SPOUTS of Water

Being a recent college grad, many of my friends and family have asked what my next step will be. Generally, they are surprised to hear that I will be spending the next year in Uganda--a sensible suburbanite from Illinois would live in Chicago near family, friends, and reliable electricity.   

If you don't know already, Uganda is an English-speaking African country nestled between Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just north of Lake Victoria (my good friend Wik E. Pedia tells me this is the largest tropical lake in the world). 

When I say I'm going to Uganda, the next question is normally, "Doing what?". Well I'll tell you. I will be the Country Director for a ceramic water filter manufacturing organization called SPOUTS (Sustainable Point-of-Use Treatment and Storage) of Water. Basically, I'll be their feet on the ground. I would explain what the company does exactly but the video below does it much better than I ever could. 

I plan to fill this blog with an array of topics. I will write stories about my work with SPOUTS, including my struggles understanding Ugandan culture, successes and failures in the factory and on the whole, and new perspectives I have gained from the experience. Most importantly, however, I will keep a diligent a photographic record of my attempt at beard-growing and a list of puns that I really really wanted to say in conversation but didn't for fear that people would have no idea what I was talking about. 

Thanks for reading my first post! Hopefully, I can keep you entertained and you might even learn something about water quality in Uganda and what organizations like SPOUTS of Water are doing to improve the situation.