Kamuli and Power

Well, we made it to Kamuli Town (in the Kamuli District, oddly enough), on Monday. So far, most of our time has been spent working on a biogas digester, but I'll write more about that later. Right now, I want to talk about power.

The main source of power in Uganda is a hydro electric dam on the Nile River (which I have now touched) near Lake Victoria (which I have also touched). This dam was constructed a while ago (1954). And provided plenty of power back in the day. Lately, however, an increase in the wealth of the country has lead to more people utilizing electricity. While this is progress, they have exceeded the dam's capacity. This situation isn't helped by a reduction in the output of the dam due to falling water levels in the lake. Because of this, power rationing (aka load shedding) is in effect throughout the country, so power just goes off every now and then (an especially large problem as the World Cup is currently under way. Nope, not kidding; there was special power saving advice in the paper for use while games are on).

To make up for this, many houses and businesses have purchased emergency generators, which probably make up the second largest source of power in Uganda (and provide un-interupted World Cup viewing if you go to the Country Club (not really a CC, it's just the name) in Kamuli). There are a number of other power projects underway, including a biomass plant to run off sugar cane waste, more dams, and a biogas plan to run off of Kampala's sewage (quite efficient, really. Gross, but efficient). Once these happen (especially the dams) Uganda should be in much better shape, but until then, power rationing will only get worse.

The distribution system in Uganda is less of the 'grid' that is typically referred to in America and more of a spanning tree. There's often only one line running from Jinja to a given location (this is probably partly due to the centralized location of their generation). When we arrived in Kamuli, there hadn't been power for 2 days due to a downed line, and it didn't come back until they had it fixed, another 2 days later. Makes Dominion/NSTAR/Power company of your choice seem speedy. Even more fun, is that it's very possible that this entire 60 km run isn't high voltage (Just the standard 240V, 50Hz that most of the world knows and loves).

Most people in urbanized areas have good access to the electricity, but in rural areas things get hairy. It appears that people are basically responsible for getting the lines to their house, and as it costs ~$150 per power pole, not to mention wire and labor, this is completely out of reach of pretty much everyone who doesn't live in a city or town (aka, farmers). On the other had, even if these people could get the power to their house, they may not be able to afford the appliances that use it or the electricity itself. Those who do have power are billed by the kilowatt-hour, just like everywhere else, but I don't know the rate.

Overall, Uganda's power situation is reasonable if you live somewhere near a line and don't rely on power for your business. For those who do, though, they lose about 90 business days a year to power outages. In the future (5ish years), the generation problem may be overcome, but full access may take a while.

I may (definitely?) have some of my facts wrong, so feel free to post corrective comments and I'll try to make this truthful.

General, mostly boring, Stuff

So, let's try this again.

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe on the campus of Makerere University, which is in Kampala. I'm also staying at MU in an apartment with Ryan and Natasha (ESW SEED people), while Steven and Ed (Iowa State University ESW people) stay in an apartment above us. Caroline, a Canadian in the same building and working with the Ugandan AIDS Commission (or something like that), hangs out with us a decent amount. There are also 3 Makerere University students that we're working with on our projects, being Steven, Thomas, and Tony. They're fun.

So far, most of our working time has been spent meeting with Makerere Faculty and our students to refine project goals and figure out what we're going to do in the field (the Kamuli District), starting on Monday.

Food so far has been pretty simple stuff for breakfast and lunch, and eating out in the dinner. I would definitely go for more complicated cookery, but our stove burners don't seem to be capable of boiling water, which is very sad.

In the future, I hope to write exciting topical posts about things like Getting Around, Food, Infrastructure, Labor, Security, and Shopping, but we'll see.

Have fun all!

Uganda!

Arg, internet keeps eating posts, so I'll keep it short for now.

I am alive and well in Kampala. The city is decent and busy, and my fellow students are fun.

I hope that everyone else is well.
-Simon

For Melissa

I wasn't going to update again until I got into Uganda, but Melissa (one of the other ESW SEED people, but not a Uganda person) is pushy.

Having successfully arrived in Ithaca on Tuesday morning, I've spent the last two days getting a much clearer picture of what we'll be doing and how we'll be surviving, as well as meeting some cool people. Ryan (who looks startlingly like Brian Bingham) and Natasha are the two that will be stuck with me in Uganda, but there are 5 other SEED people going to one of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Senegal.

As far as Uganda specifics go, a lot of things are up in the air, but we'll be spending the first and (probably) last weeks in Kampala (the capital) and in Kamuli for the remaining time. Specifically, we'll be staying in a rented house in Kamuli, along with 2 Iowa State University students for the first 2 weeks, who will be replaced by 2 more SEED people, and 4 recent graduates from Makerere (a university in Kampala).

While in Kamuli, the idea is to test designs that ISU and Makerere students have been working on and evaulate various project possibilities (water harvesting, UV water treatment, biogas, post-harvest food processing, trash collection, etc.) Things keep changing, but I feel that Olin has prepared me well for this situation. Thanks, Frank!

We drive to New York City tomorrow, but our flight (through Brussels) isn't until Saturday evening, so maybe there will be New York City fun tomorrow.