Field Day

Day 24 of Uganda. My notebook is filled with sheets of notes on hydroengineering, lists of pipe prices and other information.

Our exploits from Top of the World got around, so some of the UMU lot organized a trip there for sunrise. Kris and me figured why not, so we loaded the cameras with the goal of taking timelapses of the fog clearing and the sun rising over the Ugandan landscape. The drive there was beautiful, seeing the fields and forests around us appear in the morning gloom. Unfortunately, Top of the World was wreathed in fog, and after an hour there we were forced to give up and head back to Fort. Our timelapses showed absolutely nothing weyy! Morale was low in the camp.

Back at the hostel, it was straight back into the matatu with Team A, to head to our stream. Lets skip over the fact that the whole morning we worked on the wrong stream, due to Terry's stupid mistake. Anyway, we got some practice which was beneficial, before getting to work on our actual stream.

The stream in question, the Muweera, passes through a peaceful community largely made up of a 500-pupil school and a couple stores. Oh and a donkey. The crew this time is Johannes, Kris, Seetal, Shree, MLJ and Sadler. Basically most of Team Colin + Sadler, strong team. We headed up immediately into the mountains with Jonty and our machete-wielding guide. Sadler and me took some very inaccurate GPS readings on the way, while some of the others got to work on scouting and pouring salt in the river to measure flow rate. Upstream led us through unexplored terrain, which was pretty cool. If anything, the field days were the most interesting parts of the hydro project, as we got to scout out realistic locations to set up a hydroplant, and consider how it would work, either diverting water with a leet and a long channel, or requiring an actual miniature dam to fill an area of land. While the stream we're working with is weak, the community it would power is small. Kris, Seetal and me were in charge of working out the nature of the supply and demand, and match them together. As such, near the end of the day we went back to the village to interview the locals, with God's translation help.

Just as we finished, the first matatu dropped by to pick us up, except we couldn't all fit inside. Johannes, Seetal and me took the hit, staying behind with Jonty and a whole hoard of schoolchildren, keen on playing with us and seeing the photos I was taking with the 70-200. This is one of the many shots I took of the kids playing around. It was pretty cool, a lot of them were not camera shy, although this little girl definitely was! After more than an hour though, we were grateful for the matatu arriving to pick us up again.

Back at the hostel, straight up order food, take a shower and then set up some drinking games with the bros and the biker dudes Archie and Chris. Mushroom and Karma both went down really well, as did the Niles, before Team Colin moved out along with Kowse and Sadler. We hit Forrest hard to celebrate BlackAli getting his new job today! Sadler and me bought him a questionable bottle of champagne and celebrated by playing some hilarious games of pool. Outside the party continued, though the night ended with Shree, Kowse, Fiona and me at the epic sausage stand from Monday night. The guy sure could barter, but we had ours in the end!

Racing through the empty streets of Portal in the middle of the night, on a boda with Shree, we talked about how this had been the best night of all. Months later, I still agree. It wasn't from what we did, but from the general feeling of happiness and ease that permeated our group. We both agreed that this trip has marked us in such a way that all of us have probably become better friends than we ever could have back at uni alone. And no, it wasn't the alcohol talking, really.

Back to cold reality though, we got back to the hostel to find that Kowse and Fiona had had an accident on their boda ride, slipping in the mud patch we'd been aware of for so long on the drive back. We spent the end of the night patching up Fiona, who'd taken most of the hit. F*****g bodas.