Notes from the Field 5 July 2014

5 July 2014

Today was our first full day in Uganda after arriving in Entebbe late last night following 22 hours of travel (Boston-Amsterdam-Kigali-Entebbe). Nai and I stayed at the Red Chilli Hideaway in the Butabika area of Kampala. We awoke this morning and enjoyed hot showers and delicious french press coffee, something we’ll be missing very soon. During breakfast we met a very interesting fellow, Victor from Florida, who told us about his adventures traveling the world and seeking out local, undiscovered crags to climb. In he’s visiting the gorilla reserve in the western part of the country. Robert, Betty and Sylvia arrived later in the morning to take us away and begin the real work. Nai and I parted ways here. Robert’s brother Fredrick took her to go meet her aunt and uncle. Betty, Robert , Sylvia and I traveled to the Kiwanga section of Kampala to meet Sanga Moses from Eco FuelAfrica, one of Uganda’s largest green charcoal producers making briquettes from carbonized organic waste from urban areas and sugarcane producers. Sanga, motivated by the struggles of his family and friends in his home village left a career in banking to start Eco Fuel. He has gained broad attention with his innovative approach at addressing major environmental, social and health problems surrounding household fuel gathering and use. Sanga seems to be open to working with other charcoal producers and our team at D-Lab at addressing technical and business challenges in providing alternative fuels to Ugandan consumers. Following our visit with Sanga, we left Betty to catch a bus toward Arusha where she will join others development innovators at IDDS. Robert, Sylvia and I continued to our first stop on the tour, Bugiri, a roadside town east of Kampala where a 18-wheelers barrel through town all day transporting goods from Mombasa to Kampala. Tomorrow I begin preparing the first implementation of an onsite quality testing protocol for charcoal briquette producers. Many people in Uganda live on just a few dollars per day, but that’s no reason to provide them with low-quality and potentially harmful products.  Though it’s only about 20:30 local time, my body is ready to clock out for the day. Signing off -D

(Having trouble uploading photos but will do so soon)

Update: Photos posted to Facebook album here.