Different Ballgame

So much has been going on since I last posted. I left my site down in Kabale district, Southwest Uganda, and started working with my new organization. It's a new organization so there is a lot of new things going on to grow what they are doing and involved in. It's purpose is to save lives on the water and save the marine evironment. They are setting up rescue stations around the large lakes in East Africa to offer search and rescue to fishermen and ferries on the lakes. They estimate that something like 3-5,000 people drown on Lake Victoria and around 3,000 on Lake Albert annually. They are in the process of doing this and training people to man the stations, and getting boats and equipment for the stations. They also want to offer more services to the people in the communities surrounding the lakes. There is much to be done to increase people's health and lives. With oil now in the area, there is potential for a lot of politics and the people of the area feeling like they're getting the short end of the stick.
The sanitation situation is not good in the village I am going to live in on Lake Albert. The majority of the people use the beach to ease themselves, bathe in the lake, and draw water from the lake for drinking and cooking. I will develop a program of education and mobilization with the aim of people changing their behavior and having the means to construct and use pit latrines, practise good hygeine, etc. If successful, then this program will be applied to other villages around the lakes. There is potential for many other projects with the community.
So far, though, I have spent the last weeks working at the organization's office in Kampala. I have been getting to know what they are working on, their plans, and how they operate. I have done some with the computer system in the office; helping with life jacket standards, design, testing, materials, since they are working on developing a life jacket from locally available materials to be produced in my village and sold to fisherman all over the lakes; supervised some preliminary construction at a site in Queen Elizabeth National Park in preparation for a rescue station to be installed there; taken over overseeing the construction of a training center building next to the office in Kampala where rescuers and people from other org's can be trained on first aid, rescue techniques, diving, etc. I have been keeping busy. I will move to the village the first part of September to begin my work there.
Last Thursday I went out to visit the village with a driver and truck from the org to see the place and meet people and work out a place for me to live when I move there. We got stuck once getting there on Thursday, and 3 times leaving on Saturday. The road isn't too good, and pretty much not passable after a good rain. It's about 7 or 8 hours from Kampala using a private vehicle, and would be a pain to get to using public transport. I am looking forward to moving there, though. It's a little fishing village, fairly isolated: the nearest town is about 3 hours away. There are nice sandy beaches, all the houses are mud and stick, mostly thatched roofs, but some tin roofs. While I was there I arrainged for a house to be built for me. It will be mud and stick, but have a concrete floor and tin roof. It should take less than 2 weeks to build with only a couple people working on it at a time. (You guys I worked with at Habitat for Humanity in Kansas City should take note: you could build mud and stick houses a lot quicker!)
I begin 2 weeks of Swahili lessons on Monday, then I will need to get a tutor when I move to the village. There are a handful of people who speak English in the village, and there is quite a mix of other languages, as people come from all over; different areas of Uganda, and from the Congo. Swahili is the most common language spoken, though not usually the first language of the people.
I have been living various places in Kampala while working long hours with my new organization, so I am looking forward to settling into life in the village, although it will be more isolated there and the work won't be easy.