This morning, started like most mornings do these days.
Jon got up around 4 because he couldn’t sleep any longer. He let Zipper out and then put her back to bed. She had her first trip to vet yesterday, and was feeling kind of under the weather from her deworming medication and her rabies vaccine, and so she wasn’t much into playing.
I got up around 7 and let Zipper out again. She did her thing, came back inside, ate her breakfast, and curled up to go to sleep on her pile of “Zipper’s towels.”
Jon and I took turns getting ready for work, both emailing from the kitchen table and drinking coffee for a while—taming the mass of emails that pile up over night when all of colleagues, friends, and family are active—before 9, when we called a special hire and went to Good African Coffee, a restaurant that has finally caught on that if you give free access to relatively decent internet, you do a bang up business. And business we give them.
Anyway, at 9, we let Zipper out one more time before she was put into “Zipper’s house,” which used to be our front half-bath, that was never really used.
When we first brought her home, we gave her a house in her house—a cardboard box that one of Jon’s work computers came in. Although I think she really liked her cardboard box (which a few days into getting to know each, Jon and I turned on its side to make it more of a cave than a box), she proceeded to chew it up completely. We didn’t really mind, because it’s a box, and it’s hers, but it eventually became rather unusable and we pitched it. Anyway, long story short, there seems to be a shortage of crates in Kampala right now, so we’ve given Zipper reign of the whole half-bath, and she does pretty well.
Zipper is about 3 months old now, and so she spends all of her time when we’re not available to keep an eye on her in her house. She is pretty well housebroken these days, as long as we’re paying attention and do our part. Knock on wood, she also still finds “Zipper’s toys” more exciting than most of “Sarah and Jon’s toys.” Again, that’s when we’re keeping an eye on her.
All of that is to say, that today started out just as any other day.
At Good African Coffee, Jon and I both worked for the morning. He had had a lunch meeting planned there for 1, and I planned to have my lunch, and come home around 1 to let Zipper out, play with her a little and then get back to work. I ordered my lunch around 12 and didn’t end up actually arriving until 1:40 (somewhat unusual for lunch at Good African Coffee, but not so unusual in Kampala generally).
I ate my lunch—an “herbed seasonal vegetable sandwich,” which I’ve finally convinced them to make with a side of steamed vegetables rather than fries or fried potato wedges—and then I packed up to come home around 2. Normally I would have called one of our regular special hires who are safe, reliable, and cheap, but I didn’t have my phone with me, and so I picked up a special from outside the restaurant. After negotiating what should be a 5000 UGX ride from 10,000 UGX down to 7000 UGX, we were off.
Four minutes after leaving, we were waved off the road by a traffic woman. She talked to my driver and asked for his permit. He gave some paper to her, which isn’t usually what people pull out. She seemed only moderately satisfied. She walked around the front of the car and found that one of the headlights was broken. She shook her head. She walked around the other side of the car and checked out the insurance.
I could only hear a little of the conversation, because the radio was still blaring behind me, Ugandans tend to be much softer spoken than we loud Americans, whom I’m sure Ugandans must think yell all the time, and because it was a combination of English and Luganda. It seemed, though, that there was some issue with the permit, not that it was expired, but there was maybe some tax that hadn’t been paid. There was also the issue of the headlight.
My driver tried hard to convince the police officer to let him go and drop me and then return to clear whatever fines he had to pay. Not unreasonably, the police officer didn’t want him to do that. She proposed to drive with us to my house. The driver didn’t like that idea. They went back and forth for a while, and eventually she settled on filling in blank piece of paper with his name, age, vehicle number, and maybe a few other details, and gave him a warning that he’d better return immediately after dropping me, because if he didn’t, she’s have his car impounded. Done. And it only took 20 minutes.
Finally, I got home. When I walked in the house, I found the door to “Zipper’s house” open. And, not surprisingly, I did not find Zipper inside. Oh dear. Remember, we’re not really sure how well to trust her when we’re not watching.
As I was discovering the open door and putting my bag down, Zipper came and greeted me waggily. We went outside where she peed just a little bit (oooh, no good…), and pooped (well, that might be good…?), and then we went back inside to assess the damage.
Front of the house: Zipper finished her both of food that was nearly, but not quite, finished this morning. Seemed that nothing was chewed, and there didn’t seem to be any telltale puddles or piles. I then checked the kitchen, which also seemed to be okay. I could tell that Charmime, our housekeeper, had been here. Hmm, a clue?
Back of the house: Back of the house? Oh no. Although the front of the house is not completely puppy-proofed, there’s not too much that she can get into. The back of the house, though, is currently off-limits to our little four-legged one, and so has not been puppy-proofed. Hallway looks clear.
