Sunday's plan was to move with the rest of the field course to URDT, the Ugandan Rural Development and Training program, a few hours North-East of Fort Portal. Jack and I will spend two weeks there attempting to find and eliminate the cause of early CFL light-bulb failures at Mt. Gessi primary school, the hydro scheme installed last year. We decided to visit the scheme to talk to the headteacher and pick up the failed CFLs for analysis. James and Tom were interested in seeing the scheme, so four of us jumped on two bodas and headed West, with Jack giving his sunglasses to our driver to protect from the dust. The traditional boda race ensued with each pair making the appropriate gestures on passing. At one point, with James and Tom's boda 15 yards ahead, their bike made an as yet unexplained bang, and James' arm-flailing panic amused our driver very much.
The Mt.Gessi school (and hydro site) is around a 30 minute walk from the main road; the area in which we left the boda was very poor and strewn with rubbish. As we climbed the steep slopes on narrowing paths, the scenery dramatically improved, until we reached the school with a commanding view along the huge valley and towards mountains in the distance. Uganda had officially taken the Norwegian fjords' scenery crown. We were enthusiastically greeted by locals on the route, with several recognising Jack, who had been part of the team responsible for installing the scheme. On arrival, we were greeted enthusiastically by the headmaster. The kids weren't there as it was a Sunday. After a brief description of the bulbs' failure, we collected around 5 and headed back down Mt. Gessi. The boda ride back to fort portal was fairly uneventful. Wandering around the town centre, I bumped into a bloke in charge of a group of 20-odd schoolgirls from Cheltenham, travelling across Uganda, who seemed somewhat surprised to see two white men wandering around in Fort Portal; I don't think they were allowed off the bus very often, in an effort to avoid trouble.
After returning to the hostel and spending a good half hour clambering over a minibus attempting to secure everyone's luggage on the roof-rack, we set off North-East towards the grounds of URDT (Ugandan Rural Development and Training). They are an organisation intending to empower locals of the Kibali region through training in various disciplines, from food cultivation to artisanship to general life management. Also on the 60-acre site is the African Rural University (ARU) and a girl's primary school. We are now staying in a quadrangle of double rooms on the campus, along with a family of baboons who regularly try to steal our food, cows, goats, sheep, monkeys and a family of cheetahs that we are yet to find. I'm in a hurry, so more details will follow!
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