January 2012
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November 2011
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Unique High School
During our stay in Rubirizi, we also got to play in a students vs. teachers football game with Unique High School. We played terribly of course (perhaps with the exception of Daniel) but the students were kind enough to let us get away with a 3-3 tie.
Afterwards, the students danced and sang for us, and it was simply incredible. We really enjoyed getting to know them, and were amazed by...
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Catching up
After a long silence, we are back online. After the islands, we traveled to Western Uganda and spent some days in Rubirizi. Sadly, our Orange internet stick was not really working there (even phone connections were a mess) so we have been offline for quite some time now.
We are now in Mbarara, making a stop on our way back to Kampala. But first, a quick summary of our last days on the islands:
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Boat trip
Last Friday we rented a boat to go out onto Lake Victoria in search of water hyacinth. In the villages and areas we were able to access by road, water hyacinth is more of a seasonal problem being carried in by the wind. So we had to go out into more inaccessible areas and lagoons where water hyacinth is truly a plague.
Andrew and Kajuna get our pea-green boat ready.
Happy faces on the boat!
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October 2011
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Nakatiba workshop
Last Thursday we headed back to Nakatiba for a workshop with some of the men of the village. Unfortunately, there was some pretty heavy rain for most of the day, which made our lives a little more difficult.
Even more so as life tends to grind to a halt during rainfall here, particularly in such small villages.
Nevertheless, we managed to get a short interview with the Luvules. They are the...
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Women of Lutoboka
On Wednesday, we went into Lutoboka to talk to the women there and hopefully invite them to a workshop later on in the day. We decided to tackle men and women separately based on our observations until now, and felt that this would allow them to speak more freely.
We started by stopping at the Nazareth Primary School, the only one in the village, where we were received with great enthusiasm (and...
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Mwena
After Nakatiba, we travelled to Mwena, another fishing village on the island. It was quite similar to Nakatiba, apart from a few unique features.
Mwena is especially important for us as it is home to the only fish processing facility on the island. This would be where you expect to see fish waste in bulk, as it is the place where fish would be collected, cleaned and transported for sale.
The...
Trip to Nakatiba
On Monday, we took a long and bumpy ride out to Nakatiba village.
We had a special favour from the Deputy District Commissioner, Dominic Tibasiimwa (Thank you!) who lent us his car and driver for the day, complete with guard + AK47.
Nakatiba is a remote fishing village, which makes the conditions quite different to Lutoboka where we are staying. Men rent fishing boats to go out into the...
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Kalangala
Sundays are quite easy going here in Uganda. Many people go to church in the morning and spend the rest of the day having lunch or just being with family. So we took this time to hike up to Kalangala town, the capital of Kalangala District (and thus the ‘capital’ of the Ssese Islands) This is the most developed town on the island by far, with 2 petrol stations, a few restaurants and...
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Solar Now
Yesterday we paid a visit to Solar Now, where we got the opportunity to talk with Ronald Schuurhuizen about his business and his experiences with renewable energy in Africa.
Solar Now is working to provide homes and businesses with modular solar power systems with credit options, greatly improving access to this technology.
We joined them for a great Ugandan lunch, and even got to hitch a ride...
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Learning...
Yes, this whole thing is one big learning experience, and in the few days we have been here, we have picked up a lot.
We are learning to…
cross the street, Kampala-style
find our way through the city
be less terrified by the giant marabou storks just hanging around
appreciate the local brews
navigate through the insane traffic on a boda boda (probably our favourite part so far)
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news from Kampala
We’ve come to the end of our second full day in Kampala, and already we are overwhelmed with the wealth of culture, information and total chaos here.
Today was filled with firsts: our first authentic home-cooked Ugandan meal and our first boda boda ride.
Our Ugandan-style Sunday was great, with delicious food, and we have our wonderful hosts, the Okamas to thank for it.
Some more...
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More about our upcoming trip
We’ll be leaving to Uganda early Friday morning, so excitement-slash-panic is definitely building up. Our intention is to spend around one week in Kampala upon arrival and then take the ferry to Lutoboka, where our field research will be carried out. We’ll be gone for about 4 weeks, and then come back to The Netherlands to continue to develop our project based on our findings.
The...
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Watchblackacrylic:
Uganda: History, Development and Aid
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He who really loves you, loves you with your dirt....
September 2011
4 posts
Introducing matter
So jokes and excitement aside, perhaps a short introduction is in order.
We are 4 master students from the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft, and will be documenting the progress of our BoP project on this blog. We are working together with Fact Foundation to develop a biogas-based battery charging station for Uganda.
Here’s more information about us and about the...
Buying our plane tickets...
…means finding out everyone’s middle names.
