Creepy Crawlies and the Boogeyman

So far as wildlife goes, we haven’t found anything very dangerous yet. Large predators like lions don’t live in the area, and the only poisonous animal I’ve heard much about is the black mamba, although allegedly all local snakes are poisonous. This is what Sam, from RASD, said after he hit this little snake on the head with a large stick.

Sam explained that all snakes here are enemies. If a child found a snake, they would try to play with it and get bitten. Since livestock is such a major part of life here, children are very accustomed to playing with animals. And picking them up. And running around with them. Poor chicken.





At a recent dinner, we learned about the feared Ugandan ‘Night Dancers’. These creatures are people by day, but at night they wear bones and banana leaves, and go to people’s houses and try to woo them outside. They make noises like crying babies, smoke incense, and even reach through windows to touch the sleeping occupants inside to try to conjole victims to leave their refuge.
One Peace Corp volunteer had been touched by the Night Dancers several times through her window, and had to move her bed toward the center of the room to keep them from reaching her. People unfortunate enough to be tricked into leaving their homes are eaten. But not to worry, we are told. Night Dancers prefer eating the dead, rather than the living. (We learned all this the day after we all walked down to the cemetery at night to look at the stars).
In spite of these stories, I’m still more concerned about parasites in the water, poisonous snakes, or reckless drivers than I am about the fabled Night Dancers.



I took my camera with me on a run up to the tallest hill nearby, known as Tank Hill. From here cell phone towers connect the small town of Nkokonjeru with the rest of the world, and water was once delivered from large metal tanks to the town below. The idea of the tanks was to use water pressure such that the town would have a water supply for a short while even during blackouts (power was needed to fill the tanks, but even without power, the water could reach households until the tanks were emptied). Now most institutions have their private water tanks that supply water during blackouts, making the tanks on Tank Hill obsolete.
(The pictures of the statue are from Convent’s garden at six, and then at seven in the morning.)






The Peace Corp volunteers in Uganda and some other volunteers attended the All Volunteers Conference, which was held in Seeta last weekend. I asked Kathy, one of the local Peace Corp volunteers, if I could present some of the projects that Lauren and I have been working on at this conference, and she got me a time slot for my presentation. Last Thursday I presented before a room of Peace Corp volunteers the topics of: education about composting, biomass charcoal production, and solar cooker designs.
I was afraid that since I’ve only been in Uganda for five weeks, while these volunteers are here for two years would make it difficult for people to take me seriously, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the audience was very friendly, and interested in my topics.



At RASD, Lauren and I have started a new project. The current latrine RASD uses is nearing it capacity, and it’s crucial that another latrine be ready soon. U.C. Davis students built an Eco-San urine diversion latrine last summer, but they never built a wall around it. So right now using the latrine would mean doing your business in plain view of everyone (in fact, the latrine is on a pedestal, so people could watch from far away). We are building a wall around this latrine, to make it useable by the time we leave.
The design of this latrine is such that the human waste is collected and made useful as fertilizer. Properly used, it’s a sanitary system that is very sustainable.