Easter

Well, we had a nice Easter at Canada House in Mbarara. Ugandans definitely celebrate Easter – they do church-related and family things – but I don’t think they hide chocolates. The Ugandan staff had the holiday off, so Bern, Nancy, David and I had a nice relaxing weekend. David hid some chocolates for us to find, which was fun, and we played lots of Monopoly and Wizard. Nancy is also trying to teach me Hearts, but I have to say, I’m quite dreadful at it… Still, all in all, not a bad Easter.

Besides Easter, I’ve been helping Nancy out with her scholarship stuff, as usual. We went to check out a welding school in Mbarara that one of her students will be attending, and another day, we went out into the rural areas to buy a plot of land for a family. That was quite fun. It seemed like the whole village had come to witness the proceedings, all of them gathered in clusters on the field we wanted to buy. It rained a lot that day, and the Ugandans thought I was crazy for liking the rain. But my favourite activity this week was teaching the kids at Nyakyera Primary school how to play baseball with donated sports equipment. I was quite impressed with how well the kids threw and caught the ball for their first time. There weren’t many strikeouts either. After taking lots of pictures of the kids, Nancy insisted that the teachers should have a go, and so the head teacher (the principal) and all the others joined in. Then we presented prizes to the winning team – different coloured baseball caps from Canada. It was a good last day at camp. Oh – and I learned something interesting about Ugandan women – they never discuss pregnancies – it’s like a taboo. There is one very pregnant and very lovely lady at camp, and no one ever talks about the baby that’s on the way. They think it brings bad luck.

We left camp early this morning, and it has been a crazy day of packing cases and totes for the trip home to Canada. We’re taking the long drive to Kampala tomorrow, and I’ll probably visit the craft markets there. After that, we’re meeting Melanie and Michelle, both back from their holidays (Matt is going to be delayed, so I won’t see him before I leave, unfortunately. His mother came to visit him, and they’re exploring Tanzania together, I think). Bern, Nancy and I will be flying out on the 15^th and, if we make our connection in London (it’s very tight, we’ll have to run), we’ll technically be back in Canada late that day because of the time difference – weird.

            So, that’s about it, I’m afraid. I only have a few days left in Uganda. It’s been a good trip, and I’ve learned a lot about International Development – things I wouldn’t have understood without actually being out here – the corruption, the customs, the community-minded-ness, the way Ugandans think (although I’m sure I’ve only just scratched the surface of this). Our team has been awesome and, having heard about ACTS’ work growing up, it’s been nice to actually be a part of it for a short while. 

Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll get in another blog entry, so if this is the last one, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you back in Canada.

Lake Bunyonyi

This week has been good, although it’s been a bit weird without Matt, Melanie and Michelle, who have all gone their separate ways for the holiday. As for me, I’ve been hanging out mostly with Nancy and doing whatever needs doing (which is mostly typing – the one skill Ugandans lack). Last Friday, Nancy and I visited a hospital near Canada House in Mbarara (where I’m staying this week). First, we went to the maternity ward, which was dim because of a power outage (they are very common here), and passed out little toques that some kind people in Canada gave us to hand out. One of the women we visited had just given birth to twins, but, if we understood the matron correctly, one was in the emergency room because he had been born with his intestines outside of his body. They didn’t expect him to make it, which was sad.

Next we went to the children’s ward to pass out knitted bears and dolls, again given to us by people from home. Most of the kids had leg problems, and many had castes on one or both legs. When we arrived, the kids and their parents were all huddled around a TV watching King Kong. They we squealing and cheering and carrying on, though littlies in the front were watching silently with wide eyes. Nancy explained to me that most of them came from villages far away, and so they had likely never seen a television before. Although they were fascinated by the movie, they did agree to pause it so that we could hand them their toys.

I spent most of the rest of the week with Nancy, Bern and David on Bushara Island, in the middle of lake Bunyonyi. It’s about a three-hour drive south of Mbarara. David told me that the landscape near Bunyonyi is much the same as Rwanda (which makes sense, because it’s so close) – extremely hilly and green (Rwanda is known for its a thousand hills). Bunyonyi was beautiful. River rafting was my favourite activity in Uganda, but Bunyonyi was my favourite place to visit. When we arrived at the lake, we took a little motorboat to Bushara island, where David was greeted like a long lost relative. Many years ago, ACTS was involved in starting Bushara Island’s one and only hotel/campsite, and, together with the church nearby, ACTS still plays a role in its management.

