Insert Africa 2010,5

Run to the hills!

2010-08-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

After almost two weeks of heavy work and new exiting experiences that brought plenty of joy and sometimes even sadness and feelings of powerlessness, we decided to leave Bubulo and finalize our work in Uganda with a grand hike on Mount Elgon. Mt Elgon is Ugandas largest mountain, 4400m, and holds one of the worlds biggest volcanic craters, 80km long and 50km wide.

The six of us started off from a small town called Budadiri in the morning, 1500 meters above sea level, and started our jouney to the top. Our minds were set on a "nice walk in the woods" to cool off from the hectic week and get a chance to experience Ugandian nature.Quite soon this changed. Our guide George brought his mandatory AK-47 and two carriers and led the way up through tight terrain and muddy slopes.

All of us feeling very fit and exited gave all it all and held a good tempo up until lunch. We managed to reach 2500m at that time and stopped to eat pasta and drink water. I had noticed that my pulse was beating on max bpm all the time and more and more frequently we needed to stop for small mini-pauses to catch our breath. The high altitude was becoming more and more noticeable to us and we felt weaker for every hour. Still, our carriers ran before us with many kgs of packing on their heads and did not show a sign of exhaustion.

After lunch we had another 6km climb to reach base camp on 3500m. Afterwards this part has been discussed among us as the most difficult part, partly because of the heavy lunch, but also due to the lack of oxygen and many hours of tough climbing.

As we went along the scenery changed and the vegetation varied from fields at the foot of the mountain to rainforest then turning over to bamboo forest and later very aruptly over to highland vegetation with swamps and odd looking cactus-like trees. Somewhere at 3000m, out of nowhere, a ranger showed up with a guestbook that we needed to sign. You dont go anywhere in Uganda without signing the guestbook!

We reached 3500m just before dusk and we were ridiculously happy over our achievment. 8h of walking and a elevation difference of 2000m! This is one Kebnekajse done in one day, at 1500m higher altitude. Not bad?!

Our carriers prepared out dinner over an open fire and with just 2 kettles they managed to serve us an excellent supé. We fell asleep 21.00 that day.

The next day we decided not to go for the summit (4400m) due to lack of time. This extra climb would take us another day and we needed to back in Budadiri today. Instead we took off and went for a 2h walk to reach a small but beautiful waterfall and then later climb all the way down to the foot of the mountain again.

Back home. Time to reflect.

2010-08-26T04:31:00.001-07:00

First I would like to take this oppurtunity to apologize for the missing blog entries. We have been working hard day and night to pull this project off and therefore this blog got put aside.

In this attempt I will try to summarize some of the important events that took place between

the last blog entry and today. With this I hope my fellow coworkers will help me and fill in with more pics.

I am right now sitting at home in Sweden in my apartment, gradually digesting the impressions from the long journey home. Eventually I will realize what really happened down in Uganda. Right now I feel empty but relieved over the fact that we came home safe and sound.

The trip back home started on Tuesday at 12.00 am. Now is is Thursday and I opened the door to my apartment at 12.00 am. This mean our trip took 48h, 12h more than planned. The reason for this was "simply" a delay in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that finally got us 12h off schedule. Im glad we did not stay the night in Addis.

The topic of this entry will mainly be about Bubwaya Waterworks, which Insert Africa has built up under a 3 year long period, were we now installed a sanitation system consisting of UV

disinfection and automatic chlorine injection. In parallel to our engineering commitment to the waterworks we also held educational worksshops to educate 60 youths living in the Manafwa region. The workshops aimed to explain why this waterwork was built, what it consists of and why. We also discussed the design and the strategic placement of sub components to the waterworks and also what can be done in the future. With this basic knowledge the youths now were ready to compete in our Venture cup inspired business creation

competition which aimed to engage youths in entrepreneurship and to support the sustainability of Bubwaya waterworks.

These workshops were above all my expectations. We got many tricky questions on a high level and we got all the reward we needed in terms of engaged students. Some of them had studied water purification before, probably more than we have don

e, and they showed great excitement when the UV-system was explained. This was something new!

