Uganda (3 of 3): Reflections

A few days after I got home from Uganda, I was standing in the check-out line at Safeway while simultaneously checking my phone and reading gossip magazine headlines. When I got to my cashier, I said "paper," looked back down at my phone, and then a few minutes later said "thanks," and walked away.

Suddenly I realized that I never would have behaved like that in Uganda. While I was there, I felt acutely aware of my Whiteness, of my privilege, and of my ignorance of their cultural norms, so I made a conscious effort to be deferential and respectful. When I checked out at a store, asked for directions or met someone new, I made eye contact and tried to be as gracious as possible.

As a guest in someone else's country, I have a certain responsibility to be courteous, but it made me wonder why I don't give my own countrymen the same level of respect and engagement. I want to do better at that.

Something else I realized once I returned home was how conscientiously observant I was in Uganda. As we drove along the highway or walked through a neighborhood, I noticed every detail: the structure and pattern of the buildings, the shape and color of the trees, the design and construction of the roads, the smell and presentation of the food, the language and layout of billboards. 

My mind rarely wandered because it was so focused on seeing and processing this new environment. I was fully present.

At home, my surroundings are so routine and mundane that I do not notice them anymore -- even though I live in a stunning part of the country. I want to practice using my Uganda eyes; I want to be a tourist in my own life, so that I notice and appreciate the uniqueness and beauty around me. 

(Photographs courtesy of trip participant, Kiera McLane)

Uganda (2 of 3): Experiences

One purpose of the African Promise Foundation trip is to expose participants to the history, culture and challenges of Uganda. Another is to give back and serve in some ways. We got to participate in many cool projects, most of which were memorable learning experiences for us. (Some of this text is courtesy Hold B, an old college friend who joined me on the trip.) 

We distributed a lot of reusable female hygiene kits in conjunction with Days for Girls. 
Days for Girls is an amazing organization with the goal to keep girls in school by providing them with cloth menstrual kits that they can wash and re-use. While this may seem unappealing to those of used to the convenience and privilege of disposable feminine hygiene products, it is a wonderful alternative to rags, sticks and rocks, or to being home-bound during menstruation. Check out the Days for Girls website and learn how to sew and assemble the kits. It's a wonderful service project for girls' and women's groups!

Click here to see a video of me demonstrating to a group of girls how to use the kit.

One set of kits was from a group of Mormon teenage girls,
 and they included a card and a picture of themselves.

We took children swimming. 

We reserved a swimming pool at a hotel in Gulu and gave orphaned and disabled children from St. Jude's Children's Home the opportunity to swim: for many it was the first time they had ever been in the water! Thanks to several generous APF donors, we had new swimsuits waiting for the kids to wear, and after swim time, each child received a warm meal and a new outfit to wear home. 

Even though we could not permanently improve the condition of each of these child's lives, we were able to provide them with a memorable experience that was a happy respite from their daily routine. I think that providing experiences is an interesting variation to international work that is different from donating tangibles goods.

We went with a Aid Africa to learn about and distribute rocket stoves. 

For Ugandan women who live in huts and cook over wood-burning stoves, smoke is one of their worst dangers: in addition to fire risk, it causes asthma and blindness in children. Aid Africa developed these innovate stoves that are cost effective and fuel efficient which results in dramatically reduced rates of smoke emission.

We went with Aid Africa to learn how to drill a well. 
Eighty percent of preventable illness in Uganda originate from contaminated water. Streams in the villages are often polluted by grazing livestock, which was the case in the village we were scheduled to help today.  Before locating a new well site, we visited the existing draw point: plenty of hoofprints and a conspicuous gray hue to the water. We joined volunteers and staff from Aid Africa in setting up a drill stand, complete with pulley and a rope for human power.  Our women got right in there with the men, getting muddy as they guided the heavy metal bore down the well shaft.  

This is how they collected water before getting a well.

We were the guests of honor at a prison.
Across the street from our lodging at St. Monica's School, Gulu Prison houses about 1000 prisoners.  Only a third have actually been convicted; the rest are still awaiting trial, some longer than two years. APF donated mattresses and other supplies last year, and was invited back again this year to visit (thanks to some help from Sister Asunta).  We expected to deliver soap to the men, and kits and toiletries for the women.  But what a surprise was in store for us!  

