We have been spending so much time in the past few days with the community. Going house to house, we have visisted numerous homes all over the village. Not only are we gathering the important information for our project but we have been meeting new community members of Shilongo and developing new friendships everyday! Each house we visit, we come away with answers to our questions but often, we also learn a couple new words in Lugisu or a new part of the Ugandan culture. On Tuesday, Matt and I went around the Nashiloholo area to go house to house while Alyssa met with Jude to talk about the water manual.

In the afternoon, we met with the Shilongo Disabled Association to talk about their plans for the future. They are a group of twenty community members who suffer from diabilities and are a looking for a way to make a living in a way that is not highly physically demanding.

Since we have had very long and demanding days, we headed back to the house fairly early. Around the house, we relaxed a little bit by playing cards and lounging around.

On Wednesday, Alyssa and I met with the women of lower Shilongo to discuss any ideas that they may have for future products. Since Tom acted as our translator, the meeting was held at his house. After the meeting, Tom and his wife invited us into his home for some ground nuts and tea! Although we would have liked to stay longer, we left soon after to meet Matt in Khutwelatwela for a meeting with Sub County officials. Alyssa and Matt then had the opporutnity to go up the mountain for a little bit to look at a clinic and the gravity tap system that we have been researching. In the meantime, Professor Swan and I went to the prunyende for a meeting.

On the way to the meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to meet up with Justine, who I thought would not be around during our stay in Uganda! It was so nice to see Justine again and she was really excited to see me and to meet the rest of the travel team.

We ended the day with a dinner at our house with the travel team, Timothy, Rogers, Fred, and Justine. We love being in the village and don’t want to leave so soon… even though we will be extreemley busy for the next couple of days, we are enjoying all the time we have in the village!