Technical Immersion Week Part 2 – Compost, Cows, Bricks, and a Graduation Party

The back of the composting latrines at the school in Kasensero

All right, picking up where I left off last time, we were heading to a fishing village on Lake Victoria called Kasensero during technical immersion, when we stopped at a Rwandan Genocide Burial Site.  After leaving the memorial, we headed on to the village, where we visited an orphanage/school for HIV/AIDS orphans.  (As a side note, “HIV/AIDS orphan” refers to any child who has lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS.)  Colin, our volunteer leader, and his Ugandan counterpart, Joseph, had worked with the Ugandan Red Cross to build a set of “eco-sanitation latrines.”  Another term for these is “composting latrines,” and the idea is that, given the right conditions and enough time, the stuff coming out of us that we consider to be “waste” can actually be composted and used as a resource.  That stuff has a pretty big amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in it, two nutrients that many crops need to grow.  The main difficulty with these latrines is that they’re pretty tough to operate completely correctly.  For proper composting, you need a certain ratio of carbon to nitrogen (you need lots more carbon…about 20 to 30 times as much as nitrogen), whereas the ratio in human “waste” is tilted toward the nitrogen end too much.  So, other, carbon-rich materials, like sawdust or charcoal ash, need to be added to bump up that ratio.  To relate this to a normal compost pile that you might have out in your backyard, much of the food waste that is thrown in that pile in nitrogen-rich, and other stuff, like dried leaves, needs to be added to boost the carbon.  Some people describe the ratio in terms of “greens,” or nitrogen-rich materials, and “browns,” or carbon-rich materials.  So, that carbon-rich stuff needs to be added to the latrine after each use, and the right amount needs to be added.   

Kasensero fishing boats on the shores of Lake Victoria

Plus, if you have a compost pile, you probably know that you need to mix it up every now and then, to get some oxygen flowing through there, since composting is an aerobic process (meaning that it needs oxygen to work).  So, the stuff in these latrines also needs to be mixed, and I assume that some of you (maybe all of you) are turning your nose up a bit at this point.  Here’s how it generally works.  These latrines are built so that the hole is elevated, and the stuff ends up in a compartment that’s above the ground surface.  The structure should always have at least two stalls, because only one is in use at a time.  While one is being used, the other sits, full of composting stuff, and this is when the mixing happens.  The compartment generally has a back door that can be opened up, so that a shovel or pitchfork or something can be used to mix it up.  And, if the composting process is working well, the stuff shouldn’t smell or look disgusting or anything.  The issue is, it’s often hard to operate these things exactly like that, and the composting doesn’t always happen exactly as it should…For example, when Colin opened up one of the back doors, apparently the stuff was a bit more potent than it should have been.  I didn’t get to see or smell, because I was on the other side taking a picture…

Weed Control Project on the Kagera River

Well, now that I’m sure I’ve grossed at least some people out, we’ll move on.  While visiting the fishing village, we also went a bit further south along the lake to where the Kagera River (the one with the bodies from the genocide) meets the lake.  At this point, we were also apparently just a stone’s throw away from the Tanzanian border.  Now, there is a joint project being undertaken by Uganda and Egypt to clean out weeds from this river before they enter the lake (Lake Victoria is considered to be the source of the Nile River, hence Egypt’s interest).  On the banks of the river, we also saw a big herd of cattle, with some pretty massive horns.  Being the grandson of a farmer, I took a few pictures of these guys.

Huge-horned cattle near the Kagera River

After all of that, we had some lunch in the village (oddly enough, we couldn’t find fish in a fishing village…settled for some standard rice and beans), went back to the orphanage/school, where the kids put on a little drumming and dance show for us, and then began heading back.  Along the bumpy, potholed, dirt road, we got a flat tire.  This was actually a stroke of luck for me, because I was really needing a bathroom break at that point.  At any rate, they got the spare on pretty quickly and, once we got back onto the paved road, we stopped at a gas station to get a real tire.  We made it back safely, which we could probably consider a successful trip.

Our tech immersion group in front of the Kagera River

The next day (Wednesday of last week), we met with one of my Ugandan counterparts, Max, who talked to us about the interlocking soil brick business that I’ll be working with, and we went to check out a few rainwater tanks, two that were still under construction, and one that was finished.  After that, we headed back to town and watched some of the masons actually making these bricks using the brick press.  I tried to get some good pictures.

A rainwater tank under construction

We finished up around lunch time, but a few members of our group were feeling pretty sick, and, after I had gotten lunch in town, I picked up some supplies for peanut butter, banana, and jelly sandwiches (yep, I was actually able to find all of those in town) for Jake, whose stomach was not having a good day.  After bringing that back for him, we spent the afternoon in our hotel room, watching some episodes of The West Wing on Jake’s laptop.  (Side note…that’s a great show.  I’m kind of ticked I didn’t watch it when it was actually on TV.  Then again, I probably appreciate it more now.  Anyway, I downloaded a bunch of episodes from another volunteer, and I’m kind of hooked.)  We had dinner at the hotel that night, and I ordered fish and chips, not really knowing exactly what would be presented to me.  Well, there was a big pile of fries, and a big fish.  Yes, an entire fish.  Its tail was there, its fins, its scales, its head.  And I dug in, having to use my hands most of the time to pull the meat off of the bones, pop the head off, rip off the tail, etc.  It was actually really, really good, and all that was left at the end was a spinal column, some other assorted bones, some of the head, the tail, and the fins.  Definitely one of the most satisfying meals in Uganda so far.  Sadly, no camera for this occasion.

