Wednesday, Jan. 9 Part 1

Wednesday, January 9 Part 1

Hello from Uganda!

Today we met the nitty-gritty of Uganda, face to face, but more on that in a little bit.

Our chemistry team has been hard at work collecting 3 liters at each of 6 sites along the Rwizi River, which runs through town and adjacent to the hospital site. Note: this involves carrying 20 lbs. of water for some 8 miles, and inventing their own sampling tools, including a liter jug taped to a 10-foot-long stick. So far they have 27 petri dishes in culture, and 100 tubes collected. They are culturing for bacteria , and for heavy metals (lead, mercury), organic pollutants such as pesticides, and performing general water quality tests for pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature and the presence of nutrients (phosphate, nitrogen and ammonia).

And they have had their share of, shall we say, encounters with the local residents. For example, their companion on one of their sampling trips was Isaac, an enterprising young man of undetermined age (my guess: 13) who approached them on Monday offering his services as a guide. On another venture, they found their preselected sampling site to also be the bathtub of a few local men. Raffaela and Ashley insisted that Dr. Bolender do the sampling at that place.

The business team has spent the last 2 days visiting local businesses and enterprising individuals. They’ve met a family-owned business, BM Industries Ltd., that began as a small lumber and carpentry business in 1980. Through civil unrest, economic upturns and downslides, the Kajumba family has continued to grow the business into new areas - steel, nail manufacturing, oxygen bottling and more. All the family’s children received education in England, and, according to Kyle, daughter Agripina is a very impressive person.

At the other end of the spectrum are the “Poor Clares,” a cloistered order of nuns we visited last year on Palm Sunday. Although they never leave their cloister, the Clares welcomed the business team warmly and served what have become some of the products they have developed. A special favorite are what we nicknamed the Holy Crunchies, which are lightly salted crispies made from leftover dough from which host wafers are made. Corrine reported that one of them tasted the crunchies, then another, then another, and pretty soon the whole group was scarfing them down and urging the sisters to market their product in the community, in several flavors.

Between these two extremes were visits to a winery, a flower-growing enterprise and numerous visits to local shopping areas and street markets. All of these businesses could grow, they found, but are hampered by one common problem - the lack of capital to expand. For example, the flower grower could easily double the size of her business if she could afford to buy piping to irrigate the empty plot next to hers. But credit and loans are not widely used in Uganda, team has found, and that’s a problem they will have to consider as they make their recommendations.

Chemistry takes a day off tomorrow after spending one day in the field and two in the lab, and the business team continues its journeys around commercial Mbarara. On Friday both groups will go to Comboni Hospital to meet up with the nurses and get their first look at health care in Uganda.