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!

News

This week, I’ve been mainly doing office work, which has its upsides and downsides. The upside is that it is usually much cooler in the office than going for sweaty hikes in the afternoon. The downside is, well, it’s not that exciting. I’ve spent most of my time writing a report analyzing the results of the surveys we took. Ryan, one of the Americans, did all the math stuff for me – stats, percentages and whatnot – which was a huge help. The main conclusion of the report was that the Ugandan Water Committees here haven’t been doing their jobs properly, so we’ll probably be doing some educational workshops about this in the near future.

            Other news… well, another ACTS truck rolled into the ditch. One of the Ugandans new to the wheel had a chicken-match with an army vehicle, which was going WAY too fast, as usual, and was right in the middle of the road. The army vehicle won, and the ACTS truck swerved off the road (I wasn’t in it). The army knows it won’t be challenged, so the drivers don’t bother to show the least bit of courtesy on the roads. They didn’t even stop when the truck went in the ditch. Anyway, this time, not even a team of Ugandans pushing, pulling, digging, and so forth, could get the thing out. We had to get a tow-truck. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the truck doesn’t seem to be too badly off. One wheel is toast, but that’s about the extent of the damage (I think). Oh, and, while we’re on the subject of accidents, the young engineers, intent on fixing the pipeline themselves, managed to puncture the pipe they were trying to repair. The leak drained the reservoir before the engineers managed to right their mistake (but it rained buckets the next day, so the reservoir filled up again). Boy, did they look sheepish traipsing back with blistered hands (from digging) and covered in mud. They got a good talking-too from Bern later on.

            Another major new thing – rain. I was under the impression, for some reason, that I wasn’t going to be in Uganda during the rainy season, so I neglected to pack a raincoat. However, as I’ve recently realized, Uganda has a ‘short rainy season’ from late February to early March. And when it rains here, it pours. Some days, it’s almost like hail. The sky becomes grey and stormy with thunder and lightening, and the wind whacks the banana tree leaves as it passes by. When you’re sitting in the office (which has a roof made from galvanized steel) and it’s pelting with rain, the drops are deafening. Fortunately, it usually doesn’t rain for too long – an hour or two at most. After that, it clears up for a bit. The nice thing about this is that it tends to make the days much cooler, which I’m grateful for. The negative side: our shower depends on solar power in order to produce hot water. In the rainy season, when it’s overcast, there isn’t enough power to warm the shower, so you’ll often hear little gasps of shock from people showering in the afternoon. Ah well.

Other observations I’ve compiled lately:

-The word ‘please’ does not exist in Runyankore, so Ugandans often forget to use it in English. Until Nancy explained the please-issue to me, I was getting rather irritated with people pointing to something and saying ‘give me’ all the time.

-People here don’t obsess about their bodies here much, which is nice. The only Ugandan concerned with her body-image that I’ve noticed was Grace (she left a couple of days ago), who I learned was eating tubes of cream in order to gain weight (large women are considered attractive here).

-Because it’s difficult to get water, and because it’s such a pain to wash clothing (or wash at all), people often don’t. This is unfortunate, because the amount someone sweats in a day can be monumental. Also, nobody uses deodorant here. I’m glad my sense of smell is not very acute, but even I notice some things…

Well, that’s about it for now. I will likely have much more interesting things to say next week. This afternoon (Thursday), everyone is leaving for ‘the off’ – a 4-5 day break. The young engineers and I are going to Jinja, which is 1-2 hours away from Kampala, for a few days – should be fun!

Following the Engineers

Most of this week, I’ve been, surprise, surprise, following the engineers around while they do their thing. Repairs for the Kiyoora Water Project are well underway, although there is still much to be done. Recently, the young engineers – Matt, Melanie and Michelle – have been looking for another source. Apparently, even if they do repair the Kiyoora Water line, there isn’t enough water from the original source for all the people (the population has grown a lot, and I think the source has dried up a bit). Anyway, so Bern sent the young engineers (with me tagging along) into the hills to find another source that we can tap into. I don’t think Bern was very hopeful that we would find another source, because he was surprised when Matt told him we had.

