Big on Sundays! Miss It, Miss Out

My favorite form of weekend entertainment here just might be reading the Sunday paper. Ugandan newspapers take pride in their attention-grabbing headlines, emotional storytelling, and expert opinions – all which lead this American to regard it as A+ entertainment. Let me indulge you in a few excerpts from the Sunday Vision (who's catch phrase is the title of this entry).

Articles in last week’s edition included:

“Defilers Should Be Castrated,” “My Husband Was Meant to Be a Witch,” “Mother Throws Child into River,” “Twins Drown in Pond,”  “Jilted Husband Kills Wife and Son,” “It’s a Girl-Crush,” and… “The Rupture” (while the rest of the world was eagerly waiting for the Second Coming, Ugandans apparently feared an earthquake? Could be one and the same I suppose. The editing here reminds me of the Boulder Daily Camera – oh burn).

A thought provoking column “Sunday Wisdom” posts eloquent-sounding, yet moderately confusing thoughts to ponder, including these gems (note: grammar and spelling appear as written in paper):

 -- A good idea like a sweet kiss, depends on demand and suppy; in both cases equilibrium obtains in form of an action.

And

 -- Mental pregnancy of ideas is all that is required because natural phenomenon will take care of the delivery.

The main advice column “Ask Antagonise Aunt” provides the true expert advice.

A guy wrote in about how his ex-girlfriend broke-up with him, yet she continues to call “once or twice a month and asks to come over and we end up in bed together.” He feels all she wants is sex because she never wants to talk otherwise (rocket scientist in the making!), and he seeks the Aunt’s advice on how to handle the situation. Her response almost made me choke on my toast:

What kind of man complains about getting free ‘things’ from a girl…Do you know how much self-respect she has to lose to be able to pick up that phone and give you a booty call? You know how much sacrifice she has to make to be able to call you up just for sex? I mean she risks alienating herself from the entire female population.

Now if this is not selfless martyrdom on her part, I do not know what is. That and she is paying you the best compliment you will ever hear. She is saying to you, “Look here Ken, I think you are great in bed and everything, but not so much in our family album.” I suggest you draft a quick apology letter to that girl that we can help you run. Throw in a sorry line to me as well, and to three billion men who want so desperately to be in your shoes.  

I sincerely hope you all chuckled while reading these as much as I did. I will be sure to continue keeping an eye on the paper for more memorable quotes. 

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

BeadforLife

I think I am working at the best NGO with the coolest building in Kampala. Wow, does it make a difference to really like your work.

So, after realizing that the last organization I was at just didn’t have any work for me to do, I am now happily resituated here in Kampala again. This time, living with a couple from Boulder, who have moved here for two years to work at BfL.

BfL has thought out such a strong program, created a great work environment, and is really making a big impact in this community, all while managing to get to a sustainable point where they do not rely on any charity or donations to operate. This represents a spectacular feat that few NGOs ever accomplish.

So what makes this organization different? They have a product and a market. BfL finds women within an hour our two of Kampala, and based on a set of poverty criteria (how many people share a bathroom, how many kids are in school, what is the status of the house, last incidence of malaria, etc.), they find women who are in poverty, but also have the drive to get themselves out of it, and are just searching for a way to do it. Each recruitment cycle they bring in about 70 women who are selected to be in that particular group. The women will be taught the process of rolling paper to make beads and how to make them into beautiful jewelry. You wouldn’t even believe they are made out of paper! These women come from very poor areas, and often have had little formal schooling. BeadforLife recognized that the women had other needs that needed to be attended to first, so they have a series of seminars the women attend before they start beading to help prepare them for business.

I sat in on a bookkeeping class yesterday morning, where the women were going over multiplication and division problems. Can you imagine being a 35-year-old woman and not know how to figure out how much 3 pens cost at 50 shillings each? That is the reality for so many people here who are illiterate and have also never learned numeracy skills. In order for the women to know how much money they are spending on bead materials and how much they are making in profits, they need to learn simple math skills, albeit with the help of calculators, to allow them to really take control of their businesses and succeed. Once they have learned bookkeeping and how to make the jewelry, they go home and bead away in the hopes that the organization will buy the jewelry from them, so they earn an income. There is a maximum amount that a woman can get each week, and it is somewhere around $170. If they have a full sale both times a month when they come in, they can seriously change their circumstances. Most of these women have come from making about a dollar a day.

In fact, one of the saddest stories I’ve heard about some of the women who come into the program, is about the women who work in the rock quarries. They may be paid less than a dollar for a day’s work breaking rocks out in the hot sun. The work is crippling, and the pay is, to my mind, criminal. I can hardly believe that people would ever even do it – it just doesn’t even seem worth it, but for many, it is the difference between starving to death and eating a meal occasionally. We heard about an 89-year-old lady yesterday who works in one of these quarries for… guess how much? Less than $2 a month. Not only is someone who reaches the age of 89 very rare, but it is so incredibly sad to hear that she has no other options other than this quarry work.

I have to pause for a moment though, and write about the office building itself; it is just the coolest place to have an office here! Located on the edge of a massive swap full of tall green sugar cane stalks is a huge white mansion obscured from the road by an eight foot wall and lush green vegetation. A beautiful porch wraps around the entire second floor, and it has the air of a colonial style house, though it was built late in the British rule here. Each bedroom (of which there are many) holds one of the various administrative offices, or a classroom, or the kitchen – yes, we get fed here too! I sat out on the second story porch this morning looking out at Kampala in the distance. I was trying to imagine what the house was like as a residence for one of Amin’s generals or even a British family. The photo below shows the view.

