of registration, which is not a TIN, but will allow us to get a TIN in 4 to 28 days. So that's progress, but we're not as close as I had hoped. Sifting sand is a very long process, but we are making it fun by listening to music and drumming to the beat. It takes a long time, but we're getting great sand so we're hopeful that the filter could work.
Things are going well- we've covered our misquito net with tin foil so that the bat can't pee on us and we're having a very good time together as a team. The night sky is amazing here- you can see the milky way!- so that's been fun. As always, the kids are great, and everyone at the clinic is very nice. Let's hope the medical mission transition goes well!
Saturday, August 7, 2010
August 7- Ddegeya
Hey everyone!
We've made some amazing progress on all sides of our project since my last post. The clinic's wiring is close to complete for the solar panels- conduit is up in the ceiling (I can't wait to show people pictures of that process!- lots of boys up on very tall ladders), sand is halfway sifted, and partway washed for our filters, a TIN for the clinic has been acquired (so we should be able to get at least one of the crates through soon), and we're all having a great time.
It's been fun having both Michael (our mentor) and Alan (a Makerere student) added to our team, and many hands has made the work go by much faster. We've been having some adventures clearing out wells- Marisa pulled a mashed up mango out of a borehole- figuring out how to sleep- bats have been peeing on Angela while she sleeps- and exercising- I had a bunch of people imitating my crew workout where I was doing squats for 2 minutes. They thought it was hilarious.
It's been hard work, but we're making a lot of progress. Today is laundry day, and meeting people day. We're hoping to make some good progress on a Village Water Management Board this week. A medical mission comes in on Monday, so the place is going to be swamped. We are aiming to have the wiring done by the time they arrive, so we've been working very hard. Once the wiring is done, we will focus on the water project and finding new energy projects until the crates arrive.
Weather has been beautiful- the sunrise this morning was amazing! Only 3 weeks left for most of us! (2 weeks for Michael and only a few days for Bryan!) so we're enjoying it while we can =)
We've made some amazing progress on all sides of our project since my last post. The clinic's wiring is close to complete for the solar panels- conduit is up in the ceiling (I can't wait to show people pictures of that process!- lots of boys up on very tall ladders), sand is halfway sifted, and partway washed for our filters, a TIN for the clinic has been acquired (so we should be able to get at least one of the crates through soon), and we're all having a great time.
It's been fun having both Michael (our mentor) and Alan (a Makerere student) added to our team, and many hands has made the work go by much faster. We've been having some adventures clearing out wells- Marisa pulled a mashed up mango out of a borehole- figuring out how to sleep- bats have been peeing on Angela while she sleeps- and exercising- I had a bunch of people imitating my crew workout where I was doing squats for 2 minutes. They thought it was hilarious.
It's been hard work, but we're making a lot of progress. Today is laundry day, and meeting people day. We're hoping to make some good progress on a Village Water Management Board this week. A medical mission comes in on Monday, so the place is going to be swamped. We are aiming to have the wiring done by the time they arrive, so we've been working very hard. Once the wiring is done, we will focus on the water project and finding new energy projects until the crates arrive.
Weather has been beautiful- the sunrise this morning was amazing! Only 3 weeks left for most of us! (2 weeks for Michael and only a few days for Bryan!) so we're enjoying it while we can =)
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
August 4- Kampala and Ddegeya
Angela and I had an informative day in Kampala. I went to a meeting with another shipping company (not FedEx), to find help on the solar panel crates. My meeting went very well- the customs agent was very clear with me and very helpful, and promised to immediately head to the airport to start dealing with the issue. She later got back to me and told me that we can use their company's TIN- the first piece to get these crates through customs. I am increasingly hopeful that this company will be able to get the solar panels through quickly. The rest of the team back at MIT is also hard at work, getting documents together to get the panels through customs.
Today we also went to the grocery store to stock up on food for the village. I had just about run out of chocolate, so I grabbed a ton of chocolate bars and a tub of peanut butter, while Angela got some fruit punch mix to make water less boring, and some instant coffee for poor tired Bryan. It was an odd group of grocery's, but hopefully it will hold us over while we (hopefully) spend the next week or 2 at Ddegeya without coming back to Kampala.
I can't speak for the team back in Ddegeya about their activities or progress. We spoke breifly today, but as airtime seems to run out quite quickly here, we couldn't talk for long. Hopefully when we head back tomorrow, we will find some good progress at the clinic. I'm looking forward to being back in the village and seeing the beautiful stars again!
Today we also went to the grocery store to stock up on food for the village. I had just about run out of chocolate, so I grabbed a ton of chocolate bars and a tub of peanut butter, while Angela got some fruit punch mix to make water less boring, and some instant coffee for poor tired Bryan. It was an odd group of grocery's, but hopefully it will hold us over while we (hopefully) spend the next week or 2 at Ddegeya without coming back to Kampala.
I can't speak for the team back in Ddegeya about their activities or progress. We spoke breifly today, but as airtime seems to run out quite quickly here, we couldn't talk for long. Hopefully when we head back tomorrow, we will find some good progress at the clinic. I'm looking forward to being back in the village and seeing the beautiful stars again!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
August 3- Kampala and Ddegeya
Hello from Kampala! Angela and I are back at her house in Ntinda (a town right next to Kampala) while the rest of the team (Bryan, Emmanuel, Shavi, Marisa, and Michael now too) are all in Ddegeya.
Things have been going well the past few days. The families that we are staying with are very nice. The girls' room is up off of the main road, in the home of Ms. Mwenika, who has been very kind and hospitable to us, even providing us hot water in the morning to wash our faces. It has taken me some time to get used to roosters crowing all morning starting at about 5 am, but besides that it has been really nice. We have their whole front room, and we bought small mattresses and misquito nets which we are sharing between the 3 of us. The guys' house is apparently also very nice, and while they don't have roosters, they do have a host who enjoys listening to the radio at high volume all night. So we all have things to get used to.
The batteries and wiring all arrived safely in Engeye and have since been unwrapped and stored as we start to connect the system together. We have also found a man to weld two 3 storied shelves that can hold the batteries and keep them neat and out of the way. The shelves should be ready tomorrow or the next day. The water section of the trip is also going well. We have found a couple sources of sand, and are looking for others to find the purest source. We have also found many of the wells that are on the water team maps from previous trips, and we are hoping that Michael will help us in evaluating what is wrong and what could be fixed. Marisa and I (Tess) went for a walk to find the wells, but did not get to two of the dirtier open wells because an older lady talked to us for so long in Luganda (I just kept repeating "I don't speak Luganda" in Luganda, but she didn't seem to care), so we eventually gave up and basically ran away back to Engeye. Maybe next time we'll take either Emmanuel or Angela.
Angela got a visa appointment for Wednesday morning at 9 am, so she needed to head back into Kampala. Then I called a man named Roey from another NGO in Uganda that imports solar panels, and he gave me a contact at JM Freight, who he suggested I talk to about getting a more reliable customs agent. I set up a meeting for Wednesday at 11 am, so that I can talk to that company. Angela and I set out back to Kampala this morning at about 9:30, after having spent only 2 days in the village. Hopefully soon we will stay there for a more extended period of time (those taxi rides really aren't that fun back and forth to Kampala). We will return to Ddegeya on Thursday, hopefully with good news from Kampala and to find some good stuff happening in Ddegeya.
We have all had fun interacting with the kids (they all decided to pile on top of Bryan, getting him dirty enough that he finally agreed to shower) and we have had a good time getting to know the other Americans at the clinic. We have also had some good walks to Kinoni since taxis don't seem to stop for us at Engeye, which is about a 2 or 3 mile walk. Everything is going well, and I will keep you updated.
Things have been going well the past few days. The families that we are staying with are very nice. The girls' room is up off of the main road, in the home of Ms. Mwenika, who has been very kind and hospitable to us, even providing us hot water in the morning to wash our faces. It has taken me some time to get used to roosters crowing all morning starting at about 5 am, but besides that it has been really nice. We have their whole front room, and we bought small mattresses and misquito nets which we are sharing between the 3 of us. The guys' house is apparently also very nice, and while they don't have roosters, they do have a host who enjoys listening to the radio at high volume all night. So we all have things to get used to.
The batteries and wiring all arrived safely in Engeye and have since been unwrapped and stored as we start to connect the system together. We have also found a man to weld two 3 storied shelves that can hold the batteries and keep them neat and out of the way. The shelves should be ready tomorrow or the next day. The water section of the trip is also going well. We have found a couple sources of sand, and are looking for others to find the purest source. We have also found many of the wells that are on the water team maps from previous trips, and we are hoping that Michael will help us in evaluating what is wrong and what could be fixed. Marisa and I (Tess) went for a walk to find the wells, but did not get to two of the dirtier open wells because an older lady talked to us for so long in Luganda (I just kept repeating "I don't speak Luganda" in Luganda, but she didn't seem to care), so we eventually gave up and basically ran away back to Engeye. Maybe next time we'll take either Emmanuel or Angela.
Angela got a visa appointment for Wednesday morning at 9 am, so she needed to head back into Kampala. Then I called a man named Roey from another NGO in Uganda that imports solar panels, and he gave me a contact at JM Freight, who he suggested I talk to about getting a more reliable customs agent. I set up a meeting for Wednesday at 11 am, so that I can talk to that company. Angela and I set out back to Kampala this morning at about 9:30, after having spent only 2 days in the village. Hopefully soon we will stay there for a more extended period of time (those taxi rides really aren't that fun back and forth to Kampala). We will return to Ddegeya on Thursday, hopefully with good news from Kampala and to find some good stuff happening in Ddegeya.
We have all had fun interacting with the kids (they all decided to pile on top of Bryan, getting him dirty enough that he finally agreed to shower) and we have had a good time getting to know the other Americans at the clinic. We have also had some good walks to Kinoni since taxis don't seem to stop for us at Engeye, which is about a 2 or 3 mile walk. Everything is going well, and I will keep you updated.
Friday, July 30, 2010
July 30- Kampala
The whole team is here! Woo!
Today we split up into three teams- an electronics team, an NGO team, and a customs team. We started out together and changed money, but then split up when we got to Kampala. Bryan, Shavi, and Emmanuel (the Makerere student) went to look at batteries, charge controllers, and inverters. Marisa and Angela went to meet with the NGO called Community Integrated Development Initiatives, to get advice on the water project. Tess and John went to Entebbe (the airport) to look into what is happening with the crates.
Let's start with the bad news. The trip to the customs office, while very informative, gave some pretty disappointing information. Apparently, it is impossible for the crates to be let out of customs until we have a Tax Identification Number (TIN), which the clinic currently doesn't have. We can't use a personal TIN except for Angela's because she's the only person mentioned on the forms, but she doesn't have a TIN either. This means that we have to wait for the clinic to get a TIN (which they are currently working on) before we can start the process (which will take at least a few days in itself) of getting it through customs and having the solar panels tested and registered. So we will need to find ways of working around not having our solar panels or tools for possibly a few weeks. This is clearly very disappointing, but we are staying optimistic that the crates will be cleared sometime between one and two weeks from now. If they get through within 2 or even 3 weeks, we think that we can still do the installation ourselves.
The other teams were much more successful. The electronics team found everything they needed at Ssebegala and Sons, bought the units, and arranged for them to be driven to the clinic by Ssebegala and Sons' van, all for under budget! And the NGO team had a good meeting with CIDI, and got some good contacts that we will look into during our trip.
Tonight we had a lovely dinner at Angela's house (it's so nice having so many people around!) and then worked on figuring out exactly how much wire we need. Tomorrow we will buy wire, junction boxes, and combiner boxes, so that we can put together the system without the solar panels when we get to the clinic.
On Sunday we'll travel to the clinic to finally get to work!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
July 29 - The Team is Complete
Shavi, Marisa, and Bryan made it into Kampala safely and the travel team is now complete (minus Michael, who arrives in a couple of days).
Tess and Angela have spoken with customs and it appears that FedEx misinformed us - the crates are sitting at the Entebbe airport customs post awaiting payment of customs fees. Good news is that speaking with them seems to have clarified the point that our panels are duty free and lowered our customs liability to about 1.5 million shillings. John K. is headed to Entebbe with Tess and Angela tomorrow with documentation of the clinic's operations to try and get the shipment completely duty exempt.
The wire transfer went through and we have cash in Angela's Kampala account
Plan for Friday is to divide and conquer: purchase necessary electronic components so they can be trucked out to Ddegeya on Sat along with the crates. Also visit the customs post at Entebbe to finalize our customs liability and get that paid so the crates can be transferred on to Kampala. Also meet with a water NGO in the morning.
Wish us luck
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
July 28- Kampala
Hello all,
Angela and I spent the day in Kampala, mostly hanging out with Angela's family and friends. We scheduled meetings and exchanged money and did other small errands. We also called FedEx, who confirmed that our packages had arrived and that we could pick them up on Saturday.
Then tonight when Angela's internet turned on (she has internet from 7 pm to 7 am), we saw an email regarding the customs duties and taxes on our crates. The person on the phone had not mentioned this, but a man had called me yesterday and mentioned these expenses. The cost is significantly higher than we had anticipated, and, if it is a real document, then we believe that they made errors in calculating the duties. We aren't really sure what is going on, so Angela and I are going to make many phone calls and visit FedEx to try and get the cost cut down. Luckily, my sister gave me some good contacts with the Ugandan customs officials so we're going to call them tomorrow to make sure that this is legitimate and try and fix the errors that we're seeing. Hopefully it will all work out- we have 3 days to pay and pick up the crates until they start accumulating interest. I have had a lot of chocolate, and talked to my trip leaders, so I think that it will be ok.
Angela and I are also going to meet with two NGO's tomorrow regarding our water project. We have been working to find a solution to the village's water problems, and we want to get advice from people that have worked on similar issues. Hopefully, balancing dealing with the crates and meeting with the NGO's will not be too bad.
Anyways, the crates are causing some issues, but generally things are going fairly well. I'll keep you updated.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
July 27- Ddegeya and Kampala
Yesterday after I wrote, Angela and I were treated to a very interesting ride back to Engeye. The taxis are rated for 14 people, and on the way to Ddegeya the first time, there were probably 16 or 17 and luggage, so I thought that was bad. But on the way to Ddegeya yesterday, there were 20 people in the taxi! For a half an hour ride!
Anyways, Angela and I managed to find our way back to Ddegeya in plenty of time for dinner. Also, I forgot to mention yesterday, but Angela gave me a Luganda lesson. I now understand how to conjugate verbs, and I have a bunch of verbs to learn. Very exciting. My vocabulary is growing pretty fast!