The actual installation of the water disinfection system was as mentioned above done in paralell with the work shops and we had a really tight schedule to accomplish this in time. To our help we had two engaged local engineers, Francis and Sam, that showed us commitment never to be seen elsewhere. They have since the start taken care of the Waterworks and worked without pay just to contribute to their society. Bubwaya water works would never run today without them!

Me and Jens (red shirt) running a work shop together with Erman (camera man). A slow sandfilter in the background.

Erman, Francis (right) and David (left) building a support structure to mount the UV system on. Above is the old water pipe coming from the pump in the other room.

Lars-Anders is thinking hard while the rest of the team is mounting the Trojan UV max systems on to the newly built support structure.

Almost done. Water is running through the UV system. The chlorine pump is ticking on the new 500l tank. 8 solar panels were needed to maintain a good power supply to the system while it was cloudy.

The Golden tap! Just outside the waterworks house we mounted a tap for water testing. This tap now probably holds the cleanest running water in Manafwa.

Thank you all that made this possible!

For the good discount on the Trojan UV system we thank Water processing Sweden and Per Samuelsson.
For the good discount on the chlorine pump we thank Prominent and Peter Christensson
For the good discount on the connections we thank Peter Olsson on Ahlsell.
For great finance and moral support we thank Lars Gunnarsson. Your help was priceless!
For great support in this project we also thank Gilbert Svensson and Stephan Mangold on Chalmers Industriteknik CIT.

You all made this possible!

First day at work

2010-08-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

First work-shop day

May I have the opportunity to introduce my blog post from today, on behalf of TLC and Insert Africa I have the honor to say that we have had a fantastic day. Usually all formal speeches start like this if you change some of the nouns, and we hear about 5 a day.

To earn money for this project we have done various things to collect money. We have applied for scholarships, sold advertisements for Ny Teknik, had a Night for Uganda at Lounge(s) and also sold entrepreneurship lectures sponsored by companie.These seminars are called BITE – Bolla Idéer om Teknik och Entreprenörskap, and today we had our first remade English/Uganda adapted workshop. It was fantastic. The youth really engaged in business and after 15 minutes on a small business case they presented really good material. We discussed everything from ladders, to coffee to infertility (apparently some couples are infertile here too – they are called barrettes or something). Here are some Manafwa prices;
A goat = 40 000 shilling
0,2 l milk = 500 shilling
0,2 l yoghurt = 1000 shilling
One pack of coffee = 500 shilling
A cup of coffee for a tourist in our fictive café = 1500 shilling
A cup of coffee for a local in our fictive café = 500 shilling

After the workshop was done I asked a couple 13 year old girls what type of business they would like to do and they were really interested in farming. Some wanted to work in the cow business and refine milk into yoghurt, others in entertainment and more in coffee. If anyone was worried about Africa, I am not anymore. They will come and strike hard if they get the opportunity. The energy level here is high and the intensity and eagerness is impressive.

From one thing to another – as we mentioned before there are cows walking loose everywhere and they look like thinner versions of the Bregott cow – Anyone who can come up with a good slogan for our future Manafwa-gott?

Fanny

As it was said, we had the first work-shops today and could not have hoped for more happy and eager students. Even though we had some time delays with lunch and breakfast, we managed to do more than we had planned for the day.
The youth was divided into three groups and my work shop was about doing water tests for three different kinds of samples: from the river, the well and a water tap. Since the UV system is still not in place, we are not able to show the results of it. So we had quite similar samples. Apparently all tests came out perfect, so my work-shop end up as highlighting the importance of clean natural watershed, while keeping the difference to potable water. Everyone enjoyed the hands on testing and it was fun to see them getting excited even about vinyl gloves. They are so thirsty for knowledge that it is amazing.
Anyhow, enough with the descriptions, it is not possible to give the rewarding feeling through writing. At least I am not able to. But this day had a positive effect on everybody, as we could not stop laughing through the whole dinner!

Grete

Buzungu Picture Upload

2010-08-17T13:12:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures from today, yesterday and sunday!

