January 15, 2010 - Ddegeya

At around 8:30 a.m., there was an annular solar eclipse. The sun suddenly darkened, and John provided some X-ray films through which we were able to view the eclipse---it was awesome!

We brought the pebbles from yesterday to Nalongo and used the water from P1 to wash. After a while, Joe recognised that the turbidity was caused by a few clay or mud particles mixed with the good pebbles. So in order to clean the pebbles/gravel properly, we needed to first sort out these clay/mud particles, which was a nightmare. But what must be done must be done. With Joe's help, we set up a "production line". We abandoned the sieve with the smallest pore (using the newly bought one with slightly larger pores). After the sand/gravel mixture passed through, yielding the finest sand below, the stuff left in the sieve was hand-sorted into larger gravel and the "rest", with the help of some kids. Dave hand-sorted the gravel to get rid of the clay/mud particles. Hopefully this will remove much of our woes so far.

In the meanwhile, Kevin made some phone calls to Solar Connection Association in Kampala. They apparently had WAPIs in stock and could sell us at either 2000 or 3000 UGX (depending on the person Kevin was asking). Olivia will be in office tomorrow (Saturday) from 8 a.m. to noon, and will be able to sell the WAPIs. Otherwise, she will be unavailable for the entire next week until next Saturday. Mike seems quite enthusiastic to take a break from the village life and go into town, so we arranged for him to leave with John (who will be coming back on Monday with the medical mission) later today, stay at Kampala Backpackers Hostel tonight, and obtain the WAPIs (alongside with some Plexiglas screens for solar cookers and some Ugandan shillings, hopefully) tomorrow morning.

After lunch, we examined the Petrifilm tests from the solar cooker/SODIS runs. All samples had zero bacterial counts (both enterobacteria and E. coli/coliform) except, oddly enough, for the small 675 mL bottle drawn from BH4, which has 54 enterobacteria, 11 coliform, and 0 E. coli dots. We were unable to explain this anomaly except that maybe this particular bottle was somewhat misplaced, or the test sample contaminated.

Then the arduous process of sieving sand/gravel ensued. With the help of the kids, we worked the entire afternoon, and managed to clear the second wheelbarrow of sand. Later in the day, we brought down the small and large gravels to wash. The large gravel (really stones) took a relatively short time to clear. However, the small gravel was more time-consuming, requiring about 15 trips to the Nalongo. Later, we still needed to hand-pick some clay/mud particles out of this pile, and washed the entire pile on top of a sieve to satisfactorily clear the wastewater. Just before sundown, we tried one batch of sand, but did not really finish due to the high traffic load at Nalongo.

We also tried to wash the green bucket (in which the pipe was fitted several days earlier using epoxy glue). Unfortunately, the epoxy glue seemed to have cracked and there was a steady leak at the bottom. We sent Mike a message to get putty glue in Kampala, hoping that this would reverse the situation. But as things stand, we cannot really build any prototype until Mike comes back and the glue is dry, which is earliest by Sunday afternoon.

For dinner, Dave and Joe were making chapati again, while Kevin made an attempt at fried rice. Due to the wrong order of the addition of food, and due to the unwieldy charcoat stove, the fried rice nearly proved to be a disaster, with raw vegetables/eggs and rice that had a pocho-like consistency. Monica managed to rescue the product by initiating another charcoat stove, using a larger and flatter pan, and adding lots and lots of oil. Dinner was served at 10:15 p.m. Sticky fried rice and chapati, we found, made good burritos.