While waiting for dinner, I played with some of the village kids (tag, where I was always it). During dinner, I started to talk to some of the clinic staff who were working on developing a simple form of electronic medical records for the clinic. There was one part of the electronic medical records that they were having trouble figuring out how to do in Excel. I realized that in java, that would be incredibly easy. I decided to look into it, since I don't think it would take that long, and it would be a very helpful side project. I then made plans with a couple of the other mzungus (white people) to go running in the morning and Angela and I went to bed.
I woke up in the morning at 6:35, determined not to be late for the group run at 7. Unfortunately, I was the only one who woke up, so I set off alone down the main road (there was no way to get lost, since there is really only one road). While running away from the clinic, I simply waved and said "Oli otya?" (How are you?) or "Wasuz'otya" (~Good morning) to the children and villagers on the road, who were all heading in the opposity direction. When I turned around, I quickly accumulated a number of children running barefoot with me on their way to school. I happily yelled "Tugende!" (Let's go!) and the kids laughed at my pronunciation. It was really fun, and I was sad to see them go when we reached the school.
After my run and breakfast, Angela and I went to look for the broken wells in the village. We succeeded in finding a borehole down in the valley about 20 minutes from Engeye, which had good quality, but bad quantities of water. We met brickmaker named Ronald who spoke perfect English. He said that his family walked the 15 minutes to Engeye to get water from the well there because the one here did not reliably have water in the dry season (now). However, another man came who got a little water from the pump, and took it to drink directly while working. We also went up over the hill and found 2 open wells which were incredibly dirty and disgusting, and met a woman who claimed that she drank it and cooked with it after boiling it. The water was extremely milky, so this worried Angela and I enormously. They are probably 40 minutes away from Engeye so people there can't really walk to Engeye for their water.
When we got back, Angela and I decided not to go look at the wood in Kinoni (a local trading center), mostly because we were running out of the money that we brought to Ddegeya, and wanted to make sure we could get back to Kampala. We also decided that because Kinoni is kind of our only option for wood, and John assured us we could get everything we need, that there isn't that much of a reason to go now. So, Angela and I decided to go back to Kampala. After about 5 hours of travel, we made it to her house to surprise her parents who had just gotten back from a convention in the US.
As you can tell- very busy days. I'm also happy to report that the crates are in Kampala, and are ready to be taken to Ddegeya at our earliest convenience. Thank you Bryan for working to get those crates out of England! I'll be in Kampala until Saturday probably, so I'll keep you updated on what we're doing. Can't wait for the rest of the team to get here on Thursday!
Anyways, Angela and I managed to find our way back to Ddegeya in plenty of time for dinner. Also, I forgot to mention yesterday, but Angela gave me a Luganda lesson. I now understand how to conjugate verbs, and I have a bunch of verbs to learn. Very exciting. My vocabulary is growing pretty fast!
While waiting for dinner, I played with some of the village kids (tag, where I was always it). During dinner, I started to talk to some of the clinic staff who were working on developing a simple form of electronic medical records for the clinic. There was one part of the electronic medical records that they were having trouble figuring out how to do in Excel. I realized that in java, that would be incredibly easy. I decided to look into it, since I don't think it would take that long, and it would be a very helpful side project. I then made plans with a couple of the other mzungus (white people) to go running in the morning and Angela and I went to bed.
I woke up in the morning at 6:35, determined not to be late for the group run at 7. Unfortunately, I was the only one who woke up, so I set off alone down the main road (there was no way to get lost, since there is really only one road). While running away from the clinic, I simply waved and said "Oli otya?" (How are you?) or "Wasuz'otya" (~Good morning) to the children and villagers on the road, who were all heading in the opposity direction. When I turned around, I quickly accumulated a number of children running barefoot with me on their way to school. I happily yelled "Tugende!" (Let's go!) and the kids laughed at my pronunciation. It was really fun, and I was sad to see them go when we reached the school.
After my run and breakfast, Angela and I went to look for the broken wells in the village. We succeeded in finding a borehole down in the valley about 20 minutes from Engeye, which had good quality, but bad quantities of water. We met brickmaker named Ronald who spoke perfect English. He said that his family walked the 15 minutes to Engeye to get water from the well there because the one here did not reliably have water in the dry season (now). However, another man came who got a little water from the pump, and took it to drink directly while working. We also went up over the hill and found 2 open wells which were incredibly dirty and disgusting, and met a woman who claimed that she drank it and cooked with it after boiling it. The water was extremely milky, so this worried Angela and I enormously. They are probably 40 minutes away from Engeye so people there can't really walk to Engeye for their water.
When we got back, Angela and I decided not to go look at the wood in Kinoni (a local trading center), mostly because we were running out of the money that we brought to Ddegeya, and wanted to make sure we could get back to Kampala. We also decided that because Kinoni is kind of our only option for wood, and John assured us we could get everything we need, that there isn't that much of a reason to go now. So, Angela and I decided to go back to Kampala. After about 5 hours of travel, we made it to her house to surprise her parents who had just gotten back from a convention in the US.
As you can tell- very busy days. I'm also happy to report that the crates are in Kampala, and are ready to be taken to Ddegeya at our earliest convenience. Thank you Bryan for working to get those crates out of England! I'll be in Kampala until Saturday probably, so I'll keep you updated on what we're doing. Can't wait for the rest of the team to get here on Thursday!
Monday, July 26, 2010
Monday July 26- Ddegeya
Oli Otya from Ddegeya! Well technically Angela and I are currently in Masaka, the largest town nearby. We came to Ddegeya yesterday with John by taxi- a slightly more cramped trip than I am used to. Taxi's here are not like taxi's in the US- they act more like buses, except on these buses they put 3 people in 2 seats. The trip took somewhere around 3 hours. The beginning and end were smooth but in the middle of the trip there was a lot of construction. Angela and I alternated reading Harry Potter, and Angela actually managed to sleep. I personally can't sleep when I'm being thrown forward every minute or so, but she was impressive. Apparently here instead of telling you to slow down when there's construction, they just put huge speed bumps on the road. Or maybe those are always there, I'm actually not sure. I personally found big speed bumps on a highway odd, but it definitely worked to slow us down. The Engeye Health Clinic is right on the highway from Masaka to Mbara, so as soon as we got off the taxi we were at the clinic.
This week, Angela and I are staying at the clinic because there is room for us. Next week when the rest of the team arrives, we will stay with families. It sounds like there will be 2 families with 3 people from our team each. These next couple of days though, Angela and I both have beds and misquito nets provided, and there is a clean shower area for us. The food is quite good (we will be eating at the clinic the whole time, so that's a very good thing). I tried matoke for the first time here, which is a staple of many villager's diets. It has the same consistency as squash or sweet potato, but (and this took me a while to place) it tastes almost exactly like artichokes. Luckily, I like artichokes, but sadly Angela does not. There are plenty of other things to eat though, so she can just skip the matoke.
After dinner we played cards with the volunteers at the clinic. There are so many Americans! And 2 or 3 of them are from Boston. It's a small world. By so many I mean like 7 or 8, but I think in 2 weeks they have a medical mission coming, and then there will be about 20 Americans there. It's kind of disconcerting after a week of only seeing Ugandans. Then we brushed our teeth outside, used the latrine (I was not ready for the latrine. All of the latrines I have used in the past have had seats), and then went to bed. We had to use flashlights and headlamps because the power from their small solar panels was used up during the day. Hopefully, with the solar panels we will install, that will change.
Today we got up at 7:30 after a very good sleep. Breakfast was at 8, and was hardboiled eggs, bread (and peanut butter!!) and small sweet bananas. Then Angela and I took pictures of various aspects of the building and the roof that the solar panels will be on. We then walked along the village's main road and passed houses and farmland. We didn't see any wells because those are down the hill, but we have heard that they are about 1 mile apart. We had thought we would pass a school because we had seen many children in uniform getting water that morning from the well near the clinic, but apparently we didn't walk far enough. The school is about a half an hour walk down the road, and we probably only went 15 minutes. Angela and I had fun speculating about which house we would live in, since John hasn't had time to show us yet.
After about 15 minutes of walking we turned back to the clinic. We then walked down into the valley behind the clinic to look at the well that Michael repaired last time he was here. We saw someone using it, and it looked like it was in good condition- the handle moved smoothly, the water came out steadily, and the water was clear. So that was encouraging. We hope to find the other wells tomorrow and see how they are working at this point.
Then it was about 11 or so, and Angela and I wanted to go into Masaka to buy misquito nets for our team and scout out where to buy various items. We have done those things, so our last stop was here, at the internet cafe. Still no word on the crates, but I am optimistic that they'll be ready to go when we come back to Kampala with the whole team this coming weekend.
I'll probably post next when we get back to Kampala. Which will be either tomorrow or Wednesday. Talk to you then!
This week, Angela and I are staying at the clinic because there is room for us. Next week when the rest of the team arrives, we will stay with families. It sounds like there will be 2 families with 3 people from our team each. These next couple of days though, Angela and I both have beds and misquito nets provided, and there is a clean shower area for us. The food is quite good (we will be eating at the clinic the whole time, so that's a very good thing). I tried matoke for the first time here, which is a staple of many villager's diets. It has the same consistency as squash or sweet potato, but (and this took me a while to place) it tastes almost exactly like artichokes. Luckily, I like artichokes, but sadly Angela does not. There are plenty of other things to eat though, so she can just skip the matoke.
After dinner we played cards with the volunteers at the clinic. There are so many Americans! And 2 or 3 of them are from Boston. It's a small world. By so many I mean like 7 or 8, but I think in 2 weeks they have a medical mission coming, and then there will be about 20 Americans there. It's kind of disconcerting after a week of only seeing Ugandans. Then we brushed our teeth outside, used the latrine (I was not ready for the latrine. All of the latrines I have used in the past have had seats), and then went to bed. We had to use flashlights and headlamps because the power from their small solar panels was used up during the day. Hopefully, with the solar panels we will install, that will change.
Today we got up at 7:30 after a very good sleep. Breakfast was at 8, and was hardboiled eggs, bread (and peanut butter!!) and small sweet bananas. Then Angela and I took pictures of various aspects of the building and the roof that the solar panels will be on. We then walked along the village's main road and passed houses and farmland. We didn't see any wells because those are down the hill, but we have heard that they are about 1 mile apart. We had thought we would pass a school because we had seen many children in uniform getting water that morning from the well near the clinic, but apparently we didn't walk far enough. The school is about a half an hour walk down the road, and we probably only went 15 minutes. Angela and I had fun speculating about which house we would live in, since John hasn't had time to show us yet.
After about 15 minutes of walking we turned back to the clinic. We then walked down into the valley behind the clinic to look at the well that Michael repaired last time he was here. We saw someone using it, and it looked like it was in good condition- the handle moved smoothly, the water came out steadily, and the water was clear. So that was encouraging. We hope to find the other wells tomorrow and see how they are working at this point.
Then it was about 11 or so, and Angela and I wanted to go into Masaka to buy misquito nets for our team and scout out where to buy various items. We have done those things, so our last stop was here, at the internet cafe. Still no word on the crates, but I am optimistic that they'll be ready to go when we come back to Kampala with the whole team this coming weekend.
I'll probably post next when we get back to Kampala. Which will be either tomorrow or Wednesday. Talk to you then!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
July 24- Kampala
Angela and I spent last night hanging out with two of her good home friends: Timothy and Nelson. They had a good time trying to teach me Luganda, and we had some interesting conversations about the state of the world as seen from our different perspectives. Timothy is studying architecture (we had fun hearing our different pronunciations of that word) in Turkey, and Nelson is studying to be a minister in Tanzania, so we all had slightly different outlooks. Today we didn't have too much to do because we had originally thought we would be in Ddegeya, and it was raining very hard outside. We hung out with Timothy and Nelson more today and spent the beginning of the day obsessively checking our email for news on the crate, talking to our families on skype, and hanging out with Angela's friends. At 5:30 we still hadn't heard from anyone on the crates and the rain had stopped, so Angela, Timothy and I went out to a fancy mall in Kampala where we ate cake and drank fresh juice. Normally we don't go out at night, but we got back by 9:30 and the mall had tight security, so we felt safe.
Angela and I got back to the house (Timothy went home after our cake and juice adventure) and had dinner (after cake...). I emailed Helen and Bryan, asking whether they thought we should head to the village, or wait for the crates. We then watched 'She's Out of My League' while waiting for their response, which was a nice taste of the US (even though at one point in the movie, small silhouettes walked across the screen- it was filmed from a movie theater).
Helen responded after talking to Bryan saying that they thought we should go to Ddegeya. It's not worth putting our whole project on hold to wait for the panels to arrive and there is a FedEx holding facility in Kampala where the crates can wait if we're not back yet. At this point, the plan is for Angela and I to go to Ddegeya tomorrow at about 2 pm with John (the clinic manager) and stay there until probably Wednesday, but possibly Tuesday if it seems like there's a lot that we need in Kampala. Most of the team arrives on Thursday, and we will be there to greet them at the airport. Then the team and the crates will travel together, probably on Saturday.
Angela and I now have to go run around and pack up- we weren't sure what was happening, so we're not as prepared to leave as we could be. Tomorrow Angela is going to go to church and I am going to stay here and do laundry (by hand!) and pack up. Wish us luck!
Friday, July 23, 2010
July 23rd- Kampala
As you might have noticed from the title, Angela and I are not in Ddegeya today. I did not get a call from FedEx last night telling me that the crates had arrived, so I called the FedEx office in the US to try and get information. I was put on hold, and was sure that my phone was going to run out of money before I got through. Finally they got to me, but my phone died right as the man said "Your crates are delayed. They're in-" Obviously, that worried me, so I texted Harriet on Angela's phone and told her that we probably wouldn't drive to Engeye on Friday. Then this morning Angela and I went to the FedEx office in Kampala and had them look into it. They found that the crates were still in England, although they didn't know why. I still don't have airtime, although that's my next stop, so I will update Harriet soon. Hopefully she will be ok with a more up in the air date of departure.
Angela and I then went to Angela's mom's office where we are now using the internet. When I checked my email I saw that Bryan had also been looking into the shipping problem and had found out that there is a pretty serious issue in England. The crates should have been put on FedEx cargo, but for some reason they were not, and now they are sitting in England with British shipping people trying to find anyone that has enough room to take these 2 large crates. Not an ideal situation. I can't do much from here, as my phone calls last about a minute if I'm calling to the US, but Bryan is looking into. I admit, I'm a little nervous, but I am hopeful that it will all work out and that the crates will arrive within a week.
