A few notes from my visit to the city:
Tuesday: Arrived. A brief period of moderate panic on the plane when I thought I wouldn’t be let in without an electronic visa. But as of July 2017 people can still buy a single entry visa on entry. Had dinner down at Club 5. I think maybe it’s not as good as I remember!
From left to right: Ssekanjako John, the bodaboda driver; me; Engineer Bainomugisha.
Wednesday: Engineer and Joel took me on a tour ’round Kampala to visit the sites where they’ve got air pollution monitors up. We first met the bodaboda driver who’s hosting one of the sensors on his motorbike. He’s had a bit of hassle from security asking what the box is, but he’s disguised it by painting it black and half hiding it under a shredded old bin bag!
Sensor on Jinja Road
The sensor on Jinja Road looks like it’ll be measuring quite a bit – it was surrounded by traffic regularly pumping out black smoke. I suspect that, of the pollution from vehicle emissions, the majority will be from a small proportion of vehicles…
A more sobering part of the tour was to the large dump, north of the Northern Bypass. There we saw hundreds of people (some with huts built in the dump itself) sorting through the rubbish looking for recyclables. I didn’t see much evidence of PPE.
Kampala’s main dump
The main source of particulate pollution here will probably be the dirt tracks but I suspect it will be quite low (there’s very little rubbish burning apparently, when we asked around). More concerning are gas and volatile organics. I imagine ground water is contaminated too.
Thursday: Block B was shut today as the government had rented it (I wonder who got the cash??!) to do interviews for parliamentary positions. Awkward as the lab with our equipment is in there. I got to hear a few presentations at the AI Lab though, and it was good to catch up with everyone.
I took a brief bit of time from working to visit the art gallery on campus. If anyone’s visiting Kampala and has a spare half-hour, I’d recommend it!
Friday: We got a monitor working on block B outside the lab’s window. It’s having trouble with its powersupply, so it’s somewhat erratic at the moment. I got the website up and running.
For old-times sake I went down to Mediterraneo for dinner. It still seems to be going strong, and has a nice vibe in the evening.
Next: Arusha!