Nearly all the prisoners were assembled in the yard in the afternoon sun, while we sat under the veranda as honored guests.  The prisoners treated us to music using handmade instruments, theatre dramas, and games.  The second band performed a rousing piece with a Caribbean feel, and we simply couldn't stay in our seats!  Later we had the chance to purchase some  of the handicrafts made on site.  Frederick told us later that the prisoners wanted us to know that they appreciated being approached as fellow brothers and sisters.  Gulu prison rarely receives visitors at all...we were so privileged to be treated to such a performance.

We met our beaders.

We traveled northwest out of Gulu to a village in Awer (pronounced "away") to purchase beads from a goup of women there.  They greeted us with traditional dancing and drumming before we all settled under the mango trees for introductions and viewing their beadwork.  They had also prepared a traditional meal for us.  We all left with several pieces of jewelry and full stomachs.  

Finally, we visited Tribe, another beaders group.  We were stunned at the amount of beadwork available by this group of about 20 women.  After emptying our wallets, we were saying our goodbyes when the women honored Suzy by singing a song thanking her for hard work for Africa, and each woman placed a necklace around her neck.

Something that I struggled with writing this post and with this trip in general was my fear of falling into the White Savior complex. This complex is the patronizing attitude of "Oh, look at you poor suffering people who don't know how to take care of yourselves. I am so generous and wonderful that I will teach you my ways and make your life better. Let me be your White hero, and then I can go home and tell the other White people how wonderful I am." 

The White Savior complex is common in films that have a White hero who rescues people of color. (Some examples include The Blind Side, The Help, Avatar, Blood Diamond, Dances with Wolves, Dangerous Minds, Glory Road, Freedom Riders.) This is a great piece written by an African man in The Atlantic about the White Savior complex after the film Kony 2012 was released.

I tried to keep this attitude in check, and I saw my visit to Uganda primarily as a cultural learning experience, but I don't claim to be beyond fault in this area. I know that I am guilty of it. At the same time, I don't think that fear of the White Savior complex is justification for inaction. International development work is so nuanced and complicated. Sigh. 

Uganda (1 of 3): Friends

Five months later and the posts about my Uganda trip are finally here! Thank you for your patience, faithful readers. I think I was overwhelmed by the amount of pictures to cull through and the amount of stories to retell. (Plus formatting pictures and text on blogger is horrible! Sorry for the weird formatting.)

I was nervous about this trip. My foreign travel have always been alone or in a small group of friends with The Lonely Planet guiding our improvisations along the way. We are discreet. We ride public transportation. We spend as much time as possible with locals. We try to speak quietly and to pretend that we can blend in. 

Traveling with African Promise Foundation was a different experience: we were 14 boisterous American women wearing matching bright-colored shirts traveling together in a tour bus.

As soon as we were in country, I was hypersensitive about our presence. But after a few days with many opportunities to connect with individual Ugandans, I felt more at ease. Connecting with local people is the thing that I love most about traveling, and even though there were a lot of us, we could often break off from the pack and have private moments with individuals.

I want to introduce you to some of the awesome Ugandans I got to know:

Fredrick Ocaya Bese

Fredrick is an engineer educated at the University of Surrey in the UK, and he is a devoted member of Rotary International. He has taken on African Promise Foundation as his primary Rotary volunteer projects. He finds and screens all the students that we sponsor, and we send him the money to pay their school fees. He took a week off of work from his company, Frontline Engineering and Investments, in order to be our personal tour guide through Gulu, his home town. He met up with us every morning and stayed with us until the evening, acting as our both our language interpreter and cultural mediator. With great charisma and diplomacy, he would answer all of our questions and tell us how to act culturally appropriate. One night he took us to his favorite dance club. 

One of the all-time highlights of the trip was when he had us over to dinner at his parents' house. His mom spent all day preparing a huge traditional feast for us. Frederick's siblings and other friends came too; there were more than 25 of us sitting in plastic chairs in a wide circle around the cement dining room. After the meal, we spent about two hours doing formal introductions by the light of a camping stove because the power had gone out. Frederick added "supplements" to everything we said about ourselves. Because I was Suzy's assistant, when he gave my "supplement," he referred to me as Joe Biden. Best compliment ever!

Rogers

Our driver, Rogers, was with us for the entire 10 days, and we had a complicated relationship with him. He was quiet, awkward, and because his English wasn't very good, we never knew for sure that he knew where he was going. But he never got lost, and he drove us very safely over dirt-filled, pot-hole-filled, motorcycle-filled, and water-filled roads. We often clapped when he got us through particularly rough patches.

When we were out in the National Park, there was some panic in the bus when we got stuck in the mud, but he remained calm, recruited helpers (anti-poaching police), and got us moving again. When we got a flat tire, he showed equal sangfroid. I think that he quite enjoyed the challenge of these little misadventures.