The island was beautiful and peaceful, with wildflowers, a crystal clear lake, and a variety of birds that I had never seen before – yellow weaver birds (which look like finches), bee eating birds, speckled mousebirds (which eat mice – an incredible feat for such a small bird – I’d have thought the one I saw would difficulty flying with a mouse in its tummy), turquoise headed sunbirds, kingfishers, and blue flycatching birds with white, fan-like tails. We all had fun trying to spot the most birds. Nancy, Bern and I also took a dugout canoe out for a paddle on the lake when it was sunniest. I insisted that we check out Punishment Island, which was a pitiful little reed-filled pin-prick in the middle of the lake. I had heard from someone that, many years before, people used to chuck unmarried, pregnant women on the island, leaving them to die or get picked up by old men who didn’t want to pay the bride price. Some of them allegedly drowned trying to get away (most women didn’t know how to swim back then… well, actually, most women in the lake area still don’t know how to swim. It’s only in the last little bit that bazungu (plural of muzungu, white people) have been teaching the lake kids how to swim so they don’t drown on their way to school. But swimming, as I understand it, is still frowned upon for girls). 

Anyway, after I had heard about this island, I decided that I would swim back from it to prove I could have escaped. So I jumped out of the boat before Nancy and Bern could react and started swimming for Bushara. They paddled along behind me in case I got tired. I didn’t. It took me a little less than half an hour – a nice swim. It was only after I got back from the island that David told me that none of the women on Punishment Island had ever actually died. Their lovers almost always came to rescue them in dugout canoes after dark. One guy told me that missionaries who tried to rescue women on the island were often insulted for trying to interfere – the women waiting there would say something like “go away – I’m waiting for somebody else to rescue me.” I thought that was funny.

Now I’m back at Canada House in Mbarara. David and Bern left early this morning for a meeting in Tanzania, and I stayed with Nancy to help her with her scholarship stuff. Today we went out to check the progress on construction at Murago School, and to buy some land for a family Nancy knows. Other than that, there’s not much to tell, so, until next week!

Tagging Along

            This week, I’ve been tagging along with Nancy, taking photographs of her students, meeting the parents and teachers, and recording student fees. On Saturday, we visited Ntungamo High School. It was visiting day (there is only one visiting day for Ugandans per semester. Parents wanting to see their kids on other days are normally not allowed to do so unless they buy a pass. This doesn’t apply to muzungu, though. They’ve always let us in), so the place was packed with parents and siblings, and boda-bodas littered the ground by the hundreds. Twenty-four of Nancy’s students attend Ntungamo High, so we had a big gathering on the ground. Urban Systems, the engineering company that is sponsoring the children to go to secondary school, asked Nancy to buy little gifts for the students, and so we passes out watches to the kids. They were very excited, and made sure to present them clearly when I took their photographs. After that, Nancy asked some of the older students (who had better English skills) to compose a thank you song for Urban Systems, which I got to film. It was great! They really got into it, dancing and snapping their fingers to the beat. 

            After giving out books to two different schools, Nancy and I visited some of her students who have completed Secondary 4. These three girls applied for Myanja Hospital’s nursing program, and they all passed their interviews. They were very excited about getting into the program (although some were nervous when they got their textbooks and saw all the medical terms that they would have to learn), and I got their reactions on tape. When we visited the last girl to tell her she had been accepted, the Chairman of the area (a man who had been appointed by Museveni when he first came to power twenty-four years ago) kept butting into the picture while I was filming. He kept saying things like “see this road – it is all because of me,” and “this water system – all because of me,” which Nancy found amusing, because it was Bern who really put the water system in several years ago. It took me awhile to realize that the Chairman was completely drunk. 

