An update from Soroti by Dave Reynolds Chair apprentice

Dave

Each day continues to be as eventful as the last and I am not short of stories to tell. So where to begin?

The soakaway drainage system was finished on Thursday – albeit a few manhole covers I need to get fabricated in Soroti and some minor landscaping works around it. I took the mason and the labourers onto another task which was to come up with a means of access to inspect the rainwater harvesting tanks. The mason built stairs using maram bricks and filling out with stone and concrete. Afterwards, the stairs were skimmed with cement to give a neat finish. We mix all the concrete ourselves using a simple 1:2:4 ratio of cement, sand and stone respectively. Whilst the mason built the steps, Me and a labourer took some of the corrugated sheet off the tank covers and improvised a hatch system to enable access into the tanks. The next task for me now is to figure out how to make the hatch lockable. One thing we do not want happening is children throwing in debris, or worse, falling in. Elsewhere, my biggest achievement of the week is without doubt installing the plaque! I took it by hand from Cardiff to Soroti and made it through customs three times with a stainless steel plaque wrapped in bubble wrap and duct tape. We took a section of the wall out and made good before installing the plaque. The locals loved it and it went down well at the official opening ceremony.

I have found it difficult at times to deal with the time taken to carry out trivial tasks. However, as the week has gone on, I have come to accept that jobs are not going to get completed at the same pace as they do back home. From talking to others who have been in my position, this seems to be a common experience.

Their word for the white person is “muzungo” (I think that is the correct spelling). And so after the opening ceremony, we had a game of football of the locals vs muzungos. Unfortunately for myself, I had an incident involving barbed wire and my leg during the game and so had to seek some minor first aid treatment much to the amusement of everyone watching. It involved Sally rubbing alcohol gel into my cuts – it stung quite a bit and my high pitched screaming was apparently quite comical!

On Sunday morning I visited the church with the rest of the group. Whilst not being Christian myself, it was an amazing cultural experience. It seemed to be an event which brought a huge amount of happiness to the locals and they were extremely welcoming to us.

So now it is Sunday afternoon. We plan to climb Soroti rock at about 4:00pm and get some rest. We will certainly need it as we now have 4 days left to get everything that we set out to do complete.