A Safe Arrival

Oli otya everyone! The travel team arrived safely in Uganda today after a solid 24 hours of travel. Despite airline problems earlier this week, we all made it on our series of flights and enjoyed relatively uneventful air travel. After disembarking from the plane in Entebbe and making it through customs and picking up our luggage (all of which arrived at Entebbe) Daphne picked us up from the airport and brought us to her beautiful home. We brought our bags inside and sank into the comfortable couches for a temporary respite and reveled in the fact that they were not airplane seats, and then Daphne took us out shopping. Although there are countless differences between African and American malls, it´s the unexpected similarities that caught my attention; there are still preteens wandering about and busy parking lots, though Kampala traffic is far more frightful than in the states. We purchased a modem and a data plan, so we expect to have fairly reliable internet access for the rest of our trip. We also purchased some phones for incountry communications. After our shopping adventure, we returned to Daphne´s home and confirmed our rendezvous with two civil engineering students from Makarere University who will be joining us in Ddegeya to act as translators and as valuable additions to our team. We will also meet Dr. Musaazi, a great contact at Makarere. We will travel to Ddegeya once the group is united and review our goals and schedule for the rest of the trip, all together.

The goals for this trip will be elaborated on in further blogs, but here is a quick overview: meet with the clusters in Ddegeya to determine methods for paying for the rain water catchment tanks, prototype a underground linings for the tanks, pumps, and bamboo gutters. We will also present information about the importance of clean water and assess SODIS, a method of sanitizing water via sunlight, and a method for making charcoal agricultural waste to use as an alternative cooking fuel to decrease the dependance on Eucalyptus groves or purchasing firewood. And with that final review of the tasks in front of us, we tired travelers sign off and head to bed.