The room that was formerly our office remains fairly empty, as we’re not totally sure what we want to do with it, yet. In the mean time, Charmime has been doing the ironing there, and leaves the clothes in a pile on the floor. “Zipper’s blankets,” which proved to be really fun to destroy were in there, folded. However, when I got home, they were less folded, and one of “Zipper’s toys”—her favorite toy—was next to the blankets. Cute. Across the room, I spotted the toilet brush from the guest bath next to the clean towels, where Zipper had also been sitting. Gross. But the dog does like to sit on towels. I put the brush back in the guest bath. Otherwise, nothing seemed amiss.
On to our bedroom (again, normally all of these doors are closed, but Charmime had been here and so everything was open. Nothing grossly out of order in our bedroom. A few socks out of place, but not terrible chewed. Luckily, Zipper didn’t seem to find interesting my open suitcase that remains on the floor. Mostly it’s unpacked, but what remains are all of the various pills and lotions that I travel with that TSA seemed to have poured out of their bags on my last trip back. I need to reorganize it all, but I haven’t done it yet. So, that was, amazingly okay. I did find a chewed pack of Ventallin asthma pills that had been on the floor. I know that Jon had taken one of them, but I’m not sure he had taken two. Zipper may have gotten one. Not great, but probably not the end of the world for her.
Finally, I make into our bathroom. Yes, our bathroom got the worst of it. Zipper found a roll of toilet paper and shredded the outer layers. She did so, kindly, on a towel in front of the shower, though, so it wasn’t so terrible to clean up. She found a random pair of sunglasses, that I think must have been left here by a Couch Surfer or something, because they’re not familiar. The base to the toilet brush was in the middle of the floor, but the brush was nowhere to be found. There was some mystery liquid in a few places on the floor. I have to say, though, I couldn’t tell if it was pee or if was mop water, or if it was the liquid that pools at the base of the toilet brush (gross again!). I wiped it up, and still couldn’t really tell. The towel was also sort of damp. Maybe she peed, or maybe it was damp from my shower this morning. Also, a mystery that likely we won’t find an answer to. Stranger still was that there was an envelope on the towel that contains our lease to the house. Where did she find that?
And where was the toilet brush? Come to think of it, where had Zipper gotten off to while I was cleaning up the bathroom?
I left the bathroom on my way back into the bedroom. I passed through the little hallway that contains my closet, and I heard a little shuffling. I looked, and there was Zipper, inside the bottom cubby of my closet where I’ve been storing our “important documents that need to be kept, but don’t have a good home”—like the lease! I bent down, along with Zipper, I found the toilet brush! Zipper had been hanging out there during the day!
So, Zipper had a big day out. All and all, I think she did pretty well. Could have been a lot worse, that’s for sure. She’s now all tuckered out and has curled up on “Zipper’s towels” next to me to go to sleep.
How did she get out? Like the mystery water in the bathroom, it remains a mystery. Our best guess is that Charmime let her out. It’s possible, I suppose that we didn’t quite get the door closed all the way this morning, but that seems sort of unlikely. I suppose it’s also possible that she has magical opposable thumbs that she saves for just such occasions.
Written by Sarah in Life, Photos, Uganda ~
On Saturday, June 13, Jon and I adopted a 10-week-old Kampala mutt from the USPCA.
We’d been talking for a long time about getting a dog, but with the general craziness of the last several months, we just hadn’t been able to do so. But finally, we’ve done it.
Zipper’s first few nights with us were a little difficult, but we’ve figured each other out pretty well. She’s done a good job of getting house-trained, and she’s becoming a mighty explorer of the backyard.
She has quickly wiggled her way into our hearts, and we’re happy to have this addition to our little family.
Written by Sarah in Life, Uganda ~
May 21, 2009
It’s hard to believe that it’s been exactly a year since I had my first day in the Water For People office in Denver. It’s been a great year. The first two months were spent getting to know my Denver colleagues and learning about Water For People’s current Africa program, then in July, Jon and I made “the big leap” and moved to Uganda. Neither us had ever been here, though I’d spent a lot of time in Western Kenya, which has some similarities, so it was a big leap indeed. At least here, English is one of the official languages, and so most people speak at least a little.
Once we got here, we had the great fun of finding a house to live in and establishing it from scratch. One of the differences we found was that most of the houses and apartments for rent don’t even have appliances when you move in, and so we not only had to figure out how to bargain for couches, dining furniture, and our bed, but also how to assess and bargain for a used fridge and stove. We learned later that we probably paid too much for appliances that don’t really work (and have since had to replace our fridge, which we bought new the second time around), but we laugh about it and chalk it up to being a part of the great learning curve.
During that time, I was also beginning to establish the Water For People’s program in Uganda. That process started in Denver, where I began the process of registering our office in Uganda. Water For People operates as a local NGO in the countries where we work, and so it’s important for us to be recognized by those local governments. Registration establishes us in a country and sets us up to be able to hire staff, make purchases and sign a lease for an office, and more importantly begin to program in the country. I say that I began the process of registration in Denver because the process itself had several steps that couldn’t be completed until after arrival, and even then the process took several months to finally be completed. That said, we were finally successful at registration in September—a huge accomplishment.
