Staying at the Host Family
While working on the latrine for the primary school in Kanyamiyaga, we stayed with our host family. Donald stayed with us as well to help with the language barrier as well as to help with the latrine construction. Their home is in the edge of a jungle, with mangos, avocados, jack fruits and sugar canes to the heart’s content and then some. Chimpanzees also live in this jungle! We have heard them in the evening and have gone searching for them, but have yet to see them. Hopefully next week! On their property they have a small, roughly 5 foot by 8 foot room for each of us, which are nice and cozy at night especially because of their tin roof which pushes the nice-and-cozy description into the territory of being an easy-bake oven. They do not have running water at their home, so a shower consists of gathering well water in a jug, and bringing it back home, where it can then be boiled if wanted to have a warm (and clean!) shower. They also do not have electricity running through the home, but they do have a solar panel and battery which has the capacity turn on some LED lights at night for a few hours as well as almost charge a couple phones. Despite any shortcomings in infrastructure, the host family -s is the Ugandan custom- is beyond accommodating, making sure that everything is set up in our rooms and that we have an excess of food for every meal.
A typical day at their home consists of waking up and having breakfast of bread, butter, rice potatoes, tea, and various fruit prepared for us. After getting ready for the day, we then make the 2 mile walk to the school. Along the way we pass many other homes and locals, most of which have a small herd of children hanging around. All of them are absolutely enthralled to see two mazungu walking down their street and will run out to see us and ask how we are doing. This has not failed to be a point of excitement yet, even though we pass by the same kids every day twice a day. Perhaps the novelty will wear off next week, but I expect not.
Once we arrive at the school, we begin work on the hole excavation. We arrive by around 10:00 am and stay to around 5:00 pm. The children here too are equally fascinated by us and have developed quite a passion for standing around and watching us dig or pull up bags of sand. After we are done for the day, we will make the two mile walk back home, where of course we are met by our host family ready to give us any food or anything we need. Local children will slowly gather throughout the evening to play football (Tanna, one of last year’s interns, gave us a soccer ball to give to the school) or see whatever other entertainment the Mazungus can provide. Jennifer, the youngest daughter, has gained a personal fondness for my ukulele and has given us a couple quality jam sessions.
After dinner, maybe going for a run, attempting to find chimpanzees and bathing, the day begins to wind down. We’ll talk for awhile and read some, and aim to be in bed by 11:00 pm.
Digging Holes
This week we began our main project of building a latrine for a primary school in Kanyamiyaga (?). This latrine will serve over 100 students and over 250 associated with the school. For this reason, it needs a nice deep hole to be filled with many years of childrens poo-poo. 50 feet to be exact. A hole this deep will be able to several years before it needs to be emptied. There is then a company that can empty the latrine fairly easily and cheap. So this latrine can be a permanent fixture to serve the school.
When we arrived at the primary school, the first ~22 feet of the hole had already been dug over the past week while we were building the latrine at the host family. More work would have been able to be accomplished, but the local God decided to impede upon their process; the 2nd, 12th, and 22nd of every month is a day of worship to a self-proclaimed God in Uganda. He has a surprisingly large following that includes most of the workers who had been digging the hole. And apparently a large number of people in Germany who send him money, but I digress.
Fortunately we had all the most up to date tools to work on this project. By that I mean one dude down in the hole digging and a crew of people pulling up bags and buckets of sand. The first day we had a spool system with a handle to pull up the sandbag, but were pulling up the bucket using our hands on the rope, which resulted in several blisters after a full day. For day two we had two spool systems J.
As you might imagine, digging a hole that is 50 feet deep and 11 feet and 2 feet in length and width using just a shovel is a very slow process. After four days (plus the additional work which the local workers put in previously) we finally did complete the hole. Next week we continue the project with creating the foundation, and then finally we will build the brick structure on top of it.
Just Say No to Innovation
They broke Lucas’s beautiful innovation! Stay tuned!
Performance by the primary school
Every Thursday, the schoolchildren’s parents will gather at the school to help with maintenance of the landscape. As an added incentive, the primary kids will give a song and dance performance to whoever is around. They wear traditional Ugandan attire: colorful dresses, stocking-like things with bells that jingle whenever they stamp their feat, and a couple little kids banging their hearts out on some drums. My favorite was the littlest kid in the performance, who was clearly newer to the school and not as familiar with the routine. He would be a half second behind most of the others, and you could often see him looking up at his classmates to see what they are doing or being scooched by one of them into the right place. He had his moment of glory when he got to have his foot-stomping-bell-jingling solo as he slowly came out of line from the others, made a small circle and then went back into his place.
During one of the similar solos, one of the older boys came out of line and into the crowd to bring me into their routine. We had a small duet with eachother that probably most closely resembled the mating rituals of some birds of paradise: prolonged eye contact, a lot of foot smashing, all while holding our wings/arms spread out.
Kings Coronation/Don’t Get Arrested, Lucas
Went to the King’s coronation… Lucas flirted with being arrested… the bus got hit… Stay tuned!