When I showed up at the school this week all of the students were finishing exams and packing up their boxes to prepare for the holidays.

After taking Tuesday to hang out with the teachers and the remaining students, I spent the majority of Wednesday cutting cardboard and gluing foil to make the first solar cooker.

Finally on Thursday we put it out to see how it would fare in the Northern Ugandan sun (which I hoped would be stronger than our trial run in Madison.)

It wasn’t too long before some of the teachers and staff came by to see what we were up to. Alfred asked one of the physics teachers, Martin, to check it out and offer some advice. He’s leaning over it testing out the heat in this picture.

It turns out the Ugandan sun did NOT disappoint!

We quickly hit 220 Fahrenheit, then the thermometer maxed out.  Our overcooked rice was a good reminder that it takes time to perfect the art of cooking with the sun.  Some of the teachers had been skeptical but I dragged them over to check it out.  We even had two teachers request one!

Today, Alfred and I spent the day plodding around Gulu looking for cardboard boxes to take to Atiak with us. We found a motherload of boxes in the rubbish pile at the hospital and gingerly picked around medical waste to get them. (Not my finest moment, and probably one I won’t repeat.)

 

I’m heading to Kampala tomorrow to work on the bike-generator with Victor, but Alfred has gone to Atiak to start preparing for our solar cooker operation.

More updates next week!