While our registration was working its way though the system, I spent several months learning about the water and sanitation sector in Uganda. In so doing, I talked with lots of local NGOs and visited their work. During our visits, I learned about their individual groups, but I also learned about the sector. One of the most interesting things to me about the water and sanitation sector in Uganda is that access to safe water is slowly increasing, but access to improved sanitation has flat-lined in many districts, and in several areas, access is actually decreasing. There seem to be many challenges, but two that stood out are (1) many NGOs focus on water, but sanitation is something of an afterthought, and (2) management of household sanitation seems to be difficult—when a family finally gets a latrine, they don’t maintain it very well and so it collapses or becomes unusable, or even if they do maintain it, once it is full, they don’t build another one. For these reason, Water For People—Uganda is going to start by looking creatively at sanitation management and maintenance and will work to build a strong sanitation program before looking at water. That’s by no means to say that access to safe water doesn’t need to be addressed. I just would like Water For People—Uganda to become set an example in prioritizing sanitation, and in the mean time give some good thought to really understanding what the challenges are in water and how Water For People can help to address them.
Water For People—Uganda has found two local NGOs with which to begin developing a sanitation program. These NGOs helped to determine which districts to begin work. They also helped to lead Water For People’s initial work in each district, which was to take GPS coordinate readings and to fill in a baseline questionnaire for each water point in the chosen areas. The water points and a sample of households’ latrines and hygiene behaviors will be given scores that are color-coded, those colors will be marked on the map where the water points where found. The maps created will be used by Water For People, our partners, and other actors in the districts, including local government and other local NGOs to strategize where to work to be most effective. We’re expecting the results within the next month, which will be a great way to start our work.
In addition to starting the Uganda program, as Regional Manager for Africa, I also work with our ongoing program in Malawi and our new program in Rwanda. It has been great fun getting to know those two programs, and I’m excited because we’re beginning to share program ideas between the three countries. Last week when I was in Malawi, for the first time we had staff from all three countries together, and it was really fun to hear and participate in conversations between the three countries. There are some differences, for sure, but there are also a good number of similarities between countries, and there are enough that I think we’re going to be able to share learning and adapt programs fairly readily.
Water For People—Rwanda is in a similar place to Water For People—Uganda. The Rwanda program was registered in April 2008 and since then has been doing similar needs assessments and programmatic prioritization. One of the exciting things about Rwanda is that the private sector seems to be very strong there. The Rwandan government has been promoting Public-Private Partnerships in the water sector for some time in Rwanda. Those systems show some strength, but still have some challenges, again, primarily in management. One of the things that Water For People—Rwanda is going to explore is what happens if we move from Public-Private systems where a private company builds the water system but then the government manages it, to more of a standard utility model where the same company that builds the system also manages it and users pay a user fee to the utility. The neat thing about a management system like that is that it ties the community and the utility together, which will hopefully mean that when the water system needs to be upgraded, either because it is worn out and needs to be replaced, or because the community grows, the utility will already have a relationship with the community and will be able to offer that service.
An easy way to think about this type of program is like a US cell phone plan. For example, when you sign up for service with AT&T, you sign a contract with AT&T saying that you will stay with AT&T for two years. During that time, your contract says that you will pay your cell phone bill, and in return, AT&T will keep your phone working. If you fail to pay your bill, AT&T will be able to cut off your service to encourage you to keep up your end of the deal, and if AT&T stops providing good service, you’ll hold them responsible by not paying for service you haven’t gotten. At the end of two years, you’ll have the option to upgrade your phone. That upgrade might be free if you get basically a new version of the same phone, or you might pay a little extra if you get a more advanced model or decide that you want more service.
The utility model works the same way. The community and the utility will have a contract stipulating what the utility owes the community and what the community owes the utility in return. It will also stipulate what the consequences are if either party fails to make good on its part of the contract. After the contract period, or as needed, the utility will be able to work with the community to upgrade service as needed or as wanted by the community. It puts the community in charge of making decisions about what kind of service they want—which is a very good thing.
This program is still being developed in Rwanda, but we’re excited to get it going and adapting it as needed to work in the specifically Rwanda context. We will likely look at this model in Uganda, too, when we begin to water programming.
Water For People—Malawi is also doing some really interesting things right now, and in fact, we’re modeling all of our sanitation programs in the region on the work that Water For People—Malawi is doing. Water For People—Malawi recently declared that it was no longer going to support subsidized sanitation. Instead, Water For People—Malawi is working helping to establish sanitation businesses. One model of sanitation businesses that the program is supporting uses the strength of the fertilizer market in Malawi. Malawi has a large agriculture sector, and that sector uses a lot of fertilizer, which is a valuable commodity. Water For People is working with entrepreneurs to start businesses that sell “humanure” which can be abundantly available if more households use composting latrines. The entrepreneur sells composting, or “EcoSan,” latrines to households. Household use the latrines, which creates compost, and then the entrepreneur buys the compost from the household and resells it to a fertilizer company.
