Bukaigo: Village life (pictures galore!)

Hello from Bukaigo (pronounced Boo-kah-ee-goh)!

The drastic change from superfluous American life has become more apparent every day.  Hardwood floors and lush carpeting are replaced with slanted, hard concrete and woven plastic mats that serve as both floor and furniture.  At night, playing cards replaces television as we all sit in a circle under the light of one light bulb or two kerosene lamps when rolling black outs take away the electricity.  No longer is water obtained with the twist of one’s wrist and the turning of a nozzle but instead requires a bike ride and extensive pumping at a well to fill multiple 5 gallon jugs that serve for drinking, showering, cooking, and laundry.  The hot steam from showers is now a view of banana groves, cornfields, wandering families of chickens, and a 12 oz. cup used as a shower nozzle.  However, the lush green expanse of Uganda and its friendly and welcoming people are an all-encompassing experience of village life.

Meet Monitoring & Evaluation Team 1:

Ai

Franc

Dean

Amy

Meet our neighbors:

Ruth, our cook

Some of our new neighborhood kids

People at the borehole

Our intern supervisor, Laurel

Our home for the next two months:

Our two-bedroom house

Our kitchen

Our washroom

Our pit latrine

What do we do?

Play frisbee

Do laundry

Fetch Water

Play cards

Play a lot of cards (even when the lights go out)

Some of the animals we get to see:

Goats on our doorstep

Toads (called torts) that come out at night. One came into our house after a heavy rain. After Ai found him chilling in a corner, Amy kindly removed him from the house.

A chameleon in our front yard. He had a strange walk as you can see from the photo. Maybe he was playing dead?

A newborn calf. His umbilical cord was still attached

Baby chicks

Things we did during Week 1:

Had a meeting with members of the village health team

Toured our village

Get serenaded by some locals when we did our community mapping

Mobilized for our community meeting

Get rained out while mapping the village and had to seek shelter at a villager’s home

Built latrine covers

Until next time!

WASH team: helping to solve water challenges

We, the UVP WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) team, are a diverse group with a wide range of backgrounds:

Jacqueline, from Uganda and of Busoga roots, is a team leader and has recently finished her final exams for a BS in Environmental Health Science from Makerere University.  Padraic, from Minnesota, is also a team leader.  He is a working professional with his MS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Wisconsin.  Craig, from Kentucky, is currently an undergraduate student studying Environmental Health Sciences from Baylor University.  Daphne, from Kampala, Uganda, is an undergraduate student studying Public Health from International Health Sciences University.  Jenessa is a graduate student pursuing her MA in Anthropology from the University of Memphis.  And, Joshua, from the D.C. area, is a graduate student pursuing his MA in Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech.

As a team, we'll be working in three villages in Iganga District: Namunkesu, Nawansega, and Kinu.  Within these villages, our goal is to work with community members and leaders to address issues related to clean water accessibility and proper hygiene and sanitation.  Our relationship with the community will be one of collaboration, cooperation, and facilitation, rather than one of authority.  By the time we leave, we hope to empower these communities with valuable education, civic systems, and important networks so that in the future they will be able to solve water challenges on their own.

To help us achieve these goals, we will be working with a variety of partners.  Such partners include Patrick and Titus, UVP staff members, who specialize in water and sanitation work, such as the construction of shallow wells.  We will also work with each of the three villages' Water and Sanitation Committees (WSCs).  Each committee is in charge of maintaining an individual water source within the community, be it a borehole, shallow well, or protected spring.  Additionally, we will work with each village's Village Health Team (VHT) members.  These community representatives are trained to be the first point of contact for community members for health-related issues.  Furthermore, we will communicate frequently with the  District Water Office, the government office in charge of providing the materials for the construction and maintenance of all water projects.  Lastly, and most importantly, we will work with individual members of the community.

Our first week of work was very busy. We were led on a full tour of Namunkesu by the VHTs. we attended a meeting with the District Water Office.  We organized a meeting with Namunkesu's WSC members and VHTs.  And, we held a community-wide introductory meeting for us to formally meet community members.

The WASH team introducing themselves to the village of Namunkesu

Judging from the first week we've been here, it is clear we will be able to achieve some very specific goals.

One of the primary concerns of community members, WSC members, and VHTs in Namunkesu is a borehole which stopped working on Tuesday of last week.  Our goal is to connect community members with the District Water Office to facilitate a timely repair.  As a result of this broken borehole, other water sources are experiencing increased strain (both mechanically and characterized by longer lines).  Getting this fixed (and paid for by the community) would be a great accomplishment for our group and the community at large.

An inoperable borehole. We're working with the community to raise funds for its repair.

We would also like to help facilitate the construction of a new shallow well in the Budome neighborhood of Namunkesu.  Currently, some community members fetch their water from the swamp because the nearest clean water source is too far away to easily access by walking.  We have been speaking to community members, WSC members, and VHTs both in meetings and house-to-house visits about the application process for a new shallow well through UVP.  We will also begin a needs assessment for a new well as soon as that application is signed.

