"Jiggers Africa"

As of 4 p.m. today I was so on board about going out to Iganga for the next month to work on health, and then I heard about jiggers. Be forewarned, this is not for all audiences, especially those who are squeamish and easily disgusted by creepy crawly things. If you’re still on board, then congratulations, but don’t get too proud of your “tough stomach” because you are sitting there reading this blog in a nice jigger-free home.

So imagine you are walking along a dusty red dirt road in Uganda watching the broad green leaves of a banana tree sway to and fro with the breeze. It’s hot and humid, but the relief of a cool house always makes this walk back from a day in the field visiting women’s houses a lot more bearable. As you sit down on your bed to take a nap, you notice a mosquito bite that really itches on the tip of your big toe. Those darn mosquitoes always manage to bite you in the most annoying places! When you reach a finger down to relieve the itch, you realize that there is a small lump under your skin. You figure it’s just a bad reaction to that particular bite, and settle in for you nap. The next week goes by and you notice more of these bumps on the bottom of your feet. You think how in the world are mosquitoes biting the bottoms of my feet? and then it hits you like a Ugandan mini-bus barreling down the highway….JIGGERS!

This tiny flea-like insect burrows into the skin while it is to small to really see it. The jiggers tend to get in when you are in dusty areas, and are also known to breed in unhygienic conditions in the home. Once they burrow under your skin, they suck your blood and breed. As they grow to adulthood they form little lumps, and lay more eggs, which in turn grow and multiply themselves. If left untreated, they can cause a person lose the ability to put weight on the bottom of their feet and walk. It is pretty straightforward to get them out - you cut them out, BUT you have to make sure they don’t burst because apparently that will allow them to spread more eggs or something equally horrible and disgusting. While I said it was straightforward, it also sounds absolutely awful. I wish they had a jigger-away pill or magic jigger-be-gone salve rather than a scalpel.

Why do I find these so terrifying when other tropical diseases like Ebola, typhoid, and malaria are present? Well Ebola is far more rare, granted also pretty disturbing. Glad I didn’t reread The Hot Zone before coming here. In related news, a girl died of Ebola in central Uganda about 3 weeks ago, and I got a lovely U.S. State Department email warning me of a possible Ebola outbreak, but it is actually rather small. Plus, in the off chance I ever got it, they do have ways to treat it if caught early. Typhoid, another unpleasant one, is caused by drinking contaminated drinking water. I don’t drink water that hasn’t been either boiled or bottled, so not so worried about typhoid. And while Malaria would suck, I am taking antimalarials every single morning, hiding out in my bug net typing this, and wearing bug spray when needed. The problem with jiggers? They are in the DUST, they are too tiny to notice initially, and they burrow under your skin and multiplyyyyy. If you take two steps outside your door in any place outside of Kampala you automatically get a tan, well a dust one anyway, so how the heck am I supposed to avoid dust? The next reason I am terrified of them? The Busoga region is the most heavily impacted one of all of Uganda, and guess where it lies? Right next to Iganga district! Yes folks, I am going to the land of the Jiggers. As if spottier electricity, hotter temperatures, and more mosquitoes wasn’t enough, now my supervisor Phoebe just had to mention this itty bitty creature.

So since we all wear open-toed shoes and capris or skirts everyday, and my entire agenda revolves around tramping around the Igangan bush, we will be wearing stockings (tights? long socks? panty hose? I have no idea) when we go out. If this is not the fashion statement of the year, I don’t know what is! Finally, I thought Phoebe had given me a little teeny weenie nugget of hope to cling to, until she drowned that light right out. The past intern that lived up in Iganga liked to go running everyday, so she wore her stockings and then told Phoebe she had one of these little mosquito bites that…you know where this story goes. Apparently, not only to you have to wear stockings, but you also have to wash everything – you, your clothes, your shoes, and the stockings upon returning from the field to make sure the little buggers (literally) die. Once again, I had a ray of hope - all I had to do was wear stockings and wash them  - and then poof, that sliver of hope and calm too was gone. The reason many people, even out in the villages, iron their clothes? Not the need for crisp creases, but the desire to kill the last of the jiggers with searing heat. So while I was planning to do my own laundry there, I am definitely going to have to go find someone with a laundry service and an iron, which actually wont be too hard to do I presume.

Maybe I am being ridiculous, maybe I am being overly concerned, but before you judge me, I am here, you are there, and I just stupidly Google Image searched “jiggers Africa.”

Random Things

So what did you talk about all morning? I’ve discussed human excrement for most of mine – not my own, but the intrinsic state of it. But first, I have some news to share before I get to the scintillating topic of poop.