We are therefore not going to Ddegeya, probably until the crates arrive. We might still go on Sunday with John, but we would like to travel with the crates if possible, and Angela might need to sign for the crates here, so being in Ddegeya would be inconvenient. Also, we are going to call and meet with several water quality and quantity related NGO's hopefully within the next few days. We will call them this afternoon and try and set up appointments, so that at least we have a starting place on the water project if the energy project ends up getting delayed.
Angela and I then went to Angela's mom's office where we are now using the internet. When I checked my email I saw that Bryan had also been looking into the shipping problem and had found out that there is a pretty serious issue in England. The crates should have been put on FedEx cargo, but for some reason they were not, and now they are sitting in England with British shipping people trying to find anyone that has enough room to take these 2 large crates. Not an ideal situation. I can't do much from here, as my phone calls last about a minute if I'm calling to the US, but Bryan is looking into. I admit, I'm a little nervous, but I am hopeful that it will all work out and that the crates will arrive within a week.
We are therefore not going to Ddegeya, probably until the crates arrive. We might still go on Sunday with John, but we would like to travel with the crates if possible, and Angela might need to sign for the crates here, so being in Ddegeya would be inconvenient. Also, we are going to call and meet with several water quality and quantity related NGO's hopefully within the next few days. We will call them this afternoon and try and set up appointments, so that at least we have a starting place on the water project if the energy project ends up getting delayed.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
July 22nd- Kampala
This morning Angela and I slept through Angela's alarm (I forgot to set mine). Angela woke up at 11 and immediately woke me up too- we were supposed to meet Emmanuel at 11. We called him and told him we would be late, and got out of the house 15 minutes later. We got to Kampala road where we met Emmanuel at 12, and apologized for our tardiness. While traveling to Kampala road, Harriet Muyambi called me, so I called her back as soon as we got there. I set up a meeting with her for 3 pm at the Imperial Royale Hotel, where her office is.
Emmanuel, Angela and I then set off to look for charge controllers, inverters, and batteries. We first went to a taxi park where there were incredible numbers of taxis and people. I wish I had time to take a picture- it was litteraly a sea of small white buses. I'm not sure how they all got in there, or how any of them manage to get out. We finally figured out which taxi to take and then went off on a fairly long taxi ride, followed by a short boda boda ride, to Ultra Tech. We spent a while at Ultra Tec, as at first they just wanted us to tell us the load we had, and they would design our system for us. We finally convinced them that we just wanted to know the prices of various types of inverters and charge controllers, got the information, and headed back to the taxi. We got back near Kampala road and went to Market street where we went to 3 other vendors, again spending lots of time convincing them that we did not want them to size our system for us. We eventually got the information we wanted, finishing at 2:20- enough time left to get a quick bite to eat before meeting Harriet. Angela, Emmanuel, and I then went to a nice little lunch spot near Market St. where we all had chapattis and gravy, and mango juice out of juice boxes. Emmanuel is very nice and helpful, and really led the search for controllers and inverters today. Then we split up, Emmanuel heading back to Makerere and Angela and I going to the Imperial Royale Hotel, but we are looking forward to seeing him again next week.
Angela and I took boda bodas to the Imperial Royale Hotel, but our boda bodas went different ways so we arrived at different exits. I called her and we found each other easily, but I admit it scared me for a second. It was my first time in the city not being in an arms reach of Angela. We went through the 2 security check points and found the Super Rides office in the lobby of the Imperial Royale Hotel. Harriet was very nice and asked me many questions about my sister Rebecca, who she knows well. My sister worked with her while she was in Uganda, which is how I found out about their company. Harriet showed us the pickup truck that would take the crates and confirmed that we could ride with them to the clinic, which I think is currently our plan. We want to make sure that the crates get their safely, and make sure they are loaded carefully into a room in the clinic. We met the driver who seemed very nice, but did not speak any English. He's from the Masaka area, and knows where Engeye is, which is really nice since Angela and I don't. I then quickly confirmed the plan with Harriet- we would meet them at their office, then drive over to FedEx with them tomorrow morning, and head to the village. Angela and I have not decided if we will stay in the village for the rest of the week, or if we will come back with the truck driver to Kampala. We still have people we want to meet with here, but the weekend probably will not be the best time for that anyways. We'll decide that tonight.
After the Imperial Royale Hotel, we walked back in towards the main areas of Kampala (props to Angela for not getting us lost even though she had never walked that area before). We went and saw UTL- the internet carrier for Angela- so that hopefully we can have internet at her home when we are in Kampala again. It has been frustrating to have a computer and an internet connection, but not be able to use it. Finally we came back to Ntinda, where we passed my new friend who sells sugar cane on the street. We bought some from him the other day, and since we walk that road every day to get to the internet cafe, we now say hello every day. And now we are here, at an internet cafe at 6 pm, pretty exhausted (probably because we've only eaten chapattis today, which is essentially very flat bread). But we got a lot done today, even though we woke up later than we had intended.
I'll try and post again tomorrow, but if we're in the village then I'm not sure what the internet availability will be. I'm very excited to see the village! Can't believe we're going tomorrow!
Emmanuel, Angela and I then set off to look for charge controllers, inverters, and batteries. We first went to a taxi park where there were incredible numbers of taxis and people. I wish I had time to take a picture- it was litteraly a sea of small white buses. I'm not sure how they all got in there, or how any of them manage to get out. We finally figured out which taxi to take and then went off on a fairly long taxi ride, followed by a short boda boda ride, to Ultra Tech. We spent a while at Ultra Tec, as at first they just wanted us to tell us the load we had, and they would design our system for us. We finally convinced them that we just wanted to know the prices of various types of inverters and charge controllers, got the information, and headed back to the taxi. We got back near Kampala road and went to Market street where we went to 3 other vendors, again spending lots of time convincing them that we did not want them to size our system for us. We eventually got the information we wanted, finishing at 2:20- enough time left to get a quick bite to eat before meeting Harriet. Angela, Emmanuel, and I then went to a nice little lunch spot near Market St. where we all had chapattis and gravy, and mango juice out of juice boxes. Emmanuel is very nice and helpful, and really led the search for controllers and inverters today. Then we split up, Emmanuel heading back to Makerere and Angela and I going to the Imperial Royale Hotel, but we are looking forward to seeing him again next week.
Angela and I took boda bodas to the Imperial Royale Hotel, but our boda bodas went different ways so we arrived at different exits. I called her and we found each other easily, but I admit it scared me for a second. It was my first time in the city not being in an arms reach of Angela. We went through the 2 security check points and found the Super Rides office in the lobby of the Imperial Royale Hotel. Harriet was very nice and asked me many questions about my sister Rebecca, who she knows well. My sister worked with her while she was in Uganda, which is how I found out about their company. Harriet showed us the pickup truck that would take the crates and confirmed that we could ride with them to the clinic, which I think is currently our plan. We want to make sure that the crates get their safely, and make sure they are loaded carefully into a room in the clinic. We met the driver who seemed very nice, but did not speak any English. He's from the Masaka area, and knows where Engeye is, which is really nice since Angela and I don't. I then quickly confirmed the plan with Harriet- we would meet them at their office, then drive over to FedEx with them tomorrow morning, and head to the village. Angela and I have not decided if we will stay in the village for the rest of the week, or if we will come back with the truck driver to Kampala. We still have people we want to meet with here, but the weekend probably will not be the best time for that anyways. We'll decide that tonight.
After the Imperial Royale Hotel, we walked back in towards the main areas of Kampala (props to Angela for not getting us lost even though she had never walked that area before). We went and saw UTL- the internet carrier for Angela- so that hopefully we can have internet at her home when we are in Kampala again. It has been frustrating to have a computer and an internet connection, but not be able to use it. Finally we came back to Ntinda, where we passed my new friend who sells sugar cane on the street. We bought some from him the other day, and since we walk that road every day to get to the internet cafe, we now say hello every day. And now we are here, at an internet cafe at 6 pm, pretty exhausted (probably because we've only eaten chapattis today, which is essentially very flat bread). But we got a lot done today, even though we woke up later than we had intended.
I'll try and post again tomorrow, but if we're in the village then I'm not sure what the internet availability will be. I'm very excited to see the village! Can't believe we're going tomorrow!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Wednesday already! Days are flying by. Monday after I wrote I rode on a boda boda with Angela and went back to a delicious dinner and more Ugandan TV. That night, Angela and I were apparently still jetlagged so we were both up until 3 am (only 8 pm Boston time though). I woke up at 11:30 yesterday because we went to bed so late, but Angela slept until 1! Clearly we are still recovering. As soon as we got up, we called Dr. Musazi, our partner at the Makerere University, and scheduled a meeting for this morning at 7:30 am. We then called Emmanuel and Alan, two of Dr. Musazi's students who are helping us with our project, and scheduled a meeting with them for last night at 6 pm. Finally, we called John Kalule, the manager of the Engeye Health Clinic, and asked if we could get a ride to the clinic with him this Sunday. He seemed fine with that idea, so we are meeting him on Sunday to go see the Ddegeya village for the first time. Angela and I then traveled into Ntinda to find internet, but as soon as we got to the internet cafe, the power went down. We waited for about 20 minutes before giving up and heading back to her house. We then wandered around her neighborhood for a while, and I took many pictures of interesting houses and plants. I also saw lots of chickens and a rabbit wandering around near houses. Alan and Emmanuel came over at 6 and we chatted for a while about the charge controllers and inverter options. Emmanuel is going to show us some of the options tomorrow morning. After another yummy meal (I ate a ton of dinner- we didn't have lunch because we had breakfast so late) we watched a little more TV, surfed facebook on our phones (such a luxury!) and fought with Angela's computer until it was time to go to bed. Angela was not able to sleep, so I woke up this morning at 6 to find her sitting in the kitchen. We traveled to see Dr. Musazi at the Makerere University by taxi and boda boda. We finally found him, and after a small mix up over who we were, we started talking about the project. He had a lot of good ideas- LED lights, focusing on rain water collection, and marketing things like lights to the villagers at the end of harvest season, when people have money. Lots of things that I hadn't thought about before. We just checked our emails to find lots of new things to think about with the wiring issues, so we think we will wait for the rest of the team before we buy the wire. Next we are going to go to the bank, so that the money we fundraised this year can be wired over. It's another beautiful day- perfect weather, as the past three days have been. We still have lots to do, but we are definitely making progress!
Monday, July 19, 2010
First Day in Kampala
Angela and I arrived in Entebbe last night and were greeted by Angela's family and friends. We drove the hour back to Kampala with Angela's aunt, uncle, cousins, and brother, all of whom were very nice. Her little cousins were incredibly cute. We were then treated to a delicious dinner of chapati, beef, peas, and rice. We also had fresh juice, all at Angela's house. Today we took the morning to recover from out jet lag. Angela got her hair done and we hung out with her older brother. We ate good food and watched Ugandan TV, both MTV in English and the movie Beethoven dubbed over and narrated in Luganda, which was fun. This afternoon we took a taxi to buy phones and supplies. The taxi was cool- driving here is generally different and more crowded. I'm excited but nervous to try a boda boda soon. I'm so glad that Angela knows how it all works -I would be totally lost here without her. We got good phones (the one I got is probably fancier than the one I have at home) and visited Angela's aunt in the store that Angela's aunt and mother run. We then went to Hardware world, where we found a lot of what we needed. We were unprepared for the wires to be measured in mm instead of inches, so we are going to go back soon to get the electrical equipment. Everything's going really well- I can't wait for the rest of the team to get here!
Tess
Tess
Monday, January 25, 2010
January 25, 2010 - Ddegeya
This morning was a rare sunny day, and as a result, we set out the solar cooker tests for the final time---using Kevin's EasyLid box model as well as the cooker that Jawadu's family helped putting together yesterday. The WAPIs this time were inserted right side up. By the afternoon, both WAPIs melted successfully and fell to the bottom. The water was patently too hot to touch. This is certainly an encouraging sign, and an indication of the possibility that the solar cooker might work in the sunnier dry season.
In the morning, Dave and Kevin walked over to Joseph's home with buckets and sieves, attempting to repair the damaged sand filter, while Mike unsuccessfully looked for a second carjack. First we took everything out---much of the sand had indeed become intermixed with the gravel to a deep level, perhaps because the sand we used was somewhat fine. Given this information, we are not sure about the lifetime of the sand filter before the same sort of thing happens again. This is something that we will have to play by ear and find out later. Fortunately, as described below, the overhaul maintenance is actually not as complicated as we imagined it would be.
Having removed as much fine sand into a bucket as we could, we started loading the small gravel-sand mixture onto the sieve with small pores bought in Masaka. Then we loaded the bottomost mixture of large gravel, small gravel, and sand onto a sieve with larger pores. Water, gathered from BH1, was poured over both sieves and could be reused. We also poured water from the effluent pipe, just to wash the sand accumulating in the pipe. Then we put everything back together and started feeding water from BH1 through it. The flow rate was restored. At first the water was yellowish in colour (though transparent), then clearing up significantly (though perhaps not perfect---we washed everything in the much cloudier BH1 water, and it might take much longer for the filter to start working properly). Finally, we moved back the filter into Joseph's home again, declaring it ready to use. The whole repair process took about 3 hours. Dora said farewell to us and gave Kevin a list of phrases to write down in Chinese before we left.
In the afternoon, Mike and Dave cleaned up most of the engineering mess in the backyard. Kevin went with Joseph to visit another brickmaker down in the valley quite near the Nalongo. However, having waited for about 20 minutes with no one showing up, we decided to give up and maybe come back later. According to Joseph, the bricks made here are higher quality, but the final product still sells for about 60 shillings apiece. We saw large piles of firewood in the slope above the stacks of drying bricks. When the time comes, this firewood will be intercalated with the brick stacks and set alight.
Then, Kevin took a boda boda to Kinoni to look for some sawdust. Having visited two carpenter shops, he found what he was looking for near the other end of Kinoni. The asking price was 2000 UGX/kg, and Kevin bargained a bagful down to 500 UGX. We will be unable to do any tests within the remaining time in Ddegeya, but we will try to bring back clay bricks and sawdust. He also brought back Dave's sought-after rolex (egg on chapati bread).
After a gigantic rain, Dave, Mike, and Kevin set out to look for the elusive MTN airtime. Having visited about 10 stores, we finally gathered about 20000 UGX worth of airtime for Dave, Monica, and Kevin. We must have almost exhausted Ddegeya's supply of MTN airtime cards.
