Bead Sale in Iganga

Today the women came from all over the district of Iganga to sell their beads to BeadforLife at the bead sale. While the day itself was mostly uneventful, there were some interesting bits.

Can you tell which chicken got hit?

In a seemingly unrelated note (yet totally related), I really needed to do laundry this morning, so at 7:30 I was outside filling two large tubs with water. Unfortunately, some of the women had already started to set up their things outside where I had to do the washing, and I began to realize that I was going to have a rather large peanut gallery watching me do my laundry. It’s not that I would be intrinsically embarrassed about doing laundry in front of other people at all, except that even my coworkers make fun of Karen and I when we do laundry because they know we aren’t used to washing everything by hand. Instead of just having one or two ladies teasing us, I had about eight women just sitting their staring at me as I attempted to get the spots of mud off my white jacket. One woman even had the guts to walk up to me, and just stare as I continued to wash everything. I greeted her hoping she was just looking to say hi, but she mumbled something back and then just kept standing over me. It was stupidly nerve-wracking, and now I have slightly soapy clothes because I just tried to get all of it done as fast as possible. To make my whole laundry experience more stressful, they beheaded both the chickens from last night right across the yard during my time out there. No, I did not watch, but yes, I ate chicken at lunch. Call me heartless, but I felt I owed it to the chicken we crushed yesterday to savor its life’s work after all we had put it through.

Once the sale actually started, I worked with Phoebe to manage the health exchanges for the women. Basically, we had three products the women could exchange either beads or money for that all related to health. We offered subsidized deworming medication for as many people as lived in the family, NutriPacks (high-calorie fortified peanut paste milk for malnourished children), and mosquito nets. Part of our job was convincing the women that these were worthwhile things to spend their hard earned money on. Most of the women were pretty receptive to the products, but some of them, Phoebe basically had to guilt into buying the deworming meds and mosquito nets. It is really important for the long term health of everyone in the family to get these goods, but sometimes the long term benefits don’t seem all that exciting in the short run.

We gave out a maximum of two bright green mosquito nets per person and explained that they really needed to use them for the purpose of preventing malaria – nothing else. I’ve never seen colored nets before, and I asked why they weren’t white. Phoebe said, “So that they are more like to use them for what they are supposed to be used for,” which really didn’t make any sense. “How would the color make them less likely to use them to catch fish?” Phoebe responded that the major problem out here in Iganga with the white ones was not catching fish, but rather, women would make clothes out of them…like wedding dresses. Now the color choice made a lot more sense.

A little boy about one year old ended up sitting on Phoebe’s lap for awhile during the exchanges. Many of the beaders have little children that they bring with them. The smallest ones are just wrapped tightly around the mother’s back with a piece of fabric, while any that are old enough to walk just run around wherever.

Baby got back 

Phoebe plopped this little boy (wearing pink pants and shoes) on my lap and asked me to hold him while she went to go ask someone a question. He seemed very wary of me initially, but mainly wanted to play with the NutriPacks. As fun as that game was, I nipped that one in the bud before he managed to open any. I decided to walk around with him and we even worked on waving at different people sitting around the office. Hoping to get a break, I eventually brought him around to where the other intern was working figuring that Karen would probably like to play with him anyways. The moment I put him in Karen’s arms he began to sob big tear,s and as soon as I grabbed him again, they stopped. Karen needed help organizing something, which required me to use both hands, so I set this little boy on his feet next to me, but he just clung to my skirt and started motioning his arms upwards, ready to be picked up.

Love that look of surprise!

The other women laughed as I eventually gave in because I saw that he was about to cry again. As soon as he was back up in my arms he completely stopped whining. I was feeling so loved and important, and then all of a sudden he was leaning out of my arms with his wide open towards someone else. A beader had come up to me, and I guess I was holding her baby. I asked her what his name was – “Genius.” Strange name, but he was pretty ingenious about getting me to pay attention to him, so I got to give it to the kid.

At the end of the day I sat with the inventory team to help count bracelets. Collens, the head of inventory, scooted her chair back a bit at one point, and all of a sudden, this horrible and horribly familiar squawk came from below her seat. I jumped back in my chair as I saw another bound chicken on the ground below Collens’. Apparently, she had just spooked it and it decided to make the world know it was unhappy. Collens saw my grimace at the noise and asked me, “You don’t like chickens?” I like chickens, I just had a bad experience with one the night before. She just looked at me weirdly and continued counting.

As per usual, we walked into town to go get food for dinner after work was over, but this time we noticed two new signs we’d missed before. Iganga High School is located on the road to the market, and a lush green field meets up with the road where all the kids hang out before and after school. While we’d seen the field every time, we just noticed a sign planted in the ground near a big tree that says, “Avoid early marriages” and another one a few feet away that reads, “Don’t accept gifts.” Kind of creepy, but probably wise advise in Uganda. 

