Water

Last week delegates were meeting in New York to discuss the progress on the Millennium Development Goals that were agreed in 2000. We read in the paper that Uganda has made good progress in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty, but the poor progress on health still shocks us. We see that 137 children out of every 1000 born here still do not reach their 5th birthday. These figures are for the whole country. In poor, rural areas such as Kamwenge, the death rates are higher. More than 300 people, mostly women and children, die every day from malaria and there are over 80,000 AIDS related deaths registered every year. However the statistic that we find most shocking is that more children die from diarrhoea than anything else. Diarrhoea is caused by poor sanitation and the drinking of unsafe water. The problem sounds simple to solve, but we all have to come to terms with the fact that, at the end of 2010, most people here do not have access to clean safe water.

We have been inconvenienced over the last week because our piped water has stopped flowing. Our water comes from a small pumping station on the river Mpanga (about 10 Km from us). The reason for the stoppage is that the pumping station has had its electricity cut off. This is because most people who signed up for this water cannot pay their water bill and so the pumping station owners cannot pay for their electricity. We are fortunate because we can afford to pay a boda boda (motorcycle) driver to go and get us jerry cans of water from a gravity feed water system in another area. We also have a functioning rain-water collection tank. We then filter and boil the water to make it safe. Most people in Kamwenge, however, have to get all their water from the swamp or dirty shallow wells and cannot afford to filter and boil, so children continue to suffer from diarrhoea and continue to die.



In the 17 months that we have been here, we have worked hard to improve sanitation and hygiene in schools, have shown teachers how to make basic hand-washing facilities and stressed the importance of boiling water for drinking. However the challenge remains that until access to safe water improves for all, the long term improvment to health will be minimal.

Eggxciting Spring Time

At the end of the school holidays, we went to visit the Hot Springs at Semliki National Park. These are ringed by forest, veiled in a cloud of steam and are a primeval sight. The largest spring is a geyser which can spout up to 2m high from the opening in the salt structure. As can be seen in the photo, it was about a metre high when we visited, but was still impressively hot and steamy. There are several other outlets which bubble away with boiling water and, in one of them, our guide left some eggs, which were nicely hard boiled after 7 minutes and made a welcome snack after the walk through the forest. For the sharp eyed amongst you, our Ugandan colleague provided the eggs in a Tesco egg box!

We have had some furniture made for the special needs unit, in conjunction with Rakel, the Spanish volunteer who left recently. The picture shows a walking rail (not sure of the technical term!) which can be used by the children with mobility problems to improve their posture whilst walking. We had to explain to the carpenter how to make this from scratch as he had never seen one before so there was a lot of trial and error before it was finished. But we are pleased with it and it seems to benefit the children.

We have now been connected to the grid and so get electricity on a fairly regular basis. It was good during the dry season, but now the wet season is starting, there are more power cuts due to heavy storms. However it is good enough for us to use an small oven left to us by Stuart and Sarah when they returned to Canada. We are having great fun making flapjacks and cakes – witness the carrot cake being removed from the oven. Sabrina would like to make lasagne and shepherd’s pie but we cannot get the ingredients here so they will have to wait until we return.

Pineapple Update
Following the positive comments we thought a regular update was necessary. The pineapple has some lovely little blue flowers and is growing apace.

Travel Guide Name Check
Geoff is apparently mentioned in the latest edition of the Bradt Travel Guide to Uganda – Page 329, Edition 6 if you feel you must rush out and buy it – following an email he sent to the author of the last edition about an attraction that is near us. Fame at last!!