The view from the second floor balcony - Kampala's off in the distance

So, twice a month the women return to the office, often with young children and babies in tow, and under a big white tent, they hold the infamous bead sale. I can’t begin to explain how different a bead sale is than I ever imagined, and I say infamous because Lorna has been telling me I just have to come see this for the last month or so; now I know why. I danced, I hollered, I laughed, I cried…well I didn’t cry, but I did see a LOT of beads and danced with all the women. Of course, this being Africa, I should have realized that business would be done differently here than at home. This morning we arrived early to the office, and I went off to start the research I’d been assigned, but Lorna said to come down when you hear the bead sale start. I had no idea what she meant, but I figured I would hear the director announce the start of the sale and know to come down. But then, I heard the drums. Yes drums. I went downstairs, and just about all the 70 women were dancing around in a circle, chanting, and singing and clapping. Two of the guys who work in the office had pulled out huge animal skin drums and were beating on them in time to the music. I was trying to inconspicuously watch and take photos from the edge, but one woman grabbed me by the arms and pulled me into the middle. Needless to say I can’t dance like they can, but I also couldn’t stop laughing or having an amazing time, so I don’t care. 

Finally, the dancing finished, and the women lined up with their bags of necklaces, bangles, and earrings to be inspected by the organization. The quality assurance part is hard because it does mean rejecting some women who have put a lot of hours, and definitely some money, into these bad beads, but they have also been trained a lot, so most of the beads are accepted. They just make sure that the beads are made nicely and that the jewelry is well put together, because then it is boxed and shipped to the U.S. where it is sold throughout. People can host a Bead Party, where they receive a shipment of jewelry, and women can invite their friends to come hear about the women they are supporting by purchasing the jewelry. BeadforLife pays every woman a certain amount for each piece of jewelry that is made well, but then the women don’t have to worry about whether it is sold in the U.S. The women continue to make and sell these beads for about 15 months, all while thinking of other business ideas for the future. The program is 18 months long, and in the last three months, the Entrepreneurial Team helps the women develop their own business plan – something totally unrelated to the beads. We want the women to be confident in managing her own business, ideas, and life, so this step is crucial. They strictly do not give the women ideas for businesses, but let each determine what would be best for her, and then help make suggestions on how to improve it, make it more efficient, etc. By the end of the three months, she should be completely done with bead making, and earning money through her own project.

Women lining up for the bead sale

At any one time, BfL may be helping up to 1,000 women. I’ve also noticed how happy everyone is in the office, and it really does seem like a great place to work. Twice a week there are bead sales (different groups attend them), and then the other days are a bit quieter, but still  busy.

In addition to the main BfL project, they also support a group of women further in the north through the selling of soap. The women collect and pres shea nuts, which turns into shea butter. They also collect lemon grass, and I think lavender to also be added to the soap. Then back at the BfL office, there is a whole back area devoted to soap making! On my first day of work, they had me do soap all day. It was so fun, and such hard work! A few days earlier they had mixed all the ingredients (think trash can sized quantities) in a big vat, and dumped the liquid out on a table to harden. After a few days, it solidifies and they peel it off and put it back into the trash cans to be carried over the machine. With this machine they dump all the soap bits (stuck in sheets about the size of your hand) on top of the machine. We then cut up the soap into smaller bits by hand, so that the pieces will actually go through the press. Then we dump in the bits to this funnel, and it comes out the other end in about a ¾” rope. The I Love Lucy chocolate factory feeling begins. As the rope is coming out, someone has to measure, cut, and weigh each piece of soap, making sure that it is exactly 4.0 ounces. Since most of the time it is just shy or just over the desired amount, you have to add a little piece and reweigh it – all while making sure you are cutting the soap still as it comes out so that it doesn’t fall on the floor once it reaches the end of the table. Let me tell you this is a high stress job because that soap goes fast! Then each 4.0 ounce tube must be compressed some between the hands, and the edges rolled smooth. After this, each bar is put between a slightly oiled piece of plastic into the machine that gives it its final shape, and imprints the BeadforLife logo and name on the bar. The machine must be hand cranked to put the pressure on and release it. 

Finally, the bars of soap get moved to the storage room where they are left to finish hardening for a few days, and then the packaging girls take this shrink plastic, and using a hairdryer, fit it snuggly around the soap. They slap a sticker on the front that labels the soap, and then it’s boxed and ready to be shipped off to somewhere in the U.S. Such a crazy process for ONE bar of soap! Obviously mechanization helps speed this stuff up for other companies, but they are able to employ more people here this way, and still keep up the necessary supply, so it all works out. It was also a great introduction to the organization, and my friends back in soap said they missed me when I was up in the office all day.

Well I am off to go try and get my ATM card to work. Half the time the machines just don’t have any money in them, but for some reason my card just hasn’t been working because of the way their systems are set up here – though somehow I withdrew just fine the first day I arrived. Well this IS Africa, so who is really surprised? Not this girl at least.

I added some photos to the older blog entries as well, so check them out again if you are interested. 

TIA

I’m settling in at my new home in Kampala, and it is just interesting to hear what different things people have to say about Africa’s future. I’m reading a book by Muhammad Yunus, hearing stories from the people I am staying with, and talking to different Ugandans, and a lot of messages are mixed. The main point I’ve fully come to see here is that charity is not the answer. At least, not pure charitable giving. The big feeling this week has been in seeing firsthand how widespread Africa’s problems really are; it is genuinely hard to always feel optimistic about it.

The corruption runs rampant here, from the president down to the traffic cops, and it causes many Ugandans to not trust each other, or businesses, or the banks – and sometimes for good reason. But how can distrust be the foundation of any stable structure? Some of the cultural norms also seem to pose some of the most enormous hurdles to future progress. People still sacrifice infants here! As the saying goes, any man who kills a baby will be rich. It doesn’t happen nearly as often as it used to, but it’s not just happening out in the rural areas still, it happens every week in Kampala. And the other sad thing, many more Ugandans believe that this myth is true, even though they would never actually act on it. There is a lot of misinformation here, and it is just so hard to make people believe research. You may often see a mother give her children sugar cane to chew on – it gives them strong teeth!…or cavities. But to them it seems different than sugar, and their traditional medicine says that it is good for their teeth. They also still put oil on burns. Trying to change cultural beliefs is surprisingly difficult. Eradicating the culture of corruption would be such a good starting place, but people just accept it, and worse, take part as soon as they are given enough power.

