The Source of the Nile

For some reason, when I saw that there was a 25 km trail race in Jinja, Uganda, I decided it was a good idea to enter. No matter that I haven’t run more than about 10k in one go since moving here – I convinced myself that Kigali’s hills were a substitute for distance. And never mind the small issue of a 14 hour overnight bus journey to get there, followed by another one the same to get back after the race!

I couldn’t convince anyone else to actually come and run with me, but Josh, Amy, Luke and Stan did come along to Jinja to enjoy its most famous attraction – white water rafting on the Nile.

The race is named for the same river – the Source of the Nile Trail Race – and had four distances, 5km, 12km, 25km and 50km. I watched a small band of 50km runners set off at 7am, then went along to the race briefing for the 25km. They had flags for all of the runners’ nations which was a nice touch. I had been hoping I would be the only Brit and so manage to be first Brit in a race for the only time in my life, but sadly there was another British girl who turned out to be faster than me!

When we set off it was warm and humid, and I found myself hoping it would rain. Of course ten minutes later it did, rain so heavy that it was like running under a cold shower turned on full blast. The tracks promptly turned to mud which managed to be both sticky and slippery at the same time; sticky so that it clings to your shoes and triples their weight, and slippery so you can never tell which way your foot will slide when you put it down. These conditions combined to make running pretty impossible at times!

In the end I finished in 2:44 – not my proudest achievement, but I’m glad I did it.

 

Butaro

Last week I travelled to Butaro, a town in the north of Rwanda which is home to several flagship MASS projects. I was there to begin site supervision on the construction of a new accommodation block for oncology patients.

Already in Butaro are Butaro hospital, a housing complex for doctors, and a cancer centre. The cancer centre has become a hub for oncology patients throughout Rwanda and wider east Africa, and people travel great distances for treatment. Many of these are outpatients receiving chemotherapy at the ambulatory cancer care centre. Until now there has been no accommodation available on site for these patients, and as many cannot afford to pay for somewhere to stay in town they have had no option but to sleep rough in the hospital grounds during their treatment. There is a fantastic organisation called Partners in Health who are very involved with healthcare in the Butaro region, and they have now raised funds to build an accommodation centre for oncology outpatients. MASS designed the building and we’re now providing construction supervision.

The Cancer Centre

Butaro is in an incredibly beautiful part of Rwanda, very hilly and green and noticeably cooler and wetter than Kigali. The journey there was amazing as we followed the dirt road higher and higher through the hills, and had some great views of  nearby Lake Burera. At the moment there’s not much to see on site other than a fairly boring excavation so I’ll spare you photos of that. I’m really excited about spending more time up north as the project progresses.

Beautiful Butaro – looking across the valley towards the Doctors’ Housing, another MASS project

I was also able to attend the project groundbreaking ceremony, which was treated as a very significant occasion and attended by both the Mayor of Butaro and the district Governor. Also there was the co-founder of Partners in Health, Ophelia Dahl, who turns out to be Roald Dahl’s daughter! It’s probably good that I didn’t know that while having tea with her or I would have embarrassed myself by talking about Fantastic Mr Fox.

Traditional dancers at the groundbreaking ceremony, watched by oncology outpatients

In other news, one of the MASS Directors, Christian Benimana, gave a very inspiring TED talk recently. The video isn’t up yet but you can read a synopsis.

Capacity building

This week I started to get stuck into the more strategic aim of my placement, which is to build ground engineering capability within the MASS engineering team. Up to now I have either been really busy on project work or checking things on site, or just generally trying to find my feet. But the purpose of the placement is not so much for me to do design work myself, but to leave the team in a better position to make geotechnical decisions after I leave.

With that in mind, this week I delivered the first in a series of six (hopefully!) workshops on ground engineering. This one covered basic soil mechanics, the idea being that it would be a refresher for those who covered some geotechnics at university or a basic introduction for those who didn’t. I wanted to make sure that everyone understands the terms and concepts that will be used in later sessions on things like foundation design, and also to get everyone to a point where they can read a standard geotechnical textbook without being confused and terrified by the terminology.

Workshopping with Aimable, James, Obed, Christian, Shakira, Charlotte, Alexia and Zani

Before delivering the session I really had no idea whether the content was way too basic or much too advanced. Given the range of experience in the team, it seemed likely that it would be both at once! I was surprised and pleased to find that I’d managed to pitch it about right. Various members of the team asked great questions which showed they understood what I was talking about, and also brought some really interesting examples from their own experience for discussion.

On Thursday I went to visit a local soil testing laboratory run by a company called GeoConsult. Alexia, Zani and I were given a tour by the lab manager Fabrice and lab technician Robert. It was really interesting to see their test facilities and learn more about their capabilities. It was also great to chat about ground engineering with Fabrice, who is a true enthusiast for the subject – the kind of person who spontaneously brings Karl Terzaghi into conversations. Anyone who knows me will know that’s a sure fire way to win me over.

Fabrice and Robert explaining oedometer testing

The road above the lab is currently under construction, and access to the lab is via this very solid bridge over a 3 m deep trench! My colleagues were not impressed.

Sabinyo

It’s been a busy week so it’s taken me a while to post this. Last weekend we crossed the border into Uganda to climb a volcano called Sabinyo. The name means “tooth” in Kinyarwanda and apparently it’s named because it looks like an old man’s jagged teeth. One of the major attractions is that the summit is on the border between Rwanda, Uganda and DRC, so once at the top you can be in three countries at once!

The summit is at 3,645 m with around 1,700 m of ascent. It took us around 9 hrs (up and down) and felt like a pretty full on day. I have to say that the photos below really don’t do justice to the amazing beauty of the scenery and the outrageousness of some of the situations the route goes through. If you come to East Africa and don’t climb this volcano, you’re missing out!

First sight of Sabinyo. The mountain has 5 peaks, and the route goes up the left hand side as seen here to the top of the first peak; drops down and up again to the second; and finally up to the third and highest peak before retracing the route back down.

The route climbs briefly through bamboo forest before passing into this amazing afro-montane forest where all the trees are hung with moss.

The view across to Gahinga, which we climbed a few weeks ago, and behind it Murabura.

On top of the first summit; and looking across to the second peak. The climb up to this point felt pretty hard work and I wasn’t looking forward to losing height only to regain it again!

 

Much of the route consisted of ladders built from small branches, attached to the mountain by some undefined method. I tried to turn off my engineering brain and not think about the physics – which turned out to be surprisingly easy while surrounded by such stunning scenery.

 

Summit photo!

Looking down into Rwanda… Uganda… and DRC (thanks for pointing it out James!)

Descending the ladders was even more fun than going up. Watching people in front just disappear over a precipice into the mist was slightly disconcerting…