Like the Rwanda water model, this model ties the household to a private-sector company who maintains the toilet. Because households receive payment for compost, they are encouraged to keep using their latrine as intended. In this way, household sanitation will be sustained for longer than it might be otherwise. It also encourages the sanitation market, meaning that households won’t have to rely on subsidies for sanitation, which also means that sanitation coverage can expand beyond Water For People’s direct support—a very powerful prospect. Water For People—Uganda is going to focus on trying out and adapting that model for sanitation, and Water For People—Rwanda will begin to try out this type of work as well.
All of that is to say that it’s been a great year. Water For People is doing some really exciting work in Africa. It’s great being in Kampala where I can get to visit the Rwanda and Malawi programs more frequently than if I were in Denver, and it’s been a blast establishing the Uganda program. I’m excited to begin hiring staff in the next few months and really beginning to see that program take off.
Written by Sarah in Africa, Life, NGO, Uganda, water for people, work ~
BBC NEWS
Where clean water is a pipedream
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
If you want a graphic demonstration of the health impacts of poor drinking water, look no further than Zimbabwe.
Three thousand people dead, at least 60,000 ill - all from a disease that is almost completely preventable.
In general, with very few exceptions, people simply do not get cholera when the water supply works. It is almost unknown in the west for that single, simple reason.
As the World Health Organization (WHO) puts it: “Measures for the prevention of cholera have not changed much in recent decades, and mostly consist of providing clean water and proper sanitation.”
In Zimbabwe, political and economic circumstances have created a situation where the availability of clean water and proper sanitation is no longer routine.
People are now feeling the impacts of that lack of investment - investment that research shows is well worthwhile.
“Research shows that if you invest $1 in clean water and sanitation, the return is between $5 and $28,” says Yves Chartier of WHO’s water, sanitation, hygiene and health unit.
The cholera bacterium is far from being the only infectious microbe lurking in dirty water. Typhoid, cryptosporidium, giardia
the list continues.
“About 10% of the total global burden of disease is down to poor water, sanitation and hygiene,” says Dr Chartier.
It was this kind of statistic that led governments to sign up in the year 2000 to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - a set of targets on issues such as maternal health, education and poverty.
The water target is straightforward - to halve the proportion of the world’s population without access to clean water and proper sanitation by 2015.
In the years immediately following the signing of the MDGs, water and sanitation were seen as “poor cousins”, attracting less aid money and interest than some of the other issues.
But on water, at least, that has changed.
“The world as a whole is now on target to meet the water MDG, but a number of countries and regions are still off track,” says Andrew Hudson of the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) water governance programme.
“Most of the countries that have made impressive progress were poor countries, and that to me is a tremendous message because it shows it’s less about the money and much more about the political will.”
Protect and survive
Statistics are compiled on the basis of “reasonable” access to “improved” supplies of drinking water. This means that within a kilometre or so there should be a source such as a standpipe, a borehole, a protected well or spring - or, of course, it can come straight into your house.
The “protection” element is aimed at making sure that unwanted things including the cholera bacterium do not get into the water source - especially preventing people and animals from defecating in the vicinity.
That is sometimes easier said than done, especially in city slums, where the sheer lack of space often means latrines have to sit next to supply streams - or even, in extreme cases, that the outflow from the latrines becomes the supply stream.
UNDP data shows that in many countries, as the urban population increases, the proportion of that urban population with access to safe water declines; infrastructure investment does not keep up with a growing urban population.
And whereas investment in water has put the world on target for the water element of MDG 7, sanitation is a different matter.
“There’s still a stigma of talking about sanitation,” comments Dr Hudson.
“But countries such as India, that have mounted massive community-led campaigns on things like elimination of open defecation, have made really big strides.”
Underground movement
In eastern India, however, and in neighbouring Bangladesh, another way that poor water causes poor health has come into dramatic relief in recent years.
In the 1980s, tales of illness in Bangladeshi villages began circulating - an illness that was eventually traced to arsenic in the water they were drinking.
With surface water sources likely to harbour disease-causing microbes, aid agencies had initiated a programme of digging wells to provide safer drinking water - not realising that the water would bring with it enough arsenic to constitute a chronic poison.
The problem has now been detected in other countries, and according to one recent estimate, about 140 million people are at risk from drinking water containing the toxic metal, which causes cancers and lung disease.
Compared with water-borne microbes, water-borne pollution has received little attention, according to the Blacksmith Foundation, a charity whose aim is to clean up pollution hotspots in developing countries.
Cleaning up the India/Bangladesh arsenic problem is probably beyond anyone’s capacity right now - although agencies are looking at it - but industrial pollution is a different matter.
In the slums of many developing world cities, you find water of hues that water does not naturally assume - blues, yellows, purples and greens that speak of industrial outflows not very far upstream.
