[Stoves] Gulu Week In Review from Ken Goyer, forwarded by Warren

[Warren Goyer]

 Gulu Week in Review May 27,2007

 

     I was going to try and write weekly, but if I'm any less lucky this
will become titled "Gulu Month in Review". I have now been in Gulu for two
weeks with hardly any power or water. Imagine my city, Eugene, Oregon, with
no secure or reliable source of energy. Water is pumped with electricity and
with no electricity, soon, there is no water. (You have finished drinking
the contents of your water heater and you are heading for the Amazon Canal
to fill some cans with water which you might not even be able to boil since
you rely on electricity for cooking)(You have to carry the full can back
home on your head!). People seem to adapt to this situation better than
businesses. Imagine running a restaurant with no running water. 

     We have adapted by buying six extra jerry cans and carrying them around
in our van. One day we paid to fill them at a private well here in town. You
have to wait your turn in line. One day we filled them from a bore hole
outside of town. An old man hobbled over on crutches and demanded that we
pay 100 shillings (about a nickel) per jerry can for filling them. He
claimed to be the well master. He said that he had a bank account in town
with 190,000 shillings ($100) saved to repair this well, but it has not
broken for two years. One day we filled our cans at Keith and Lisa's water
tap. Keith and Lisa are missionaries who have chosen to live and work in the
hinterlands of Gulu. Ronda, our volunteer, got to know them and they have
graciously allowed us to make our special stove bricks on their back forty.
They have put a water tap on the outside of their compound for the public to
use and now we are availing ourselves of it. Water is not only a problem in
town, it is a huge problem everywhere. Palenga Camp has a sophisticated
water system that will not work because there is no diesel fuel to run the
pumps. Pabo camp has several hundred people queued at every bore hole and
spigot waiting for water. I hope that soon we will be working on the water
problem too.

     In the meantime, our first kiln full of bricks are not wonderful but we
are working to correct the problems. The first stoves will probably go into
a nearby camp called Mon Roc. We have, more or less casually, taken twenty
babies to Lacor Hospital and 17 were admitted, mostly cases of malaria and
diarrhea. Five of the babies came from (our first volunteer) Hugh's old
stomping grounds at Palenga Camp.

     On my way to Gulu I went to Mundo Village (in Southern Uganda) where
the Tororo Rotary Club is completing the first Adopt-A-Village  project with
two bore holes, fish pond, mosquito nets for everyone, and SixBrick Rocket
stoves for each family. It is exciting for me to go to a place I have never
been and see my Rocket Stove babies being  liked and used. Rosette and Bam
went to Mundo and made these stoves. Now Bam is helping us here in Gulu and
Rosette is starting on some more stove projects in the South.

   "That's All Folks". Stay tuned for more exciting news from the
hinterlands of Gulu. 

Best regards, from Ken