One of Namunseku's water sources, a protected stream

Within each of the three villages, we also intend to hold community-wide "sensitizations," or education sessions, on topics related to water, sanitation, and hygiene.  Specifically, we'll organize events in which the entire community is invited to attend, and we'll speak in detail about the "Safe Water Chain" (the proper collection, transport, treatment, and storage of water), the importance of personal hygiene to prevent the transmission of disease, and the great benefits associated with using latrines for sanitation.

Jackie is speaking (and Padraic standing) at our community's meeting of
Water & Sanitation Committees and Village Health Team members

By the end of the six weeks we will also organize a meeting for all of the WSCs from all three villages.  In this multi-village meeting, the various WSCs will be able to share their separate experiences, challenges, and successes, and hopefully work more closely together in the future to address water challenges.

Overall, we are very optimistic about the positive impacts that we can help create in the coming six weeks.  If this first week is of any indication of how busy we will be in the regard, then we will certainly have our hands full, but we are ready for the challenge!

Kasambika 1: First impressions

The Kasambika 1 team is hard at work getting to know their village and adjusting to life in rural Uganda. Their first post, with reflections from each team member, can be found here.

Kasambika 2: Jambo!

Learning how to live in Kasambika 2 has certainly been an adventure! Our 3 bedroom house has become a home for us. Pictures of friends and family decorate our colorful walls, fresh fruits and vegetables line the edges of our cooking area and the newly constructed tippy tap, trash pit and plate stand proudly represent our desire for greater health and sanitation measures as UVP staff/interns. Each day we are greeted by a group of kids who love playing with our cameras and often sit out on our porch awaiting us to come out and spend time with them. Even when we attempt early morning runs, we are always greeted by their enthusiastic “Jambos!” and their affectionate shouting of the term ‘muzungu, muzungu’ as a way to get our attention.

Besides kids, we are also visited  by a slew of animals. Village life can certainly have its challenges, when there are bats and rats in the latrines, frogs jumping around the house, and small snakes can be found meandering around. Thankfully, James, Andrew and Chelsea are fearless when it comes to exterminating the rat in the latrine, plucking frogs found near our beds, and killing the poisonous snake we originally thought was a shoe lace. We are also accustomed to wearing headlamps when the sun sets around 7pm, eating dinner by lantern light, and attempting to avoid latrine use until the morning! Despite no running water or electricity as we’re used to, we’re learning to be flexible in how we live (i.e., bucket bathing during the day rather than shower at night).

KASAMBIKA 2 VILLAGE HEALTH TEAMS by Emily and Chelsea

When we arrived in the village on Friday we were greeted by several Kasambika 2 VHTs. VHT stands for Village Health Team, a group of six community members selected by the village and trained by UVP according to a government curriculum. They serve as the first point of contact for health needs in the village, distribute some medications, and promote healthy living on the household level.

The UVP Kasambika 2 team with the Kasambika 2 VHT after a planning meeting

The VHT’s commitment to a healthy community is already evident in what we’ve accomplished together during our first week in the village.  After an initial planning session our teams coordinated a community meeting where we introduced ourselves and discussed our plans for the summer. Later in the week we conducted a SWOT analysis – an assessment of the Strengths of, Weaknesses of, Opportunities for, and Threats to the health of the community. All members of the VHT are committed to their mission and we are excited about working with them this summer to achieve the shared goal of a healthy Kasambika 2.

FUTURE STARS by James and Jiana

 “Jambo”.

“Wasuze otya nyabo/Sebo”.........Bulungi nyabo/sebo”........”Kaale”...... omg this is about the only Lusoga we know perfectly. That's when you just smile and nod. This is our typical greeting that we expect throughout the internship. Our greetings and daily visitors have not only been amazing but allowed our team to feel welcome and part of the community. They have showered us with signs of appreciation such as kids climbing to reach the furthest of branches to retrieve the best quality mangos from nearby trees and the chairperson of the church purchasing an egg for us during an auction at the Kasambika 2 catholic church where we hold community meetings.

Speaking of community meetings, in preparation .....”Andrew, get out of the bathroom!!!, we don't want to be late,” yells Chelsea. Once the last person of the team is finally ready after running around in a towel, we finally hit the road. After the community villagers trickled in, we began our introductory meeting, kicked off in style with a series of leaders introductions before we discussed our UVP purpose here in Kasambika 2. It was amazing how much enthusiasm was bestowed upon the community members’ hearts to learn more about how to address the public health issues that are affecting their community. Their passion is fueling our team’s energy, vigor and commitment towards empowering the community villagers in improving their quality of life.

Buwoira: Settling into Village Life

UVP's one and only Launch Team for the summer 2014 has finally settled into their new home in Buwoira! Let’s take a tour of what the Buwoira team has been up to for the past week.

After finishing the five day orientation with all the other interns, the Buwoira team hit Iganga’s market to buy food for the week (although we ran out of food by Tuesday-oops!) Keneth and Said’s impressive bargaining skills allowed the team to have tasty pineapples, mangoes, bananas, eggplants, tomatoes, avocados, sweet potatoes, beans, and much, much more (it seems we are all going vegetarian-nothing like trying something new in a new country). The first picture is of Kenny  (our national team leader-and the best one out there) buying dodo (greens). The second picture is of Kimberly holding the dried fish we had for dinner Monday night for the first time (and the last time at that).