The infrastructure here is also terrible. The roads have huge potholes, and there are gaping holes in the sidewalks every couple feet. Some may be two, three, even ten feet deep. Imagine walking at night! There are limited or no sidewalks in many areas, and the traffic is such a complete disaster. On average five motorbike drivers die a day in Kampala alone! After watching the way they weave in and out of traffic and the way the rest of the cars drive, I believe it. It sort of feels like how I picture the world with no government or organization. Sadly, they do have a government, just not a very good one. There are also way too many people driving cars for the capacity of the roads, and there is not current hope that the roads will be widened or improved. The British actually put in a lot of the infrastructure and early buildings, and it’s hard not to notice the deterioration that has come from the British leaving. For better or worse, there were a few things the British did here that were definitely good things.

Fortunately, in all this chaos, the one book I brought with me is providing a little ray of hope.  Muhammad Yunus founded the Grameen Bank (a huge microcredit program in Bangaladesh), but this particular book Creating a World Without Poverty focuses on many of the business subsidiaries of Grameen, which really do work in all different things. His format for raising people out of poverty seems to hold water even in light of many of the problems that government, business, and non-profit attempts have faced in the past. He believes in the concept of social business, and I think he is right.

I’ve always felt compelled about the potential of business to help do go, but I thought the best efforts were probably in things like Corporate Social Responsibility and microfinance operations. However, a social business can really be in anything, so long as the bottom line is to relieve poverty or provide a social good, while remaining sustainable. The most interesting example, to my mind, that illustrates this idea was Grameen’s partnership with the world famous yogurt company Danone. Realizing that many of the poorest Bangaladeshis couldn’t feed their children nutritious and affordable food, the joint venture set out to develop a product that would cost less than other similar quality foods on the market, yet provide the same nutrition and convenience as other more expensive items. After lots of market studying, product testing, and business consulting. Grameen Danone developed a fortified yogurt for kids that appealed to the Bangladeshi palate, provided kids with important nutrients (almost half the children of this densely populated nation experienced stunted growth due to malnourishment), and helped create many thousands of jobs for the rural poor. By designing a factory that was small, and located near the source of consumption (rural villages), they could buy local milk and convert it into yogurt and have it back to the people without needing refrigeration because it would be eaten so fast. Considering a country that has little infrastructure, they worked around the impossible problems of not being able to keep the yogurt cold if it was shipped. By bringing the factory to the people, they wouldn’t need to do much other than get the product into the hands of kids. They intend to open more factories around the country after the success they’ve had with the first one, and the best part is, it is a sustainable venture. Both Group Danone and Grameen got back all the initial money invested, and the small profits made will go to continued operation of the current plant, and the startup of more yogurt factories across Bangladesh. Because it is a social business, they don’t have to aim for the highest profit, they just have to break even plus a little, and this allows the yogurt to cost only a few cents – affordable for even very poor families. They even train “Grameen Ladies” to sell the yogurt, educating them about all the benefits of the yogurt, and giving them little insulated purses to carry the yogurts in back to the village where hungry children will eat them. In this way, they’ve employed dairy farmers, these women to trasport and sell the products, and provided a social good, all without the need for donations or making the people pay high costs.

This format of social business has so many applications, and I think more people are recognizing how time, and money, consuming traditional charities and aid interventions tend to be without doing as much good as they intend. I really hope that this social business model takes off because it’s a something we could really use in everything from our American healthcare system to alleviating poverty in the third world.

Anyways, I am done with that little tangent. Life here is going well, though I am very excited to finally have real work to do starting tomorrow.

On Saturday, the couple I am staying with asked me if I wanted to walk into town. Unbeknownst to me, it ended up being about a six miles round trip. We walked clear across Kampala, and it was funny to see how confused the taxi drivers were with us. Why on earth would we rather walk than pay 50 cents to get a ride into town? The exercise was nice, and walking in a place just gives you a different perspective. I saw some other parts of Kampala that day, and it was certainly packed since it was Saturday. Today, we walked to the Bugolobi market, which is the one that is very nearby. The couple lives in a pretty nice neighborhood in Kampala, and many of the nearby apartments house embassy workers from all over. All the tenants of this particular building are Indian, except us. It’s really sad to see how well many of the various Asian groups have done here. They own many of the businesses, and definitely have a lot to show for it. I am really starting to wonder why it is that so many Ugandans don’t do well in their own country. It really does seem sometimes like there is some physiologically difference. But! before you start sending me nasty emails, I really think that is has to do with their education systems and, at times, the culture. I truly believe that Ugandans have the same capacity as any other ethnicity, but that doesn’t mean it has worked out that way in reality. Many Ugandans are hardworking, but don’t have the best business sense, and there are certainly many Ugandans who follow the kind of African laid back view of life, which might not be so conducive to business. Lorna has told me that many of the Ugandans who do the best here are ones who have been educated outside the country – and they do very well. So I don’t actually believe that there is anything physically wrong with Africans, but I do think that generally terrible schools (especially higher education) and a poor business culture have led to a lot of economic failure, while so many foreigners thrive in the same area. In the grocery store in the neighborhood, there were at least as many foreigners as there were Ugandans. In this upscale neighborhood, it is not rich Ugandans that fill the apartments, but mainly just foreign businessmen.

I was also reassured today that it is very unlikely to get malaria in Kampala. However, any doctor you go to will likely tell you that you have in fact contracted malaria. Bill Gates stopped sending malaria test kits to Uganda because even when they would come back negative, the doctors would still insist it was malaria. It also doesn’t help that their word for fever is “malaria.”