Grete and girl in church

Us in our nice T-shirts outside the Bubwaya Water Works

Day started with serious meetings, here with LC5

The lunch of today, yesterday, the day before that and so on

Bududa evacuation camp, from an earthslide 5 months ago. 36 people live in this tent

Missed friend of Kristina

Giving a lecture in the Water Works

Wakeza (Lars-Anders) in the Waterworks

Mooving mountains

2010-08-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

Melembe all beloved readers!

First I would like to explain the reason why we havent updated our blog as much as we intended it is because we simply dont have time. It is 11 pm now and we are exhausted. We promise though that we eventually will upload more beautiful pictures and write more about what is going on down here.

Today we spend half the day meeting important politicians, the town council and even the president of Uganda's representant in Manafwa. They all support our work and gave us their blessing.

After having a traditional lunch in the Lighthouse consisting of chapati ( pancake/bread), local chicken, rice, vegetables, ground nuts (tastier than peanuts) and pineapple, we took our van to a destination we never will forget.

About five months ago there was a land slide in the village Bududa, 4km from Bubulo. The village consists of a small centrum and houses located at the foot of a mountain. Since we were in the near area we thought we could go over to the village and see how people were living now almost half a year after the disaster. We did know that over 300 people died but not much more.

When we arrived we were surrounded by people and they welcomed us warmly, as always here. The people staying there were survived victims but also evacuated people from all over the area. Due to the risk and fear of a new land slide all people living in this area had to move to this particular camp. The camp was big like a couple of soccer fields with tents close together and a small medical center. The original plan was to keep the people in this camp for three months after the disaster and then relocate them to a new area with better shelter and treatment. Now five months have past and they are still in this camp.
Since this camp was intended to be temporary almost all aid organisations withdrew after three months, they did not plan for more. This has lead to the villagers of this camp now are starting to starve. The only food supply they get is maize flour and beans and the amounts are stunningly low. Today, over 8500 people are living together. This is the same amount of people as the city of Åmål in Sweden. The usual set-up was 8 families or about 36 people in each 20 square meter tent.

This is like any other tragic news for you. It is on television every day on any channel. Today we got the chance to shortly visit this refugee camp and talk to the inhabitants, be invited to their homes and listen to their stories. One thing we realized when we came home to our hotel was how silent it was at the camp sight. Over 8000 people and a pure silence.

We brought medical supplies to Uganda to give to a medical center in Bubulo, however the pople of this camp needed it soo much more. After leaving this small contribution to the ever thankful volounteers working at the sight we also got a receipt. We could not give much and did not stay long however people of the camp told us what we did do. We did meet with them, we did show up, we listened to them and laughed together and that gives them hope. They feel that they at least are not forgotten nor alone.

We just hope something can be done here soon..

*Pictures coming soon* Dont miss!!!!

Bubulo

2010-08-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

To our dear readers,

There are two types of Muzungos here, us and the missionaires. There are similarities, we dress for church, sing and have binders and differences. However we don't care if there is a village somewhere out there that has never heard about Jesus Christ, and we purify water. Although we did not get out of church service today. First when arriving to Bubulo we were warmly greeted with hugs and special handshakes, by some of the people we have been communicating with for months. Since we were one hour late for church we had to quickly get the van over there. The local community church was quite big, and the reverend came and asked us for a song and some introduction. Prepared as we are, we had "rewritten" the words in Mercedes Benz and We are the world - to suit our intentions and give our thanks to the community. It was a success! And there is video of it, which is classified. (Major Missionaire Warning)

After some hanging out with the locals, jumping hop-scotch and getting a cow we headed of to the water works and after that to our scheduled football game. It was a tie, with the longest last minute ever. We did not manage to win even though the opposing team stayed on their side of the field when we were running for a score. (We blame the off-side rule) It was a tie, 2-2 :D

It was great to see both young and old (11-30?), boys and girls, laughing and enjoying our company as much as we enjoyed theirs. This is an experience that lasts.

Final words - Bubulo is truly beautiful, the roads are truly bad, speed bumps were made to increase speed NOT the opposite and there are people everywhere.