In the evening, we showed Monica and Joseph how to conduct the two tests on Biosand filter (flow rate and bacterial counts). We have trust that Tom/Monica will follow through with the Biosand filter left at the clinic. We also left many Petrifilms to Joseph and asked him to bring plated samples to the clinic, which he visits every day.
After nightfall, we had a long chat with John regarding the future prospects of EWB's project. John seemed to want to distance himself from the community involvement aspect---which is understandable since his primary concern is on the Engeye clinic. We also agreed that the community's most immediate need is not necessary on water purification via filtering or solar pasteurisation techniques, but rather on the supply of adequate water. As an anecdotal note, while repairing Joseph's filter this morning, Kevin went with a 20 L jerry can to BH1 to fill water. It took him 6 minutes to fill about two-thirds of the jerry can. After about every 40 strokes, he had to wait for half a minute or so for the water to fill up. Despite the slow rate, there was a long line-up at the borehole nonetheless. This indicates that many villagers appear willing to wait for a long time for higher quality water, though this waiting time can be significantly cut down if new BHs can be drilled/digged. We asked about the price of digging a BH, and John gave us an estimate that BH4 took 4,000,000 UGX for the entire thing---labour, supplies, etc. He also gave an estimate for the price of the rainwater roof gutter as about 5000 UGX/7 ft, which is much cheaper than the price we asked in Masaka (9500 UGX/7 ft). I am closing now since the computer is almost out of power supply (and we are leaving Ddegeya hopefully in 3 hours, after doing some wrapping-up business with Joseph), but we will certainly have a lot more to discuss with MIT-EWB when we get back, in light of what we have seen and learnt.
In the morning, Dave and Kevin walked over to Joseph's home with buckets and sieves, attempting to repair the damaged sand filter, while Mike unsuccessfully looked for a second carjack. First we took everything out---much of the sand had indeed become intermixed with the gravel to a deep level, perhaps because the sand we used was somewhat fine. Given this information, we are not sure about the lifetime of the sand filter before the same sort of thing happens again. This is something that we will have to play by ear and find out later. Fortunately, as described below, the overhaul maintenance is actually not as complicated as we imagined it would be.
Having removed as much fine sand into a bucket as we could, we started loading the small gravel-sand mixture onto the sieve with small pores bought in Masaka. Then we loaded the bottomost mixture of large gravel, small gravel, and sand onto a sieve with larger pores. Water, gathered from BH1, was poured over both sieves and could be reused. We also poured water from the effluent pipe, just to wash the sand accumulating in the pipe. Then we put everything back together and started feeding water from BH1 through it. The flow rate was restored. At first the water was yellowish in colour (though transparent), then clearing up significantly (though perhaps not perfect---we washed everything in the much cloudier BH1 water, and it might take much longer for the filter to start working properly). Finally, we moved back the filter into Joseph's home again, declaring it ready to use. The whole repair process took about 3 hours. Dora said farewell to us and gave Kevin a list of phrases to write down in Chinese before we left.
In the afternoon, Mike and Dave cleaned up most of the engineering mess in the backyard. Kevin went with Joseph to visit another brickmaker down in the valley quite near the Nalongo. However, having waited for about 20 minutes with no one showing up, we decided to give up and maybe come back later. According to Joseph, the bricks made here are higher quality, but the final product still sells for about 60 shillings apiece. We saw large piles of firewood in the slope above the stacks of drying bricks. When the time comes, this firewood will be intercalated with the brick stacks and set alight.
Then, Kevin took a boda boda to Kinoni to look for some sawdust. Having visited two carpenter shops, he found what he was looking for near the other end of Kinoni. The asking price was 2000 UGX/kg, and Kevin bargained a bagful down to 500 UGX. We will be unable to do any tests within the remaining time in Ddegeya, but we will try to bring back clay bricks and sawdust. He also brought back Dave's sought-after rolex (egg on chapati bread).
After a gigantic rain, Dave, Mike, and Kevin set out to look for the elusive MTN airtime. Having visited about 10 stores, we finally gathered about 20000 UGX worth of airtime for Dave, Monica, and Kevin. We must have almost exhausted Ddegeya's supply of MTN airtime cards.
In the evening, we showed Monica and Joseph how to conduct the two tests on Biosand filter (flow rate and bacterial counts). We have trust that Tom/Monica will follow through with the Biosand filter left at the clinic. We also left many Petrifilms to Joseph and asked him to bring plated samples to the clinic, which he visits every day.
After nightfall, we had a long chat with John regarding the future prospects of EWB's project. John seemed to want to distance himself from the community involvement aspect---which is understandable since his primary concern is on the Engeye clinic. We also agreed that the community's most immediate need is not necessary on water purification via filtering or solar pasteurisation techniques, but rather on the supply of adequate water. As an anecdotal note, while repairing Joseph's filter this morning, Kevin went with a 20 L jerry can to BH1 to fill water. It took him 6 minutes to fill about two-thirds of the jerry can. After about every 40 strokes, he had to wait for half a minute or so for the water to fill up. Despite the slow rate, there was a long line-up at the borehole nonetheless. This indicates that many villagers appear willing to wait for a long time for higher quality water, though this waiting time can be significantly cut down if new BHs can be drilled/digged. We asked about the price of digging a BH, and John gave us an estimate that BH4 took 4,000,000 UGX for the entire thing---labour, supplies, etc. He also gave an estimate for the price of the rainwater roof gutter as about 5000 UGX/7 ft, which is much cheaper than the price we asked in Masaka (9500 UGX/7 ft). I am closing now since the computer is almost out of power supply (and we are leaving Ddegeya hopefully in 3 hours, after doing some wrapping-up business with Joseph), but we will certainly have a lot more to discuss with MIT-EWB when we get back, in light of what we have seen and learnt.
January 24, 2010 - Ddegeya
At about 6 a.m., there was a heavy rain, and we neglected to put the solar cookers away. As a result, everything was soaking wet. However, by about 11 a.m., most of the stuff was dry, and the sun was up again. We got out the rectangular open box (ROB) and the EasyLid box cookers to test. After about 4 hours, both WAPIs failed to melt (though one in the EasyLid box appeared to have melted partially). As a control, during breakfast, we also hijacked a thermo with hot water to put WAPI in. The WAPIs did melt quite easily, but when Kevin emptied out the hot water and put one WAPI in again, the whole thermo had a spectacular explosion! Fortunately, the Albany crew, Mike, and Monica went to Masaka today, so we just asked them to pick up a thermo on our behalf. The WAPI survived the explosion intact.
In the morning, we put together the second Biosand filter. There was about 10 cm of gravel and maybe 18 cm of sand. The standing water level was definitely lower than that of the first filter, and as a result, the flow rate was faster due to the higher pressure drop possible. As usual, the water ran turbid for maybe the first 40 L, and then cleared up significantly.
In the afternoon, Kevin went with Joseph to visit a clay-brickmaker, but he was not interested in pursuing with the ceramic filter idea. However, he suggested a lady who lives past the Trading Centre who actually is knowledgeable in ceramic filters. We spent some time tracking this lady down, but it turned out that she had moved away from Ddegeya, and we do not have her contact information. There are other brickmakers in Ddegeya (possibly with firewood/kilns) that Kevin and Joseph might contact tomorrow, but testing ceramic filters is probably beyond the scope of this trip. If anything, Kevin bought 3 clay bricks (60 shillings each) and brought them back to the clinic. If we have time, we might try breaking them into pieces and/or bringing them back to the U.S. On our way to the brickmaker, we stopped by the newly fixed BH1, and did find many jerry cans lining up to be filled. However, the water flow rate was not as prolific as BH4, and something felt wierd about pumping: it felt like moving a lot of water up, and some portion of it did end up coming out of the wrong places at the pump head.
In the meanwhile, Dave went to investigate BH6---he was interested in seeing if turbidity would change with continued pumping. He found that continued pumping for about 5 min. dropped the turbidity level from 50 NTU to 30 NTU. We might take a look at this BH a little more before we leave---provided that we have time---but are unlikely to do anything to fix it.
In the morning, Joseph advertised to the two families (Jawadu and Gertrude) that the solar cooker workshop would begin at 4 p.m. today. Disappointingly, Gertrude never showed up, so we ended up holding the workshop to the family members of Jawadu. We first explained our tests, and how they never really worked (possibly due to uncooperative weather, limited materials, and our short stay). We are interested in testing the prototypes during the dry season---and asked the family's help. We emphasised that water is not safe to drink until the wax in the WAPI has melted---but even if it is not, then it is probably hot enough for other purposes (such as bathing) or for continuation for boiling using firewood (which could be saved). The family was quite eager helping us build the solar cooker (using the EasyLid design), but it appears that it was motivated just by the "free stuff".
In the evening, we moved the Biosand filter to Joseph's house. We did this by loading the filter onto a wheelbarrow, and then pulling the system over a bumpy dirt road. When the filter settled into Joseph's home, we found that the flow rate slowed significantly, and the water turned out yellowish. We did switch to the more turbid water source from BH1, but we think the main reason for this dramatically decreased performance is that the moving of the filter caused the sand to be intermixed with the gravel, causing clogging. This called for an emergency repair procedure tomorrow morning, where we intend to take the sieves and run through the different layers again, washing sand away from the gravel. Lesson learnt: never move an assembled Biosand filter on a wheelbarrow on a bumpy dirt road.
This implies that we should also not move our second Biosand filter prototype away from the clinic. Perhaps Tom and Monica (and their successors) could help us with the daily monitoring. As for Eddie, instead of the Biosand filter, he might be getting Gertrude's solar cooker, which he originally had wanted. But we shall see tomorrow.
Priority of things to be done before we leave:
- Fix Joseph's filter
- Clean up our mess of engineering on the Engeye grounds
- Hold a community debriefing meeting (likely Monday evening, say at 5 p.m.)
- Right BH5 with carjacks, and assess BH6 and BH1 (regarding the water coming out the wrong way).
- Set up some framework through which ceramic filtration can be pursued in the future.
- Chase down local hydrologcal / topographical maps from the office in Entebbe.
Chris Arsenault e-mailed yesterday informing us that he would not be able to join us in Ddegeya due to a sudden demand in Sudan. But he passed on the contact information of some people who work in Uganda whom we might contact later for collaboration/advice.
In the morning, we put together the second Biosand filter. There was about 10 cm of gravel and maybe 18 cm of sand. The standing water level was definitely lower than that of the first filter, and as a result, the flow rate was faster due to the higher pressure drop possible. As usual, the water ran turbid for maybe the first 40 L, and then cleared up significantly.
In the afternoon, Kevin went with Joseph to visit a clay-brickmaker, but he was not interested in pursuing with the ceramic filter idea. However, he suggested a lady who lives past the Trading Centre who actually is knowledgeable in ceramic filters. We spent some time tracking this lady down, but it turned out that she had moved away from Ddegeya, and we do not have her contact information. There are other brickmakers in Ddegeya (possibly with firewood/kilns) that Kevin and Joseph might contact tomorrow, but testing ceramic filters is probably beyond the scope of this trip. If anything, Kevin bought 3 clay bricks (60 shillings each) and brought them back to the clinic. If we have time, we might try breaking them into pieces and/or bringing them back to the U.S. On our way to the brickmaker, we stopped by the newly fixed BH1, and did find many jerry cans lining up to be filled. However, the water flow rate was not as prolific as BH4, and something felt wierd about pumping: it felt like moving a lot of water up, and some portion of it did end up coming out of the wrong places at the pump head.
In the meanwhile, Dave went to investigate BH6---he was interested in seeing if turbidity would change with continued pumping. He found that continued pumping for about 5 min. dropped the turbidity level from 50 NTU to 30 NTU. We might take a look at this BH a little more before we leave---provided that we have time---but are unlikely to do anything to fix it.
In the morning, Joseph advertised to the two families (Jawadu and Gertrude) that the solar cooker workshop would begin at 4 p.m. today. Disappointingly, Gertrude never showed up, so we ended up holding the workshop to the family members of Jawadu. We first explained our tests, and how they never really worked (possibly due to uncooperative weather, limited materials, and our short stay). We are interested in testing the prototypes during the dry season---and asked the family's help. We emphasised that water is not safe to drink until the wax in the WAPI has melted---but even if it is not, then it is probably hot enough for other purposes (such as bathing) or for continuation for boiling using firewood (which could be saved). The family was quite eager helping us build the solar cooker (using the EasyLid design), but it appears that it was motivated just by the "free stuff".
In the evening, we moved the Biosand filter to Joseph's house. We did this by loading the filter onto a wheelbarrow, and then pulling the system over a bumpy dirt road. When the filter settled into Joseph's home, we found that the flow rate slowed significantly, and the water turned out yellowish. We did switch to the more turbid water source from BH1, but we think the main reason for this dramatically decreased performance is that the moving of the filter caused the sand to be intermixed with the gravel, causing clogging. This called for an emergency repair procedure tomorrow morning, where we intend to take the sieves and run through the different layers again, washing sand away from the gravel. Lesson learnt: never move an assembled Biosand filter on a wheelbarrow on a bumpy dirt road.
This implies that we should also not move our second Biosand filter prototype away from the clinic. Perhaps Tom and Monica (and their successors) could help us with the daily monitoring. As for Eddie, instead of the Biosand filter, he might be getting Gertrude's solar cooker, which he originally had wanted. But we shall see tomorrow.
Priority of things to be done before we leave:
- Fix Joseph's filter
- Clean up our mess of engineering on the Engeye grounds
- Hold a community debriefing meeting (likely Monday evening, say at 5 p.m.)
- Right BH5 with carjacks, and assess BH6 and BH1 (regarding the water coming out the wrong way).
- Set up some framework through which ceramic filtration can be pursued in the future.
- Chase down local hydrologcal / topographical maps from the office in Entebbe.
Chris Arsenault e-mailed yesterday informing us that he would not be able to join us in Ddegeya due to a sudden demand in Sudan. But he passed on the contact information of some people who work in Uganda whom we might contact later for collaboration/advice.
January 23, 2010 - Ddegeya
After breakfast, the Albany people went away for a safari trip, together with Mike. This left Dave, Monica, and I in Engeye---we had some overdue quiet time.
This morning we got out the EasyLid cooker that Kevin built yesterday. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy for most of the morning, and the cooker got nothing beyond lukewarm. In the afternoon, we got a stretch of sunshine. The water in the kettle became too hot to touch, but the WAPI only melted a little. We started to suspect that this is because the WAPI was not completely submerged in the water---the WAPI is such that it floats and the wax end stands on the top; the water level in the kettle is such that the wax is barely touching the water. We later tried to invert the WAPI and the wax appears to melt a little more. But at this time, we cannot be sure. It would be worthwhile tomorrow to do a test on boiling water to see what happens with inverted WAPI.
