Water water everywhere

Boda Boda driver riding through a flooded road

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10-14-08

I was caught in an incredible storm today. It was the first time that a hard rain persisted for several hours turning the roads into rivers of red brown water. Three med students and I were on our way to a local garden to get strawberries, basil, and some other hard to find fruit and veggies. Powerful gusts of wind began blowing and soon after drenching rainstorms accompanied by lightning strikes followed almost instantly by thunder. We took cover under a broad leafed tree but it was soon saturated with water and poured down through the leaves and drenched us. We held banana leaves over our heads in a feeble attempt to prevent the inevitable soaking. Finally we were as wet as we could possibly be and decided to make a run for it amid the lightning and rolling thunder to find a drier location. In the back of my mind was the local Batwa pygmie three weeks ago that was struck and killed by lighting and the newspaper article about how a strike killed 50 cattle in a neighboring district.

We finally found cover under an awning and waited for the worst of the rain to stop. When we returned to the guest house Der (the computer tech) told me that Dr Scott Kellerman was stuck across the Manyaga River at a fundraiser auction at the local church because of high water. I’ve never been one to miss high volumes of water so I quickly dried off and picked up my camera and ran down the road to see the flood waters. What I found was that the river had undercut one side of the bridge that linked the village of Mukono (where Scott’s fundraiser was) to the hospital and it had collapsed. People returning from the auction were trying to pick their way across the collapsed bridge with their families dressed in their nicest Sunday church-service clothes (see photos to the right). Boda Boda drivers were pushing their motorcycles up over the stones that were piled onto the collapsed bridge to assist crossing. I took turns taking photos and helping folks across the stones. Children descended upon the floodplain as the waters receded to catch mud fish (something like catfish) that were trapped in the grass and rocks. Just think, all of that clean water raining down every single day. So much potential! Quite a day!

One Thursday Paul and I visited Mukongoro, a settlement consisting of both Batwa Pygmies and local Mukiga people. This site was highlighted during my first visit in 2006 as having poor sanitation and no access to protected drinking water sources. Mukongoro resides in a narrow valley perched above the hospital just a couple kilometers from the Congo border. Villagers grow their crops in the wetland at the base of the valley and raise livestock of goats and pigs. Being that we are well into the rainy season here (September through December) there is water spilling every where over the footpaths and through the wetland though unfortunately non is potable and most is just a seasonal source of water. A local leader explained that during the dry season up to 150 families come down into the valley to collect water from a small fissure at the base of a bedrock outcropping. The water source during the rainy season was a muddy pool of water at the base of the wetland draining the area where the all of the houses are located.

We tested this source as well as the spring at the base of the bedrock. The testing kit determines the concentration of fecal bacteria in colony forming units (cfu) per 100 milliliters. A result of 20 to 100 cfu/100ml is considered high risk for fecal contamination. The rainy season source could only be estimated there were so many colonies. Estimates suggested that there were over 20,000 cfu/100ml in the source (the highest source recorded yet!). The dry season source was considerably cleaner (14 cfu/100ml) but lacks the necessary volume to provide for the number of families in the region. It seemed apparent to village members that contamination of their drinking water is an issue but the only alternative option for clean water is a 2 km walk up a steep grade of about 800 vertical feet. We realized that it would be highly unlikely to convince the village members that this is even an option at all. Currently we are looking into the potential for a large rainwater harvesting system. More later on this. In the meantime we will continue to test local water sources.