On another note, we visited the South African version of Wal-Mart – Game. It has even ricketier things, and the customer service was literally a joke. As we attempted to find a shower curtain, people kept pointing us in all different directions. We finally asked one of the employees, who was standing around and chatting with about five others, to come show us where these mythical curtains were, and she rolled her eyes and slowly ambled across the store. As Lorna always says when something ridiculous, strange, or just plain expected happens here: TIA – This is Africa…

Here is a picture from the slum where the AIESEC house is located. I love this picture :)

No More Camping

A song blaring on someone’s radio woke me up this morning. It sounded like it was on a loudspeaker just outside the house. I came to complete consciousness when a man’s deep bass voice pounded my ears. May I mention again that I am in a small rural village in the middle of Africa? Oh yeah, and it was 5:59 a.m. I still am not precisely sure why that radio was on so loud, but I did figure out a little bit. The song that culminated the program (thankfully) sounded like gospel music, so I’m guessing it was a religious program. Also, being a rural area, many people don’t have access to media, so I guess people pump up the volume not to be greedy; unfortunately, it had to be so early in the morning apparently. As I walked to the office today, which is about one kilometer from the house, I saw the culprit, though I am still puzzled. An old car had a single large speaker strapped to the roof, and crept past me and into town. Who drives this? Are they paid? Why do they drive this -just for social good, or are they trying to instill beliefs less than subconsciously?

Well the past few mornings I’ve walked to the office with the director (since I am staying at his house), but his daughter told me to go to the office and he would meet me there as he had gone into town this morning. I arrived, and no one was there. Two National Geographics and a student workbook later, I left the office after having sat there for two and a half hours alone. On the walk back a man was came onto the road a bit ahead of me and stared for a moment, which just comes with the territory. Only this time, after a few paces he stop to tie his shoe – oh wait he is only wearing flop flops, so this seems strange. Right as I pass him he stands up and starts walking right with me. I look him in the eyes, give him a small smile, and pick up the pace. He falls behind a little, but being cautious I walk a little quicker to widen the gap, only he does too. I am now walking as fast as I can without seeming too obvious, and I can hear his sandals crunch the gravel under them not that far behind me. I have never seen anyone walk along the road with any sort of speed, so of course my heart starts fluttering. I have taken a number of walks throughout the village, and never once felt even nervous. Fortunately, I can see the edge of the property approaching rapidly, though he is still following close behind. Trying to glance nonchalantly about, I try to monitor how close he is. Though we are not in the city, there are plenty of people sitting outside their houses, so I feel a little bit better at least. Finally I reach the house and swiftly walk up the steps. I feel like I just won a race, and I turn to see where the man is, and he is just ambling down the road still glancing back at me. Anticlimactic, but aren’t I glad! On top of sitting alone all morning, being creeped out on the walk back just kind of iced the cake.

Over the past few days it’s become clear to me that this isn’t the organization for me – I am going to be leaving my post here Friday morning. The directors are both kind people, and I believe they have good hearts, but after spending two hours the first day getting asked about which “big friends” I know back home, it became apparent that they were really hoping to get connections out of an intern, not actual work. They have a good set of programs, but as with many charities, their limiting factor is funds not people. I was supposed to be managing their microfinance program (which they don’t actually run themselves, but rather allow a big bank to come in and loan to their community), and educate women about good hygiene practices and HIV/AIDS (they also don’t do this, but even if they did, none of the women speak much English). I did get to go on house visits yesterday to women they serve who have HIV or AIDS. Unfortunately, they never felt the need to translate everything, and they told me to take pictures for myself at the beginning, and by the end of the day they were telling me how they were going to use the photos I took and will print for them. I would feel a lot more annoyed had the community here not really needed money, but just the same this is definitely not the job I believed I was filling, nor is it something I really think is right. They refuse to cut some spending in order to start their own microfinance program, which actually grows money overtime, and enable themselves to be far less reliant on donors. Good hearts don’t always make the best business decisions is I guess the moral here. They also don’t make the best bosses in my case.

However, all is not lost in the least, in fact, I am very excited about my next chapter in Africa. Since the job was totally not what they said it was going to be, AIESEC is required to help you find other alternatives, and the staff here have been so helpful (shout out to Matthew Mugagga). We found a great program in another town (quite a bit larger than this one), but I ended up choosing something a little different only because it was a very unique opportunity. BeadforLife, an NGO started out of Boulder, CO (I believe - details to follow) works to empower women in Uganda by helping them establish their own business. The women make jewelry and I think beads, which are sold both locally and back in the States. It has become completely sustainable from what I understand, and is an exemplary organization. My mom’s friend works for the BfL back in the Boulder office, and upon hearing that I was headed to Uganda, suggested I get in contact with Lorna who has transplanted from Boulder to Uganda for a few years to work at the Kampala site. Lorna helped answer a million questions that I fired at her in the weeks leading up to my departure. When I told her that I was going to be switching jobs, she suggested I consider working with BfL, and staying with her and her husband. After a lot of thinking, I decided that while the other AIESEC job looked cool, I was really interested in working with this organization that has done so well and become sustainable. Staying in Kampala will also allow me to go visit some other NGOs and spend time basically getting to research good case practices, and different methods of helping communities.

In reflection, I am happy I had this first opportunity, though it hardly fit my expectations. Affording me the chance to live in a rural village, this week at TORUWU has allowed me to see how people live in outside of urban areas and experience up close and personal many of the pros and cons of living out here (beautiful scenery, no real toilet). I also see how critical NGOs can be to communities that are left forgotten by the rest of society, especially the HIV/AIDS women that TORUWU helps support emotionally and through crafts training.