“So we’ve been running pilot projects in India trying to clean up hexavalent chromium, which is produced by the country’s huge tanning industry,” says Blacksmith’s executive director Meredith Block.
(Hexavalent chromium, the pollutant involved in the Erin Brockovich case in the US that was immortalised on celluloid by Julia Roberts, is a known carcinogen.)
“And by injecting a chemical (an “electron donor” into the groundwater we could turn it to the [non-toxic] trivalent form; analysis suggests it’s working, with no side-effects.”
One of these pilot projects, in Kanpur, was on a site that Ms Block says is typical of many developing world cities - an industrial estate, home to perhaps 50 or more small factories, working with or producing a mix of hazardous substances such as heavy metals and pesticides.
The health impact of water pollution globally is unknown.
A 2007 study from Cornell University estimated that 40% of deaths worldwide were associated with some kind of pollution - though how much of this is water-borne is another question.
But, says Ms Block, it is proving hard to interest agencies in polluted water.
“The environmental causes aren’t related to climate change or global warming,” she says. “And it seems that people in the US couldn’t care less if you can’t relate an issue to global warming.”
Diseases such as cholera, by contrast, do have a climate link. The cholera bacterium ( Vibrio cholerae ) appears to survive better in warmer waters, leading to fears that it could emerge in regions such as the southern coasts of the US as sea temperatures increase.
But for the mass of humanity, climate is likely to be a minor determinant of the water quality they get, and the disease burden that implies.
To quote the WHO on cholera: “Since 2005, the re-emergence of cholera has been noted in parallel with the ever-increasing size of vulnerable populations living in unsanitary conditions.
“The provision of safe water and sanitation
remains the critical factor in reducing the impact of cholera outbreaks” - as it does for many other diseases of water.
It sounds easy - but for the 100 or so countries off target with MDG 7, most spectacularly Zimbabwe, it is proving anything but.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7873516.stm
Published: 2009/02/08 16:05:10 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Written by Sarah in Africa, Articles, Clippings, Water ~
In 12 hours, Jon and I, along with two friends on the same flight, will be approaching the airport in Entebbe. We will heave out bags through security and get in the presumably long line (which I’ve learned to call a queue) to check in.
In 10 hours, Jon and I will be closing zippers and running through the list of things that has to happen before we go one more time–well, that will be me because I do love lists. Becca will probably be here, checking herself in for her house sitting gig, and Julia will likely be around, too.
In seven hours, I’ll acknowledge that there are just things that won’t get done before we leave, but that will be okay.
In five hours I’ll begin to think seriously about packing and wondering what has to get ironed before we leave and what can get thrown in the washer on Sunday and dried in a real drier.
In three hours I’ll become antsy that errands like paying the water bill, buying a broom and WaterGuard, and giving our askari his annual bonus won’t get done, and so I’ll take a break from work and do some of that stuff.
Looks like I better get down to business and get some stuff done!
Written by Sarah in Life, Travel ~
I can’t believe how fast time is going. Next week, Jon and I will have been in Kampala for four months. Days fly by, weeks become blurred, months are over before I recognize they’ve begun. I think it must all be a good thing, but it’s hard to keep up!
Written by Sarah in Life, Uncategorized ~
I am happy to share today that Water For People—Uganda has been officially registered with the Uganda NGO Board!
This registration is a major achievement. A team of people began the registration process in March of this year, only to find that the requirements they had been given were not the right ones for an international NGO. We began the process again in May from the Denver office. Because I would not leave for Uganda for another two months, the Executive Director of the Uganda Water and Sanitation NGO Network (UWASNET) agreed to allow their Program Liaison Officer, Alex Mbaguta, work with us on the registration process.
Over the next two months, Kathy Miller and I had regular correspondence with Alex. We gathered the documents that we could gather in Denver, and Alex gathered the pieces that we needed from various offices in Kampala. He helped to arrange a Post Office Box and talked to numerous people in the Ministry of Water to gain their support of our application. Alex also worked with a lawyer, Robert Lubega, to ensure that all of our documents were in order and to put the necessary official face with the registration; we couldn’t turn in the application without Robert’s presence saying that we are a qualified organization.
When finally I arrived to Uganda, Alex, Robert, and I pulled together all of the pieces that we’d collected. We took them to the NGO Board the last week of July, but were turned away saying that we did not have a letter of support from local government that was required, but not was listed on the requirements sheet.
Alex, Robert, and I had the necessary meetings (several letters were needed in order to get the one required by the NGO Board), and returned with a newly completed file on August 1.
The NGO Board was set to meet later in the week, but we were told that their program was already too full and so we’d have to wait until the September meeting. The September meeting was delayed by several weeks, but was finally held on September 26. Although Alex, Robert, and I each visited the office several times in October, it was not until late October that we finally learned that our application had been accepted.
Several visits later, I took our file number to the office on October 24, and Grace at the NGO Board said that our certificate was being signed and to try again the following Tuesday. I was in Malawi that Tuesday, and didn’t get back to the office until today, November 12.