           

What’s the new source like? Well, it’s pretty gross, really. When we hiked up the first time (quite a slog – it’s very steep, and of course the heat makes it unpleasant) on Friday morning, and found three sources. Two of the springs were too small to tap into, but the third was pretty big. It’s a mountain spring that the Ugandans had dammed up to make a brown, murky pool. Once we had spotted it, the engineers got out a jerry can and a timer to test the flow. But we first had to un-dam the spring. After digging the blockages out (logs, mainly), and letting the water flow out for a while, we found that there were tons and tons of long, black leeches sticking onto the underside of the logs. Ugh! These people had been drinking from leech-infested, chocolate-milk coloured water. Even while we were there, several families came down with jerry cans to collect water. Anyway, the engineers timed the water flow, and they found that it was fast enough to tap into.

The next time we went up, on Monday, we foolishly ascended in the mid-afternoon, when the sun was at its hottest. Still, Bern took a look at the source, and he said it might work. Some of the things we would have to look into, he said, would be to get permission from the person owning the land where the spring is located. Another thing we’d have to look into was the fishpond – lower down on the slope, a teacher had diverted some water to make a pool where he keeps his fish. They’re tiny little things, almost not worth eating, but they don’t wait for the fish to grow big. Still, we wouldn’t want to be responsible for drying up his ponds by taking too much water. But the most important factor we would need to consider was the slope itself. As the engineers explained to me, for the water flow to be sufficient in the pipes, the pipes have to slope down the mountain in a steady descent. The trouble is, there is a valley in between the source and the Kiyoora line, and we can’t have the pipe going down and then up – it’ll mess up the water pressure and flow. So I suggested building a little wooden bridge across to carry the pipe along. But Matt pointed out that we really needed to bury the piping so that most of the Ugandans don’t know where it is (to prevent them from stealing the pipes, which has happened before, sadly). So, yesterday morning, we trekked up into the hills again to try to find a way across the valley. Boy, we must have hiked up and down that valley, bush-whacking through ferns and brush, three or four times that day. Our conclusion: there is no good place to cross the valley – we’d have to go around it. This way would use more pipes, but it would keep the flow intact. 

Aside from helping out the engineers, I’ve eaten some different kinds of Ugandan food this week. We had a sort of stew with matoke, which I disliked because of the bitter spices, but they also gave us chapates – deep-fried, flour pancakes. The Ugandan staff eat them plain, but Melanie and I discovered that by putting sugar, cinnamon, and butter on them, they are really good. Mel says she thinks they taste like Beaver Tails. The chapates remind me of churros from Latin America. We’ve also eaten freshly made banana chips, which the Ugandan staff made for us. They are absolutely delicious. I hope they make them again. Also new for me was sugar cane. It looks a lot like bamboo. Bern sliced it open for me with a machete. The inside is white and stringy, and has a sweet, almost flowery taste. I mainly chewed and sucked on the white stringy stuff before spitting it out, but the Ugandans actually eat the stuff.

So that’s about it for now. I don’t know what next week will hold, but I know Grace is leaving us (she was only going to stay for a month). Also, Matt and Melanie and I have been working on getting visas for Rwanda, which is surprisingly tricky for Canadians (Americans can just get them at the border. I don't know why it's different for us), and we think we’ll have to go to Kampala to get it sorted out. Lastly, we got the news that David Moore’s mother has died. He is flying home today, but will be back soon. Keep him and his family in your prayers.  

Scholarships and Students

Scholarships and Students:

            Well, I’ve had a pretty good week so far. We finished ‘survey-ing’ for the week on Saturday afternoon, and then I had the rest of the day and Sunday off. Mostly, I lazed around in the shade and did my laundry. On Monday, instead of going out with the questionnaire crew as usual, I left camp for Mbarara to help Nancy with her scholarship work. We stayed in Mbarara until Wednesday. It was wonderful. I learned a lot about the Ugandan school system, which is very complicated.

            Here’s the gist: In Uganda, there are seven primary levels (P 1-7). Before a student can enter secondary school (if they can afford it, that is), they have to take a government exam, which tests them in four different subjects: English, Math, Science, and Social Studies. The best possible mark a person can get is “aggregate 4” – it’s kind of like golf in Uganda, a low score is the best. A score of 1 is awarded to a student who gets between 90-100% in a subject, 2 for 80-90%, and so on. But a total score of 4 is a very unusual score – only the very brightest (and usually the wealthiest, who have books, tutors, helpful parents, and electricity with which to study at night) get 4. Most of the kids Nancy was interested in sponsoring had 9-20. A student who gets “aggregate 12” or above after primary school moves into division one – kind of like an honours group. The rest fall into division 2, and the very worst are in division 3. Then, if they are accepted, the children go into secondary school. Here, there are six more levels. After four levels of secondary school (levels 1-4 are called ‘ordinary’ levels, and levels 5-6 are called ‘academic’), the kids take another exam to see if can go to university, after which they move on to secondary 5-6. And how old are the students at the various levels? Well, that depends. In poor families, parents sometimes have to take their kids out of school halfway through the year because they cannot pay school fees. The child then has to repeat the year. This happened to a couple of the kids that Urban Systems Foundation (an engineering firm based in Vancouver which, through ACTS, sponsors several needy children to go to school each year. Nancy works (volunteers) for them). All this is to say that it is not unusual for students to be in their early twenties before they finish school.