Next Monday I will be packing up all my belongings, which actually isn’t saying much at all, and setting out on my next unexpected African adventure. I have volunteered to be the health coordinator on the ground for BfL in a remote district they also have been doing work in. Iganga is a town with an estimated population of 51,800 according to the brief Wikipedia article I found. It’s not big even by standards here, BUT it is a town and not a village. I will be heading out with another intern who just arrived from Boulder to also do work in Iganga. For my remaining four weeks or so in Uganda, I will be conducting house visits to many of the women and facilitating sanitation, health, and nutrition seminars with them. Though there will be a language barrier, as I experienced in the village, BfL is accustomed to using translators in this region themselves as most people there speak Lusoga rather than Luganda. Unfortunately, the few phrases and words I have picked up on here in Kampala will be useless up there as well.

Speaking of language, I thought I might explain names in Uganda. Most people are given two names at birth. First a “Christian” name is usually given, which basically just means anything western-sounding (Ruth, Alice, Harriet, Peter, Robert, etc.). However, the spelling of these western names follows the African way of anything goes sometimes. The second name is an African one, which follows a really beautiful tradition I think. The name usually is given as a translation of something that was happening around the time of the birth. For example, one of the women at the office said her name translates to “at the time of the harvest.” Best brace yourself for life however if something bad or funny happens when you’re born because you could end up toting it around with you for life! This same woman told us of some of her friends that had kind of unfortunate ones in my opion. How about Nasiche? Sounds nice, but means born at the time of the locust season. These African names are also normally hard for me to pronounce, but fortunately, they almost always go mainly by their Christian names. Along this same idea of names with significance, there are certain names someone might gain as things happen to them throughout life. One very common name is Ssalango meaning “father of twins.” Someone you are all very familiar with has been dubbed with this name too. In fact, when he was President and in the news all the time he was mostly referred to by all the media as Ssalango George Bush ( I had a good long laugh on hearing that one).

the pit latrine from the village

Now that I’m done with that tangent, back to the original topic as promised. Sanitation is a major issue in many  developing countries, and it really takes a whole lot of infrastructure to deal with something as mundane as disposing of waste. Kampala is a little different, but most other places in Uganda do not have a trash pickup service or connections to sewage lines. Unfortunately, many many families still do not even use a pit latrine (squat toilet) to dispose of their own bodily waste. Many of the women BfL serves in Iganga fall into this category, so it will be my charge to go out, identify women who need pit latrines, and work on setting them up with another organization who will hopefully be helping us with the actual construction. These pit latrines are normally about 30 feet deep, so this is no small task. They also should be at least 10 meters from the home. So now you may be asking yourself how do you get they get the waste out of there eventually? And the answer lies somewhere between disgusting and amazing. If a latrine is built about 30 feet deep in can be used by a family for 20 years or more without ever filling up. The waste decomposes some and seeps down and out slowly. They do eventually fill up though, especially with over use (where many families are sharing one), and the only thing left to do then is build a new one somewhere else. The house I stayed at in the village my first week had one of these lovely toilets. The man had lived in the house since 1981, and I am pretty positive those were the original latrines, which is really grossing me out come to think of it. There are two side by side normally, but I just took a picture of the inside of one. Didn’t want to over poo it (harharhar it’s been a long day, give me a break). Still craving more potty language? If you ever hear a Ugandan say he is going for a “short call,” don’t expect him to call his mum – he is telling you he is going to take a trip to the men’s room. 

Unfortunately, as it seems with so much stuff here, there are always complications to consider. You may also be thinking that if the waste is decomposing, it must be going somewhere. While they are supposed to build latrines far away from water sources, it is not difficult for the waste to seep into the water table, which is why people can’t drink the water here in the first place. It’s already happening in a lot of places, but it is a bit concerning that building pit latrines – if not done right – can actually lead to more of the exact problems we are trying to stop, such as diarrhea and typhoid. Diarrhea is the leading killer of children 5 and under here. I just really hope that this is the best method because all other options are really out of the women’s price range.

In other news I crossed the equator this weekend. It was kind of anticlimactic though. 

Beads --> Bead--> Bed

I am mostly writing this because I took some more pictures and a video, which I would like to share.

The women were particularly cheerful at this morning’s bead sale (where they come to sell their necklaces to BfL), which scared me a bit, after experiencing how much the last group made me dance last time, and they weren’t as excited. You see, I love being an onlooker, but not a participant per se. However, it turns out that my cover as a photographer allowed me to remain in peace for the most part, though one of my coworkers Irene saw right through my ploy, and pulled me in for a little bit. The video below is what we try to work through every Tuesday and Thursday, and end up giving up trying to ignore instead joining in on all the fun. Technically, I was supposed to be working in the Membership office at this time, but all of us ended up being drawn to the commotion and drumming like bugs to a lamp. Irene, the head of Membership, can be seen shaking her booty for example – though I will keep her identity undisclosed for fear of retaliation. Also check out the woman with the pink and black weave at about 0:09 and 0:35.

