From atop Muyenga Hill, the Nakivubo wetland appears too large to be threatened or robbed of its potential as it stretches in the valley below, all the way to Lake Victoria, bordered by the Namuwongo slum on one side and posh Bugolobi suburb of Kampala city on the other. 

However, on the ground, the wetland’s vulnerabilities— yam, papyrus and sugar cane crops that are too numerous; a water level that is consequently too low; and construction projects that are too close—dictate another story.

As the most important water purifying mechanism in the country, the decline of the Nakivubo wetlands, says Oweyegha Afunaduula, chairman of Uganda’s Nile Discourse Forum, “is actually prescribing death for everyone.” 

Lake Victoria, explains Afunaduula, depends on the wetlands for its survival and without it, waste will permeate its shores, killing fish, hurting the economy and putting the health of everyone who relies on it as their source of water, in jeopardy.

But the construction workers in Bugolobi area of the wetland, topless and sweating, in a pristine neighbourhood of red-tiled homes and driveways with sporty SUV’s, smile and wave, oblivious to the implications of their work. So too are the three boys who just crossed the swamp without hesitation, confident in the mud under their bare feet and too young to understand that it was not always this easy.

Sewage is a dirty topic and one that has been routinely ignored in a country where only 7.5% of the population have access to it. As a result, it is often left underground or dumped illegally into the Nakivubo channel which transports all types of garbage—bags, bottles, waste—from the city centre to the Nakivubo wetlands.

In an ideal world, all of Kampala’s waste would be disposed of in one of the National Water and Sewerage Corporation’s (NWSC) dumping pools—black ponds of bubbling sewage where crowds of emaciated looking Marabou storks prowl with their long, sharp beaks. But, in reality, less than a third of the city’s sewage reaches the NWSC plant; sewage pipes transport 8% and cesspool emptiers dispose 20%.

In spite of their obvious importance, the life of a cesspool emptier is not easy. Their day starts in a deserted parking lot along Old Port Bell Road in trucks with large, metallic cylinders that read CESSPOOL EMPTIERS in bold, white letters. After a short breakfast, the keys turn, the engines hummm and the fleet begins their journey into the city, balancing an assortment of shovels, buckets and ribbed, multicolored tubes through potholes and tireless congestion.

At their destination—a home, business, school or conglomeration of shacks—the trucks are unpacked, exhaust is blown through the tubes to soften them before they are strapped to the cylinder and stretched between homes and up stairs into the latrine pits or septic tanks. Minutes or sometimes hours later, the trucks, with their tanks full of sewage, head back to empty their load at the NWSC plant – which, incidentally, is right next to their parking lot on Old Port Bell Road.

Sometimes, the men behind the wheel are Jafari Matovu and George Kibuuka, respectively the general secretary and chairman of the Private Cesspool Emptiers Association. For ten years, they have emptied septic tanks and latrines across the city, routinely putting up with the arrogance of people who treat them as if they’re, “drunkards with no education,” and the ignorance of communities, like this one in Kawempe, where locals complicate the waste emptying process by throwing rags and bottles down the latrine.

Once at the plant, a series of filters separate solid objects like condoms and sand from the remaining sludge which is treated in outdoor circular process units for 30 days before turning into fertilizer for sale; liquids are treated by bacteria in a pool of rocks before being released back into the Nakivubo channel with the rest of the city’s waste.

Although the emptiers bemoan the government for their disinterest in sponsoring programs for proper latrine construction and their failure to subsidise a service that should be made available to all, since 2004, the government has shown interest in improving both the coverage of Kampala’s sewage system and protection of Lake Victoria.

With the help of a seven million Euro grant from the European Union, a 15 million Euro grant from the German government’s finance arm, KFW, a 35 million Euro loan from the African Development Fund and eight million Euros of funding from the government, Kampala is expected to have a new sewage system in operation by 2014.

The project, to be carried out by the NWSC in two phases, would expand the city’s sewage network to 15% of the population, rehabilitate the existing sewage network, implement a faecal sludge collection system for slum areas and construct three new treatment plants, one of which, paradoxically, will be situated within the Nakivubo wetlands.

The Nakivubo plant, explains Paddy Twesigye, project manager for the NWSC, will only occupy a small plot of land in the wetlands but will be strategically placed to intercept most of the sewage flowing from the Nakivubo channel. The project, he says, will also restore the swamp waters to their original levels, wiping out any local plantations in the process.

“What’s more important?” he asks slightly impatiently from his shared office on Jinja Road, “that a group of farmers can make a better living or that the entire city can drink cleaner water?”

In spite of the heavy price tag and comprehensiveness of the new plan, Kampala’s sewage problems cannot be eradicated with a monetary figure alone. In such a densely populated city where each person’s actions have implications elsewhere, only a cumulative effort will work.

The quality of the water in the Katanga slum, for example, where narrow alleyways are sprinkled with clothes dangling from wires, enthusiastic “Hallelujahs,” resonate on Sundays and children are rarely without a jerry can in their arms or on their heads, is directly impacted by the willingness of others to regularly empty their latrines.

Unlike more prosperous areas of the city that receive water from Lake Victoria via the NWSC, slums positioned in low-lying areas of Kampala rely on water from springs. Although, cleaner water from taps is available, the price often puts it out of reach. Instead, locals rely on water that seeps into the ground and flows downward towards the slums after rainfall, accumulating whatever faecal matter it encounters along the way. By the time it reaches places like Katanga, explains Twesigye, “you can see, with a microscope, the micro-organisms dancing inside.”

Katanga’s sewage situation is even more disturbing. Although new Ugavac machines—small, mobile waste carriers—will be employed as part of the new sanitation program to empty pit latrines in high density, low-income areas of Kampala, otherwise inaccessible to cesspool emptiers, they are unlikely to fix the crisis.

In Katanga, where public toilets are already connected to the central sewage network, their cost and distance from the population deter regular use. Juliet Nabitalo, a 23-year-old teacher who moved to Katanga from Luwero in the countryside four years ago, says most people can only afford the Shs 100 fee once a day, and at night, when only a few toilets stay open and thugs roam in the darkness, locals relieve themselves in polythene bags. “The worst part is that there’s nowhere to throw it so we throw it anywhere we can,” she says from inside her two room home.

Some mornings Juliet will even find someone else’s bag on her doorstep as she takes her children to school.  In the afternoon when she frequents the spring to fetch water, she encounters more of these so-called, flying toilets, in Katanga’s already heavily polluted canal. Some days, amongst a crowd of children, Juliet will try to balance herself on a series of rocks, intercepting the spring water from a horizontal pipe before it drops into the canal; on other days she’ll succumb and simply wade in the waste as the jerry can fills.

Life here, she says, is tiring; beyond the everyday chores—cooking, cleaning, washing—there are the additional burdens of slum life; continuous attempts to keep her children away from the canals when all they want to do is play in it; frantic trips to the hospital when symptoms of cholera or dysentery appear; or being woken at night by someone’s waste being tossed on her roof.

But, like most people in Katanga, Juliet finds comfort in God and the local church. On Sundays, she sings and dances as rows of smiling children applaud and the pastor offers rhythmic benedictions. Liberated, Juliet flashes a wide smile and forgets about the flying toilets, the pools of waste and dirty city water, even if it is just for a few moments.

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Kas Paper System's
written by folding machines, September 16, 2010

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