Back in Uganda!

Oli otya once again from Uganda. It’s been a year since EWB has been here and we’re excited to be back. Michael Thornton and I met up in Amsterdam for what ended up being a rather eventful flight. Our flight was supposed to stop in Kigali before heading over to Entebbe. Well, that didn’t happen…the weather in Kigali was awful. The pilots made several attempts at landing and all were go arounds (a luxury us glider pilots lack). For those aviation people out there, there were heavy thunderstorms and low lying clouds (I believe the ceiling was 1000ft AGL.) This made for one of the most turbulent commercial flights I’ve ever experienced..leave your seat turbulence. On one attempt the tailwinds were too high on approach so we came in way too high over the runway (better high than low though). Lots of people got sick and (as a pilot myself) I’m embarrassed to say I did too. BUT in my defense, I had just taken my malaria meds which make me pretty nauseous to begin with. Anyways, we gave up on landing (props to the pilots for making that call) to the applause of the whole plane and headed to Entebbe, where everyone again applauded upon landing (first time, I’ve been on a plane where everyone applauded). Daphne and her sister came to pick us up and we headed to her house, which is gorgeous! We met her family and really cute dog, Vuvu, who is still suspicious of Michael and me. After a delicious dinner (chapattis, chicken, rice, and Matooke!) we headed to bed. We’ll be heading to Ddegeya today (in like 2 hours) so stay tuned…the exciting work is about to begin! Just a quick summary of our goals for the trip. Over the past three years, MIT-EWB has been working in Ddegeya, Uganda. Last summer we installed a PV system to power the Engeye health clinic (we’re pumped to see it fully up and running for the first time today!) One of our big goals is to increase access to water in Ddegeya and after much debate and evaluation we’re focusing on smaller scale rainwater harvesting (RWH). Last summer, the team constructed a 10000L brick tank. This June, we’re working with Ddegeya to firmly establish a plan for moving forward on the project. We will be working with the community to design the system (including type of tanks, size of the tanks, and financing of the project). We’re also working to more clearly define the management within Ddegeya of the RWH system. This is all so the August Uganda team (Steven, Wolfkat, and Leticia) will have a concrete plan for construction and dissemination of the system. Wish us luck!