Dispatches from Uganda
Posted by John McAllister on Thu, May 27, 2010 @ 12:04
John McAllister, a project engineer, is currently on a trip to Uganda, working as a mentor for a Tufts University (his alma mater) chapter of the Engineers without Borders program. The project's goal is to provide a safe, clean drinking water supply to the people of the village of Shilongo, an agricultural village of about 1,000 people. He will provide periodic blog updates of his journey; this is his first entry.
I arrived in Uganda yesterday after some long travelling. Scott, one of the project leaders, was there to pick me up at the airport in Entebbe. All together, there are five students from Tufts on the project: Christina, Dave, Drew, Laney, and Scott. The drive from Entebbe to Mbale was a good six hours, as we got caught in rush hour traffic in the capital, Kampala. In Mbale, we had lunch with the leader of the NGO we are working with, Foundation for the Development of Needy Communities (FDNC). They have been very helpful in setting us up and providing us with everything we need. They set us up in a nice home on the hillside, outside Shilongo, in Nyondo. The house is very nice and even has running water and reliable electricity, which was more than I was expecting! We are about a ten-minute walk away from Shilongo. The people taking care of the house (David and James) are really nice and they cook delicious food for us. Last night we played soccer in our front yard with three young kids who live nearby.
So far the students have completed about 34 community health surveys, which is about the number we were aiming for. The FDNC has provided interns to act as translators (the native language here is Lugisu).
Today we're going to have one group conducting more interviews and another going around to collect water samples for water quality testing, so I can see where the various sources are. Apparently, during the wet season we are in, there are multiple sources of water for the villagers to draw from. We hope to set up some meetings with the village leaders and the women this week, and have a whole community meeting this weekend since people are busy during the week with the kids back in school. So far, so good with the project and hopefully we can put together a successful project to help the people of Shilongo village.