A completed tank (that's Max next to it)

Maybe I have now grossed you out twice, so, moving on again, we headed back to Wakiso on Thursday, no big problems there, and spent the rest of the week in training.  On Sunday, one of my host family’s sons, Ronnie, was having a party with four friends because they had all graduated from college.  I think Ronnie’s degree was in Travel and Tourism.  My whole family went, including me.  Oh, as a short tangent, I sometimes get a kick out of “Ugandan time”.  I was eating lunch around 2 or so (meals are generally significantly later than ours), and my host dad walks by, saying, “Hurry, hurry, we will be late!”  So, I pick up the pace a bit, finish up, and get some nicer clothes on.  I come out of my room, ready to go, my host dad sees me, and he says, “Oh, you are ready?  We will go now.”  Promptly an hour later, the family piles into the car and drives off to Kampala, heading to a church where the party was being held.

Making a brick...looks like hard work

Anyway, the party was very interesting, and very long (not helped by the fact that the cold I would be battling for the rest of the week was beginning that day).  There were two MCs, and the five graduates sat at a head table by themselves, above everyone.  I think three of the graduates gave speeches (and they were pretty long speeches), and what struck me the most was just how genuinely thankful and aware they were of all of the people who had helped them along the way, from parents, to siblings, to friends, to teachers.  We’ve talked a decent amount in training about the cultural differences between Uganda and the USA (making big generalizations, of course), and one of the things that comes up a lot is the community-centered focus of Ugandan culture.  This graduation is not the accomplishment of only one person.  It is an accomplishment for the entire support system surrounding that person.  A few of the graduates showed this idea very well when they called their parents up, took off their caps and gowns, and put them on their parents.  It was really pretty moving, and it made me think a lot about my own support system, both here and in the USA.  Pretty soon, this group of trainees will be “graduating” from training in and going out to their individual sites.  A lot of us have become pretty close over the past several weeks (that is probably bound to happen when you spend this much time with a group of people), and I’m definitely going to be missing folks as I head off to my house in Kalisizo.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m ready to go and do stuff, but it will be different, and maybe tough, not having these friends around.  And, of course, on top of all of that, I thought about all of you back in the USA.  The graduates said many times that they would not be up there without their supporters, and I feel the same way.  I would not be where I am right now, doing what I think and hope is right, without all of you.  Your influence, your challenges, your support, and your guidance have pushed me to this point, and I thank you for it.  Who knows how I’ll feel a month, a year, or two years down the road, but, right now, I feel like I’m in the right place, and I want to be here.

There it is!

One of the questions our language teachers told us might be asked during our language proficiency interviews was along the lines of, “Do you prefer living in America or living in Uganda?”  This is a freaking hard question to answer in English, let alone Luganda.  Thinking about it the night before my interview, I came up with a response that was more or less, “I don’t want to choose, but right now, even though I miss my friends and family in America, I prefer living in Uganda, because I think that I will be able to do good work here.”  More or less.  Speaking of the interview, that happened this past Thursday, and I don’t know the results yet.  I think it went okay.  I felt like I understood most or all of the questions (eventually), and answered relatively well.  I occasionally screwed up verb tenses and noun/adjective agreement, but I think I was able to realize just about every mistake and either said the next verb in the correct tense, or went back and corrected the adjective to make it match the noun.  What’s still very annoying to me (and I probably shouldn’t be expecting too much at this point, considering it’s only been 9 weeks, and I’ve never studied a language enough to become anywhere close to fluent before), is that I’m just really, really slow.  If you’ve had any decently-sized conversations with me, you probably know that it takes me a while to process a question and formulate an answer, in English.  Then, add to that the additional steps involved in a second language, and we’re left with a very long process of hearing words in Luganda, translating to English, figuring out how to respond in English, making sure I have the vocab and grammar to say that in Luganda, actually translating to Luganda, and then saying it with halfway decent pronunciation.  Let’s just say it’s a lot of, “Ummmmmm, Luganda word, ummmmmm, Luganda word, etc…”

But, after the interview, I did find out that my language teacher, who was doing the interview, knows that I’ve been working very hard on it.  As she said, “I hope you keep studying, so that you don’t lose it.  Because I know you’ve struggled for it, and I don’t want you to lose it.”  So, maybe that’s a good sign.  Yeah, that will be my story until I get the results.

Looking ahead, we’re scheduled to leave our homestays and head into Kampala on Tuesday morning, and we’ll spend the next couple of days at a hotel.  The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Thursday.  Oh, and in terms of my health, the cold has moved from my stomach (though I didn’t get diarrhea this time) to my chest to my neck to my nose, and now it’s stubbornly hanging out in my head.  I’m wasting a lot of toilet paper blowing out all of the junk in my nose.  Admittedly, I think that made the language interview a bit harder, since my hearing and attentiveness were probably a little impaired, but I don’t think it was that big of a deal.  I even worked that into one of my answers a little bit.  I’m thinking it should be completely gone in another couple of days, and it hasn’t been that bad anyway…please don’t worry!