Friday, June 29th

We had plans on Friday, June 29^th to meet with the Germans who are partnered with Ndejje University. They are doing a research project on renewable energy and we were to take a tour of where they work on campus. Their project is to make clean-burning coal-like bricks for cooking. They take donated, dried corn cobs (with no kernels) and put them in a carbonizer which basically turns the cobs into charcoal, but the process is not quite done! After being in the carbonizer, the cobs are taken to be grinded down into small particles and dust. Once its ground down, one to two tons of this charcoal substance is mixed with some water and molasses to hold it all together. This mixture is put into a machine that shapes it into bricks that are then used for cooking. Here at the university, they have energy-efficient, insulated stoves and they burn these larger bricks while cooking. This plant now produces enough coal for the university, a secondary school and makes enough available to sell to individual households. While these are more expensive than standard charcoal made from carbonized wood and they don’t burn with as much energy, reusing the corn cobs helps cut down on deforestation and when burned, it is much healthier for the air! The scientists are still researching and working on a way to mass produce to market it better and to make them denser so when they burn they put out more energy. This project has been ongoing for three years now. Ndejje is not the only place that this process is being tried out at. There is a place in Kampala that does it on a larger scale. Seeing as my degree is International Studies with a concentration in Development and Sustainability, I thought this project was so cool and I was honored to be able to see how it’s done. It was a quick tour but very worthwhile. After we got back to campus, I had some time to just chill before it was time for lunch. After lunch we were to go to the market and meet up with some more Ugandan colleagues. We had another going away party without staff members there. We had a large turn-out at our going away party in the market. We got there early and helped the owner of the joint set up the chairs and tables and put up her new inventory that she ordered just for us. While we waited for our Ugandan colleagues to arrive, we went shopping in the market for some last-minute snacks and gifts. Meanwhile, we saw a dog eating another dog’s decapitated head — fur, teeth and all. It was so disturbing. And to think the day prior we were scared to give the dogs our left-over chicken bones. After this, we went back to the bar and our friends were starting to show up. We bought our last round of chicken, fries and drinks and shared with everyone before we had goodbye speeches. The student body president drove all the way from the capital of Kampala to send us off. Everyone was crying by the end of it, but it was so heart-warming to know that our new friends cared that much. They started playing the “See You Again” song from Fast and the Furious as we walked out. It was going to be so hard to say goodbye the next morning.