Tis the Season…For Grasshoppers

As I expected, when I’m at my site, I’m almost exclusively a vegetarian.  For breakfast, I’ll usually have a variety of fruit (some combination of orange, passion fruit, papaya, and banana), along with a toasted piece of bread, and I’ll either put peanut butter and jelly or a fried egg on that.  For lunch, it’s usually a simple sandwich, maybe peanut butter and jelly again, maybe peanut butter and banana, or sometimes avocado (and I want to make guacamole soon).  For supper, it’s usually either pasta or rice with my supreme sauce.  “Supreme” doesn’t have anything to do with the tastiness of it (although I think it’s pretty good)…I just call it supreme because it basically consists of every vegetable I currently have in the house (kind of like a supreme pizza), mixed together in a frying pan.  This past week I did get a little adventurous and bought a pumpkin, having very little idea how to cook it.  It worked out pretty well…I just cut it up, boiled it, added a little cinnamon, sugar, and the veggie sauce, and then mashed it all up, kind of like mashed potatoes.  I liked it. The second time I tried it, I added banana to the boiling water to replace the sugar, and I think that worked out pretty well too.  Anyway, my point is that I rarely, if ever, eat meat.  Even when I go out to one of the local restaurants, I’ll get beans, peas, or ground nut sauce as my source of protein.

That is, unless the girls from the guest house next door cook me up some insects.  About a month ago, I was introduced to termites, which were pretty good.  Actually, I don’t know how much taste they really had…I mean, there’s not exactly a whole lot of meat on one of these things.  They probably just fried them in a pool of oil and sprinkled a ton of salt over them.  Now, it’s grasshopper season, and they fried some of those little guys up for me, too.  And, what do you know, they were good.  Of course, this probably shouldn’t come as a surprise…I still don’t think I’ve found a food that I really don’t like.

Harvesting grasshoppers actually seems to be a really big deal, and it appears that just about everybody does it.  In the Luganda language, there’s actually a word that means “the month of grasshopper harvesting” (“Museenene,” which is related to the word for grasshopper, “Enseenene”).  I think it takes place through most of November, and maybe into early December.  From what I’ve been told, here’s more or less how it works: People will stand a whole bunch of 55-gallon steel drums together in a group, and then will put long poles into the drums.  The poles extend way up into the sky, and then lights are put on top of the poles.  At night, the grasshoppers are attracted to the light and have a “flight of Icarus” experience (they get too close, hit the light, and get zapped), at which point they slide down the poles and fall into the drums.  Then, the unfortunate fallen soldiers are collected, cooked, and set outside on a mat to dry.  (Apparently, if you dry them without cooking them first, they develop a smell that is not so appealing.)  Once they’re dried, people will sell them all over the place…in markets, at taxi stops, at other random locations along the street…Some sellers will carry around big plastic buckets on their shoulder filled with the little things, and others will separate them into individual-sized plastic bags.  I was just in the Masaka taxi park a few days ago, and I still saw people selling, so, even though it seems like the season’s coming to a close, it might not be quite over yet.

In other news…

Joseph, Sunday, and Gonzaga (left to right) in their uniforms

As you are probably noticing, the pictures in this blog have nothing to do with grasshoppers.  Sadly, I didn’t get any photos of the high-tech grasshopper-catching systems, and the bugs that I ate were in my stomach before the thought of taking a picture even entered my head.  So, instead, I thought it might be nice to let you see some of the people I’ve been working with.  We’ve been working on getting uniforms made for the Brick by Brick masons, and, a few weeks ago, they were finished.  These pictures were taken when three of our most consistent guys, Sunday, Joseph, and Gonzaga, received their uniforms.  They were definitely very excited to get these, and, as Marc, Positive Planet’s director, said, you’ll be able to recognize them from a mile away…seeing as these uniforms have the same color scheme as a traffic cone.  Right now, the masons are at a school out in the western part of Uganda, building our two biggest tanks to date…30,000 liters each (about 8,000 gallons each).  After that, we’ll probably be heading to one of Positive Planet’s partner schools to build a structure that will contain a classroom, a library, and a storage room, which will be our first thing that’s not a rainwater tank.  As for other brick business activities, we’re working hard trying to get some marketing going…I’ve been in touch with an artist in Kampala who’s printing up business cards, Max is talking to a local artist about designing a signpost to go outside of our office, and we’ll be working on designing an informational leaflet with pictures, prices, etc., that we can give out to possible clients.  Business marketing…not exactly my area of expertise, and not exactly what I expected to be doing in the Peace Corps, but I think it’s going okay so far…