Early on in the trip, he told us that he was married and had two daughters named Precious and Precious. We could not figure out why he had named his two daughters the same thing and tried to get him to explain how he would tell them apart.  It wasn't until the last day of the trip when we asked him again that we realized that he was saying "Precious and Patience." Aha!

George

George works for a non-profit called Aid Africa and coordinates their projects with local villages. One day, he invited us to go with him to distribute rocket stoves in a village, and the next day, we went with him to drill a well in another village. It was amazing to see him in action. Gender norms and rules are very strong in Uganda which result in the women doing almost everything from child care to "digging" (farming/cultivating/gardening). When George was doing his spiel in the village community center about the rocket stoves, there was a snotty crying baby in the front row. George picked him up and held the little boy's naked bottom while he spoke. It was a powerful example of a Ugandan man showing warmth and care for a child.

George is loud, funny and engaging, and immediately
gained the respect of every village crowd he talked to. When we went with him to drill a well, he explained the whole process to the village, and then walked around for just a minute before he spotted the place he wanted to drill. (Near big trees and where the ground has a slight decline.) He is married and has two kids and was himself raised in a village and is dedicated to improving the lives of villagers even if he does not make much money doing it. His wife used to run a hair and nail salon, but her salon burned down, so now she does home visits.

Sister Assumpta

Sadly, I don't have a picture of Sister Assumpta, but these are some
of her students at St. Monica's Tailoring School.

Sister Assumpta is the acting nun in charge of the girls school where we stayed called St. Monica's Tailoring School for Girls. They have an extra series of dorm rooms that they rent out to foreign visitors like us. The founder of the school, Sister Rosemary, gained international fame when she was named a CNN hero of the year, but she was out of the country while we were there, so all of our interactions were with Sister Assumpta. She is a devoted Catholic nun who worked tirelessly to make sure that we were comfortable and to help set up some of our projects. We would call her numerous times a day, and she was always willing to answer our questions and to provide us with assistance. Her entire life is dedicated to improving the lives of the girls at the school. 

Sofie is third from the right, wearing a brown dress.
Her daughter, who does all the bookkeeping, is wearing the bright blue dress.

Sofie

This woman runs a cooperative of beaders in Kampala. All the women she works with either have AIDS or are HIV positive. Most of the beading cooperatives have a foreigner working to source paper, sell, manage and coordinate. Not this woman. She runs the whole collective herself and is a strong and meticulous manager. We put in a special order of beads with her and got great results.

Florence and Irene 
A senior missionary couple serving in the local Mormon ward in Gulu found out that we were coming and wanted to help us with some of our projects. The wife came with us to distribute reusable menstrual kits at a local school, and she brought along with her two members of the ward: Florence and Irene. Florence is a widow and the mother of 10. She joined the church about a year ago and is currently serving as the ward Relief Society president. Irene has been a member a few years, is married to a dead-beat man and has a toddler. They both helped us to translate our presentations into Acholi, and Irene would do wonderful embellishments that made our explanations even better. She was so friendly and warm, and we formed an instant bond. 

Clare Acan

Clare was educated in international non-profit work at the best university in the country. Her mom is a member of the Ugandan National Assembly, and Clare started her own non-profit organization called Women and Children Protection Initiative. She told me that it is great that foreigners come in and start NGO's in her country, "but we know better what we need." She was one of many people we met who love their country and are truly devoted to working - for practically nothing - in order to make it a better place. I was so impressed with her work, and she and I really hit it off. She also gave me insight into what it's like to be an educated single woman in her 30's in Uganda - turns out it's a lot like here.  

Alex

Suzy met Alex at the airport when he was returning home to Uganda after his two-year mission in Zimbabwe. She quickly learned that he was coming home to no one. His parents were both dead and his siblings were dispersed and not supportive of his mission. Suzy took him under her wing for a few days and they have remained in touch, so he met up with us in Kampala for the last few days of our trip. He took a course on chauffeuring and now he works as a driver for an American family at the US Embassy. 

When he found out that I had served a mission, he was so excited: "You served a mission?! I served a mission! We have so much in common." He immediately told me how badly he wants to get married, and asked me if I was interested. I declined the offer, but that didn't keep him from trying to steal a kiss from me at dinner.

Jennifers
Every time we would introduce ourselves to a group, there was always a little cheer or laugh when I would say my name because - who knew? - Jennifer is a common name in Uganda. I would make a special effort to introduce myself individually to the other Jennifers in the group and to get to know them. Here are a few of them.