Bead Sale Video

You may be wondering who the other mzungus are scattered throughout the women. The answer? I have no idea because I had no desire to spend 15 minutes going through the obligatory hey-you’re-also-clearly-not-a-local chat with each of them, so I zoomed inside after the dancing was done.

Membership has been loving me this week, and sadly, not because of my charming personality or sharp wit. They have had so much data to enter into miscellaneous spreadsheets, and I was the unwitting volunteer to do the job. They got these big sly grins on their faces when I showed up last week ready to help out. Don’t cry yet, as I still got the last laugh. Today at approximately 3:40 pm, I stood up from the computer that I’d been busily working on all morning, and announced that I’d finished the most recent task they’d given me, in addition to about four others from earlier in the day. Irene and Agnes simultaneously dropped their jaws, and eventually proclaimed that I’d finished three days’ worth of work in just one day. They had nothing left for me to do, so I left to go find something a bit more fun. I left as they continued to howl out the door about how amazing and speedy I was. I need to toot my own horn a bit because the work I’ve done for the past four days was as tedious as can be, and was like a rite of passage (at least in my own mind), and I passed with flying colors (or speed).

They are preparing to pack and ship a cargo container of soap and necklaces to Boulder next week, so I went to help in the inventory department, which desperately needed more hands. I worked bundling necklaces in groups of 10, with each necklace in the group being a different color. They send these bundles to the people who host bead parties throughout the U.S., and we have to ensure that each box has all the various colors of necklaces.

Bundling necklaces to be shipped

This first picture here is of me (in case you have already forgotten what I looked like, or perhaps thought I might be getting darker and sporting a weave – neither of which I am) using my great eye to put necklaces together, really striving to coordinate them with each other and bring out that je ne sais quoi when they are put together. I jest, however, because I apparently do not have that eye, as the woman next to me kept telling me to take out that baby blue and replace it with a berry red because the blue was way to similar to those other two shades already in the bundle. I don’t think that it matters all that much in reality, but rather, the workers like to take pride in the fact that they do this bundling all day and have had far more experience than I. Frankly, I am not offended in the least because I just go for the good old ROYGBIV plus a few. If I get corrected, I blame the acronym for failing me by three letters.

 

The second picture is the pile of beads on the table I have to work with. They are such a tangled mess, it is a task on its own trying to just grab the color you want. It’s kind of like a big puzzle game – or maybe that’s just me going crazy after bundling for 2 hours.  

I also wanted to share with you something I found hilarious – not that it is though. The women coat each paper bead in clear sealant a number of times so that the beads become shiny and hard. Much to the dismay of BfL, some bad sealant was bought by many of the women a few batches ago, and the sealant never completely hardens. This makes the necklaces just ever so sticky. Occasionally, necklaces break in the whole process of buying them, counting, bundling etc, and they collect the loose beads to sell to jewelers in the U.S.. Well over the months they have been collecting these beads in big tubs, and they pulled them out of storage this morning, and got a big surprise.

Unconventional use of beads...

Please take a glance on what the Inventory Coordinator is sitting on, no that is not a chair, it is a bead bench – as I have dubbed it. The old sealant solidifies it turns out – it just takes a lot of time and pressure. All the beads on the floor around the bench, are from the guy who was chipping away at the benches with a cement brick a few minutes earlier. Beads went flying all over the room from this hammering, and the guy looked like he was going to cry a bit when Cheryl told him there was going to be a big meeting in that room in a matter of minutes.

Last, but certainly not least, I thought you all might like to see where I have been resting my tired self after work. Here is my foam bed in all its glory. I really like the notion of sleeping under the net. I say notion, because it’s not that I need one at home at all in Colorado for example, but I like the idea of the impenetrable force field surrounding my bed anywhere in the world. I just wish I could upgrade and get one that would keep hot air out too. 

In the white room, with [almost] black curtains [relatively] near the [old/out-of-use train] station. (Yes mom, I did just reference some of your music - and for anyone who missed the reference, you're clearly not an Eric Clapton fan)

Well the live jazz music is playing right on cue, which must mean it’s Tuesday night right around my bedtime. Ugandans party all the time, but for some reason I only hear this place on Tuesday nights, and I can hear every word distinctly, hahaha in fact, the song playing right now is a jazzed up version of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. It’s such a dilemma because the music is so loud, and I would just shut the windows, but the air is finally cooling down the room and I won’t be able to sleep in the stifling heat. I guess I can just lay back, and ….And then I don’t feel, sooooooooooo baddddddddddddddd. Oh Africa, you make me laugh sometimes. 

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