The logo on the back of the uniform

On another note that’s kind of related, I was in Kampala last week (Nov. 28 – Dec. 2) for the Rural Water Supply Network forum.  This was actually incredibly lucky.  It’s an international forum, only held every few years, and this year, it just happened to be in Uganda’s capital city, which is only three hours away by crowded public transportation.  The forum started on Tuesday morning, so I traveled into the city on Monday.  Actually, Max and I came in together, and we used to day to meet with Dr. Moses Musaazi, a professor at Makerere University (probably one of the best universities in Uganda) who helped to invent the technology we use to make the interlocking soil bricks..  He was a very nice guy, and he had several suggestions for us as we move forward into the construction of larger tanks and other kinds of structures.  After our meeting, Max headed back home, and I headed downtown to find Jake and Patrick, two of the volunteers who would also be going to the forum.  We spent that night in one of the standard Peace Corps dives, piling into a room with two other volunteers who were in town for medical stuff (it seems like people are in Kampala a decent amount for medical stuff…I’ve been fortunate so far).  We just got a few extra mattresses at the front desk for a few bucks each, and spread them out on the fairly small amount of floor space in the room.  Early Tuesday morning, we got a ride to the hotel where the forum was being held.  This place, the Speke Resort, has got to be the nicest hotel in the country.  It might be the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in, anywhere.  For one thing, it’s right on Lake Victoria, so it’s a good location.  On top of that, it’s got a massive pool, a bunch of courtyards and gardens, and a nice restaurant, among other things.  And the food…oh my.  Buffets for breakfast and lunch, and eating at the restaurant for dinner…I may have put on 10 pounds over the course of three days…and I was definitely not a vegetarian for those three days.

For most of the people at this conference, the prices were cheap to average…but, you can probably imagine that, for Peace Corps volunteers who have gotten used to spending less than a dollar on lunch at a local restaurant, we were being as cheap as possible.  So, the three of us got one single room with a king-size bed.  And yes, all three of us slept in the bed.  I was the lucky winner of the middle position, by virtue of the fact that I was not in the room when positions were decided.

Joseph and me sitting in the office

But seriously, getting to the actual content of the forum, it was really good.  As you can probably tell from the title, it was all about water supply for people living in rural areas of developing countries.  Rural populations are often the hardest to reach, and, in just about every country, the percentage of people with access to improved water sources is lower in rural areas than in urban areas.  In cities and towns, it’s pretty easy to reach a lot of people relatively cheaply, because people are so close together.  You can just collect water for everyone and then pipe it to them.  In rural areas, people are often too far apart for this to be an effective strategy.  Even in the USA, this is true.  Many people who live in rural areas get their water from a personal well…that’s what my family does.  So, the task is trying to find the most effective, most sustainable ways to provide water to people in these rural areas.  Over the years, it’s been found that, while community or village water systems sound great in principle, since villages often have a certain amount of inherent cohesion anyway, the majority of these systems are not sustained for more than a few years.  The systems often break down, and they are not repaired.  Part of this is the whole issue that, when something is everyone’s responsibility, each person thinks that someone else will do it, so nobody does.  The other, perhaps bigger issue is that the communities often don’t feel that they truly own and are responsible for the system, because the systems are often put into place by outside organizations and funding sources.  So, there’s a slowly growing movement, called “self-supply,” that focuses on helping rural households improve their own supplies with their own resources.

Gonzaga and me

Now, I think that access to safe, clean water is a basic human right (seeing as we need water to live), so initially I had a little trouble with this idea.  Asking people who already have very few resources to provide for themselves something necessary for health and survival seemed a bit questionable.  But, it’s an issue of practicality and what actually works.  I remember hearing about a mosquito-net distribution program in another country.  If they just gave away the nets, the people weren’t using them for their intended purpose by the end of a year, but, if people had to pay a small amount to get one, then a certain amount of value is placed on the net, and they continue to be used effectively.  So, this concept does make sense, and it has proven to be more operationally sustainable.  When people get their own wells or rainwater tanks, they’re much more likely to repair them if they break, and, as a household’s economic situation slowly improves over time, they can incrementally improve their water supply.  For example, they might start by collecting rainwater with a few buckets and jerry cans, then they might add on a gutter that drains into a ceramic jar, and then they might eventually get a bigger tank to hold the water coming from the gutter.

