Going West

When I got back from Nairobi to Kampala, I contacted Marc Sklar of Brick-by-Brick to see when he would arrive in Uganda. I had been communicating with him for some time now regarding a menstrual health project that we wanted to collaborate on. As it turned out, he was arriving very soon in Uganda with a large film crew. They were making a documentary called Planet Doctors, about the good work that Matrix, an environmentally friendly and socially conscious engineering company, was doing all around the world. One of their projects involved a collaboration with Brick-by-Brick, which is an NGO that Marc had started a few years ago. They were manufacturing interlocking bricks, which were of higher quality than the burnt bricks the locals favored. Their main work involved building rainwater harvesting tanks for different groups in Uganda, structures which required bricks of better quality and structural integrity than burnt bricks could offer. Marc had kindly offered for me to join him and the crew for a few days. They were heading out west to the site of their latest project, a small town close to Kasese. They were building two rainwater harvesting tanks in that community – one for the local school, and one for the households.

This was extremely exciting for me, as I had never been out west before, nor had I ever been on site while a documentary was being filmed. I woke up super early on a Friday morning, and made my way over to Fang Fang hotel. As it turned out, the flight had gotten in late, so the crew had postponed their 6am call-time to 8am instead. So I waited in the hotel lobby. Soon, hotel guests started coming into the lobby and sitting on the couches next to me, everyone on their laptops, presumably using the internet. I guessed that I was in an area with good wireless reception. I saw a guy who I recognized as American by his accent as he greeted us. He worked as an engineer for Matrix, and was one of the main characters in the documentary. We moved to the breakfast area, and the rest of the crew soon joined us. They were a fun bunch of people. One of the crew members, Kerwin, had apparently worked extensively with Spike Lee. Unfortunately, my knowledge of pop culture is appallingly limited, and I proceeded to embarrass myself by asking if Spike Lee was a director (he is), and then wondered out loud if he was Asian (he is not). I defended my general knowledge ineptitude by proclaiming that Lee is one of the most common last names in both China and Korea (fact).

On our drive out to Kasese, we stopped at the equator. Chug paid for a demonstration of the different rotational directions of water swirling around a sink on different sides of the equatorial line. Something to do with some physics principle which I’ve never heard of and no longer remember. But it was cool all the same. Chug even got a certificate proudly proclaiming “I’ve been to the equator!” That was the only fun interlude in the long, hot, tedious, day-long journey west.

Near dusk, we reached our lodge, and met up with Griffin, Max, and John, the core group working for Brick-by-Brick. Griffin and John are Peace Corps volunteers and Max is their Ugandan counterpart. We all were assigned rooms, and I was sharing a room with Griffin. We showered, changed, and had dinner and (lots of) drinks. Afterwards, I went to bed early in preparation for our 6.30am call-time the next morning.