            But school really is the only way out of poverty. All the students we talked to said that they want to be engineers. Funnily enough, however, most of them had no clue what an engineer does – they just know engineers make a lot of money. Teaching and nursing are also common ambitions. The nice thing about Urban Systems Foundation is that the sponsors care more about whether a student is trying his/her best and is staying out of trouble than they do about their students having tip-top grades. So even if the sponsored kids don’t have good enough grades for university, they’ll be sent to teacher’s college or will be put into a trade – welding, masonry, mechanics, that sort of thing. Nancy says the teachers at the schools are not very nice – they cane the students and yell at them all the time (a bit like Nicholas Nickleby, I’d imagine). But the students are very used to it – it is the Ugandan way. Their grandparents, parents, and teachers all went through it, and now they must brave the storm for a better future.  

            And what do the schools look like? They vary, but most consist of big, brick, open-windowed classes with wooden desks, cement floors, and a blackboard at the front of the room. There is usually also a water tap, a bathroom, a space for children to play, and sometimes a garden area. Yesterday, I visited a high school with Nancy. While she was busy paying school fees, I wandered into the girls’ dorm to have a look around. There were a few girls standing by the gate to their sleeping compound (the boys and girls have separate, gated compounds), and they were very eager for me to come in. One of them pointed to the first couple of dorms. I peeked in. They were big rooms, but packed tight with school trucks and three-level bunk-beds. By the time I had finished taking a quick look at the first room, I noticed that there was a considerably larger group of girls surrounding me (these were senior girls – so they would be from 14-21 years old). As I walked along, admiring each room and examining the water tank, more girls approached. Finally, when I entered a corridor, I was swarmed. They knew some English, and peppered me with questions:

“Where are you from?”

“Are you still in school?”

“Why are you in Uganda?”

“ACTS? What is ACTS?”

 And while I was trying to answer their questions and watching my camera (which they weren’t interested in) I noticed that some of them were touching me – feeling my skin (“It ees very smooth and nice”) and playing with my ponytail, which they found very interesting (all of them have their hair cut very short, almost bald, for low maintenance).

            You’d think that, as a no-touching, crowd-hating person, I would have felt very uncomfortable during this time. I wasn’t. Actually, I was thinking ‘I can’t wait to write about this.’ After a few more minutes, I shook everybody off, and went to find Nancy.

            Well, that’s about it for now. The only other interesting thing I can write about is witnessing a snake-killing at a primary school. Boy – those Ugandans are tough! Instead of running when they see a venomous snake, they grab sticks and large stones, and beat the thing to death. I’m not sure what kind of snake it was, but I think it was a black ‘young’ cobra.

           

Oh- that's the supper bell - must dash or I won't get any food!

            Cheers,

            Erica

Interviewing!

Well, it’s been a much busier week than the previous two. On the weekend, I helped create and type up questionnaires and answer sheets for the Kiyoora project. The Kiyoora project is a pipeline that brings water down from a natural source, in this case a mountain spring, down to several villages. In each, there are numerous taps along the way. It was built in 1999, and was supposed to last over twenty years, but it has come into disrepair. The ACTS members are understandably frustrated about this – they had taught a caretaker how to maintain the pipes. The problem is that the communities were not paying the caretaker (the money for the caretaker was taken from the community by the water committee leaders, some of whom were corrupt; when they realized their money was being embezzled, the villagers stopped paying), so he blocked up the pipes with wood to send a message: “No pay, no water.” Also, children, who do almost all of the water collecting, have damaged some of the taps (they fight over who gets to be first to use the water, probably so they will not be late to school). Plus, some people built houses near the roads and cut the pipeline to put their houses in. SO, this week we’ve been questioning villagers close to the source in order to find out a) what were the problems (which I’ve just listed) b) how they think they will prevent similar problems from happening in the future (accountability, electing good leaders, watching the children, education), and c) finding out if the people need education about water (yes – it’s clear they do), AIDS (actually, a lot of them seem pretty well informed), and sanitation.

