New skills

During my short time here, I’ve been amazed at the sheer number of things that Scott can do. Construction, plumbing, accounting, bike repair, electrical … it seems pretty endless. I suppose that, just as necessity is the mother of invention, so is it the mother of learning to do anything. I got a taste of that on Saturday when Scott and I, along with several Ugandans, installed a solar hot water system at the teachers’ house. Now, you might ask why anyone would want hot water when living one degree north of the equator, but we’re at enough elevation that, by the time you bathe in the evening the temperature has dropped enough to make a cold shower a little bracing (either that or the hot weather has already made me seriously soft). So the prospect of hot water had the girls very excited (normally the team only gets hot water in Kampala).  The system is very similar to the one that my parents have on our house in NJ – the sun heats a glycol mixture to a very high temperature, which then heats water in the reservoir. I’m no plumber, but I figured out what I was doing pretty quickly as we worked. After a full day of work (we’re lucky that it was cloudy – and even so I got sunburned) we had completed the installation and had attached the pipes to the shower inside the house. There were several steps in the directions – yes, even we men managed to look at the directions every now and again – that clearly stated that only licensed professionals were allowed to perform, but, looking around, we didn’t find any of those so it usually fell to Scott or to me. At the end of the day the water was running, but didn’t have time to heat up so we couldn’t judge the effectiveness of our work.

 

During the course of the day, the teachers expressed their thanks by making me lunch, dinner, and homemade ice cream (the only kind here, and a real rarity). It was perfect payment. I also managed to kill two rats in their house, so I think that the ice cream might have been a bonus for the extermination work. It’s funny how much your behavior changes and how much what is normal changes when you enter a new set of circumstances. Here, where rats are a common problem, there’s nothing odd about me chasing a rat along a wall, hammer in hand – in fact, it’s strongly encouraged. I got one with a hammer (reminds me of the bop-the-gopher game from Chuckee Cheeses) and one with my foot (reminds me of stepping on a rat). Maybe this sounds disgusting to you, and perhaps there is something a little morbid about it, but it seems to be just one of those realities of life here. But, all in all, when added to the hot water installing, it made for a successful day.

 

The next day, when making a minor repair to the water heater, I found the water to be HOT.  So Scott and I are happy to have successfully installed it, and Sarah and Ashley are happy to have hot water. And hey, there’s one new skill I’ve already picked up.