After a long drive from Kampala and with the beautiful back drop of Mount Elgon looming up ahead of us we finally made it to Mbale. The Nauyo Primary school is really easy to miss as the actual road stops well before the school gate. We arrived there on a Sunday and it all seemed pretty quiet, the following school day would be another story as 2100 children descended the school eager to play on their new rounadout. Bill and Hunter were already there and had already made friends at the hotel with a British guy named Duncan that had been there for a month volunteering his time to help out at a coffee growing collective. Bill and Hunter had already put in the roundabout pump and were facing the daunting task of keeping all of the children from playing on it until the concrete base had fully set. We said our hellos to them and to Tom our chief driller that was there working on the pump. The hole had been drilled for a two weeks now and we were minutes away from clean water.

Hunter took on the task of trying to keep the kids off the roundabout while Bill gave us the tour of the sanitation system. It's a great idea that Bill basically modified from the delayed septic systems used in the remote 'bush' areas of Australia, and it basically fixes one of the biggest problems that schools in Uganda have, efficient sanitation.

All of the schools that we saw in Uganda have what they call pit latrines, which is basically at huge 40 foot hole with a concrete platform that has a hole in it. They work until they are full which with a school of 2100 children is only two or three years and then they have to be sealed up and another 40 foot hole has to be dug. The other big problem is contamination of ground water which from these latrines which can leave the children really sick. The delayed septic system addresses both of these issues as it produces no waste, only clean water that is 85% pure and 100% pathogen free. This water is then recycled for use in the schools gardens.

Meanwhile back at the roundabout the concrete was dry enough to test it, but not quite dry enough for the kids to play on. The roundabout basically pumps water from the well over to the toilets and to the hand washing station that is located just outside them, but I'm not sure that the kids really cared about any of that that as they played happily on it.

Mbale is not the first well with a roundabout pump that we have installed or the first delayed septic system that Bill and Hunter have completed, but it is the first school that we have collaborated with Bill and Hunter on to put in the complete system. We were all as happy as the kids on the roundabout as Bill started to test everything and found it all to be working perfectly. Another great day in a perfect setting.