We loaded some water into the bucket, but there was a leak. Dave then applied some more silicon glue and we loaded more water into the bucket. Until the afternoon, no leakage appeared, and the bucket/pipe system appears ready.
Dave and Monica went on a round-the-world trip to collect samples of all the water sources from Ddegeya. In the meanwhile, Kevin washed the last batch of sand, and started washing the bucketful of sand (about 15 cm) a second (and final) time. Unfortunately, due to the laundry activities and an attempt to construct the concrete base for the second rainwater collection tank, all the large jerry cans were being used. This left Kevin with a 5 L jerry can and a bucket, and many trips were required to Nalongo.
Kevin also tried the cloth filtration technique, using some of his cotton gauze, on the 500-NTU water from the ponds beside BH1. This did not seem to work well, even with 12 layers of cotton gauze, probably because the individual pore sizes of the cotton are too large, thus allowing most of the turbid stuff (except the mosquito larvae) to pass through. Dave has some more cloth tomorrow, which we will possibly test.
In the afternoon, Dave started sorting the gravel, and then we proceeded to wash those. We still had a hard time getting all the mud/clay stones out from the gravel, and even so, the wash efflux at the end was still somewhat cloudy. We spent about 2 hours washing through all these, certain that we were doing something bad with our backs and/or knees. In the evening, Dave got together some larger gravel to fill the base below the pipe, and the small gravel filled up to about 10 cm. We got some BH4 water to fill up the space, and left the sand-filling until tomorrow.
Kevin got a strange idea and began building a reflective open box (ROB) of a solar cooker. Dave was very sceptical about this configuration, as it employs no insulation whatsoever (it is an open-box panel cooker). He then proceeded to call this endeavour a disgrace of MIT engineering, while Kevin thought that it is a good way to clean up the extremely messy balcony by rounding up most of the scrap cardboard pieces, and can be considered a piece of (abstract) art. Monica stayed quite neutral in this debate.
We were planning to visit Ronald with Joseph today. Kevin went over the concept of ceramic filters with Joseph in the morning, together with some cartoon drawings using whatever artistic skills that could be mustered. However, Joseph became unexpectedly unavailable in the afternoon (he went to Kinoni), so we just have to leave this until tomorrow. We also plan to visit the households tomorrow, before Joseph becomes caught up with the clinic/medical mission stuff next week. We are also hoping to hold a debriefing community meeting on Monday, probably at 5 p.m. after the clinic operation ends.
This morning we got out the EasyLid cooker that Kevin built yesterday. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy for most of the morning, and the cooker got nothing beyond lukewarm. In the afternoon, we got a stretch of sunshine. The water in the kettle became too hot to touch, but the WAPI only melted a little. We started to suspect that this is because the WAPI was not completely submerged in the water---the WAPI is such that it floats and the wax end stands on the top; the water level in the kettle is such that the wax is barely touching the water. We later tried to invert the WAPI and the wax appears to melt a little more. But at this time, we cannot be sure. It would be worthwhile tomorrow to do a test on boiling water to see what happens with inverted WAPI.
We loaded some water into the bucket, but there was a leak. Dave then applied some more silicon glue and we loaded more water into the bucket. Until the afternoon, no leakage appeared, and the bucket/pipe system appears ready.
Dave and Monica went on a round-the-world trip to collect samples of all the water sources from Ddegeya. In the meanwhile, Kevin washed the last batch of sand, and started washing the bucketful of sand (about 15 cm) a second (and final) time. Unfortunately, due to the laundry activities and an attempt to construct the concrete base for the second rainwater collection tank, all the large jerry cans were being used. This left Kevin with a 5 L jerry can and a bucket, and many trips were required to Nalongo.
Kevin also tried the cloth filtration technique, using some of his cotton gauze, on the 500-NTU water from the ponds beside BH1. This did not seem to work well, even with 12 layers of cotton gauze, probably because the individual pore sizes of the cotton are too large, thus allowing most of the turbid stuff (except the mosquito larvae) to pass through. Dave has some more cloth tomorrow, which we will possibly test.
In the afternoon, Dave started sorting the gravel, and then we proceeded to wash those. We still had a hard time getting all the mud/clay stones out from the gravel, and even so, the wash efflux at the end was still somewhat cloudy. We spent about 2 hours washing through all these, certain that we were doing something bad with our backs and/or knees. In the evening, Dave got together some larger gravel to fill the base below the pipe, and the small gravel filled up to about 10 cm. We got some BH4 water to fill up the space, and left the sand-filling until tomorrow.
Kevin got a strange idea and began building a reflective open box (ROB) of a solar cooker. Dave was very sceptical about this configuration, as it employs no insulation whatsoever (it is an open-box panel cooker). He then proceeded to call this endeavour a disgrace of MIT engineering, while Kevin thought that it is a good way to clean up the extremely messy balcony by rounding up most of the scrap cardboard pieces, and can be considered a piece of (abstract) art. Monica stayed quite neutral in this debate.
We were planning to visit Ronald with Joseph today. Kevin went over the concept of ceramic filters with Joseph in the morning, together with some cartoon drawings using whatever artistic skills that could be mustered. However, Joseph became unexpectedly unavailable in the afternoon (he went to Kinoni), so we just have to leave this until tomorrow. We also plan to visit the households tomorrow, before Joseph becomes caught up with the clinic/medical mission stuff next week. We are also hoping to hold a debriefing community meeting on Monday, probably at 5 p.m. after the clinic operation ends.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
January 22, 2010 - Ddegeya
We were planning to have our solar cooker prototypes out in the morning, but it started raining and did not clear up until afternoon. We did bring the cookers out in the afternoon, but the water went up only to about 60 C, and none of the WAPIs melted.
In the morning, Dave and Mike went to fix BH1---quite successfully. The BH does not give a lot of water, but is in working order. Turbidity measurements were done on the BH (20-30 NTU) and the nearby pond (about 500 NTU). One thing that worries us is that Joseph and Eddie (the two people meant to be testing the Biosand filters) usually get their water from the 500-NTU pond. This means that an additional cloth pre-filtration step must be done. We explained the situation to Joseph and he said that he would be able to use the BH, or pay someone (e.g. 500 shillings) to get water from Nalongo. We have not discussed the situation with Eddie.
In the meanwhile, Kevin washed 4 batches of sand, when the water traffic at BH4 was low after the rain. He also started feeding P1 water into the working Biosand filter prototype (this prototype had so far been fed with BH4 water, which has very little colonies on the Petrifilm tests). After about 60L of P1 water to the filter, we performed Petrifilm tests on the influx and the efflux in the evening. This will hopefully give us some estimate of the filter efficiency.
What worries us a little is the flow rate. When the filter is filled to the top, the flow rate is roughly 1 L per minute (same as yesterday and the day before). However, if we just add a little water (e.g. 1 L), this amount could take maybe 4 minutes to clear. For the second prototype (which we are building), we propose reducing the thickness of the fine sand from 20 cm to 15 cm in hope of increasing the flow rate (so far we only have about 12 cm of washed fine sand anyways).
In the afternoon, Kevin walked to Kinoni to get 6 bolts for the BHs, two wash basins that MIT-EWB owe Engeye (we drilled holes into those for diffuser plates). He was looking for some cardboard sheet, but was unable to find them (he was told to look for them in Masaka). He ended up spending 1000 shillings on a used cardboard box whose dimension, when stretched out, was perfect for the inner lining of the EasyLid box cooker, which Kevin is going to attempt.
In the meanwhile, Mike and Dave went to BH5, and had some more trouble. The pipe seemed stuck in an awkward position and wouldn't go down---they needed a carjack to lift this. John lent them a carjack and they went back to BH5 with no avail---now they needed two carjacks. We do hope that BH5 could be returned to its original shape, or otherwise it would leave MIT-EWB in a rather embarrassing light.
Freddie came to say goodbye---he is going to Kampala for vacation and will not see us before we leave.
Towards the evening, Mike and Dave started drilling holes and connecting the pipes for the second sand filter. Unfortunately, the collector pipe was not threaded long enough for a rubber o-ring, and we ended up just applying a lot of silicon glue and hoping for the best tomorrow. In the meanwhile, Kevin washed 2 batches of sand and then worked on building the EasyLid box cooker. Everything went according to plan until the step of fitting the inner box. The problem is that the inner box is much shallower than the outer box, and it was necessary to give the inner box some support from underneath such that a heavy thing (e.g. a kettle full of water) does not cause its collapse. We first tried folding a long thin strip of cardboard sheet many many times to the right height. This proved rather unstable. Then we tried cutting some plastic bottles to the right height. This worked better. But Joseph proposed cutting some pieces of wood. This was promptly done with Joseph's excellent carpentership, but we were unable to find anything to stick these pieces of wood together to the right height---nails were too short for the thick wood blocks, and we were unable to find duct tape. We are sure that we can work something out eventually, but at this time it was getting a little too dark, so we just called it a day.
In the morning, Dave and Mike went to fix BH1---quite successfully. The BH does not give a lot of water, but is in working order. Turbidity measurements were done on the BH (20-30 NTU) and the nearby pond (about 500 NTU). One thing that worries us is that Joseph and Eddie (the two people meant to be testing the Biosand filters) usually get their water from the 500-NTU pond. This means that an additional cloth pre-filtration step must be done. We explained the situation to Joseph and he said that he would be able to use the BH, or pay someone (e.g. 500 shillings) to get water from Nalongo. We have not discussed the situation with Eddie.
In the meanwhile, Kevin washed 4 batches of sand, when the water traffic at BH4 was low after the rain. He also started feeding P1 water into the working Biosand filter prototype (this prototype had so far been fed with BH4 water, which has very little colonies on the Petrifilm tests). After about 60L of P1 water to the filter, we performed Petrifilm tests on the influx and the efflux in the evening. This will hopefully give us some estimate of the filter efficiency.
What worries us a little is the flow rate. When the filter is filled to the top, the flow rate is roughly 1 L per minute (same as yesterday and the day before). However, if we just add a little water (e.g. 1 L), this amount could take maybe 4 minutes to clear. For the second prototype (which we are building), we propose reducing the thickness of the fine sand from 20 cm to 15 cm in hope of increasing the flow rate (so far we only have about 12 cm of washed fine sand anyways).
In the afternoon, Kevin walked to Kinoni to get 6 bolts for the BHs, two wash basins that MIT-EWB owe Engeye (we drilled holes into those for diffuser plates). He was looking for some cardboard sheet, but was unable to find them (he was told to look for them in Masaka). He ended up spending 1000 shillings on a used cardboard box whose dimension, when stretched out, was perfect for the inner lining of the EasyLid box cooker, which Kevin is going to attempt.
In the meanwhile, Mike and Dave went to BH5, and had some more trouble. The pipe seemed stuck in an awkward position and wouldn't go down---they needed a carjack to lift this. John lent them a carjack and they went back to BH5 with no avail---now they needed two carjacks. We do hope that BH5 could be returned to its original shape, or otherwise it would leave MIT-EWB in a rather embarrassing light.
Freddie came to say goodbye---he is going to Kampala for vacation and will not see us before we leave.
Towards the evening, Mike and Dave started drilling holes and connecting the pipes for the second sand filter. Unfortunately, the collector pipe was not threaded long enough for a rubber o-ring, and we ended up just applying a lot of silicon glue and hoping for the best tomorrow. In the meanwhile, Kevin washed 2 batches of sand and then worked on building the EasyLid box cooker. Everything went according to plan until the step of fitting the inner box. The problem is that the inner box is much shallower than the outer box, and it was necessary to give the inner box some support from underneath such that a heavy thing (e.g. a kettle full of water) does not cause its collapse. We first tried folding a long thin strip of cardboard sheet many many times to the right height. This proved rather unstable. Then we tried cutting some plastic bottles to the right height. This worked better. But Joseph proposed cutting some pieces of wood. This was promptly done with Joseph's excellent carpentership, but we were unable to find anything to stick these pieces of wood together to the right height---nails were too short for the thick wood blocks, and we were unable to find duct tape. We are sure that we can work something out eventually, but at this time it was getting a little too dark, so we just called it a day.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
January 21, 2010 - Ddegeya
This morning, Dave and Mike left for Kampala in search of BH parts and Plexiglas.
Kevin set up two solar cooker configurations---the same as yesterday, except with black-painted pot and kettle, and a stronger sun. Unfortunately, at about 12:30, it started raining, and the solar cookers must be moved indoors. Both WAPIs failed to melt. The Biosand filter was tested this morning, and the flow rate was about 57 seconds per litre.
Then Kevin set out to BH6/P3 to keep track of the water traffic. During the one-hour observation window, here is a transcript of events. All water collection was done at P3---no one used BH6.
8:57 - Observation starts
9:06 - Two young girls and an older girl show up, with 20L + 10L + 5L. The little girl is afraid of mzungus.
9:06 - One young man shows up with 2 x 10L.
9:09 - The young man finishes fetching the water. He lives about 5 minutes' walk away (Kevin later saw him farming just at the intersection of the footpaths near BH5, on the right-hand side of the rich house in the direction of the Trading Centre). He fetches water here about 2-3 times per day, needing about 30L/day.
9:16 - The three girls finish fetching water. They live perhaps 1 km away. They come here twice a day, perhaps fetching 70L/day.
9:21 - The same young man appears again for his second water fetching, with 2 x 10L.
9:22 - Two girls appear, with 2 x 10L + 5 L. A minute later, another young girl eating 2 mangoes appear with 5L. These three girls play around with BH. They don't speak English. When asked where they live, they reply "Ddegeya". We chat until 9:26.
9:23 - The young man leaves.
9:30 - The three girls reappear. They might live near the Trading Centre. We chat until 9:48.
9:46 - A lady with baby and 20L appears. When fetching water, she chats with a man.
9:53 - The lady, the man, and the baby leaves. At the beginning of the footpath leading to BH6/P3, the lady turns left (towards Mbarara), and the man turns right (towards the Trading Centre).
9:57 - Observation ends.