When I was finally seen by the NGO Board staff member who held the certificates, he told me that I was lucky, because the signed certificates from September 26 had only just been delivered yesterday. Three signatures and a photocopy of my passport later, I left the office carrying our certificate of registration!
What does being registered mean? Well, it means that we can finally start to build more substantial relationships with government and potential partners. Before being “official” I found that many people raised their eyebrows at me when I was speaking with them, as though they didn’t believe that we were really going to be able to program in Uganda. I look forward to going back to some of those offices to begin conversations again.
Being registered also means that we can continue with a host of administrative tasks that are very important to our existence in Uganda. Among them are projects like filing for tax-exempt status, purchasing a truck, and opening a bank account. I can also begin to look for an office , hire staff, and enter into agreements with partners.
In essence, being registered means that we have a green light to move forward with all of the exciting work that we have planned for Water For People—Uganda. Hurray!
Written by Sarah in Life, NGO, News, Uganda, water for people, work ~
Last week I had the great opportunity to visit the Water For People—Malawi program. As Regional Manager for Africa, part of my job is to support the country program in its work. Up until this point, I have supported the Country Coordinator, Kate, and her staff from afar. Our schedules hadn’t lined up—when my time was open, she had conferences or was hosting visitors; when her time was open, I had meetings in Uganda or was in Rwanda. Finally, we were able to agree on a week that worked for both of us, and I was off.
I had never been to Malawi, and I really didn’t know what to expect.
The first thing I learned is that there is no straight shot from Entebbe, Uganda to Blantyre, Malawi, though both are international airports. There were essentially three flight option. The first was all on South African Airways. However, the flight from Entebbe to Johannesburg just missed the connection to Blantyre, and so would require an overnight in Johannesburg. The second was a flight to Johannesburg with transfer to Air Malawi, and the third was Kenya Airways to Nairobi, then to Lilongwe, Malawi, then Air Malawi to Blantyre. I can’t remember why I didn’t go with the Joburg-Blantyre option, but I ended up with the Kenya Airways flight.
The flight to Nairobi left at 5 am, which required that I arrive to the airport at 3 am, and leave the house at 2 am. Early morning and long layovers aside, the flights were smooth and uneventful, although there was an unexpected stop in Lusaka, Zambia for people to get on and off the plane. I should say that the stop was unexpected to me—nowhere in my itinerary did it mention another stop—but it was a scheduled stop. A mere 16 hours after leaving my door, I arrived in Blantyre.
The view from the doorstep of the Lilongwe airport where I had a really long layover on the way to Blantyre. I love the colors of the flame trees, the jacaranda trees, and the bougainvillea.
Needless to say, I was sort of a zombie when I arrived. But that changed when I saw Kate waving madly at me from the observation deck as I made my way from the plane to the airport. It was really wonderful to see her smiling face. I retrieved my bag, and found Kate just outside the baggage area. She gave me a big hug, and quickly escorted me to the car. It was a wonderful welcome, and it was much appreciated. Kate was doing well. One of her sons was just getting over the chicken pox, but otherwise her family was well.
Blantyre is the largest city in Malawi and is the business center of the country, though it’s not the capital. The city has a population of approximately 732,000, which is about double what it was 20 years ago. Although I’m sure that the rapid growth of the city makes the city feel very large to people who have been there for many years, coming from Kampala—with its more than 2 million people—I couldn’t help feeling like the city was small and very manageable by comparison. I actually spent very little time in Blantyre itself while I was in Malawi this time, and so I can’t speak too much about it, except to say that it felt very comfortable, and is a city I would like to spend more time in.
View from the hotel patio over a part of the city. This view doesn’t show it to be very densely populated, but it does show some of the steep–but beautiful–terrain.
One of the most interesting things about the city, I thought, is that a good chunk of the population lives in very densely populated neighborhoods. As we drove from the airport, Kate pointed out hills that were packed with small houses. She pointed out that the terrain was very steep and the spaces between houses were very small. We discussed the sanitation challenges that result from such terrain: Pit latrines eventually fill and need to be moved, but in when space is so limited, moving them is hard. Furthermore, desludging latrines in such conditions is difficult because you can’t get a desludger between the houses and up the hills. This area, Kate pointed out, is an area that Water For People hopes to work in soon. We’ve been thinking about ways to address some of these challenges, and it will be great if we can make it work.
Kate dropped me off at the hotel, but before she left, she introduced me to the World Water Corps team that had been working for the week prior on monitoring Water For People—Malawi’s work. The purpose of monitoring is to assess what is working and what is not working in our programs. Volunteers conduct interviews with beneficiaries, partners, and other stakeholders to determine how well the project has been sustained since it was completed.