            Other than that, it’s been a pretty average week at camp. David got back a couple days ago from Tanzania. He said he thought it was a successful trip, but said that the country was much hotter and more humid than Uganda. David also had to lay off the construction workers here at camp because CIDA funding hasn’t come through yet. On a happier note, Matt’s girlfriend Lena was here with us this week. She’s a nice girl, and very good with the kids. Today, the young engineers and David left for The Off, our break. The young engineers, since they’re here for six months, get two weeks off now to break up their stay. Melanie is off to Kenya, Matt and Lena are going to a Safari or something, and Michelle is going to spend time with friends in Kampala. Nancy, Bern and I are leaving tomorrow for Mbarara, where we’ll stay for a couple of nights, and then we’re planning to spend two days at Lake Bunyoni, which is about three hours away at most. Nancy says it’s peaceful and the food is good, which suits me just fine. 

            To celebrate The Off, Enid, our cook, decided to cook a special meal – chicken. I was very pleased about this because, although I don’t eat meat, it meant that those darn roosters got the chop. Melanie was quite good about it, though mostly because her prize egg-laying hen remains safe and sound in the chicken coop. So it was a rather disturbing morning, what with the chicken feathers and blood scattered about camp, but that’s all right. 

            Well, I think that’s about it for this week. I’m excited to have some relaxing time off, and to go swimming in the lake.

            Until next week!

The Big Market

The Big Market:

            This week, I’ve been at camp doing office work. David is off in Tanzania, so Bern is calling the shots here. This week has been nice temperature-wise – we’ve had some rainy spells, which keeps things cool, but the sun always comes out at some point during the day. We’ve had the Enns family staying with us at camp for the week. It’s been fun – Aaron, the son, was really good with the kids, introducing them to the joys of chasing a laser beam around in the dark. They just left for Entebbe today. But we’re getting a new visitor soon – Matt’s girlfriend from Germany is coming to visit, which should be nice.

Another addition at camp is our new sewing machine. Charmaine Enns had fun showing the Ugandan staff how to thread the needle and put the bobbin in and everything. It’s a mechanical sewing machine, so you have to keep pumping the foot pedal to keep it going. Anyway, I found it interesting that the guys were much more interested in learning how to sew than the women were. Already, one of them has done several repairs. In short, the machine is a hit. 

            The highlight of the week was going to the Big Market, which comes every month to Nyakyera. We all had fun wandering around, trying to bargain for different things. Melanie enlisted the help of one of the Ugandan staff to haggle on her behalf (people always charge muzungus much more for goods), and bought a nice summer dress. Some of the Ugandan guy staff members also bought dresses for their wives, which we were all very impressed with.  

            But our main objective at the market was to buy chickens. David had promised to give a woman nearby a ‘gift,’ which turned out to be eight chickens. So, after everyone had toured the market, we tromped to the other side where the animals – goats, cows, and chickens – were being sold. Melanie, for some reason, also wanted to purchase another hen. The trouble was… there weren’t nine hens up for sale, only a few motley roosters.  So, we dispatched Melanie with a translator on a boda-boda to buy chickens from a man’s farm. And boy, was it ever funny seeing her ride into camp, squashed between the driver and the translator on a motorcycle with four chickens in her arms. Most people here like to carry chickens upside down by their feet. Anyway, they got enough chickens, and since Market Day, Melanie’s new hen, despite being bullied by one of the other hens at camp, has laid two eggs. Needless to say, Mel was ecstatic, and proudly showed the eggs round for everyone at camp to admire. 

            Another new thing this week was Agatojo (not sure how to spell that), a dish of mashed plantains, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and eggplant. It’s pretty good, except the pieces of eggplant (they are very bitter), but they’re easy to pick out. Nancy says that is her favourite Ugandan dish, and I think I agree with her. 

            That’s about it for now – until next week!

Rubingo

This week, David, Michelle and I spent a few days in Rubingo, which is about forty-five minutes away from our camp at Nyakyera. In 2001, ACTS built a pipeline system in Rubingo – 203 taps, I think – quite the project. Rubingo is very similar to Nyakyera, and has beautiful mountainous views for anyone who is willing to climb up that far in the heat.

As soon as we arrived in Rubingo, we held a long meeting with the water committee leaders. They are having trouble with their caretaker, who has put in illegal taps and had, that very day, sold a tank needed for the project to a local. The local was caught, the tank returned, but the caretaker is now on the run. Also, the water pressure has dropped somewhat in some places, largely due (we think) to the extra taps. The young engineers will check out this project next month to see if the extra taps need to be removed (which would be a shame, because one of them is serving a recently built school). But in spite of all this, the Rubingo project is going very well. The Water Committee leaders seem to be on top of things, and to keep themselves accountable with funds, they get an external examiner in every year to check up on things. We were all very encouraged when visiting the area.

