Perc Tests & Pictures

So today I had a fabulous day.  In the morning, Darren (the other civil) and I went to see a local pit latrine digger.  He is amazing!  He was in the middle of digging a pit that was currently 9 metres deep and less than a metre wide.  He shimmied down on footholds he created and dug out with a pick and put it in a pail for a man at the top to haul up.  The total depth will be 15 metres and this will take him 4 days to dig in total.  I don't have my pictures downloaded off my camera yet, but will post some later.

I performed percolation tests today and it was great!  It was so much fun.  We also got to hang out with a Rwandan engineering civil engineering student who taught us a lot about local practices.  His story was so encouraging.  His father died before he was born, he is the last of 6 children and his mother has never worked.  He is the first in his family to get educated and it is his dream to continue his education past his diploma and onto his civil engineering degree and maybe beyond.

Since the whole village knows we are here I got a lot of opportunity to interact with locals today and in days past.  Sometimes in Kinyarwanda and sometimes in French.  I managed to find a few more locals to speak French with.  Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't.  I had a good greeting conversation in French today.  At the Omuganda (community cleaning) one guy told me my French was very good and I didn't understand what he said so another girl translated and told me in English that he thought my French was very good.  Too funny.  I am becoming more comfortable with greetings and basic questions in Kinyarwanda.  It will be a mental shift to switch to Luganda once I'm back in Uganda.  So I don't really think my limited French is improving that much, but I do think my Kinyarwanda is.

Just for the record I love it here!

I'm limited for time again, but here are a few pictures.

 The team water filter.  It is actually a mini membrane!  Filters out all the bad stuff and uses available materials.

 At the genocide memorial

 One of the kids from church.

 "Trimming the hedges" or rather hacking away at thick bush with hoes and machetes for community cleaning day.  We were clearly the talk of the town, and none of us were very good at the task.