The team was made up of six volunteers ranging in age from mid-20s to mid-60s or so, engineers, doctors, mapping specialists, and people generally interested in Water For People’s work. They had worked for the past week within Blantyre and in Chikwawa, Southern Malawi. The next, four members of the team would stay and continue to work on interviewing people who had received water and latrines as part of Water For People’s work in the south, and two of the volunteers, Kate, and me would head north to monitor the work that had been done there.
I ate dinner with the team, but by then my sleepless night the night before and the prospect of taking off at 7 am the following day put me to bed shortly thereafter.
The drive up north took about 11 hours when all was said and done. We passed through several different landscapes. Part of the drive was along the Mozambique border. Growing up in Tucson, with the Mexico border a 90-minute drive away, I was familiar with borders that are fenced and heavily locked down. I know lines at the border where passports are checked and cars inspected. The border between Malawi and Mozambique had none of that. The landscape to the left of the car looked identical to the landscape to the right, but to the left was Mozambique and to the right, Malawi. Kate told me that trade between the two countries in this area is easy. Sometimes it is done in Malawi Kwacha, other times (though less so these days because the Malawi government is cracking down) in Mozambique Meticas. People on the left side of the road learned Portuguese in school, but often they sent their children to the Malawi schools which were closer, and so their children learned English. It was fascinating.
An amazing outcropping of rock, which resembles the area where I was working Northern Mozambique
After another good night’s rest in a very hot guest house room, we awoke to monkeys eating mangoes from the tree outside along Lake Malawi. Lake Malawi makes up one third the area of Malawi itself. We visited half a dozen or so schools along the lake to assess how the sanitation program has been working there.
A view of Lake Malawi from the road. Sadly, I didn’t have my camera when I saw monkeys eating mangoes…but really, who’s surprised?
Schools have been building arbor loos, which are shallow pits covered by a relatively small cement slab (about 80 cm in diameter). The pits are shallow so that they can be filled quickly, then a tree is planted in the full pit. Students designed where the latrines should go, and as a result where their new tree grove would be. The most amazing thing about these school latrines, was that there was no smell. Even well-kept pit latrines often have an odor, but these latrines, despite some of them being quite full and nearly ready for tree-planting, didn’t have an odor at all. The reason? Kate explained that like with other composting latrines, after using the latrine, students were placing three handfuls of sand and one of ash to neutralize the contents. It was the ash that was keeping the smell down. It was very impressive.
A student demonstrates how he places three handfuls of sand and one of ash into the latrine after using it to make better compost, keep the flies away, and keep the smell down. It works!
That afternoon we drove up the plateau to Livingstonia, a mission that was created in the late 1800s. We spoke with a water committee that has been working to implement at gravity-fed, piped water system, that when complete, will serve 22,000 people. The water committee and the engineer showed us their plans and talked about where they were with the project. We talked a lot about management, and the importance of getting management systems in place before the water itself was available. A system that large will hold its own complexity and so it’s important for water users to understand what will be expected of them—what their regular monetary contribution will be, who will fix the system when it breaks, etc. The monitoring team interviewed members of the committee as well as members of the university that are now getting water from the new system.
The next morning, we set off at 6:30 on a hike to the source that was feeding this massive system. We hiked through people’s farms and into the forest. Much of our hike was covered in a canopy of fig trees and other vegetation, but every now and again the view would open up to a beautiful valley. After about an hour, we reached the source. The engineer explained that the water was flowing into a capture box that would regulate the pressure coming into the system. The capture at the source is nearly complete, only awaiting cranks to open and close the system. From there, they would continue to expand the system.
We passed this homestead on our hike to the spring source. This family is growing coffee. I brought home some Mzuzu coffee, and it’s delicious! Some of you may find it in your Christmas stockings if you’re very good.
We had another full day seeing schools and interviewing students, then it was back down south. On the way back, rather than driving along the Mozambique border, we drove along Lake Malawi, stopping along the way to buy rice, mangoes, and other goodies that are local to various parts of the country north of Blantyre.
One of the Water Corps volunteers interviews a student about the important times to wash his hands: Before and after eating, before preparing food, after changing a baby’s diaper, and after using the latrine. He got them all right!
Friday and Saturday I spent more time in the field. I visited a number of community homes that had begun their own composting latrines. We talked about what they liked and what they didn’t like about the toilets they chose to build, why they chose to build them, how much it cost, and what their plans were for when they were full.
This woman has constructed a beautiful arbor loo for her home. The designs were all painted in different muds. Sadly, the structure will have to be destroyed when the pit is full and she plants a tree. We’re working on ensuring that everyone understands the concept of the arbor loo. The wonderful thing here, is that the woman and her family appear to really like their latrine, which helps in usages.
Finally, Sunday morning came, and I was out the door of the hotel room at 5 am to catch my flight home. Another long and indirect flight pattern later, I was back home around 9 pm, where Jon had dinner waiting for me.