            So what is the surveying actually like? Well, there are now four of us non-engineers (not counting Nancy, who has her own scholarship agenda, or David, who attends meetings, does financial and admin stuff, and a host of other things) – Tim Folkman, me, and two American guys who have joined us for a month – Ryan and Andrew (they’ve been in Kampala for several months doing ministry to street children). So, we four are teamed up with four Ugandan women, and we go off in pairs, from house to house, asking questions. I’ve been teamed up with a lady called Jovanice. Jovanice questions the head/s of the household, translates the answers back to me, and then I record them (and when I’m bored, I make up new questions based on my own interests). The houses in the villages are made out of dried mud and thatch, wooden doors, and sometimes with corrugated iron roofs and woven thatch carpets or dirt floors. The nicer ones have been plastered inside and out, and have been painted. All of the houses I’ve been to have a sitting room where visitors can come – this is where we sit, usually perched on home-made wooden chairs. It is hot, and there are lots of flies. But everyone is very kind and hospitable – ‘You ah welcome’ they always say.

            Today was an especially nice day. We had breakfast at seven, and were in the cars at eight to start the bumpy ride to the villages near the Kiyoora site. We arrived at 8:30 am, and split up to survey the area. David Moore came with Jovanice and I because I had asked David if I could come with him to a meeting in Nyakyera about ACTS’ microeconomics work (they help widows by renting land for them. David has worked it out so that each widow will work four plots of land. The revenue from the first three will be enough to live off, pay school fees for children, and hopefully garner a small profit with which to buy goats, which in turn should multiply; the fourth plot revenue will go towards paying next year’s field rent, so that they can be self-sustaining. I hope it works.). Anyway, today we hiked through the steep hills to question goat-herding families about the Kiyoora project. It was beautiful up there – green rolling hills like out of storybooks, and a wide, blue sky – a bit like a Ugandan setting from Heidi… without the snow. Down in the valley below, we could see little mud houses nestled in among the banana trees. Because I climbed up and down the slopes quickly, Jovanice called me a mbusi, the Ugandan word for 'goat.' David said I might be given a Ugandan name while over here, but I'm sort of hoping that one won't stick... 

I saw an interesting thing in one of the houses today – a poster praising Saddam Hussein and his follows as strong, free men. In it, the heads of Saddam and his sons and brothers had been pasted onto the fit, strong, intrepid bodies of soldiers. I desperately wanted to buy it to bring it home to show my Islamic studies professor, but David said no. Still, what a weird thing to see in a mud hut at the top of a Ugandan mountain…

The second odd thing I saw today was a group of men digging into the earth. I asked our guide what they were doing (thinking they were fixing the pipes), and he replied that they were hunting. “Hunting what?” I asked, but at that moment, there was a chorus of excited voices – the men had obviously caught what they were hunting. They bounded up the slope and presented their prize to us. At first I thought it was a possum, but then I realized it was a giant rat – the biggest one I’d ever seen. It was a river rat, they said, and they were going to cook the squirming rodent up for dinner. 

Well, that's about it for now - tomorrow, Friday, will consist of more surveying and meetings, and on Saturday, we'll work a half-day. Sundays are completely free, so I will probably do my laundry then. 

Hope all's well in Canada,

Erica

Nyakyera

A big hello from the team in Nyakyera (pronounced ‘Nya-chera’). We’ve been at camp (where we’ll be living most of the time) since Monday evening. A few years ago, the church at Nyakyera donated some land to ACTS. It’s a square compound with a rough wooden fence all around. My team members and I live in big, olive green safari tents on wooden platforms. Two beds, a table, and my tote fit comfortably in my tent. The team is lucky – since there aren’t many of us, we don’t have to share. It is very peaceful here, and I enjoy reading in the evenings. Here, it is usually cool until 10 am, then hot until 6pm, and then is cooler in the evenings. I like everything about camp except the big, black spiders that scuttle around the long-drop at night – shudder. Matt likes to squash them with his hiking boots, and Melanie and I give him lots of encouragement. Doom (hard core bug spray) is my new best friend.