P.S Fanny and Grete will buy goats, and Fanny will probably not claim her cow due to fact that the goat business is more lucrative D.S

Cheers!

IA 2010,5 through Fanny and Grete or (Funny and Greet)

8 Mosungos doing Landvetter - Frankfurt - Addis Ababa - Entebbe - Kampala - Mbale in 48 Hours

2010-08-14T13:27:00.003-07:00

Houston, we have successfully landed in Uganda. After we have cleared out all problems with the airport in Sweden we flew down to Germany (Frankfurt), sadly without all our extra luggage with toys and children’s clothing =(. Nothing odd happened in Germany and our long journey continued with a 7-hour flight to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The flight really turned our day rhythm upside down and since Addis is situated about 2500m above sea level we all felt drowsy and needed a nap, overlooking our first impression of beautiful Africa.

Finally after some delays our last flight brought us to Entebbe airport in Kampala,Uganda . Usually they don’t check the passengers luggage but we were still a bit nervous if we would get trouble to bring in our technical equipment into Uganda. Anna-Klara told us that every once in a while they have a power shut down so no people scanning is done. However, at this time they had decided to scan every single passanger and bag. The line was incredible, we could not even se the end of it. It later turned out that they seemed to use their new fancy x-ray machine just for tha sake of it because all our bags beeped and a lamp went off saying “search bags!” but the security consisting of one single person just kept his feet up and did not care. Hooray, we are through!

Ronald, our personal driver, met up with us outside the airport and took us to our hostel were we stayed the night. Since it was already late and it is very dangerous to travel at night we continued our trip with Ronald in the morning. Since Anna-Klara, Kristina and Lars-Anders have been down here many times before they know how important it is to plan the trip in beforehand to avoid inconveniencies and travelling in the dark. Since our trip down to Uganda went so safe we needed some action to still our hunger for adventure so we took a “matatu”, taxi, down town in pitch black to eat dinner.

I think I speak for all of us when I say we were amazed. It is impossible to describe the traffic, the people, the smells, the tempo, everything. People everywhere! Ten cars getting into a round-about with holes big enough to swallow a sofa, sig-sagging between goats and piles of trash and people selling bananas and in to alleys too narrow to hold traffic in both direction. In the middle of all this mayhem there is a system, I don’t see it, but it works!

On the way home to the hostel, great food by the way, we got in to a new cab and the driver was very sure on the way. After a while we started questioned this. After additional 30min we told him to stop the car to call the hostel manager to ask for directions, since he refused to listen to Anna-Klara. The driver did not believe us and he stopped many people on the way to get new directions. It has to be noted that the culture is all about being service minded and never say you don’t know, if you don’t know make something up. This is what the driver did to us, and the tens of people along the road did to the driver. Anna-Klara and Kristina kept us under their wings at all time so we were very comfortable in the backseat, laughing to the fact that the rear window had been assessed with the function as an emergency exit.

At last, WE found the way back and now it begun, us paying for the extra long ride.. 7 trained business negotiators against one matatu-driver but we had to resign and pay a little more than agreed anyway. Defeated and thrilled by the event we paid up our 14 000 UGX, about 80 SEK, and went home.

In the morning we met up for breakfast. The night was incredible. We hadn’t got the chance to sleep properly since we left home so the bed did wonders to us. And two of us enjoyed this treat to as much extent as possible and arrived 1 hour later to the breakfast table than the rest of us. Anna-Klara and Kristina came to us like nothing have happened and wondered why we where so eagerd to get going. “aren’t we having breakfast first”? – We already had it. Okay, when did you get here?. 8!. It is 8 now? No, its 9, and our driver is coming in 5 minutes. Then is became clear to them that we were in a different time zone.

Roger came to picked us up and we were all glad to see him again. He is the nicest guy you can imagine and tells us stories along the way about the scenery and gives funny anecdotes from his life. He treated us no less than family and his presence and our merry company made a 4.5 hour ride through fields and forests on muddy roads nothing but a joyride.

