Page 34 - ABILITY Magazine -Cedric Yarbrough Issue

Cooper: It seems like metal, even though it might be cold, isn’t as porous and could be cleaned more easily.
Hey: Cleaner and more stable, but also a lot more expensive. Some people specifically want hardwood. I would say, “You know that’ll make it a lot heavier,” but the woman with the wheelchair said, “I could just place it on my lap. It doesn’t matter.” Other people said, “Soft wood is the cheapest, the lightest. I would want that.” I said, “You know that’s the most porous. You might have to replace it after a while.” And they said, “Oh, yeah, but it’d be cheaper to make two out of soft wood than one out of metal.”
Cooper: How did you get funding to go to Uganda?
Hey: Half of it was self-funded and the other half came from a competition at my school called the Social Inno- vation Challenge. We won a few grand. That money was used towards the trip and for the prototyping. Right now I have an Indiegogo page up so we can get the pilot program going.
Cooper: When you arrived in Uganda, did they pick you up at the airport? Where did you stay? What was that trip like?
Hey: We came in at night, and Margaret knew a driver with a van who picked us up and took us to her home in Kampala, which is the capital. It was about an hour’s drive
from the airport to where we were staying. That was all good. And then we met her there and we went to Lira.
Cooper: You stayed at an American-style hotel?
Hey: We stayed at a place called the Olive Garden.
Cooper: At least you could eat!
Hey: They had used the Olive Garden’s little grapevine. We were like, “Oh, we’re staying at the Olive Garden!” But I wouldn’t say it was American-style. They had pit latrines, too, but they flushed. It was a very nice hotel.
Cooper: You had to deal with the pit latrine, then? I still haven’t used one.
Hey: They were the nice ones.
Cooper: Do you sit? Do you put your butt on it?
Hey: No, you squat.
Cooper: I was thinking, could I actually be comfortable enough to squat?
Hey: The nice ones, like in our bathroom, were pit latrines with handles on each side. You could hold the handles and squat. And there were some that didn’t have handles, which would be impossible for me to use if I
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