The next day, we talked with several other groups that ACTS is working with. Firstly, we met with a group of widows who receive funding from ACTS to rent land for farming. David is hoping that, like the widows of Nyakyera, the Rubingo widows will be able to renew their rent by themselves (and become independent) once they have more land. He therefore promised them money to rent more fields over the next two years. They were very pleased. David also gave them goats and chickens – excellent gifts, because they provide renewable income once they produce offspring. After that, we met with the HIV/AIDS victims’ microfinance program, which is going remarkably well. As a group, they lend money to their members for projects with interest. After collecting the interest, the group bought pigs, which have already multiplied. The group is hoping, the leader said, to eventually give two pigs to each member (there are over a hundred). David thought this was a great plan, and promised them sixty pigs. He was very cheerful this trip – he likes playing Father Christmas. 

The day after that, we visited the homes of several widows. Before ACTS had stepped in to build them houses, these widows were the poorest of the poor. Most had been landless, and had many children to support. Building houses for these women was fairly expensive. Our driver, when he heard the cost, suggested that we just rent homes for them. But the thing is, when a widow who is renting a house dies, her children have nothing. However, when a widow owns a house, she has something to leave to her children, and there is a much better chance that the family will stay together afterwards. 

Other interesting things this week: I saw my first case of elephantitus. One of the widows had very swollen feet and toes thick as sausages. She could barely walk, but still managed to stand when she greeted us. On the more positive side, the local church at Nyakyera has given us two chickens – one rooster and one hen – to keep at camp. Matt wanted to eat them right away, but Melanie desperately wanted to wait for fluffy chicks. She convinced Matt to help her build a pen for them right outside of her tent… and has since been woken up at 5 am every morning by the dratted rooster. Given enough time, I think she might ring its neck herself!   

That’s all for now – until next week!

Back at camp!

Today marks the 101^st Anniversary of International Women’s Day, a public holiday for Ugandans. It’s meant to recognize women’s contributions to their communities, and to encourage gender equality. However, when Nancy asked one Ugandan his community does anything special for the wives on that day, he shook his head. So it seems as if, in the rural communities at least, this holiday is mainly a day off from work. From what I’ve seen, gender equality does not exist in Uganda. For example, it is not uncommon for a Ugandan man to take a second (and often younger) wife to start a new family. When he does, he usually abandons his first wife and her children. Sadly, several children are now being sponsored precisely because they are the children of the first (and abandoned) wife. In most cases, the fathers do not have to provide for these children. And since divorce does not really occur here much, abandoned wives have little opportunity to better themselves. Also, even though eighteen is the legal age for marriage in Uganda, many girls, particularly in rural areas (where we are now), are married off much earlier. Still, I think more girls are going to school nowadays, and ACTS and Urban Systems (the company that Nancy volunteers with – it sponsors children to go to school) try to send an equal number of girls and boys to school, which is good. David also wants to train and employ Ugandan women to work on the pipe system, and I’m pretty excited about that.

Aside from gender-related stuff, life at camp has been going well. It has been raining off-and-on this week, which has been nice. I am really appreciating the cooler weather. David arrived back in camp on Monday evening, and has spent most of his time getting updates from everyone about what we’ve been up to, and how the pipeline project is progressing. I’ve gone along with the young engineers a couple days this week to do some surveying at another site. They’re basically measuring the elevation of the roads to see where they should put the next pipeline. It’s a fiddly and time-consuming process, but I think they’re making progress, especially with Matt leading the charge (he’s an energizer-bunny type – very keen, loads of energy). They’ve also been scoping out areas to do future projects, once the CIDA funding comes in (which David says should come in June).

