Peter Arrives and Construction Progress

After I (Marisa) dropped off Noam in Entebbe I had about 22 hours before Peter arrived for a mini vacation in Entebbe. I discovered that Entebbe is almost entirely hotels and restaurants. I did manage to get some good western food and coffee, which no one else on the team drinks. I visited the Uganda Wildlife Education Center, which is like a zoo but for rescued Ugandan animals. The ticket came with a guided tour and I had fun with my tour guide. He was very entertained when I told him about animals in America. He was impressed that I knew how to tell the difference between a female and male turtle (shell curvature) and let me hold a tortoise that was 30 years old! My turtle at home is only 15. I also saw the chimpanzees being fed and the elusive shoebill stork, which sounds like a motorcycle so I'm not sure why it's so elusive. After picking up Peter at the airport we traveled to Ddegeya and had a fun four and a half hour drive. Peter was relieved when we finally got out of Kampala traffic.

While I was relaxing in Entebbe or in a car the rest of the team was working away. Scott, Sarah and Leone finished two concrete lids while I was gone and manged to fix almost all of the gutters. Some of the gutters that are directly above the tanks cannot be repaired until the concrete cures and we can stand on the tanks.

For Peter's first day we gave him a tour of all of the sites. The whole tour took about two hours of walking around the village. Yesterday we had a busy day of work and finished the last concrete lid. We are all relieved to no longer have to deal with the poor quality gravel. We also began working on the pumps, but they cannot be finished until the lids cure so we can fit them in the tanks. Our upcoming goals include:

• finishing measuring pumps for all tanks
• plastering the tops of the concrete lids
• finishing fixing gutters
• meet with clusters to discuss maintenance

So far all the work has gone well and we hope everything continues to go smoothly.