Kevin collected water samples from BH6 and P3. Then he returned to the clinic, and headed to Nalongo to do the same observation. Due to the higher traffic here, the water-fetcher(s) are letter-labelled for clarity. Observation starts at 10:22, whence there were already 7 people there (though from the notes Kevin only has 5 people so he must have botched up a little on the record-keeping):
B: Hien Mugerwa the hired water-carrier. He carries 2 x 20L on bike and leaves at 10:25. He returns at 10:47 with another 2 x 20L and leaves at 11:01. His family uses about 4 jerry cans per day, and collects rainwater. He claims that the water traffic is low today, as many households are still consuming rainwater collected from the heavy rain 36 hours ago. Kevin explains to him that Mike and Dave are in Kampala in search of parts to fix BH5. He thinks that fixing this BH is a waste of time, as the water is too deep (we politely disagree on the point of the water level).
C: One young man with 4 x 20L on bike. He fetches water 2 times a day, and lives in Bunyere. He leaves at 10:32.
D: Two girls with 2 x 5L on foot. At 10:37, they leave in the southern direction (left).
G: One young man washing a large blanket in a transparent basin. He refills his basin at 10:35 and at 11:10. His name is Mohammed. He lives near the mosque at the Trading Centre. His house uses about 10 jerry cans of water per day, usually collected from P3. Today he comes here because washing blanket requires more water. He goes to school, but complains that he does not have enough money for pens and books. He also complains that his eyes are bad, but that he cannot afford glasses. He seems altogether too eager to talk to Kevin. After the observation ends, Kevin helps him wring the blanket dry, and then shows him the Biosand filter and the solar cookers at the clinic, together with the three girls mentioned in I below. Mohammed claims to have learnt about these technologies at school.
These people arrived later:
A: A girl and a boy arrive on bike with 20L + 10L at 10:23 from the south (left). They leave at 10:37 after having found some grass to stuff the opening of one of the jerry cans.
E: A young woman with 2 x 10L arrives on bike at 10:28 from the north (right), followed by a boy at 10:29. They live in Bunyere. Having picked up some grass to stuff the opening of one uncapped jerry can, they leave at 10:36.
F: One young man arrives at 10:35 on bike with 2 x 20L from the north (right). He lives near P3 but the water is bad---according to Hien the water-carrier. He leaves at 10:50.
H: One man arrives at 10:44 from the north (right) with 3 x 20L. His family lives in Bunyere near St. Timothy's school, and collects rainwater. He leaves at 10:57.
I: 3 girls arrive at 10:49 with 2 x 10L + 2 x 5L from the north (right), and leaves at 11:03. The family is located at the first shop in Bunyere on the Masaka-Mbarara Road. They collect rater about 4 times a day, for an approximate 80L/day. The family collects rainwater.
J: Two boys with 10L + 5 L arrives at 10:56, and leaves at 11:04. They live near Bunyere, which, according to Hien the water-carrier, is about 15 minutes' walk away.
K: An older man arrives at 11:04 from the north (right) with 20L + 10L, and heads for P2. He drinks water directly out of the jerry can. At 11:07, he goes to P1 to collect more water. He leaves at 11:10. According to Hien the water-carrier, this man is mad---having had too much marijuana---and lives at the nother end of Bunyere (about 30 minutes' walk). Hien claims that marijuana is a large problem in Ddegeya---many a young man near the Trading Centre consumes it (John later falsifies this statement). Later when Kevin comes to BH4 to fetch some water for the Biosand filter, this same man helps Kevin with filling the jerry cans.
L: At 11:23, a girl and a boy arrive with 2 x 5L.
Kevin's observations end here. In the afternoon, the same was done with the two ponds at BH1. Kevin arrived on site at 14:05 and stood by the ponds like an idiot for 1 hour, almost getting heat stroke. At 14:39, a man filled 20L half-full, and a woman filled 20L. At 14:42, the woman and the man left, going separate ways (the man goes through the fenced brick-making ground). At 14:47, a child shows up---but with no jerry can. He said that his family uses 2 jerry cans/day, and that the pond supports about 20 people---using both ponds. After the child left, someone was calling "mzungu" from the eucalyptus forest, somewhat eerily since Kevin could not see where the caller was (it turned out that he was on a tree---possibly collecting firewood). The rest of the observation period (until 15:05) passed without incident. On the way back passing by the brick-making facility, Kevin met Ronald the brick-maker. Apparently he makes clay bricks and builds firewood to fire up the bricks---these are charged 60 shillings apiece. This seems to be a very good contact for making/testing ceramic filters---Kevin later followed up on this with John and Joseph, who agrees to bring us to visit Ronald's household some time. According to Ronald, the two ponds just visited supports about 400 people, albeit that these are big families.
Kevin returned to the clinic and plated all the water samples on Petrifilm. Then at 15:59, he went down to Nalongo to repeat the traffic-counting. At this time, six people are present already:
E: A man with 4 x 20L leaves on bike at 16:13 to the south (right).
F: A girl with 2 x 10L leaves on foot at 16:13 to the south (right).
G: A girl with 20L leaves on foot at 16:12 to the south (right).
H: A boy with 10L leaves on foot at 16:13 to the south (right).
The following constitutes the remaining water traffic:
A: A woman with a bundle of grass and a girl with 3L arrives at 16:00 and leaves at 16:01 to the south (right).
B: A girl with 10L arrives at 16:03 from the right (south) and leaves at 16:11. She arrives again at 16:26 with 8L and leaves at 16:31.
C: A boy with 3L arrives at 16:04 and leaves at 16:13 to the south (right).
D: A man with 2 x 20L and a woman with 15L arrives by bike at 16:06 and leaves at 16:23. They use P1 to wash the jerry cans first before filling water from BH4. They live close to the mosque.
I: A girl with 10L arrives on foot at 16:13 from the right (south) and leaves at 16:25.
J: Mohammed arrives at 16:17 with 2 x 20L by bike and leaves at 16:23. He returns at 16:50 from the south (left) on bike with 2 x 20L.
K: A boy arrives from the north (left) at 16:20 on bike with 2 x 10L. He obtains water from P1 and leaves at 16:26.
L: A girl arrives with 2 x 5L at 16:26 and leaves at 16:31.
M: 2 boys arrives on bike at 16:24 with 20L from the south (left) and leaves at 16:31.
N: A girl arrives at 16:29 with 2 x 5L and leaves at 16:31.
O: 2 boys arrives on bike at 16:34 with 20L and leaves at 16:59 to the north (right).
P: A boy arrives on bike at 16:45 with 2 x 20L and leaves at 16:59 to the north (right). His family uses about 2 jerry cans/day.
Q: Arrives at 16:50 on bike with 20L and leaves at 16:59 to the north (right). Lives near St.. Timothy's Church (?).
R: Arrives at 16:50 from the south (left) with 5L. Lives in Bunyere.
S: Arrives at 16:51 from the south (left) with 2 x 20L on bike. Goes to P2 to fill up the two jerry cans, apparently used for agricultural purposes (e.g. spraying). Leaves at 16:57. Lives near the Trading Centre.
T: 2 girls and a boy arrive at 16:52 with 10L + 2 x 5L.
U: A woman arrives at 16:57, followed by a boy and a girl with 10L + 2 x 20L on bike.
V: A same boy with blue shirt arrives at 16:59 with 8L + 10L on bike.
W: An old woman arrives with 20L at 17:00 on foot. Observation ends here.
Kevin then visited BH6/P3 to conduct the same observation session. He also measured the turbidity of P3 (9-10 NTU) and BH6 (100-110 NTU).
17:38 - Observation starts. At this point, the pond has the same young man on bike with 20L + 10L, and 2 boys on bike with 20L + 10L.
17:42 - Young man leaves.
17:42 - 2 girls and a boy arrives with 10L + 3 x 5L. The family uses 6 jerry cans/day. They do not use BH due to dirty water. They do not collect rainwater.
17:49 - The same young man arrives on bike with 2 x 10L.
17:50 - A woman (Anne) with 2 children (Dominic and Wayne) arrive, pushing a wheelbarrow with 2 x 20L + 10L.
17:52 - The 2 boys leave. They live in the direction of Mbarara about 0.5 km away.
17:57 - The same young man leaves, for the final time.
17:59 - Anne, Dominic, and Wayne leave. They live about 5 minutes' walk away, and collect water once a day. They do not collect rainwater. One of the children has broken the wheelbarrow, hence the woman seems to have so much trouble pushing the wheelbarrow up. They do not use the BH because it is very old.
18:06 - The wheelbarrow topsides. Some water is lost. Dominic is ordered back to fetch another 10L.
18:08 - Anne, Dominic, and Wayne leave, asking Kevin to say hi to Francis at Engeye. Francis claims not to know this woman or the children.
18:02 - A girl (10L), and 2 boys (20L each) appear. They come from near the Trading Centre. The household collects rainwater, and needs about 7 jerry cans of water per day. Water is fetched twice daily. They do not use the BH due to bad water.
18:12 - The girl and 2 boys leave.
18:27 - A boy with 10L arrives. The family leaves near the Trading Centre (about 10 minutes' walk) and uses about 10 jerry cans / day, without rainwater collection. The BH water is bad.
18:34 - Running, a girl (10L) and 2 boys (10L each) appear. They live close to the Trading Centre on the Bunyere side of the road. The family requires about 2 trips per day.
18:35 - Another girl of the same family appears with 20L.
18:37 - Observation ends.
On his way back, Kevin encountered Anne, Dominic, and Wayne, still struggling with their wheelbarrow halfway up the hill. They seemed not to know to lift the wheelbarrow before pushing it. Kevin helped them and manages to get up the other half of the hill in 5 minutes. Then the final 2 girls and 2 boys requested that Kevin also help them carry water (10L). This was done to near their home on the Masaka-Mbarara Road.
At about 7 p.m., the drum was taken out, and the Ddegeya kids had a great time doing drums/dances/songs in front of a cheering audience. This was followed by a sumptious dinner consisting of many greens and pineapples, amongst other goodies. It is a pity that Mike and Dave, who were on their way back from Kampala, missed all these.
Mike and Dave returned at about 9 p.m., without the Plexiglas or solar cooker models. But they spent the whole day tracking down the pipes from Market St., to no avail. Then they got a taxi to the industrial park and argued with the people a little---the pipes came in units of 3 metres, while we requested 3.5 metres. They also brought some seals. This would hopefully fix BH1 and---less certainly---BH5!
Kevin set up two solar cooker configurations---the same as yesterday, except with black-painted pot and kettle, and a stronger sun. Unfortunately, at about 12:30, it started raining, and the solar cookers must be moved indoors. Both WAPIs failed to melt. The Biosand filter was tested this morning, and the flow rate was about 57 seconds per litre.
Then Kevin set out to BH6/P3 to keep track of the water traffic. During the one-hour observation window, here is a transcript of events. All water collection was done at P3---no one used BH6.
8:57 - Observation starts
9:06 - Two young girls and an older girl show up, with 20L + 10L + 5L. The little girl is afraid of mzungus.
9:06 - One young man shows up with 2 x 10L.
9:09 - The young man finishes fetching the water. He lives about 5 minutes' walk away (Kevin later saw him farming just at the intersection of the footpaths near BH5, on the right-hand side of the rich house in the direction of the Trading Centre). He fetches water here about 2-3 times per day, needing about 30L/day.
9:16 - The three girls finish fetching water. They live perhaps 1 km away. They come here twice a day, perhaps fetching 70L/day.
9:21 - The same young man appears again for his second water fetching, with 2 x 10L.
9:22 - Two girls appear, with 2 x 10L + 5 L. A minute later, another young girl eating 2 mangoes appear with 5L. These three girls play around with BH. They don't speak English. When asked where they live, they reply "Ddegeya". We chat until 9:26.
9:23 - The young man leaves.
9:30 - The three girls reappear. They might live near the Trading Centre. We chat until 9:48.
9:46 - A lady with baby and 20L appears. When fetching water, she chats with a man.
9:53 - The lady, the man, and the baby leaves. At the beginning of the footpath leading to BH6/P3, the lady turns left (towards Mbarara), and the man turns right (towards the Trading Centre).
9:57 - Observation ends.
Kevin collected water samples from BH6 and P3. Then he returned to the clinic, and headed to Nalongo to do the same observation. Due to the higher traffic here, the water-fetcher(s) are letter-labelled for clarity. Observation starts at 10:22, whence there were already 7 people there (though from the notes Kevin only has 5 people so he must have botched up a little on the record-keeping):
B: Hien Mugerwa the hired water-carrier. He carries 2 x 20L on bike and leaves at 10:25. He returns at 10:47 with another 2 x 20L and leaves at 11:01. His family uses about 4 jerry cans per day, and collects rainwater. He claims that the water traffic is low today, as many households are still consuming rainwater collected from the heavy rain 36 hours ago. Kevin explains to him that Mike and Dave are in Kampala in search of parts to fix BH5. He thinks that fixing this BH is a waste of time, as the water is too deep (we politely disagree on the point of the water level).
C: One young man with 4 x 20L on bike. He fetches water 2 times a day, and lives in Bunyere. He leaves at 10:32.
D: Two girls with 2 x 5L on foot. At 10:37, they leave in the southern direction (left).
G: One young man washing a large blanket in a transparent basin. He refills his basin at 10:35 and at 11:10. His name is Mohammed. He lives near the mosque at the Trading Centre. His house uses about 10 jerry cans of water per day, usually collected from P3. Today he comes here because washing blanket requires more water. He goes to school, but complains that he does not have enough money for pens and books. He also complains that his eyes are bad, but that he cannot afford glasses. He seems altogether too eager to talk to Kevin. After the observation ends, Kevin helps him wring the blanket dry, and then shows him the Biosand filter and the solar cookers at the clinic, together with the three girls mentioned in I below. Mohammed claims to have learnt about these technologies at school.
These people arrived later:
A: A girl and a boy arrive on bike with 20L + 10L at 10:23 from the south (left). They leave at 10:37 after having found some grass to stuff the opening of one of the jerry cans.
E: A young woman with 2 x 10L arrives on bike at 10:28 from the north (right), followed by a boy at 10:29. They live in Bunyere. Having picked up some grass to stuff the opening of one uncapped jerry can, they leave at 10:36.
F: One young man arrives at 10:35 on bike with 2 x 20L from the north (right). He lives near P3 but the water is bad---according to Hien the water-carrier. He leaves at 10:50.
H: One man arrives at 10:44 from the north (right) with 3 x 20L. His family lives in Bunyere near St. Timothy's school, and collects rainwater. He leaves at 10:57.
I: 3 girls arrive at 10:49 with 2 x 10L + 2 x 5L from the north (right), and leaves at 11:03. The family is located at the first shop in Bunyere on the Masaka-Mbarara Road. They collect rater about 4 times a day, for an approximate 80L/day. The family collects rainwater.
