I was there in 1996. Tororo District was big, mother of Busia, Butaleja, part of Mbale. I was a young engineer fixing and sinking boreholes. Mulanda, Butaleja, Mukuju, Kwapa, Merikit, Nagongera, Busiwu, Manafwa, Nagongela, Lubongi.
We had no Facebook, no social media. We had boots, notebooks, a resistivity machine that tested rocks, and a 1972 Land Rover with no doors that I drove for 2 years in dust and rain. Wind in the chest, notebook in the lap, rig behind.
These days, I see people in Gomba Kisakye abusing engineers on streets of social media, calling them corrupt. My heart pains. Because borehole is not politics. Borehole is college, it is physics, it is money.
Let me explain like Jjaajja Eng Livingstone Naidoo used to explain to me and Nakintu around fire Ku Musanvu.
BUT FIRST, LET ME THANK TORORO
I cannot talk boreholes without talking food and people.
In Eastern Uganda, I ate and enjoyed Gweno, Mbaata and Atapa. Real food. The moment my team arrived with rig and pipes, the RC Chairmen would organize. "Engineer has come!" Chicken Gweno from the village chicken, Mbaata - those small white ants fried with salt, and Atapa - that brown stiff millet bread that holds stomach for a whole day of pumping test.
They would bring a basin, hot water, and we would eat under a mango tree before we even opened the toolbox. That was respect. That was community saying: Water is life, engineer is our guest.
And in Mulanda, I will never forget the very beautiful house of the late Oboth Ofumbi. Clean compound, flowers lined, bricks burnt well. In that home I saw discipline. Her daughter became my secretary during the 2 years I worked in Tororo - sharp, writing our drilling logs, typing VES curves on manual typewriter while I shouted figures from the sun with my doorless Land Rover parked outside.
That is why when I hear Gomba noise, I say: You have not seen real work. Real work is done with respect, not abuse.
WATER IS NOT EVERYWHERE - IT SLEEPS IN ROCKS
Many think: Drill anywhere, you get water. No.
In most of Uganda, water does not live in soil. It lives in rocks underneath. We call them aquifer rocks.
Two bedrooms for water:
- First bedroom: Rotten rock, 10 to 30 meters down. Like old cassava - soft but holds water.
- Second bedroom: Cracked hard rock, 30 to 80 meters down. Like a cracked pot, water hides in cracks.
If you drill in pure clay, you get mud. If you drill in hard rock with no crack, you get dust. You have burnt 50 million shillings for nothing.
So how do we find cracked rock? Not by pointing finger. We use a small machine - resistivity machine. We put wires in ground, send small current. Clay and water allow current to pass, hard rock blocks it. The machine draws a curve. That curve tells us: "Dig here, don't dig there."
70% of borehole success is this survey. Without it, you are gambling with public money.
That is why NRM brought RUWASA, based in Mbale. Ugandans lacked this skill. In Zimbabwe and Zambia, they had already mastered irrigation before we did. I went there to learn. RUWASA taught many hands how to listen to rocks.
A drilling rig is not a wheelbarrow. One drill bit is $1,800. One rod is $1,200. The big compressor drinks 300 litres of diesel per day. The whole rig costs $500,000. You don't bring such expensive machine to joke.
A BOREHOLE IS A FILTER YOU BUILD, NOT A HOLE YOU LEAVE
Many think: Drill, put plastic pipe, finished. No.
When we drilled in Kwapa, we wrote every meter: "0-3m black soil, 3-15m brown rotten rock, 18m WATER, 35m another water." That notebook decides design.
Plain pipe: Where ground is clay or dirty, we put closed UPVC pipe to block dirty water. Strong one that cannot collapse at 60 meters.
Screen pipe: Where we saw water in cracked rock, we put pipe with small slits - 0.5mm. Water enters only there. If you put slits everywhere, mud enters and borehole dies in 3 months.
Gravel: Between pipe and wall, we pour clean washed small stones - 2 to 4mm quartz. This is the real filter. It stops sand.
Cement on top: Top 5 meters we seal with clay and cement. Sanitary seal. Without it, water from latrine flows into borehole and children get typhoid.