The Five Second Rule Does Not Apply in Africa

You think you’ve finally adjusted, and then you move and it’s a whole new cultural experience. We shipped off to Iganga this morning (two and a half hours later than planned), and after crossing the Nile and about two and a half hours of flying down the road we arrived at the BfL office. It’s a nice, but simple house, and when we arrived there were bowls of matoke, g-nut sauce, rice, mystery meat (goat, beef?), spinach, and bananas ready to be eaten by the hungry travelers. After lunch, the other intern and I unpacked, and were excitedly talking about how clean everything was, and how nice it was to have a closet, a shower, and a real toilet. After my rustic village experience, I am not so keen on bucket baths or pit latrines. One of the office workers took us around Iganga so we could go see where everything was, and it’s actually quite a busy little town. Crossing the main road is still reminiscent of Frogger, but not so intense as the Kampala edition. We got to the grocery store, which was small, but well stocked, and decided that since we will be cooking dinner for ourselves we should get a loaf of bread. The woman helped us find a nice loaf of prepackaged bread, and off we went to the market. On the way home it started to drizzle a bit. The woman asked us if we wanted to stop, but it was hardly raining so we decided to just keep walking the rest of the 15 minutes back. The other intern didn’t mind getting wet, so we just kept walking, until the point where we were soaked by the torrential downpour and being cheered on by all the Ugandans standing under the cover of their doorways. About half way back m clothes looked like they had been dunked in a tub, and we looked like drown rats. In case we didn’t already stick out here, I can’t imagine what else we could have done to make bigger fools of ourselves – it was great. Fortunately the only casualty in my bag from the rain was my last pack of travel klleenex, which are impossible to find here, but hardly something to lose sleep over.

This weekend at the conference it poured harder than I thought was actually possible. Apparently, hurricane like rain is quite common here. The hotel we stayed at had a lovely little balcony off our room, but my roommate and I found it not so lovely when there were about 2 inches of water standing on the floor by the end of the storm because the balcony was ever so slanted towards the door, and naturally the door doesn’t completely seal at the bottom.

Back to Iganga. After getting back, I was a little surprised to find out that no one is staying here with us at night. There is a night guard though who watches the gate, mom. We got the house all locked up, and it’s surrounded by what I am becoming quite used to: a tall brick wall with coils of barbed wire on top. We went to go make dinner, and the power went off. Unfortunately, I had also just noticed that the bread bag had a large whole in the end, which had apparently not been a questionable thing to the woman who actually grabbed it for us. After debating about the safety of the bread, I opted for some peanut butter, half a mango, and some digestive biscuits. Yum. I should also mention that sanitation is a lot more complex here compared to Kampala, and after not finding any dish soap, we started to get a bit worried about using the dishes. The water out of the tap is not as clean here as it was in Kampala, which wasn’t all that clean either, but we were advised to bleach everything in Iganga just a bit (from dishes to fruits and veggies – even the outside of mangoes). When some pasta Karen had made fell on the floor she grabbed it up and longingly noted that she while she might have just popped it in her mouth at home, but here, no way, and she longingly threw it into the trash

.

The lights came back on about 20 minutes later, and Karen walked into the bathroom and calmly walked back out to inform me that there was a large cockroach in there oh by the way. Later, I was in my room getting my peanut butter out when Karen shrieked. I ran over and asked if she had seen another cockroach, and she said it was far worse – a mouse! Fortunately, we are going to be good at supporting each other because mice don’t faze me, but the sole cockroach living by the toilet has made me minimize my trips to that bathroom.

Iganga is a very small town, but huge compared to the first village I was in. The kids are really excited to see us as we walk around, and we had multiple boys telling us how much they loved us and would like to be our friends while we walked back from the market. Men here are very forward, and the way dating happens is someone just walks up to a girl out of the blue and asks her out, and she says “no,” which obviously means “yes.” We asked our friend how a girl actually says “no,” and apparently you have to sit down and explain to him why not. Have a boyfriend? Pshh, as if that matters. Having multiple girlfriends or boyfriends is not totally out of the ordinary.

The main mode of transportation is by bike here in Iganga, and not motorbike. There is a little seat right above the back wheel and ladies just hop on sidesaddle. There are some mud huts out here, but otherwise many of the houses are small shacks or very small brick buildings, but there is a main street with actual stores. We go buy food at one of the small grocery stores there (picture the size of a gas station store), and I had a nice omelet with tomatoes and pepper cooked in the bottom of a weird metal bowl. The store has one brand of shampoo, eggs that are straight from the chicken (see chicken poop still on shells), and sippy yogurt (it comes in a bag and you drink it with a straw – delicious!). I was going to have the sippy yogurt for for dinner instead of eggs, but it was frozen at the store, so I figured I’ll have it tomorrow for breakfast once it defrosts in the fridge. Most places here don’t have fridges. We have one, but before you get all excited for me, there is not enough electricity here to power it. The BfL office apparently didn’t plan this one out well, but we have a beautiful fridge that sits in the kitchen at room temperature. Makes a decent place to store food though without the ants, mice, or other assorted creatures being able to enjoy it before you do.

As with all things here, my work schedule is a bit up in the air, and I guess I am not actually starting the health program until next week. I have really become ok with whatever happens here; it’s just out of my control, and there is no point worrying about how things go or when they happen because they could easily go another way at any moment. I wish I could bring this attitude back to my life at home. Then again, it does have some problematic outcomes when everyone in the country seems to have this attitude.

I am exhausted, and I think it is mostly just from going through yet another change of place, coworkers, timing, and stresses, including flakey electricity, no fridge, questionable water, hot temperatures, and masses of mosquitoes. That being said, I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world than Uganda at the moment, and that’s a great thing to be able to say.

I no longer have wifi I can use at the office to upload photos, so they will be fewer and far between, but use your imagination until I can put up some.

Charging things also only happens when the power decides it feels like cooperating, which is not very often. The power may be on, but sometimes it’s not enough to charge a cell phone.

About to pass out and it’s 9:15 p.m., but that’s okay because I have to be up at 7 to unlock the office door for everyone else.