Kabale Day 2

We had only planned on being in Kabale that Thursday, and we were hoping to take an over night bus back to Kampala Thursday night, but we ended up setting up a meeting with the District Health Officer the next day. We book a room at the Manhattan Hotel, and the next day we went with the DHO, Dr. S (I can't spell his last name) to look at an old incinerator, and we checked out a hospitals waste disposal practices. It was also really cool to drive around Kabale because it is a really beautiful area. It's very green with sharp hills all over the place. The temperature is a lot cooler than in Kampala, even chilly higher up in the hills. The outing proved to be very productive, and we got a lot of advice and positive feedback from Dr. S. That night at 8:30 pm we caught the bus back to Kampala. This time the ride was a little more pleasant although I still couldn't sleep. The bus blares its horn every minute or so which, combined with bouncing over potholes at terrifying speeds and weaving in and out of people/bodas/cattle on the roads, killed all sleep efforts. Thankfully we arrived in Kampala at about 4 am safe and sound.

This is at Kabale Regional Referral Hospital where we found a couple of piles of waste burning like this. We were disappointed to see open burning at one of the biggest referral hospitals in the area. This was pretty much the only disposal method they had going on.

This is an incinerator that was sold by T4T some five years ago. It's located at a small rural clinic up in the mountains a little ways outside the city. It is one of the earliest incinerators built by T4T, and you can see that they have come a long way since. This incinerator doesn't support secondary combustion and basically consists of four separate primary chambers. Dr. S (pictured on the right) wanted us to see if we thought it could be repaired, but we found it with all the inside chambers rusted out, and the chimney has fallen over. There isn't much hope for this incinerator.

These pictures can give you a little feel for the landscape in Kabale. It really is a beautiful area. In the bottom picture you can see one of the Crater Lakes. There are two of them, and they are two of the only lakes you can swim in in Uganda. They are also some of the deepest lakes in Uganda. I was told at the deepest point, one of the lakes is around 15oo m deep. Pretty incredible.

- Stokes