Development(s)

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Friends,I’ll take theliberty of kicking off the blog for this year’s trip, though at the rate thingsare going, I will be no more qualified to write about Uganda and Lingira thananyone else on the team when we next access internet. I could not be happier withhow energetic the group has been and how poised we are to eclipse the smallwork Sam, Karla, and I did last year. When that happens it will be acredit to this group and in no way a fault of our work last year.

Speaking ofthose projects— our attempt to seed the idea of a robust school garden byworking with the school and building a fence took hold. The whole ±1 acre areais tilled and planted. That was always our first ambition for the project,reflecting an attempt to make full use of the resource. However, a fear we heldwas that monoculture, which often makes economic sense or may best fillstomachs, would dominate the garden. To my great surprise, there was not onestalk of corn at the school. Under some direction from our great friend TwaliJulius (MS in Crop Sciences) the school has been growing diverse crops,including broccoli, which is a rarity in Uganda. He has helped to keep up ourvision for the garden by encouraging this and different farming techniques. Thesecond great success that we’ve seen is that the produce of the garden is beingconsumed by students, and regularly. The productivity has been high enough tosustain the school’s interest in producing its own food. Perhaps mostamazingly, they’ve begun to pursue growing things outside the bounds of thefence as a result of their success in the garden. Shortly before we arrived,they planted the first fruits in the garden. In a few months there ought to bepassion fruit growing along the fence. In the coming weeks, we look to installa hearty human-powered pump as insurance against the times when dry season andschool holidays overlap. Another goal is to approach the school and studentsabout forming a student farmers’ association as an outlet for their interestsand an opportunity for leadership experience.
Tomorrow willconclude our first days “in town”. I imagine that being in Jinja feels verylike when Laura Ingalls Wilder would, coming in from their frontier home forsupplies and a bit of candy from the general store. Still, we are anxious to getback to the island. The whole group seems very excited to get to work afterhaving been equipped some cultural understanding of the islands and Uganda atlarge. The very theoretical experience of our work in Madison has beentransformed into projects with very real direction and targets. We will returnto the island tomorrow with the ceramic elements of the kegs, as well as thecomponents to produce a first round of the filters. While some of us pursuebuilding those, others will be working with Local Chairmen and interviewingcommunity members about existing water habits so we can tailor our approach.
Many thanksfor reading. I can pass on hellos from everyone here and even from our Ugandanfriends. We couldn’t be doing better or more charged to do awesome stuff as thegroup explores this new culture. Pictures will follow!
Paul