I ended up getting typhoid during my last week in Uganda, so I never finished the final two blog entries from my trip.  So it’s been 5 weeks but I’m finally wrapping up with these two blog posts!

After having left Alfred and the solar cooker trainees in Atiak for a few days, I was super excited when I got back to find they had not only made a whole bunch of cookers from the template – they were working on designing their own.

They felt the cardboard cookers weren’t sturdy enough, so they were experimenting with different materials to see if they could make something strong but also effective.

I love this picture of Remy with one of the prototypes.

After a week of constructing and trying out cookers, each trainee was assigned to a beneficiary in the village to train in solar cooking.  Each beneficiary was a member of Foundation Hope for People with Disabilities.  We decided to make 2 solar cookers and two pots for each beneficiary.

Patrick took my camera to document how things went with his beneficiary in a nearby village.

He had brought a cup of rice and a cup of posho to use for training. Just like most of the people who had seen the cookers, the beneficiaries were initially skeptical.

But fortunately like the rest of the people, they were convinced when they actually tasted the food!

It was also a hit with the kids.

After a few days, we closed the program with a celebration.

It would take a lot more work to actually scale this solar cooker project up, but at least it was a good start and a proof of concept. It was really great to see people get excited about designing and constructing new cookers. Proliferation of alternatives to wood-fired stoves would help tremendously to curb deforestation in the region, as well as decreasing health problems associated with inhalation of smoke.

From left to right, our group was Oloya, Alfred, Geoffrey, Patrick, Susan, me, and Remy.  Hopefully Alfred and the group will continue their work (including many other projects empowering people with disabilities) after I’m gone.  If nothing else, I leave Uganda this time with some great memories.

And also typhoid. But I’ll focus on the memories.