As my mom euphemistically put it, it’s like I’ve been “camping” for the past week. Even the irregular electricity adds to the parity. In all seriousness though, it truly is a blessing to be able to leave these conditions when I choose, unlike many of the children, mothers, and grandfathers who have lived in even worse conditions all their lives. The people here certainly deserve to have clean drinking water, be able to afford medicine, and see their family and friends live to healthy old age. The future is bright for Uganda, but it will take effective solutions to really see the big changes needed.

Until next time,

Megan   

Goodbye City Life

Well culture shock is a little bit of an understatement at the moment. Today (5/15) my host family picked me up and took me to the village where I will be staying for the next 8 weeks. The main house is simple, but nice for Uganda, and I have my own room, which is actually a separate building. This is where the big differences between my old home and my new one start to become very apparent. The bed has a nice mosquito net, and I can tell that they gave me the nicest sheets possible. There is nothing else in the room except a small table stand with two shelves and a rickety little chair. A small half wall separates the main part of the room from the bathroom. Behind the wall though, there is just a bucket – that is the shower. I was told that there was electricity and running water at the house. The first is true – there is one light in my room and one outlet. The light is a little fluorescent bulb or something though, and it does not light up much! The running water seems to be a myth so far. I think perhaps there is a spigot near by the house where they fill up the canteens with water to clean dishes and fill the buckets for bathing, but it’s not anywhere near where would be convenient. The mattress is the foam type that seems common here, but you can feel the wooden slates right through this one. The pillow is definitely moldy, so I am using the inflatable camping one I brought for travelling, which is actually quite comfy. There is a gecko that hides near the window, and as long as he stays out of my pack and my bed, I don’t think I will lose it. That being said, I keep the bug net tightly tucked under the mattress at all times so nothing has an easy chance of making a break for my bed even when I am not around.

I had my first truly African meal today, which was composed of Matoke (it was described to me as an unsweetened banana, but I don’t really see any resemblance at all), sweet potato, groundnut sauce over rice (G-nuts are more or less what we call peanuts), eggplant, avocado, and passion fruit juice. All these things we eat at home, yet I would argue that only the avocado and to some extent the juice resembled anything familiar. To say the least, I think some of this food requires an acquired taste. Also, the servings are huge both in people’s homes and at restaurants here. They say Americans eat a lot of food, but literally my huge plate was completely buried in food. Next time I will try and speak up before the food is plated! I unpacked my things after lunch, and while waiting to go for a walk with one of the girls who lives at the house, I decided to venture out to find the toilet. I couldn’t find it. It ended up being hidden in a shed a couple of meters away from my room, and the shed is only about 5 feet high and next door to a couple other doors. This was the culminating point of my culture shock I would say. There before me was a narrow hole right in the dirt – no toilet paper, no soap, no light, no room hardly to move…I just…this is…all I can say at this point is I hope I don’t get some stomach bug because that is just going to be cruel.

The owners of the NGO speak English pretty well, but there is definitely a language barrier. It will be interesting to see how I get along here, as most of the population doesn’t speak hardly any English. I can tell my pantomiming skills will be nicely polished by the time I return.

The village is up on a hill, so the main house is pretty comfortable as a light breeze passes through the front and the back door. In the room however, it is pretty stagnant and boy does humidity make a huge difference in terms of how hot the climate actually feels. My glasses will hardly stay on my face, which is becoming exceedingly annoying. Nothing dries here very quickly or thoroughly – so different from either Arizona or Colorado.

I just finished taking a walk around the village with the director’s daughter Kate. She is 18, but looks 14 or 15. She goes to school here, and is going to be finishing her last year of high school in the fall. The village is pretty rural, but there are schools and little stores out of people’s homes. People listen to the radio a lot, and I’ve seen a few TVs as well. There are all sorts of plants here making it so green and tropical. The most noticeable leaves are those of the banana plantations that spot the hillside. There are also mango, cassava, potato, avocado, and many other types of trees/plants here. Kate pointed out another plant, and said that even though it was really bad for people, people can make a lot of money on it, so they continue to grow it. I looked in the direction she pointed, and after a moment, I realized that I was looking at some very large Marijuana plants (which they pronounce the way it is spelled). As we walked throughout the dirt paths and dirt road or the village, and the neighboring one, all the kids drop whatever they are doing and start staring as we walk by. They love it when we wave to them, and say “byebye.” If I say something to them like “byebye,” they go nuts. It is pretty cute, but definitely not so cute when the adults constantly stare. They feel the need to tell each other, very loudly, that I am a mzungu (white person), as if that was not clearly apparent by me just being. In all fairness, I understand. This is a poor rural village in Uganda, and while there are a few tourists in the capital, but they are very surprised and confused when someone else comes out here. However, there have been two other interns at the organization in the past, and there is a Japanese aid worker somewhere else in the village as well. Kate told me that they will always get excited when I walk by, so I know I just need to get learn to accept it, and remember that I am the visitor. I did laugh when Kate told me that they thought I was Japanese. They often see her with the Japanese woman, and their concept of race is basically comprised of African and everything else.

Kate was very curious about all the differences between here and the U.S., and it was honestly kind of hard to be truthful. She asked if our houses looked like this – corrugated roofs with mud-brick walls. I don’t think she would even believe me if I told her what poor college students live in; that type of wealth just does not exist in her world. I settled on the answer that the houses just looked different, and that we used different materials. She asked what religions we had in the U.S. and when I said everything she thought that meant just two: Christian and Muslim – that made me laugh a little. They are all very Christian here, but I can’t tell yet how religious they actually are. While on our tour of the town, we went into a home of one of her friends, and on the wall was a laminated poster of Jesus and a verse below in English. The other interesting religious bit of the day was at lunch when the director responded to my question about what was the hottest month here with this: “We are proud of our constant temperature here, it is pretty much the same year round. God has blessed Africa. If we had winters like you [in Colorado], everyone here would die.” The other woman made the astute note that the temperatures also bless the mosquitoes, which kill many through malaria. It is interesting to see how they feel about living here. I think as you see other parts of the world, it’s easier to question things, but to them, this is home and it always has been.

