Bye mzungu

So today when (some of us) woke up, it was raining, so at about 7 until about 8. Apparently this is the first time that it has rained two days in a row this season. Breakfast was bread, peanut butter, bananas, pineapple, granola, tea, coffee and milk. The unpasteurized milk (straight from the cow and then boiled) was quite good. The water hole is busiest early in the morning, and going until lunch. Early, at like 7, there was already a caravan of people with bright yellow jerry cans going down to the pond and pump. (For those of you who were wondering, jerry cans are called jerry cans because of the German invention of these fuel carrying containers during WWII. Jerry was the wartime derogatory name for Germany and the Germans.)

This morning was our water testing morning. This is the first time any of us have really used any of the tests, so it was interesting. We started just doing the pond and pump just down the hill from Engeye, though we later discovered a pond hidden in the bamboo forest, which is really cool. None of us have ever seen a bamboo forest so that was exciting. (There were unfortunately no pandas...)

We attracted quite a crowd at the water hole doing the tests with the distance wheel and strange small Whirlpak sampling bags. Compared to their 20L jerry cans, our 100mL bag was tiny, and we think they thought we were quite strange for only getting so little water. All the kids who were down there just stood in a half circle watching as we discussed what to do first, and got down in the mud to collect water from the pond.

The kids are amazingly strong to be able to carry the water jugs as far as they can. We can see them struggling with 3 cans on the back of their bicycles to push them up the hill. We also learned later today that Ddegeya extends on this downward part of the hill, but also all the way to the other side, so some people have to travel almost 2 miles round trip up and down the hill both ways just to get water.

We collected 4 samples this morning, and 5 this afternoon. We also discovered that the sodium dithalasate (or something along those lines...) tablet in the Whirlpak affects the pH and conductivity probe readings, so we've started taking the tablet out. We don't think it will affect the Petrifilm tests though. We had our laboratory session on the picnic table outside doing the Petrifilm tests, while kids played soccer on the field next to us. We also did strip tests on all the samples, and are getting roughly the same data for most of them. It wasn't sunny enough (too cloudy) to melt the tetradecanol packs for the incubator, so we had to heat them in boiling water. We also had some difficulties spreading the samples on the Petrifilm and avoiding air bubbles, but hopefully we'll figure it out eventually.

Lunch was ground peanut sauce (purple, because of the skin of the peanuts), rice, posho (the cornstarch and water mix, not matooke as we learned), cabbage, and spinach (also purple/hot pink). After lunch we discovered the bamboo forest so we did the extra sample collection.

After that, while John, Tom and Monica made banana pancakes, Hudson took us to all the other pumps and water sources he and Richard (someone else who works at Engeye) knew. We found one pond (very disgusting, green film on top, probably algae, and milky apparently from the clay soil). We also found 4 more boreholes, but only one had water. We are finding that ONLY the ones at lower elevations have any water, even if it is not a consistent supply. We suspect that the water table is only at the lower elevation, also because down by the ponds by Engeye, there is a type of marsh that ferns and other water plants are growing in.

The Ugandan government built a lot of boreholes, but most of them don't work. Boreholes for Ddegeya seem expensive and unpredictable, but also apparently a lot of them were built during the rainy season, so maybe they will work again?

He also showed us another primary school with a water tank, two building built by the Ugandan government and two much nicer buildings built by the Japanese government; a secondary/vocational school; some Dutch built water system that was built in the past 7 months, but no one really knows what it is for (Hudson suspects that maybe water will be pumped from the valley on the other side of the hill, but is unsure); and the trading center in Ddegeya, which is along the main road from Masaka to Mbarara. An interesting note is that in the part of the village near the trading center there is a lot more garbage than in the part of the village we are in. As we walked along the main road, whenever we passed a group of kids, we would hear of chorus of "Bye mzungu" or bye foreigner.

We learned from Hudson that there is a Ddegeya village board, and he pointed out the house of the secretary of the board, which was much nicer than some of the other houses. There is also a Parish board (bigger area than the village).

Before dinner we talked about our plans for the next couple of days, and the community meeting. John said that they have never had a community meeting before so we are unsure of how it will go, but hopefully it will be successful. John is looking over the community surveys, and is going to give us comments. We have to discuss with the person who is going to translate for the meeting to make sure that they understand the point that we are trying to get across, and make sure that the meaning we think we are saying is what we are actually saying.

For dinner, we had pretty much the same food as lunch, plus the banana pancakes, which are very different than American pancakes. They are basically mashed banana, flour and corn starch, and then fried in oil. They were quite good though. (And Helen thinks that they are the same as an Indian dish; if anyone knows the name, let her know).

It's only 10:30pm, but all of us are tired, and it's pitch black, so it seems late. None of us have ever seen it this dark. You can't really see the stars though because it's been cloudy. We have to go brush our teeth though, which requires going outside, taking bottles of water, standing around a pit or drain, using headlamps, and spitting into the drain.

Sula bulungi.