Week 5 was June 17-June 23, which includes the Saturday and Sunday of the homestay.
In week 5, following some initial research and information sessions, we made our first trip to the community in which we will be working. While as the solar team our goal is to work on a solar project, we wanted to identify some specific needs and challenges of the community as they could (or already do) relate to solar energy.
On Wednesday, we attended a formal meeting hosted by the LC1 Chairperson (think mayor) and other community officials for members of the community interested in participating in our work. Many of the community members we spoke to had small-scale solar systems in their homes to power a few lightbulbs, charge small phones, or run radios in their homes.
On Thursday and Friday, we visited homes to conduct informal interviews with those whose contacts we obtained at the Wednesday meeting. A woman who was an executive of the grape growers’ union many local farmers are part of acted as our guide for the interviews, for which we were very grateful. Many of the homes were best travelled between via small paths we would have struggled to navigate on our own. We gained a lot of valuable insight into the current solar systems in place and the experiences people had with them.
Friday evening was the start of our homestay. The 15 Canadian and Ugandan fellows were split between seven families with whom we would reside until Monday. As opposed to the more formal data-gathering exercises of Wednesday to Friday, the purpose of the homestay was simply to participate in the everyday life of your family. I was placed with another McGill fellow, Louise, in the home of the LC1 Chairperson (no pressure…).
Lou and I did our best to participate in all the different chores and household tasks. Our host family mostly farmed matoke, but they also had smaller crops of coffee and sugar cane. They also kept rabbits and ducks. I learned how to prune matoke trees, cook different Ugandan foods, and do dishes and mop floors without running water. Lou was particularly interested in the processes required to run our family’s biodigester, as she is a member of the biogas team.
As a part of the homestay experience, the fellows were responsible for figuring out their own transportation back to Mbarara. Although transit back wasn’t hard to figure out, I found the concept of being bussed out of the city to a small community and then just LEFT there to be very funny.
As of this week, we finished our outreach and orientation and it’s now time to focus on compiling data and coming up with solutions!
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