His comment really struck me though – could there actually be a cause and effect relationship there that he just uncovered unknowingly? In places where it does get cold (like the northern hemisphere) have humans had to develop good housing techniques and other technology like heating systems and ways to continue to live even in the snow. We have to wear shoes, but that helps prevent a lot of diseases. Or is the southern hemisphere’s lag in progress due more to the rampant diseases that thrive in the moist hot air, the lack of big strong wood, or something else entirely. I know these ideas are actually not brand new at all, but being here it seems a lot more believable that living in such weather could have huge implications on how people live.

As I continued to walk with Kate, we got into pretty big topics, which I was surprised and happy to talk with her about. She mentioned something about if when she marries and her husband hits her she will hit him right back. I suggested she find someone who would respect her and who she could respect. She thought I meant that couples in America never fought, and I just tried to explain that no that’s not what I meant at all, but that domestic abuse is not something that happens everywhere – so people can change here too. It was sad to see how foreign that concept was to her. It is very clear that she has had a pretty different upbringing than many girls here, based on her desire to study sciences and become a doctor. That being said, when we had lunch earlier, she brought out all the food while the other 2 adults and I sat in the living room and, without speaking once, she went back into the kitchen where she ate with the other women. I can’t tell yet whether it is like that because she is a girl, or if it is more because it is respectful to older people/guests. Their cook is an old woman though who also did the same thing when clearing up things. She never spoke once. Whatever the reason, it is a bit strange to me, but I will just try to better understand women’s position here as I actually do the job.

As I have been writing this evening, the power has gone out twice for a number of minutes. The darkness up here is astounding, and I just need to learn to get in the habit of keeping everything charged, because sure enough Murphy’s Law seems to always dictate that when I need to charge something, we will lose electricity.

The evenings/nights here are going to be the hardest I think. At about 7 pm Kate told me that she was making dinner, so I waited patiently until 8:30 when she knocked on my door. I got up and got my sandals on to go into the main house. When I opened the door though, Kate was standing there with a tray. She handed me my huge plate of food (the same we had for lunch), and a cup of tea. I didn’t even know what to do. I wasn’t really hungry at all for some reason, and sitting on the floor of my little room eating by myself was pretty lonely. After I ate some, I managed to brush my teeth, use the toilet in the dark (the light from my flashlight spooked a gecko as I walked in –ew!), and get into bed. Kate said she doesn’t normally go to be until 10 or 11 pm, but she clearly walked away after she left me with my dinner, and said that she would see me in the morning. I passed out at 9 pm. Sitting up in the dark alone is not so fun, but waking up around 6:30 or 7 isn’t so bad because it’s light out, and quiet. This has already become my sleeping pattern since I got here. Strange, but without a good lighting it makes a big difference. No running water also makes the simplest things very difficult. Brushing your teeth, washing your face, washing hands, etc. all get a lot more complicated when the water must be poured out of a huge canteen, and it’s not even clean water for drinking. I try not to swallow any when brushing my teeth, and just use very minimal amounts of toothpaste. I think I am going to buy some soap when I get into town. They don’t use it for hand-washing, but I am not sure my immune system is quite up to their level. It’s interesting that I am supposed to be educating the women about good hygiene practices, when the well off house doesn’t use soap or anything.

I start my internship tomorrow, and I am just really hoping that I get to really be involved in the program, not just the fundraising aspect. The office is about 1 km from the house, I guess it would be foolish to hope that there is magically a real toilet there, but I might wishing that there is just the same.

I wanted to write a lot after my first few days to describe what Africa was like. I think it’s a place that a lot more people would be interested to visit if there wasn’t still such stigma from the history of Uganda, Rwanda, and Africa as a whole. The people here are incredibly warm and friendly. They hold your hand for a long time as they shake it and welcome you to their home, to their country, and to their Africa. There are nice hotels throughout the country and from what I’ve read and heard about, more things to do than you can fit into a couple weeks. The tourist potential is huge, and I suspect that in the coming decades, Uganda could do quite well as becoming a destination for tourists.

I’m going to try and take some time off of writing so regularly, and spend a few days working before reporting back.

Until the next time,

Megan

Here is a picture of one of the women I visited while working at TORUWU. She is one of the women who attends their weekly AIDS support group meetings. They taught her how to make baskets in order for her to have some work to do and to make a little income. 

