1st Outreach!

Strangler fig towering over a tea plantation

Our first outreach for the water and sanitation assessment began this week on a very positive note. The outreach coordinators at the BCHC, Rev Sam and Godfrey Abaganya invited the village health promoters to the hospital for a meeting on clean drinking water and sanitation. The village health promoters are village members assigned to track the health and well being of designated families in their community. Many traveled up to 4 miles on foot to attend the meeting. Our region of focus for the projects is the Mukono Parish, an area designated by the Anglican Church. This area includes approximately 12 villages although some are quite spread out. Villages are generally centered on trading centers but in some cases they are centered on churches or schools. Those attending the meeting were 22 health promoters that represent most of the villages in the parish as well as three members of the local sub-county government. As always prayer and introductions were the first items on the agenda. Reverend Sam facilitated the meeting introducing the topic of water and sanitation in the local Rukiga language. He translated for me intermittently and allowed me time for me to ask questions to the health promoters.

Rev. Sam effectively used story to make his point about the importance of community participation in the projects. His story was about a stork building a nest in a tree and refusing to ask for assistance from the ant people below. When the stork became caught in a storm shortly thereafter the nest was blown to pieces. The message of the story was that anyone from outside a community can build a project but without the local knowledge about where those projects should go and how they should be built the projects will fail. The story was very well received. Rev Sam used an effective mix of humor and serious discussion that held the attendees attention throughout the meeting that ended up lasting for 6 hours. After introductions the health promoters were asked to create a map of the parish describing protected and unprotected spring sources, villages, roads, and other key landmarks (churches, schools, crops…etc). To accomplish this they used plant stems to designate the roads and leaves for the rivers (see photo on the left). Sticks were bound together in the form of a cross to show churches and sticks planted in the ground marked protected springs, broken sticks were failed springs and so on. At that point the debate was on. Arguments broke out left and right about the placement of key landmarks and at one point I thought two traditional bath attendants were going to start wrestling to decide the placement of a spring. After an hour the maps were complete and we analyzed them and critiqued them together. Not only did the exercise give Paul and me a better idea of where the springs were located in the region and the layout of the villages but it promoted awareness about water sources and the importance of clean water. One goal of this project is to create a persistent voice in the region reinforcing the importance of clean water and hygiene to protect families from water borne illness.

On Saturday we went out for our first outreach to the village of Iraaro. Paul, Godfrey, Rev. Sam, Christine (one of the Ugandan outreach nurses), the driver, and I all packed into a Toyota pickup with an extra cab and navigated 10 km of incredibly rutted and rocky road. Noticing that I kept smacking my elbow against the window Christine stated “you are dancing” to which I replied “we are all dancing together” as we jounced and jostled our way to our destination. When I visited Iraaro two and a half years ago it was a village site with 98 homes and no protected water. This put it at the top of our list of sites needing protected water. To our great surprise we found that the local government, the district of Kanungu, had recently protected a new spring near the trading center that delivered an adequate supply of water (up to 20L/min). The average water usage for drinking and cooking is 5 liters per person per day and for bathing and washing clothes 20 liters per person per day. (How many liters do you use during a single shower?)

The new spring basin now provides clean water for up to 40 families. This means that 58 families are still without protected water. Most of these homes cling to steep slopes so that they can grow matoke (a type of banana), millet, cassava, beans, potatoes, and tea. Unfortunately this puts them in a position where they must collect surface water for drinking and cooking. In this area we tested the protected and unprotected springs as well as the surface water sources in the streams at the base of the slopes. The surface water sources were hundreds of times higher than the protected sources as we would expect. Protecting a spring source nearer to the other 58 homes will be a primary goal for the project.

As for the weekend I got a chance to get out and go to church on Sunday with a group of about 15 American students visiting from a program through the Uganda Christian University. We took great hike up two steep miles of beat up road past wide eyed children and their stunned parents. We climbed to a spot where we could look out over the lush green beauty of Southwestern Uganda. About halfway to our destination we stopped in the shade to catch our breath and realized that about 40 children had followed us up the path. They ranged from 3 to about 10 years old and stood in an amorphous group staring at the rare site of 20 Mzungus in their back yard. For some reason the UCU students decided it was time to perform a choreographed version of the Christian song “River of Life.” (see left) Cringing slightly at the exuberance at which the song was performed I gladly took snapshots of the children’s reactions. When the song finished the children stood there open mouthed and silent for about 5 seconds as if waiting to see if something else was going to happen and then all at once burst into raucous cheers and clapping (See photo on the right). The UCU students could only blush and smile and laugh. The children returned the favor belting out several songs and shaking their hips and hopping in the trademark Rukiga dance. It was a true delight. I'll leave with you a couple images of the future of Uganda.