Written by Sarah in NGO, Travel, water for people, work ~
Sausage and White Bean Stew
This is a recipe that I got from my mom when I started collecting them after moving to either Atlanta or to Kansas City. I’ve adapted it to make in Kampala, and it’s one of my favorites right now. I don’t suppose we’ll have the dreary winter that really makes a hearty stew feel nice and nurturant, but it is certainly nice on a rainy afternoon or evening. It makes enough for both of us to have a good dinner with leftovers for at least one lunch for both of us, but often two.
Ingredients
3-4 links sausage (spiced sausage is nice, but frozen pork sausage works fine)
1 head of greens*
2 cans cannelloni beans**
2 cans diced tomatoes***
1 can water
1 t beef stock
Directions
Make a shallow slice down the size of the sausage and remove the casing. Break up sausage into small pieces and add to a non-stick pot. Heat until sausage is browned and pretty well cooked through (5-7 minutes). Add greens and wilt. Add beans, tomatoes, water, and stock. Bring stew to a boil and let simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
You’re done!
* My greens vary depending on what’s available. Broccoli is good (in which case chop into small pieces), but chard (called spinach at the store) works well, as do “kales.” If using greens, chop into small pieces, as well.
** Ironically, cannelloni beans are really hard to find in Tucson, somewhat easier in Atlanta, and I think non-existent in Kansas City. They are abundant in Kampala. If you can’t find them, any kind of white bean works fine, and I’d venture to say that you could substitute most beans and come out fine.
*** In Kampala I’ve found a brand of diced tomatoes that come pre-spiced (often I can find that, but not plain diced tomatoes). There are two varieties that I’ve found: Mexican and Indian. I’ve been using the Indian variety, which has been cooked with curry leaves and cumin. It comes out nicely and doesn’t require a lot of other spices.
Written by Sarah in Food, Life, recipes ~
I’ve spent a lot of time in Kisumu. For more than two years, Kenyans in Kisumu have been asking me about Barack Obama and if I think that he can be president. Early in his senate term Obama made a visit to Kisumu. Kenyans donned Obama for President t-shirts and bought them up in record time. Shortly thereafter, I made a visit to Kisumu, but by then, t-shirts were hard to come by, and even my colleagues couldn’t find any more.
Yesterday I got an email from one of my CARE Kenya colleagues in Kisumu congratulating me on the election. I also chatted briefly a few Atlantan friends living in Kisumu. Today they are enjoying a public holiday celebrating Obama’s win. But even before the public celebration, people had taken to the streets. Brooks sent the photo below (by Brooks Keene and Shadi Saboori, friends in Kisumu, Kenya).
By Brooks Keene and Shadi Saboori, friends from Atlanta living in Kisumu
You can see more of the celebration at Brooks’ blog: Keene Thoughts
I am also pasting below and article about the celebrations in Kisumu. It’s not only an exciting day for America, but also for Kenya.
KISUMU, Kenya | By Jeffrey Gettleman Call it redemption.
This town, in the epicenter of Kenya’s Obamaland — the same area where Barack Obama’s father was from and where some of his cousins, half-brothers and a very gregarious 80-something step-grandmother still live — exploded into cheers when the news broke that Mr. Obama had won the presidency.
Thousands of people sang, danced, blew whistles, honked horns, hugged, kissed and thumped on drums — all down the same streets where not so long ago huge flames of protest had raged.
“Who needs a passport?” people yelled. “We’re going to America!”
It was sweetness on many levels. A black man in the White House. A half-Kenyan at the helm of the most powerful country on the planet. And a fair election, which Kenyans have learned is nothing to take for granted.
People here stayed up all night, swatting mosquitoes as they watched the election results trickle in on TV sets with fuzzy pictures. The last time this many Kenyans were riveted by an election — their own, in December 2007 — riots erupted after the opposition candidate lost and Kenya’s incumbent president won. Widespread allegations of vote rigging sent tens of thousands of young men into the streets, to loot, burn and kill. Much of Kisumu, usually a relaxed town along the steamy, hippo-infested shores of Lake Victoria, was ravaged.
But on Wednesday, many of the same young men who had been doing the burning, the looting and worse, were all smiles, part of the happy wave of emotion that coursed through Kisumu. Passersby and mini-bus drivers and bicycle taxi men got swept into the streets, where Obama posters, Obama pins and even Obama wall clocks were selling faster than juicy papayas.
“This has restored my faith in democracy,” said Duncan Adel, a computer technician who had been part of the election protests last year.
About an hour away, down a bumpy dirt road, Mr. Obama’s extended Kenyan family held a 1,000-person bash in their ancestral village of Kogelo.
“We’re going to the White House!” they sang.
[Most people in Kisumu are Luo, the ethnic group of the top opposition leader and coincidentally the same ethnic group of Mr. Obama’s father. There is an old joke in Kisumu that a Luo will become president of the United States before becoming president of Kenya. It has indeed come true.]
By mid-morning, the Kenyan government declared Thursday a national holiday. It meant a day off. And surely more partying. View the article here.
Written by Sarah in Africa, Articles, Life, News, Photos ~