Mosungo! Mosungo! As we drive slowly through small villages, children are pointing and laughing happily when we are passing by. Mosungo is a local name for white people. It’s not offensive at all as it sometimes can be when we describe the vice versa. Bosungo is the plural form. When writing this, sitting in the hotel lobby, we have enjoyed the swimming pool, a three course dinner and are ready to get up early and experience another day in Uganda.

Sleepy travelers on their way to Mbale

Sugar canes and a lonely tree surviving the deforestation

This rainy season's first rainfall!

A small detour in Jinja, this road was a bit bumpy

Crossing the river "Nile", not really allowed to take pictures of this piece of "critical infrastructure", however this is likely the first bridge crossing the river after Lake Victoria

Stopping for lunch and Lars-Anders inspects the grass trimmers of some workers

Great buffet with local food (+ irish potatoes and lasagne) ...

... And the view over the Nile was really striking

Burning of sugar cane fields

If you find a bigger road sign we will award you, no but seriously, the advertisements are like 40 meters high, this one standing right at the exit of the second biggest "rain forest" in Uganda.

Guy packing more stuff on a bike than we do in cars!

And finally, the dinner =)

8 Muzungos doing Landvetter - Frankfurt - Addis Ababa - Entebbe - Kampala - Mbale in 48 Hours

2010-08-14T13:27:00.002-07:00

Sleepy travelers on their way to Mbale

Sugar canes and a lonely tree surviving the deforestation

This rainy season's first rainfall!

A small detour in Jinja, this road was a bit bumpy

Crossing the river "Nile", not really allowed to take pictures of this piece of "critical infrastructure", however this is likely the first bridge crossing the river after Lake Victoria

Stopping for lunch and Lars-Anders inspects the grass trimmers of some workers

Great buffet with local food (+ irish potatoes and lasagne) ...

... And the view over the Nile was really striking

Burning of sugar cane fields

If you find a bigger road sign we will award you, no but seriously, the advertisements are like 40 meters high, this one standing right at the exit of the second biggest "rain forest" in Uganda.

Guy packing more stuff on a bike than we do in cars!

And finally, the dinner =)

Check it in - check it out?

2010-08-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

I am glad to inform you about our hmm.. almost successful check-in. We had a dear attendant, who had a confusing pill for lunch, that helped us. I now realize why the queue at baggage drop is so long. People who have UV-cleaners that look like bazookas and mosquito sprays that could go as biological weapons always check-in in groups of 7. However, 30 minutes later we crossed the magic line and are now chillaxing at the airport. We left a quite tired lady behind us and also a quite long line of angry and upset flyers. We now officially hate Lufthansa information desk and their ambigous baggage information, obviously we didn't get our 46 kilo/capita. This resulted in the following;
- Some Ugandian orphans will have to sleep without their teddy bears
- Some Ugandian nurses will have to use their old syringes and bandages
- Anna-Klara almost had to leave all her liquids behind.

This is it and timely "Somewhere over the Rainbow" is playing on the radio. Wish us luck! Frankfurt next stop.

2010-08-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

Ok here we go - leaving Chalmers in 20 minutes (and I am the only one here!! (Jens)). However all the packing is here so I doubt the others left without me. Oh, and by the way, here is a picture of us this morning after finishing the distribution of all equipment in our bags. Now fingers crossed Lufthansa really allows for 46kg packing/person, though we got their word that is how it works when going to Africa!

Mess

2010-08-11T05:39:00.001-07:00

The mess is insane here at the office/Encubator =) Or, it is a structured mess of all the packing except our personal packing so if something was moved in the mess we would probably not find it... Heres a picture of Erman from the water group in the middle of it. Stay tuned for more blogging

2010-08-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we will take off and start our 18h+ journey down to Uganda and Bubulo.

We will try to update every day and upload pictures from our work and experiences on the way!

Stay tuned for two intensive weeks!

Getting started

2009-11-18T14:57:00.000-08:00

This is the rise of Insert Africa's official blog!

Be patient until the blog starts living. It will be an exiting time for us and we would love to share it with you, whoever you are.

We will post all updates and exiting progress here as a complement to the homepage to keep you updated.

/Niklas

The Blog is born

2009-11-17T15:38:00.001-08:00

Welcome!