J: Two boys with 10L + 5 L arrives at 10:56, and leaves at 11:04. They live near Bunyere, which, according to Hien the water-carrier, is about 15 minutes' walk away.
K: An older man arrives at 11:04 from the north (right) with 20L + 10L, and heads for P2. He drinks water directly out of the jerry can. At 11:07, he goes to P1 to collect more water. He leaves at 11:10. According to Hien the water-carrier, this man is mad---having had too much marijuana---and lives at the nother end of Bunyere (about 30 minutes' walk). Hien claims that marijuana is a large problem in Ddegeya---many a young man near the Trading Centre consumes it (John later falsifies this statement). Later when Kevin comes to BH4 to fetch some water for the Biosand filter, this same man helps Kevin with filling the jerry cans.
L: At 11:23, a girl and a boy arrive with 2 x 5L.
Kevin's observations end here. In the afternoon, the same was done with the two ponds at BH1. Kevin arrived on site at 14:05 and stood by the ponds like an idiot for 1 hour, almost getting heat stroke. At 14:39, a man filled 20L half-full, and a woman filled 20L. At 14:42, the woman and the man left, going separate ways (the man goes through the fenced brick-making ground). At 14:47, a child shows up---but with no jerry can. He said that his family uses 2 jerry cans/day, and that the pond supports about 20 people---using both ponds. After the child left, someone was calling "mzungu" from the eucalyptus forest, somewhat eerily since Kevin could not see where the caller was (it turned out that he was on a tree---possibly collecting firewood). The rest of the observation period (until 15:05) passed without incident. On the way back passing by the brick-making facility, Kevin met Ronald the brick-maker. Apparently he makes clay bricks and builds firewood to fire up the bricks---these are charged 60 shillings apiece. This seems to be a very good contact for making/testing ceramic filters---Kevin later followed up on this with John and Joseph, who agrees to bring us to visit Ronald's household some time. According to Ronald, the two ponds just visited supports about 400 people, albeit that these are big families.
Kevin returned to the clinic and plated all the water samples on Petrifilm. Then at 15:59, he went down to Nalongo to repeat the traffic-counting. At this time, six people are present already:
E: A man with 4 x 20L leaves on bike at 16:13 to the south (right).
F: A girl with 2 x 10L leaves on foot at 16:13 to the south (right).
G: A girl with 20L leaves on foot at 16:12 to the south (right).
H: A boy with 10L leaves on foot at 16:13 to the south (right).
The following constitutes the remaining water traffic:
A: A woman with a bundle of grass and a girl with 3L arrives at 16:00 and leaves at 16:01 to the south (right).
B: A girl with 10L arrives at 16:03 from the right (south) and leaves at 16:11. She arrives again at 16:26 with 8L and leaves at 16:31.
C: A boy with 3L arrives at 16:04 and leaves at 16:13 to the south (right).
D: A man with 2 x 20L and a woman with 15L arrives by bike at 16:06 and leaves at 16:23. They use P1 to wash the jerry cans first before filling water from BH4. They live close to the mosque.
I: A girl with 10L arrives on foot at 16:13 from the right (south) and leaves at 16:25.
J: Mohammed arrives at 16:17 with 2 x 20L by bike and leaves at 16:23. He returns at 16:50 from the south (left) on bike with 2 x 20L.
K: A boy arrives from the north (left) at 16:20 on bike with 2 x 10L. He obtains water from P1 and leaves at 16:26.
L: A girl arrives with 2 x 5L at 16:26 and leaves at 16:31.
M: 2 boys arrives on bike at 16:24 with 20L from the south (left) and leaves at 16:31.
N: A girl arrives at 16:29 with 2 x 5L and leaves at 16:31.
O: 2 boys arrives on bike at 16:34 with 20L and leaves at 16:59 to the north (right).
P: A boy arrives on bike at 16:45 with 2 x 20L and leaves at 16:59 to the north (right). His family uses about 2 jerry cans/day.
Q: Arrives at 16:50 on bike with 20L and leaves at 16:59 to the north (right). Lives near St.. Timothy's Church (?).
R: Arrives at 16:50 from the south (left) with 5L. Lives in Bunyere.
S: Arrives at 16:51 from the south (left) with 2 x 20L on bike. Goes to P2 to fill up the two jerry cans, apparently used for agricultural purposes (e.g. spraying). Leaves at 16:57. Lives near the Trading Centre.
T: 2 girls and a boy arrive at 16:52 with 10L + 2 x 5L.
U: A woman arrives at 16:57, followed by a boy and a girl with 10L + 2 x 20L on bike.
V: A same boy with blue shirt arrives at 16:59 with 8L + 10L on bike.
W: An old woman arrives with 20L at 17:00 on foot. Observation ends here.
Kevin then visited BH6/P3 to conduct the same observation session. He also measured the turbidity of P3 (9-10 NTU) and BH6 (100-110 NTU).
17:38 - Observation starts. At this point, the pond has the same young man on bike with 20L + 10L, and 2 boys on bike with 20L + 10L.
17:42 - Young man leaves.
17:42 - 2 girls and a boy arrives with 10L + 3 x 5L. The family uses 6 jerry cans/day. They do not use BH due to dirty water. They do not collect rainwater.
17:49 - The same young man arrives on bike with 2 x 10L.
17:50 - A woman (Anne) with 2 children (Dominic and Wayne) arrive, pushing a wheelbarrow with 2 x 20L + 10L.
17:52 - The 2 boys leave. They live in the direction of Mbarara about 0.5 km away.
17:57 - The same young man leaves, for the final time.
17:59 - Anne, Dominic, and Wayne leave. They live about 5 minutes' walk away, and collect water once a day. They do not collect rainwater. One of the children has broken the wheelbarrow, hence the woman seems to have so much trouble pushing the wheelbarrow up. They do not use the BH because it is very old.
18:06 - The wheelbarrow topsides. Some water is lost. Dominic is ordered back to fetch another 10L.
18:08 - Anne, Dominic, and Wayne leave, asking Kevin to say hi to Francis at Engeye. Francis claims not to know this woman or the children.
18:02 - A girl (10L), and 2 boys (20L each) appear. They come from near the Trading Centre. The household collects rainwater, and needs about 7 jerry cans of water per day. Water is fetched twice daily. They do not use the BH due to bad water.
18:12 - The girl and 2 boys leave.
18:27 - A boy with 10L arrives. The family leaves near the Trading Centre (about 10 minutes' walk) and uses about 10 jerry cans / day, without rainwater collection. The BH water is bad.
18:34 - Running, a girl (10L) and 2 boys (10L each) appear. They live close to the Trading Centre on the Bunyere side of the road. The family requires about 2 trips per day.
18:35 - Another girl of the same family appears with 20L.
18:37 - Observation ends.
On his way back, Kevin encountered Anne, Dominic, and Wayne, still struggling with their wheelbarrow halfway up the hill. They seemed not to know to lift the wheelbarrow before pushing it. Kevin helped them and manages to get up the other half of the hill in 5 minutes. Then the final 2 girls and 2 boys requested that Kevin also help them carry water (10L). This was done to near their home on the Masaka-Mbarara Road.
At about 7 p.m., the drum was taken out, and the Ddegeya kids had a great time doing drums/dances/songs in front of a cheering audience. This was followed by a sumptious dinner consisting of many greens and pineapples, amongst other goodies. It is a pity that Mike and Dave, who were on their way back from Kampala, missed all these.
Mike and Dave returned at about 9 p.m., without the Plexiglas or solar cooker models. But they spent the whole day tracking down the pipes from Market St., to no avail. Then they got a taxi to the industrial park and argued with the people a little---the pipes came in units of 3 metres, while we requested 3.5 metres. They also brought some seals. This would hopefully fix BH1 and---less certainly---BH5!
January 20, 2010 - Ddegeya
The clinic received 108 patients yesterday. Today has been equally busy, with the screams of babies being tortured. The notable point is that a boy came in with some 4-cm wood splinter in his leg. Apparently, 3 months ago, he was attached by a cow and fell onto some wood. The splinter had stayed in his body for all this time. The doctors applied some local anaesthetic to remove the splinter, and the boy reportedly did not flinch. Probably this is not his worst experience.
This morning, we set up two solar cookers again, one with the aluminium box made yesterday as the inner box (containing the kettle), and one with a traditional cardboard box as the inner box (containing the pot). The outer boxes are the same in both case. However, Kevin clumsily broke one of the framed glass, and we therefore did not use any seal for the aluminium box (but covered the outside with the transluscent sheet bought yesterday). For the other prototype, the inner box was covered with an unframed piece of glass, and the outer box, initially none, but later when the heat was not enough, the transluscent sheet (which appeared to improve the performance). The day was sunny and cloudy on and off, and by 1:30 p.m., the sky turned permenantly cloudy, and the WAPIs had not melted. So we called the day to the experiments. Tomorrow we will paint the kettle and the pot black and repeat, hopefully with stronger sunlight.
Happily, the bucket from yesterday did not seem to have made any leaks, so we washed the larger gravel and the smaller gravel to put into the bucket. The fine sand needed many more washes, as the wastewater continued to be cloudy/yellowish. At the end, we still didn't think that our sand was clean, as it was impossible to reach the depths of the bucket. Overall, we had 11 cm of large/small gravel, and about 20 cm of fine sand on top. We filled the sand slowly into the water in order to ensure that no bubbles were trapped. Seeing that we still had some headspace at the top after the sand had been lain, we decided to use a larger bucket as the diffuser plate (in lieu of the smaller, less deep blue bucket). The thing is that with the larger bucket, the standing water level will actually be above the bottom of this bucket, but we do not think that this will affect the oxygen supply of the biological layer too much, and this makes pouring easier (e.g. the user does not have to aim specifically into the smaller bucket). It was afternoon when everything was completed, and we started pouring water into the bucket. Over the afternoon, Kevin must have hauled over 200 L of water from BH4. Our greatest concern is that because we really do not have coarse sand but rather small gravel, the sand would pass through the pores and come out into the efflux, resulting in a constant loss of sand and a cloudy efflux that would not clear. Initially, the efflux was cloudy, as expected. However, probably because we washed the sand quite thoroughly, the efflux quickly cleared. By the first 20 L, the turbidity dropped to below 10 NTU, and after about 60 L, it was below what is measurable using the turbidity tube (< 5 NTU). The flow rate, we found, is dependent on the water level. When the bucket was completely filled, 1 L of water took about 53-57 seconds; when the water level was about halfway to the standing level, filling 1 L could take 64-77 seconds. But this is within reasonable flow rate of Biosand filter. We just hope that this does not get clogged up too soon, which can dramatically drop the flow rate. We plan to test this prototype for one or two more days, before passing the ownership to Joseph. Joseph initially watched and helped a little with the assembly of the sand filter this morning, but then he was called away to accompany someone to Entebbe to pick up some delayed luggage. We will make sure to quiz Joseph to make sure he understands the details of the workings of the Biosand filter.
We pretty much exhausted the majority of our washed sand in building the first Biosand filter prototype. We do not have a lot of sifted sand to wash with (and sifting more fine sand will take an enormous amount of time). Kevin has attempted to wash the coarse sand pile---while this sand is supposedly mixed with the undesirable clay/mud particles too small to be separated by hand, Kevin has so far observed reasonable results in the number of washes for a certain amount of coarse sand to clear. If this goes well, we might start a coarse sand layer in the second prototype.
While Kevin was doing most of the Biosand filter tests, Mike and Dave made 3 trips to BH5. Equipped with new tools they managed to disconnect the pumping chain from the metal rod and, after much heaving, pull a total of 17 three meter sections of metal rod from the riser pipe until the pump valve appeared. As this was a Mark 3 pump this was possible without also removing the riser pipe - something which was then attempted but found to be an impossible task without the use of a rig. The riser pipe appeared to be wet from only around 10 meters depth. The valve seal was also torn, but without being able to remove and inspect the riser pipe it is impossible to tell whether the valve was the sole problem causing the pump not to function. After much straining Mike and Dave managed to replace the 40+ meters of pipe (minus the broken valve) and headed to bore hole 1 to check the depth of the bore hole with an ingenius tape-measure-with-hammer-attached-device to check whether a longer pipe could be used to replace the rusted 10 ft one removed the previous day. They found the bore hole depth to be around 14 ft, making the 10 ft pipe removed around the optimum length for the bore.
This morning, we set up two solar cookers again, one with the aluminium box made yesterday as the inner box (containing the kettle), and one with a traditional cardboard box as the inner box (containing the pot). The outer boxes are the same in both case. However, Kevin clumsily broke one of the framed glass, and we therefore did not use any seal for the aluminium box (but covered the outside with the transluscent sheet bought yesterday). For the other prototype, the inner box was covered with an unframed piece of glass, and the outer box, initially none, but later when the heat was not enough, the transluscent sheet (which appeared to improve the performance). The day was sunny and cloudy on and off, and by 1:30 p.m., the sky turned permenantly cloudy, and the WAPIs had not melted. So we called the day to the experiments. Tomorrow we will paint the kettle and the pot black and repeat, hopefully with stronger sunlight.
Happily, the bucket from yesterday did not seem to have made any leaks, so we washed the larger gravel and the smaller gravel to put into the bucket. The fine sand needed many more washes, as the wastewater continued to be cloudy/yellowish. At the end, we still didn't think that our sand was clean, as it was impossible to reach the depths of the bucket. Overall, we had 11 cm of large/small gravel, and about 20 cm of fine sand on top. We filled the sand slowly into the water in order to ensure that no bubbles were trapped. Seeing that we still had some headspace at the top after the sand had been lain, we decided to use a larger bucket as the diffuser plate (in lieu of the smaller, less deep blue bucket). The thing is that with the larger bucket, the standing water level will actually be above the bottom of this bucket, but we do not think that this will affect the oxygen supply of the biological layer too much, and this makes pouring easier (e.g. the user does not have to aim specifically into the smaller bucket). It was afternoon when everything was completed, and we started pouring water into the bucket. Over the afternoon, Kevin must have hauled over 200 L of water from BH4. Our greatest concern is that because we really do not have coarse sand but rather small gravel, the sand would pass through the pores and come out into the efflux, resulting in a constant loss of sand and a cloudy efflux that would not clear. Initially, the efflux was cloudy, as expected. However, probably because we washed the sand quite thoroughly, the efflux quickly cleared. By the first 20 L, the turbidity dropped to below 10 NTU, and after about 60 L, it was below what is measurable using the turbidity tube (< 5 NTU). The flow rate, we found, is dependent on the water level. When the bucket was completely filled, 1 L of water took about 53-57 seconds; when the water level was about halfway to the standing level, filling 1 L could take 64-77 seconds. But this is within reasonable flow rate of Biosand filter. We just hope that this does not get clogged up too soon, which can dramatically drop the flow rate. We plan to test this prototype for one or two more days, before passing the ownership to Joseph. Joseph initially watched and helped a little with the assembly of the sand filter this morning, but then he was called away to accompany someone to Entebbe to pick up some delayed luggage. We will make sure to quiz Joseph to make sure he understands the details of the workings of the Biosand filter.