After successfully maneuvering the market, the team arrived at their new home for the next seven weeks. It’s a cute fix-up (complete with no running water or electricity—will we manage?) The first picture is of our front porch. This house has four bedrooms, a washroom, with a kitchen and bathroom located outside (bathroom meaning pit in the ground). The first day home we swept, unpacked, put up drapes, and spent our first dinner together under lantern light. We met Betty (second picture), our cook for the summer. She makes an amazing eggplant carrot and tomato stew! We met her two beautiful children Lillian and little Nicholas—but Nicholas is afraid of us (are we that scary?)

The first couple of days home we started building our trash pit (and thus finished a how-to video on how to build a trash pit—with a rap video starring our national interns, Said and Kenny, aka DJ Peacemaker). Building our trash pit took a couple days due to heavy rains—but we did it with a fence and all. This week, Said also built a fruit stand all by himself (remarkable!) and Kenny and Leticia built a tippy-tap (hand-washing station). The first picture is of the team with the finished trash-pit (photo credit—Laurel). The second picture is of Leticia and Manon entertaining the local schoolchildren who had huddled under our porch on the first rainy day. During these days, we also completed some fun (unusual?) house chores (have you ever smoked a latrine? The Buwoira team has!). Kimberly took a photo of the first time we smoked the latrine (with Said). The smoke, if you didn’t know, helps with the smell (thank goodness!), but the flies stay everywhere. The last picture is of the Buwoira team’s (well just Michael and Manon’s) first Boda-Boda (motorcycle taxi) ride into Iganga town—we missed the internet…too soon?

Now onto more serious topics. For the first official week into the community, the Buwoira team had introductory meetings with the village health teams (top row from left-Daniel, Timothy; bottom row-Miriam, Ronald, Sarah), members of the health centers II and IV, and did community mapping of Buwoira’s five zones-productive much? In addition, the team met with the local chairman of Buwoira (Peter Twekome). He was energized and excited about our arrival, and went out of his way to give us a warm welcome to the village. 

With all these meetings, the Buwoira team was exposed to the challenges the village faces – like lack of latrines, lack of education of disease prevention and the distance to health care centers. Yet with these barriers, the community still posses amazing assets and strengths –like a high morale and positive energy, especially towards UVP! What more could the interns want? Finally, on Friday, the Buwoira team had their first community meeting in which they introduced UVP’s project timeline to the community.

Our first week has come to an end. Here is a picture of the sunset the Buwoira team sees each and every day. For now, the Buwoira team will have a break and visit the source of the Nile in Jinja and come back reenergized for week two of the internship, which will include baseline surveys on latrines and mosquito nets, and a family planning sensitization on Thursday. Although at times the Buwoira team has felt homesick, they have become a family. And for those across the world missing your loved ones here, find solace in the fact that we see the same sun and we see the same moon. We’ll check in soon!

Buwerempe - Neighborly Acts

Burewempe 2014 - Monitoring & Evaluation Team

It’s been a week since we arrived in Burewempe – and as you can imagine, we’ve experienced a variety of rewards and challenges as we try to immerse ourselves in village life. The UVP experience is like nothing any of us have experienced before, as not only do we have to adjust to life in Uganda – a feat on its own, but we also have to adjust to living with virtual strangers – hence the challenges. Challenges have emerged as we slowly but surely get to know each other’s quirks and habits while trying to wholeheartedly embrace all the things that make us so different – yet interesting.

We have found however, that the rewards far outweigh the challenges, and we are embracing the things that make village life so quaint – such as going to the borehole to fetch water, playing with the endearing children that always seem to surround our house, and even battling it out for the food with the rats that inhabit our pantry! The thing that we have noticed in the village is that every one – young and old – will always greet us no matter what. Their welcoming and friendly greetings standing in direct contrast with what most of us are accustomed to in our home countries, where most people are reluctant to open their homes and their hearts to complete strangers. But this is what makes living in Buwerempe such an incredible experience – the human factor. Our neighbor John for instance, is extremely observant and after introducing himself and reminding us that his home is always open to us, he noticed that we ‘were suffering for furniture’ (his words), and lo-and-behold, we opened our front door a little while later to see a stack of furniture – from chairs, to tables – which he insisted we use for the rest of the summer.

As a Monitoring and Evaluation team, this summer we will be focusing our efforts on ensuring that the foundation which was laid by previous UVP interns continues to be built upon. We will be collecting data on the state of sanitation and malaria net usage in Buwerempe and using these findings to inform the various sensitization efforts we have planned for this summer. These activities will be undertaken with the help of our wonderful VHTs – who have embraced our presence in the village, as was demonstrated by the naming ceremony they held for us, in which each team member was given a Lusoga name! We know this will continue to be a life-changing experience and are excited about the prospect of making a difference in Buwerempe – no matter how small it may be!

On that note, weraba from Mutesi Ela, Nangobi Stephanie, Wanyana Jasmine, Mukyala Lucy, Kabaale James, and Gabula Jairus, the 2014 Burewempe team!