This past week we were at Ssese Island, located on Lake Victoria. The purpose of our visit was to carry out a water development project. The past two years, Northwestern students had built pit latrines. We even saw one of them, which was built for a small, smelly fishing village with practically unfurnished little tin “houses” and many, many children (as always). Our project was to bring running water to an area with many elderly residents who would have to walk either to the lake where the water was unsanitary or to a disgusting 5 foot circumference “pond” that looked like a wet spot in the grass. Apparently it was nearly seven feet deep. People would just scoop this stagnant, parasitic water out from the top. Honestly, an entire animal could fall into that thing- there are plenty of goats running around- and no one would even know until they either became severely ill or the stench permeated the water. That was truly eye opening and just disgusting. There were so many very poor people there, and even the more populated village in Ssese was run down, overcrowded, and merely a conglomeration of tin shacks. I do not know how these people live as they do, and realize more and more every day how glad I am to be American.
The project itself lasted for three days. The first day we helped the community dig a half mile trench to connect an existing pipe to the one we would put in. The second and third day, we laid the plastic pipe in the trench, connected it to two new taps, and ran the water. For a while, we were unsure if the task would be completed in time, but fortunately in the end it worked. It was up to the community to then fill in the trenches with dirt.
The project underwent a few challenges on the way, challenges I am glad to have seen since development work is what I believe I will focus on in the future. Firstly, there was a woman who agreed to have us dig a trench through her potato garden on the first day, but then changed her mind on the next day and asked for a large sum of Ugandan money in order for us to proceed. Our group leaders theorized that the male household members most likely told the woman that she must ask for money, as we were interrupting their garden and property. After some calming down (she was holding a machete and threatening our group leaders with it) she ultimately realized the importance of the project and backed down. Another difficulty was community mobilization; a majority of the project was carried out by the community members so that they would “own” the water and take responsibility for it. Previously, a company had installed a water pipe there but then subsequently disconnected it because the community refused to pay. (They had provided the first six months free of charge.) Though one may think it wrong to ask the community for money, this is not unusual- everywhere in Uganda people pay utility charges as we do in the U.S.- and it allows the person who is in charge of the pump to use collected funds for maintenance. Sustainability is really difficult to achieve, and charging is a method of realizing this goal. Luckily, the community pulled together in the end and completed the project; hopefully next year, the new NU students will get to see that our project continues to work a year later.
I’m homesick but happy; one month left!
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