Aside from the engineering stuff, I’ve also gone on outings with Nancy. On Tuesday, we went to deliver textbooks to two different schools in Nyakyera. I had fun taking photographs of the kids receiving the books – they were very pleased. In many schools around here, only the teachers have textbooks with which to teach the class, and this makes learning difficult for the kids. Nancy says that she has noticed a dramatic improvement at the schools that Urban Systems has given books too – more kids are going on to senior levels and, eventually, to university. It’s cool that a simple solution makes such a big difference here. Also, yesterday Nancy and I went to visit one of the kids in the sponsorship program who was sent home from school because of illness. He has been in and out of the hospital several times this year because of Hepatosplenomegaly (an enlarged spleen and liver). We're all hoping that he will recover soon.

Well, that’s about it for now – until next week!

Jinja

From last Thursday until Tuesday, all the team members had some time off. Wanting to make the most of the break, the young engineers and I decided to go to Jinja – ‘the adventure capital of Uganda,’ or so the guidebook said. Jinja is an hour and a half away from Kampala, which is quite far from camp. On the way there, our car broke down, so it took us twelve hours to get there. On the way back, however, because our driver was speeding, the drive took less than seven hours total. Anyway, we had two full days in Jinja. The first day, we walked around town, admiring the lavender-coloured Jacaranda trees along the banks of the Nile. I didn’t know this before hand, but the source of the Nile is actually in Uganda (it’s called ‘Rippon Falls’ and was discovered/named in 1862 by John Hanning Speke). Later on in the day, we went on a sunset cruise on the river, and we had fun spotting monkeys in the trees. There were grey monkeys, and small little brown ones with white moustaches and red tails. I asked the guide what types of monkeys they were, but he said he didn’t know. 

Other animals we saw near the river included an otter and a fishing eagle, which looks a lot like a bald eagle (it has the white head and everything), although it was perhaps a bit smaller. There were also giant lizards and Melanie thought she spotted a toucan. All the big game – leopards, rhinos, elephants, etc. – are in parks now, so we didn’t see any of them.

            During our second day in Jinja, we went on a river-rafting trip on the Nile. It was wonderful. We all managed to get inside the same raft, and by chance we met another Canadian from Vancouver so, except for the guides, we had a fully Canadian boat. We spent a few minutes practising paddling in a calm section before we went down the first rapid. Boy, was it ever fun. The guides steered us between two rocks, and then yelled for us to squat down in the boat so we wouldn’t fall out. Then the water sort of snatched us away. The waves were huge, and we got completely soaked, but we didn’t tip over on the first rapid like some of the other teams did. The nice thing about rafting the Nile is that the water levels are very high, so even if you fall out (everyone did at least twice), it’s very unlikely that you’ll hit a rock. We flipped over during the second set of rapids, and I got pulled under for a few seconds before my lifejacket bounced me back up. It wasn’t any scarier than getting buffeted by waves in the ocean when you’re surfing. I thought it was great. And, in the calm sections in between the rapids, the guides let us jump out of the raft and bob along in the current, which was absolutely lovely.

            Another interesting thing about being in Jinja was meeting all the other muzungu travellers in the area – Swiss, British, German, American, Dutch, South African – you name it, they were there. And most of them weren’t tourists, which surprised me. Most were, like us, working for non-profit organizations, although I did meet a couple university students who were doing research for their political science doctorates. One of the more interesting people I met was a young woman who worked in rural Sudan. We were all very impressed – ‘isn’t it dangerous?’ we asked. She shrugged and said that getting killed in a motor accident was much more probable than getting killed by gunmen. She works all on her own, isolated from all of her team members, in a rural village trying to eradicate Guiney worm. We also met some American Peace Corps workers, and boy are they intense – they all committed to two years of work in Uganda. And they don’t live in a nice compound like we do – they live right with the Ugandan people in mud huts and everything. 

            So, basically, Jinja was great. The food (Western – a nice change) was awesome, and the guides were all very well organized and fun. We did get robbed at the campsite (they didn’t get any money, though, but they did get my nice new hiking backpack and my ipod, which was a real shame. Also, they sliced through Matt’s tent with a knife, but he thinks he might be able to fix it). Apart from that, the trip went really well. We had a lot of fun rafting, and the engineers are all planning to go back later on. Now we are all back at camp. It’s a bit weird not having the Americans around. I am now the only non-engineer (besides Nancy and David) here. As a result, I think I will be tagging around with the engineers a lot more, but that’s O.K. 

            Anyway, that’s all for now – until next week!