We pretty much exhausted the majority of our washed sand in building the first Biosand filter prototype. We do not have a lot of sifted sand to wash with (and sifting more fine sand will take an enormous amount of time). Kevin has attempted to wash the coarse sand pile---while this sand is supposedly mixed with the undesirable clay/mud particles too small to be separated by hand, Kevin has so far observed reasonable results in the number of washes for a certain amount of coarse sand to clear. If this goes well, we might start a coarse sand layer in the second prototype.
While Kevin was doing most of the Biosand filter tests, Mike and Dave made 3 trips to BH5. Equipped with new tools they managed to disconnect the pumping chain from the metal rod and, after much heaving, pull a total of 17 three meter sections of metal rod from the riser pipe until the pump valve appeared. As this was a Mark 3 pump this was possible without also removing the riser pipe - something which was then attempted but found to be an impossible task without the use of a rig. The riser pipe appeared to be wet from only around 10 meters depth. The valve seal was also torn, but without being able to remove and inspect the riser pipe it is impossible to tell whether the valve was the sole problem causing the pump not to function. After much straining Mike and Dave managed to replace the 40+ meters of pipe (minus the broken valve) and headed to bore hole 1 to check the depth of the bore hole with an ingenius tape-measure-with-hammer-attached-device to check whether a longer pipe could be used to replace the rusted 10 ft one removed the previous day. They found the bore hole depth to be around 14 ft, making the 10 ft pipe removed around the optimum length for the bore.
January 19, 2010 - Masaka/Ddegeya
This morning, we set up two solar cookers, one with the same inner-outer box configuration as yesterday except that the inner box was not insulated with a plastic wrap and contained a 5 L black-painted jerry can instead of a 1.5 L black-painted Rwenzori plastic bottle. The other one was with the same single box configuration as yesterday except that the box contained a 1.5 L b black-painted Rwenzori plastic bottle instead of the 5 L black-painted jerry can. The intention is to stress-test the stronger solar cooker (the double layered one) to see if it can pasteurise 5 L of water, even with the inner box non-insulated. We also want to test if the weaker solar cooker (the single box configuration) may be able to handle smaller volume of water. The test was null in both case: by 1:45 p.m. when things turned cloudy, the WAPIs in both containers failed to melt.
Today was the first day that the Albany medical team is operating in the clinic, and in the morning the line of patients was so long that it wrapped around the clinic.
We first did some Petrifilm tests of the solar cooker that failed to melt WAPI (no counts), samples from the household drinking/rain water, and from all active water sources in Ddegeya. At about 9:00 a.m., we set out for Masaka to get the following items:
- 3 jugs of water for the clinic
- 100 plastic cups for the clinic
- putty glue, silicon glue, teflon tape, rubber o-rings, and 1 m of rope (as much stuff as we need to prevent the water from leaking in the bucket)
- metal wire (for holding up the solar cooker reflector)
- transluscent sheets and framed glass for the solar cooker insulating cover
- one kettle and pot (anything that doesn't melt easily on a solar cooker)
We were back to the clinic with our stuff by 1:00 p.m. Then we started putting together the sand filter bucket with rubber o-rings (with plastic bag between the threads), with the help of Richard. After two leaky attempts, we decided to turn up the notch and use Teflon tape between the threads. This time the pipe seems to be holding up---at least 4 hours after, the nearly full bucket is still not showing any leaks. We added some silicon glue to the joints and left the setup until tomorrow.
Mike brought the BH part to a shop in Ddegeya Trading Centre to see if it is possible to loose some parts. This was unsuccessful, and since he was unsuccessful at getting the right BH pipes in Masaka today, he is thinking of making a trip to Kampala. We e-mailed Michael Thornton and he gave us some useful hints about where to look in Kampala. The plan might be to pull up another BH (BH5) to see if this is fixable, and if so, have Mike make another trip to Kampala before this week ends.
At this time, there was an extremely heavy downpour. Kevin was washing some sand at BH4 and got caught. He then proceeded to use rainwater in the clinic to wash some more. Mike's situation was even more gruesome as he was walking back from the Trading Centre.
After the rain stopped, there was barely any traffic at BH4, so Kevin went to wash three more batches of sand (which took about 2 hours). Mike and Dave put together an inner box consisting entirely of a shiny metal sheet that they found in Masaka on the trip before today. Then this metal box was painted black on the outside.
Though we bought some framed glass intending to use as the insulating covering of specific boxes, we found that Kevin's tape measure didn't give inches, but a wierd unit of 3.3 cm. This messed up all the dimensions, and all the framed glass turned out to be too small. We started making larger wooden frames for the glass, but did not finish as we wanted to test the performance of the transluscent sheet first.
Today was the first day that the Albany medical team is operating in the clinic, and in the morning the line of patients was so long that it wrapped around the clinic.
We first did some Petrifilm tests of the solar cooker that failed to melt WAPI (no counts), samples from the household drinking/rain water, and from all active water sources in Ddegeya. At about 9:00 a.m., we set out for Masaka to get the following items:
- 3 jugs of water for the clinic
- 100 plastic cups for the clinic
- putty glue, silicon glue, teflon tape, rubber o-rings, and 1 m of rope (as much stuff as we need to prevent the water from leaking in the bucket)
- metal wire (for holding up the solar cooker reflector)
- transluscent sheets and framed glass for the solar cooker insulating cover
- one kettle and pot (anything that doesn't melt easily on a solar cooker)
We were back to the clinic with our stuff by 1:00 p.m. Then we started putting together the sand filter bucket with rubber o-rings (with plastic bag between the threads), with the help of Richard. After two leaky attempts, we decided to turn up the notch and use Teflon tape between the threads. This time the pipe seems to be holding up---at least 4 hours after, the nearly full bucket is still not showing any leaks. We added some silicon glue to the joints and left the setup until tomorrow.
Mike brought the BH part to a shop in Ddegeya Trading Centre to see if it is possible to loose some parts. This was unsuccessful, and since he was unsuccessful at getting the right BH pipes in Masaka today, he is thinking of making a trip to Kampala. We e-mailed Michael Thornton and he gave us some useful hints about where to look in Kampala. The plan might be to pull up another BH (BH5) to see if this is fixable, and if so, have Mike make another trip to Kampala before this week ends.
At this time, there was an extremely heavy downpour. Kevin was washing some sand at BH4 and got caught. He then proceeded to use rainwater in the clinic to wash some more. Mike's situation was even more gruesome as he was walking back from the Trading Centre.
After the rain stopped, there was barely any traffic at BH4, so Kevin went to wash three more batches of sand (which took about 2 hours). Mike and Dave put together an inner box consisting entirely of a shiny metal sheet that they found in Masaka on the trip before today. Then this metal box was painted black on the outside.
Though we bought some framed glass intending to use as the insulating covering of specific boxes, we found that Kevin's tape measure didn't give inches, but a wierd unit of 3.3 cm. This messed up all the dimensions, and all the framed glass turned out to be too small. We started making larger wooden frames for the glass, but did not finish as we wanted to test the performance of the transluscent sheet first.
January 18, 2010 - Ddegeya
Starting at about 7:30 a.m. this morning, we started setting up the solar cookers. This process lasted until 10 a.m. or so, by which time we had 3 prototypes set up---two with an inner-outer box design, and one with a single-box design. Due to the shallowness of the inner box, we had no choice but to put in black-painted plastic Rwenzori water bottles (1.5 L of water) into those designs with an inner-outer box configuration. In fact, we had some jerry cans which were flat enough, but most of them did not have caps. Dave got one can with a cap, but it turned out that this one leaked. For the single-box design, we still inserted a black-painted jerry can, standing upright and sealed at the top with a plastic wrap.
In the morning, the clinic was busy moving in preparation for the medical team, which is scheduled to arrive this afternoon. We also spent a lot of time moving our belongings to an adjacent building, and washing up in the calm before the storm. At about 2:30 p.m., the medical team came with John and lots of luggage. We had a chance to meet these medical students and doctors, and had a late lunch at 3:30 p.m.
To backtrack, by about 12:30 p.m., something was happening to the two solar cooker prototypes with the inner-outer box design. One was leaking water, and the other had its plastic bottle deformed. We took these out to figure out what was going on. In both plastic bottles, the WAPIs had already melted and sunk to the bottom. The water was too hot to touch, and assuredly pasteurised. We were quite amazed at the increase in cooking power with the inner-outer box design. However, this prototype turned out to be too powerful for use on ordinary plastic bottles (or, we suspect, even the thicker plastic jerry cans that people usually use). To do this properly, we need another container (e.g. glass) with a much higher melting point. Also, we felt that our prototypes were not yet ready to demonstrate to the households---the cardboard boxes seemed quite indurable, and in fact the glued aluminium foil already became quite crimpled after one use. Therefore, we decided not to proceed with the workshops this afternoon. While Joseph will become unavailable after today, we will try to arrange things with another translator, such as Francis.
Afternoon, Mike, Dave, Monica, and Francis went to visit BH1 to see if it could be taken apart. They were not able to remove the rod from the chain yoke (the chain was intact), so they pulled the entire assmebly out of the borehole with the head assembly still attached. Fortunately, the pump was fairly shallow - the centerpipe measured only 348cm long - and no one was hurt. The reason that the pump was not delivering water was quickly apparent: they had installed electrical conduit for the centerpipe! The conduit had split along the welded seam, where the water leaked out befor it could reach the top. We intend to buy a new senction of seamless pipe (sched 40?) to replace the conduit, and are confident that the borehole will produce water when it is reassembled! We also sent out an email to Michael Thornton, who may have had more information regarding where to get the borehole parts.
In the meanwhile, Kevin stayed on the clinic and tried to wash some tubes in preparation for assembling the first Biosand filter prototype. Forgot to mention---yesterday Dave and Mike were unable to get putty glue for the leaky bucket, so we decided to take the entire piping system out, and to replace that with the threaded pipes/elbows obtained in Masaka. But before we can do this, we need to wash the pipes. We then tried to put together the pipes, with a washer in the bucket interior, and a plastic elbow on the outside, but after two attempts, we found the bucket to be leaking at the bottom, which is fatal for a Biosand filter. This necessitates another trip to Masaka tomorrow to find supplies such as putty glue and/or rubber o-rings.
Before sundown, we went to BH5 to see if we could disassemble it. We encountered a stubbornly tight rod between the handle and the chain. We were unable to reach into the nut connecting the chain to loosen it because we did not bring an extra socket wrench. We will give it another try another day.
Chris Arsenault (who works on borehole/water systems in Kenya and Sudan) contacted Kevin today and said that he would be capable of meeting us in Ddegeya. Kevin checked with John and it would be fine for the clinic to accommodate him. Right now we are waiting to hear back from Chris as to whether or not he would like to come, or if he would like to remotely communicate regarding our borehole work.
In the morning, the clinic was busy moving in preparation for the medical team, which is scheduled to arrive this afternoon. We also spent a lot of time moving our belongings to an adjacent building, and washing up in the calm before the storm. At about 2:30 p.m., the medical team came with John and lots of luggage. We had a chance to meet these medical students and doctors, and had a late lunch at 3:30 p.m.
To backtrack, by about 12:30 p.m., something was happening to the two solar cooker prototypes with the inner-outer box design. One was leaking water, and the other had its plastic bottle deformed. We took these out to figure out what was going on. In both plastic bottles, the WAPIs had already melted and sunk to the bottom. The water was too hot to touch, and assuredly pasteurised. We were quite amazed at the increase in cooking power with the inner-outer box design. However, this prototype turned out to be too powerful for use on ordinary plastic bottles (or, we suspect, even the thicker plastic jerry cans that people usually use). To do this properly, we need another container (e.g. glass) with a much higher melting point. Also, we felt that our prototypes were not yet ready to demonstrate to the households---the cardboard boxes seemed quite indurable, and in fact the glued aluminium foil already became quite crimpled after one use. Therefore, we decided not to proceed with the workshops this afternoon. While Joseph will become unavailable after today, we will try to arrange things with another translator, such as Francis.
Afternoon, Mike, Dave, Monica, and Francis went to visit BH1 to see if it could be taken apart. They were not able to remove the rod from the chain yoke (the chain was intact), so they pulled the entire assmebly out of the borehole with the head assembly still attached. Fortunately, the pump was fairly shallow - the centerpipe measured only 348cm long - and no one was hurt. The reason that the pump was not delivering water was quickly apparent: they had installed electrical conduit for the centerpipe! The conduit had split along the welded seam, where the water leaked out befor it could reach the top. We intend to buy a new senction of seamless pipe (sched 40?) to replace the conduit, and are confident that the borehole will produce water when it is reassembled! We also sent out an email to Michael Thornton, who may have had more information regarding where to get the borehole parts.
In the meanwhile, Kevin stayed on the clinic and tried to wash some tubes in preparation for assembling the first Biosand filter prototype. Forgot to mention---yesterday Dave and Mike were unable to get putty glue for the leaky bucket, so we decided to take the entire piping system out, and to replace that with the threaded pipes/elbows obtained in Masaka. But before we can do this, we need to wash the pipes. We then tried to put together the pipes, with a washer in the bucket interior, and a plastic elbow on the outside, but after two attempts, we found the bucket to be leaking at the bottom, which is fatal for a Biosand filter. This necessitates another trip to Masaka tomorrow to find supplies such as putty glue and/or rubber o-rings.
Before sundown, we went to BH5 to see if we could disassemble it. We encountered a stubbornly tight rod between the handle and the chain. We were unable to reach into the nut connecting the chain to loosen it because we did not bring an extra socket wrench. We will give it another try another day.
Chris Arsenault (who works on borehole/water systems in Kenya and Sudan) contacted Kevin today and said that he would be capable of meeting us in Ddegeya. Kevin checked with John and it would be fine for the clinic to accommodate him. Right now we are waiting to hear back from Chris as to whether or not he would like to come, or if he would like to remotely communicate regarding our borehole work.
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