All of the Lights

It’s a great Kanye song, and the only similarity between that song and today was “All of the lights”…went out.  So it sounded really fun originally when I heard that the electricity goes out frequently in Uganda - it would give you time to just be there, and not rely on any sort of technology really. One intern said that her village lost power for almost 5 days, and said it was pretty rough, but it seemed like it would be just like camping. Well, my computer finally needed to be charged again, so naturally when I went to go plug it in, the electricity was out. When crews work on the main electricity line here, they often schedule the planned outages for the weekends. We were going out for the day so I just left it to charge whenever the power did come back. We went into Kampala and visited a nice hotel with a big pool, and ate at a restaurant that caters to westerners particularly. On the way back, Jenna and I hailed our first taxi by ourselves and managed to end up at the right stop. When we walked up the hill through the slum, kids were a lot more outgoing in saying hi to us, I think maybe because it was just two mzungus rather then a whole group. The kids just look at you with these big eyes, and are so cute. It is kind of humbling though to watch them run around in bare feet through the trash and the dirt just laughing and getting excited by saying hi to us. Today, I saw for the first time how far the slum goes on – just hundreds of shanties all lined up in so many rows. They follow the curve of the hill, and little roads go through every section. The ground is a beautiful red dirt, but the smell is very overwhelming. Very few people have hot water here in Uganda, and I am starting to actually enjoy the cold showers. I can tolerate the heat after living in Arizona for two years, but the humidity just makes you want to shower right away. In fact, when I stepped off the plane onto the stairway, even at 10:00 pm at night, the heavy tropical still hits you like a brick wall. Well after we got back at about 6pm, the electricity was still out, but the shower was still open. After a nice refreshing shower, I hung out with Jenna until her taxi came to take her to the village she is staying in for the majority of her stay. After she left, the house was pretty much empty – there were two other AIESECers there, but they were busy. It started to get really dark. It’s really disconcerting how dark it gets so early here. It is difficult to read outside past 7 pm. Being on the equator means we really do get 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness everyday. I realize that I am soon going to be sitting in the dark by myself. I grabbed my wind-up flash light/radio I brought with me, and sat there madly charging it up by turning the hand crank. After a minute or so, there seemed to be plenty of power so I doused myself in bug spray and crawled under my little mosquito net. I turned the radio on and started to scan through the channels. All of the ones that had talking were preachers a preachin’, and the music was pop African stuff. Nothing quite seemed like a good station to leave it on, so I grabbed my Ipod and lay on the bed just listening to music and realizing that I was likely going to be going to bed by 8 pm. It was weirdly terrifying. I had books, I had photos to upload to the computer, a journal to write for my internship credits, yet you can’t do any of those things when the power is out and your computer is dead. After I had finally come to terms with the fact that I would be in the dark for the rest of the night, a light came on in the kitchen. My saga was over, and I was slightly disappointed now that I couldn’t prove to myself that I can handle just being in the dark with little to do. Realistically though, it’s going to happen again, and I hope that I will be ready to just suck it up and enjoy the dark. So many people just a few feet away live their entire lives with no electricity. Growing up with it, I know that it’s not ridiculous to be shocked when there is no electricity all of a sudden, but getting a chance to live at least a little in other people’s shoes is definitely something. I don’t know what exactly, but I like it.  

I’m finding that I really like Kampala – there is a lot of stuff to see and do, but most of all, it has been a really good transition hanging out with local AIESECers and the other interns. The village is going to be very different, and I am expecting it to be quite overwhelming.  

Geckos on the Ceiling and Chickens on a Bike

Crazy. That’s pretty much the only way I can sum up my first night and day in Kampala.

But first, let me start from a bit earlier. I arrived at the Phoenix Airport at 4:30 am on May 11^th, and then had a five hour flight to New York, after a few hours, my next flight took off for Brussels, which was a bit heftier coming in at seven and a half hours. At the gate in the Brussels airport while waiting for my flight to Rwanda, I was surprised to see how many Americans were going to be on the flight too. Most people seemed to be continuing onto Uganda to go work at various NGOs and schools for a few weeks. That flight was 8 hours, and then the last leg was only about 35 minutes to Uganda. I managed to get through all four flights with no problems or set backs whatsoever. I got in about 10 pm Ugandan time (we’re 10 hours ahead of Arizona I believe), and the proceeding drive from the airport to Kampala was pretty crazy. We were headed to the AIESEC national staff’s house there, but it was very dark so I couldn’t see much. When we started to get into the city, Matthew, my host for the weekend, explained to me that the AIESEC house is actually in the middle of a slum, but it is “perfectly safe”. There are huge walls all around the house, and a nice front and backyard. Don’t worry, there’s also lots of barbed wire on top of the walls in case the walls weren’t enough. The house here is very nice for the city, and has both electricity and running water. I went to bed in a room with two other beds in it, but didn’t think much of it because I was so exhausted. There was a mosquito net on the bed, but it was difficult to get really spread out since it was only hanging from the bunk bed above me. I didn’t get bitten as far as I know last night, so one night down, and many more to go (later I asked someone to help me with it, and I was doing it all wrong, so don’t worry mom, the second night I was properly mosquito-free!).

I woke up this morning to the sounds of roosters and people talking outside the door. Once I finally got myself up and out of bed, I walked into the main part of the house, and found lots of people my age getting their stuff together to go on their weekend excursions. It turns out that there were at least 11 people who slept here last night – all interns from around the world. Most of the interns that work in Kampala stay here, but since I will be in a village a bit further out, I will be living at the NGO itself. Many interns like to congregate at the AIESEC house on the weekends regardless of where they live in order to go into the city, or just hang out.

For breakfast we had guacamole, except that Matthew had never heard of it being called that, and kept telling me “no, no”. Apparently, one of the other interns made it for him and now he loves it. Avocado, tomatoes, and onions are very easy to get here, so I think I may try having this for lunch sometime. Also, the avocados are at least 4 times as big as the ones back home, and way cheaper too! The house is located on a hill overlooking other hills in the distance. The sounds are so strange too because there are roosters crowing almost constantly, goats bleating, and kids and babies making noise just outside the walls.

After everyone in the house kind of woke up and either went on their way or stayed home, another intern who arrived from Toronto the same day as I did came into town with me and one of the local AIESECers. Taxis there are the safest way to get around, and we stumbled down the huge hill, which is full of shanty houses and kids running around (often following baby goats), to get to the main road. The kids are so cute and always say “hello” or “bye-bye” to us as we walk to and from the house. The adults are pretty used to all the foreign interns always walking through, and it is very safe to walk around there during the day. We finally hailed down a taxi, however, if you are currently picturing a small four-door yellow cab, stop. The taxis are little mini-buses that may hold four people in each of the four rows because they pack you in just like sardines. You are pretty much sitting on top of a local or nearly being sat on. The girl from Toronto Jenna and I got a front seat at one point, which was nice to not be in the back, but was also moderately terrifying. I thought driving in Boston or L.A. was scary, but East Africa brings aggressive driving to an entirely new level. The local AIESECers keep asking me if I have a driver’s license, but there is no way I could ever operate a vehicle in such chaos. They drive on the left side of the road here, which is a bit disconcerting initially, but the bigger issue is that lanes are rather arbitrary, and people easily squeeze three cars side by side in each direction on what I would consider to be two tight lanes. There are also little motorbikes called boda-bodas, which are another option for getting around, but they are rather dangerous as they weave in and out of these cars that are already insanely close together. I am pretty sure it is a miracle that we never once saw a car accident – though minor ones do happen quite frequently here.

