The Mzungus Have Arrived

After a connection in Dubai (not too shabby haha) my plane finally touched down in Uganda—also known as the Pearl of Africa. Winston Churchill gave Uganda its nickname way back when and it stuck. Boy, did it stick. They were hashtagging the heck out of it when I went through customs: #HavingFunInThePearlOfAfrica, #gorillasaresocool, and my personal favorite, #HippopotamusInWaterInThePearlOfAfrica. Apparently, whoever is in charge of tourism isn’t a master of the twittersphere yet.

At the airport in Entebbe, I met up with Annie McCarthy, another recent Notre Dame grad, and we headed for a rural eastern town called Kumi. It required just about every type of transportation possible to get us there in one piece: a taxi to Kampala, a long bus ride to Mbale, a matatu (a blue and white van) to get to Kumi, and a boda boda (a motorcycle taxi—the most popular way to get around) to get us to SPOUTS. Check out the map below if you wanna follow along!

 Kumi is a wonderful place and the SPOUTS of Water factory is located on the campus of Kumi University—a school started by Korean missionaries. There is still a strong Korean teaching presence at the university; however, the administrative operations are now run solely by Ugandans.

At the factory, my job is to optimize the filter production process: decrease the frequency of failed filters, increase the number of filters made, and introduce water quality testing in factory as opposed to sending the work to an independent lab. I’ve got my work cut out for me but I’m definitely optimistic. More on that later, for now just pretty pictures of the factory and some SPOUTS employees!

So as you may have guessed from the title of the blog, “mzungu” is what they call white people here and it is basically the Ugandan equivalent to a “gringo” only in a slightly more endearing sense. One of the highlights of my day is passing children at school when they run up to the fence and yell/sing, “Mzungu! Mzungu! Mzungu!”. They get a real kick out of seeing a white guy around so I’m glad that I can serve as some entertainment haha. 

That’s about all the content I have so far. Now, to fulfill the promise from my first post…

The Peach Fuzz Buzz:

Here I am on day 12 of the no-shave party (I gotta five day head start before I left, I think)

Puns for days:

Honestly, I haven’t been super punny this first week but I hope to improve in the future. Anywho, the neighbors have this mangy little kitten whose name is Noon (it’s Korean for snow, I think) and the other day she was clawing at one of us, so I said, “Hey Noon! Are you kitten me?” (bah bum chhh!)

Oh and here she is. Aww…

Thanks for reading!!!

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.