For this approach to work, local private sector businesses are needed that offer these water supply technologies or the materials to construct them.  If the businesses can turn a profit while providing these technologies to rural households, the approach is truly economically sustainable.  The suppliers will remain in the area, and households will be able to provide their own water supplies.  Brick by Brick fits nicely into this model, because we’re trying to sustain a business that can offer a certain type of water supply.

Of course, it’s not perfect.  The households in the worst financial situations will not be able to take advantage of the approach, because they don’t have the economic resources available to invest in their own water supplies.  We’re starting to explore microfinance options (yet another area in which I have exactly zero experience) so that people who don’t have the cash up front can get a loan and have access to this service.  It still won’t reach the poorest of the poor, but it might expand the range of people who can participate.

Sunday and me

So, I have a lot of ideas coming out of the conference, and hopefully at least some of them will actually happen and be halfway decent.  Along with that, two doctoral students from USF flew in for the forum, and it was really nice to see them.  Both of them were actually presenting papers, so they were pretty important people at this thing.  Anyway, after the forum ended on Thursday, a big group of us went back into Kampala to have dinner at a very good Ethiopian place, and then Patrick, Jake, and I were able to bum a hotel room off of yet another volunteer who was in Kampala for medical stuff.  This time, I was the last one in the room (with 3 beds), and didn’t even feel like making the effort to go down and get a mattress.  So, I was actually on the floor that night…luckily, I had brought along a blanket and a pillow.  Honestly, though, it was kind of fun just bumming around and being as cheap as possible for the week.

On the school side of things, there’s not much going on right now.  In Uganda, schools run on a three term schedule spread out over the year (there’s not really a summer vacation, seeing as there’s no summer), and the final term just ended a week or so ago.  It will start back up again in the middle of January, so most of our projects with schools are kind of at a standstill right now.  Max’s younger kids are home from boarding school, and he’s actually having me work on computer skills with one of his boys, Patrick, who’s probably around 11 or 12.  We usually start with a little typing.  Luckily, the volunteer before me had installed Mavis Beacon onto Max’s computer (remember that blast from the past?), so I don’t have to do too much with that.  Then, once Patrick has gotten tired of that, we’ll go through stuff about what all of the keys do, how Microsoft Word works, etc.  Actually, just today he asked me what all of the top keys (F1, F2, etc.) do, and, honestly, all I really know is that Alt+F4 closes stuff.  So, I just pushed all of the buttons, and nothing happened, so I just told him that I never really use those buttons, except for the combo to close programs.  (If anyone knows any more than this, feel free to let me know…)  Then, Patrick will usually want to end with a game.  I taught him how to play Solitaire, but he definitely prefers this outrageous arcade game demo that came already installed on the computer, I think.  It’s called “Chicken Invaders,” and you basically just fly around in your spaceship and shoot chickens.  They attack by laying eggs in your direction, and when they’re shot, they turn into drumsticks.  I’m actually sitting beside Patrick right now as he massacres flocks of chickens flying in formation with his laser gun.

You know, it’s kind of hard to believe that, in addition to grasshopper season, it’s also Christmas season.  It certainly doesn’t feel like it.  Perhaps part of the reason is the lack of department store ads, not to mention the lack of snow and absence of any sort of temperature drop.  I guess, technically, it should actually get a little warmer, since I’m (barely) in the southern hemisphere.  Instead of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, we have grasshoppers drying in the hot sun…doesn’t quite have the same lyrical quality to it.  At any rate, I’ll probably be heading out to the western part of the country to celebrate with some other volunteers.

As I think about the drastic temperature difference between here and home, it makes me realize just how incredibly fortunate we are.  This planet can contain both extremes at the same time…temperatures that are really hot, and temperatures that are really cold.  If it were to get much warmer or much colder, we might have a pretty difficult time surviving…it might even be impossible.  It’s kind of crazy that this planet is at exactly the right distance from a star that gives off heat at exactly the right intensity for life to survive…and not just to survive, but to flourish in a wide variety of ways, from little grasshoppers to blue whales, from microscopic bacteria to the humans who need to visit the Peace Corps medical office because of them.  I don’t know what the probability is for all of these life-supporting conditions to coalesce, but it’s got to be outrageously tiny.  And sure, there are tons of stars and planets out there, maybe enough to make it likely that at least one could support life, but it’s still amazing to me that it actually happened, that life was created where previously there was none, and that life can be so diverse and beautiful.  Find a Discovery Channel show on life at the bottom of the ocean, and you’ll see just how diverse and beautiful it can be.