The highlight of my day was while sitting on this first taxi ride, we saw people go by with the strangest things attached to their boda-bodas including, but not limited to, banana leaves piled high, too many people, and one man who had about 20 chickens strapped by their feet to the back of the boda-boda – and they were all alive and very wide-eyed. There in all this traffic and craziness is a big ball of live chickens, just stuck there in the middle of this city on the back of a motor back that was hardly visible. Yes, it may be a bit cruel to laugh at the poor upside down chickens, but sometimes you just have to laugh, and realize that fresh chicken here could really be quite fresh.

Kampala is a pretty busy city, and there are lots of shops selling just about everything along the main road. We stopped in the Mzungu Mall today (Mzungu means “white person”, and while the mall is actually called something else, it definitely has the feel and products of a western grocery store and shops, and the local girl we were with joked that it attracts all the Mzungus like bugs to a lamp. We bought some food to bring back to the house, since it’s kind of feed yourself style here. A bag of rolls, a jar of peanut butter, and some Koko Krunch (Nestles African/SE Asian brand of cocoa puffs) will help hold me over until I actually arrive at the NGO later this weekend. There is a lot of delicious fruit here, and we will be picking it up today in the market when we go back into town.

The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent talking with two of the interns about Uganda. One of the frequent comments I’ve heard is that there is often not much to do when you are not working here because there are few TVs, computers, and smartphones. I did get a modem yesterday, which will allow me to have some internet access. You pay by the amount of data you use, so while it will be nice to be able to get internet access easily when needed, it is a little weird not just browsing the web for kicks. Unfortunately, uploading photos to the web uses a lot of data, so until I get some free wi-fi sometime, I will probably just wait to upload photos until I get home.  In other news of staying connected, I got a cheap phone to use here, but I think the woman at the store thought I was a total loser since I didn’t need very many minutes considering I am not going to be calling people very often. People definitely talk on their phones in the city all the time, but I guess I am just not cool enough to need very many minutes!

That night we went back into town with a couple of interns to a very nice western bar/restaurant called Kyoto. We sat outside in the cool evening and enjoyed some good food. Even at such a nice restaurant, they still messed up our bill, which is quite a common occurrence from what I hear. Everyone says to just do the math and make sure it’s correct because often the waiters overcharge either on accident or on purpose. When we pointed out the discrepancy to the waitress she quickly fixed it and said she accidentally left some of the change back at the counter. That being said, food is so incredibly cheap, even in the city, that it is very strange to get such a low bill. In the villages it is not that difficult to eat well for $2-3 a day.

Even at night, Kampala felt quite safe, and people are pretty used to seeing foreigners there so we mostly never even got weird looks. I know that when I head to the village it will be a whole different story though; many of the kids have never seen a white person before. Really, the biggest concern when walking around Kampala is not getting pick-pocketed or hit by a car. Both of these situations are pretty easy to prevent with a few precautions by keeping things in good bags and watching the traffic very carefully when crossing the road. (Something bird just flew over the house and made the weirdest/loudest noise I’ve ever heard a bird make!). In other weird animal new, we also have geckos on the ceilings and walls here. They just chill, and are supposedly harmless, but still it’s a bit weird. I always say hello to the big one in the kitchen when we walk in there. I think I may slowly be getting over my fear of creepy crawly things – but (gah! That bird literally sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland)…but anyways, if there are any big bugs in the bed, I am probably not that okay with them yet.

Well that’s all for now. Today we are headed to a hotel swimming pool to cool off ,and then tomorrow I head to the village. Next time you take a warm shower, think of me. I am not yet fully accustomed to the icy-cold water no matter how hot it is here!

Hope all is well,

Megan

Getting Ready

Hello All,


I'm pretty sure even my subconscious is psyched (to say the least) to go to Africa because Rusted Root's song Send Me on My Way has been stuck in my head for the past 2 weeks. It only seemed fair to title the blog for this trip and the rest of my travels with a song that just makes me want to go see the world.


With less than a week left before my trip, I am really starting to get excited, and a bit nervous, about heading to Uganda. I've got just about everything I think I need, and I am savoring my last few warm showers and mosquito - make that bug - free room. 
I know I will have limited internet access throughout the 9 weeks in Africa, so my plan is to keep everyone up to date via this blog. 


I will be living and working in Kikajjo Village, which is supposedly less than an hour outside the capital Kampala; MapQuest still has some room for improvement when it comes to rural villages in Africa. Over the two months in Uganda I will be serving as an intern for a small NGO (TORUWU - Training of Rural Women in Uganda) educating women from rural areas about HIV/AIDS. In addition, they have a small microfinace project in the works that I will be helping out with. For those not familiar with MF, it is basically the granting of small loans, typically to women, to help advance a small business. The women then pay the initial loans back, and are subsequently eligible for a slightly larger loan. The loans are generally very small by Western standards - usually under $200, but they can make a difference. There is often a savings program also implemented, as many people in the target demographic of MF programs are not familiar with savings accounts and formal banking systems. The women that TORUWU serves make wine out of local fruits, and the NGO helps provide them support through the loan program and seminars. At the moment that is really all I know about what I will be doing, but more details to come soon.


I leave very early next Wednesday, May 11th, and I will try to detail all my wonderful, strange, and crazy stories here (Don't worry mom, nothing too scary!)


Thanks for everyone's support, interest, and kind thoughts,


Megan