In my time, a borehole giving brown sand was a failed borehole. We sealed it. That is professionalism, not corruption. But today Chairman Kisakye will claim you changed position because you were corrupted. No. We changed position because rocks changed, not because pockets changed.
TESTING IS THE RECEIPT
After drilling, you must wash borehole - blow air for hours until water is clear. Then pump test: Pump slowly, then faster, then fastest, and you measure how water goes down and comes back. If it goes down too fast and refuses to come back, yield is small - e.g., 200 litres per hour. That borehole cannot serve a school needing 3000 litres per hour. You must say: This site has failed. Move 100 meters.
In Mulanda I sealed boreholes that gave 0.2 cubic. That is honesty. Real technician knows when to say NO, even when chairman wants water at his home.
And water must go to lab. Does it have too much iron? Fluoride that browns children's teeth? Bacteria?
FROM GROUND TO TANK TO VILLAGE TAP
Measure depth: Water at 35m + hill 20m + tank 10m + friction = pump must push 70m high. Choose pump that matches. Small pump for handpump, bigger solar pump for tank. Big pump on small yield will suck borehole dry and burn. Tank stores, pipes go underground 60cm, taps built with apron and drainage.
So village man, remember: Survey finds it. Drilling reaches it. Gravel filters it. Testing measures it. Pump lifts it. Tank keeps it. Pipes carry it to your jerrycan.
If you skip one step, you have built a dry latrine, not a borehole.
WHY IS UIPE AND ALL PROFESSIONAL BODIES QUIET?
Where is UIPE - Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers? Where is ERB - Engineers Registration Board? Where is UNABCEC? Where are geologists, hydrogeologists' bodies?
When a politician in Gomba stands on a borehole apron and shouts, "Engineers are corrupt, they ate money" because water failed, because he forced drilling in his compound without survey - why are you quiet?
You are letting mud stick on your own face.
If you, the helms, don't speak, the public will lose trust in all of you.
Attention to Eng Peterson Mwesiga and all helms:
Defend science publicly. When ignorance flies on Facebook, social media about boreholes, UIPE should come out with simple statement: "This is how borehole is done. These are the 5 papers every borehole must have: VES, Drilling Log, Construction Design, Pump Test, Water Quality." Educate, don't hide in office in Kampala.
Discipline your OWN. If indeed an engineer skipped gravel pack, used cheap casing, faked pump test - ERB must punish him quickly and publicly. That cleans name of rest. Silence makes all look guilty.
Protect the young engineer in the DISTRICT. That young water officer in Gomba who says, "This site is bad, we must move," and chairman calls him corrupt - who protects him? UIPE should protect him. Give him cover. Otherwise, tomorrow no one will tell truth, everyone will drill where chairman points, and all boreholes will die.
Talk village language. Don't speak only English in Serena Hotel workshops. Speak like the Shrine Oracle. Go to Radio Buddu, CBS, explain in Luganda: "Amazzi tegali buli wamu, gali mu lwazi." Water is not everywhere, it is in rocks.
If you don't speak, mad people will speak for you. And public will believe them.
THE ORACLE'S WORD TO GOMBOLOLA GOMBA KISAKYE
Why point the gun in your own face to fight an enemy, thinking the gun is pointed in the right direction?
When you insult the hydrogeologist who studied physics of rocks in Zimbabwe and Zambia, who tells you, "Don't drill here, latrine is too near," you shoot your own foot.
Before you shame anyone, Mr Gombolola,
Show me VES paper. Where is water strike log? Where is gravel and cement seal? Where is pump test - how many litres per hour? Where is lab result?
If you cannot answer those five, keep quiet and respect the hands that studied physics.
Borehole is technical. Respect it, Mr Kisakye.
Kifuuta Oracles are saying to UIPE, ERB and all professional bodies: If you don't speak now, mud will dry on your face and public will never wash it off for you.
Tukwatagane. Even in water, even against ignorance.
Kifuuta Oracle in 1996 Tororo, with notebook still in pocket, doorless Land Rover still coughing, and taste of Gweno and Atapa still in mouth - thank you Tororo.