The villages surrounding Nyakyera are pretty rural, much less developed than Mbarara, and most of the houses are made with mud and thatch. In terms of the landscape, it’s quite hilly and green, and there are fields everywhere full of corn, potatoes, and banana trees. Grace informed me that the banana trees (about 8-12 feet tall on average) grow to maturity in only a few months. They are very strange looking trees, with giant, drooping leaves that look like green quills. The people in the villages are poor. You know those photos you sometimes see of children with ripped, dirty clothes and flies on their faces? I've definitely seen some of those around here. Still, most seem very happy, and are often to be seen playing soccer with a home-made ball. Soccer is very popular here, and the kids know many more soccer teams than I do.

During our first day here in Nyakyera (Tuesday), we explored a few nearby villages. In the morning, we drove up to the top of a valley to examine a water tank ACTS had built for a needy widow. The roads are very poor and extremely rocky. Apparently in December, they had a lot of rain, which damaged washed away most of the roads. As a result, we were jiggled and jostled to bits on the way up, and the trucks stalled every few minutes. I think we’d have been faster going up on horseback, but I was very impressed with the drivers. Still, we have had a couple of problems already – one of the trucks broke down on the way to Nyakyera, and another ended up in the ditch when part of the road caved in. We had to cut some tracks for it with hoes and used ropes to help guide it back up. Everyone always says that travel by road is the number one killer of white people in Uganda, and I’m starting to see why…

The people here are very friendly, with dark brown skin and big smiles. ACTS has trained several Ugandans to conduct data collection and to manage projects while David is away. As for the food, it’s been pretty good so far. At seven is breakfast, lunch is at one or later, tea is at five, and dinner at 7:30pm. Breakfast is light, with bread, bananas, and milky chai tea, which I rather like. For lunch and dinner, there is a buffet of rice, matoche, beans, pineapple, peanut sauce, cabbage, potatoes, and sometimes vegetables and boiled eggs. Nancy keeps saying how lucky we are – how in the ‘old days’ all they got was beans and rice. I like the vegetables and the fruit, as well as g-nuts, which are similar to salted peanuts. But I do miss cheese and chocolate, which are delicacies here.

The engineers have started making preparations for their work, testing the equipment to see if it’s accurate, and examining models of pipelines and tanks to get an idea of what sorts of water projects will work here. They’ve also been busy fixing things at camp. I’m starting to realize that although I do not understand their fascination with math, physics, and how things work, engineers are awfully useful to have around. Nancy has been busy meeting with students, teachers, and parents about her scholarship stuff. Sometimes Michelle helps, as she really likes children. As for Tim and I, we’ve accompanied David at a few meetings with church leaders and such. David often introduces me as his ‘daughter from his village’ or as ‘the daughter of a priest,’ which seems to impress most people.

I think I am starting to understand a bit more about International Development already. One of the most important things to realize is that things take time. The roads are awful, cars break down, and, most importantly, people function on ‘African time’ (meaning they are always a few hours late – they are not fussed with getting things done quickly – their motto seems to be ‘what doesn’t get done today will get done tomorrow.’ They are not lazy, they just function at a slower pace). Also, the meetings here take forever – they meet (late, and it’s always hot), sometimes take communion, spend nearly an hour introducing everyone (as I’ve already mentioned, greetings are huge here), then they pray, then they sometimes break for tea, and THEN the meeting starts, which can last hours (and is longer when they have a translator for us). Things also take longer sometimes because of the linguistic barriers. All in all, it’s a bit of a shock for us Westerners. I’ve been really impressed with David’s patience. I usually keep myself awake by taking notes, or, if the meeting is in Runyankore, I attempt to write poetry. If I didn’t have an imagination, I’d probably go bonkers. But meetings are very important in this kind of work – people, and quite rightly so, often get offended if they are not consulted. So we meet with the individual clergymen, then with the important ones in a group (the Church seems to be the main source of social aid here), then with those who have been involved in previous water projects (Ugandan project managers), and then with important people in the villages, and so on. Between attending meetings and writing project proposals, it’s a wonder David has time for anything else.

            So, that’s about it for now. On Saturday, a couple of Americans will be arriving at camp to help out for a month. And on Monday, David says my work will start intensively (although I’m still not quite sure what my ‘work’ will entail.) You might notice that I don’t have any pictures up – that’s largely because internet is very spotty and slow here. I am taking photos, and I will upload them if I get the chance, but it doesn’t look too probable at this stage. So for now, you’ll just have to make do with my descriptions.

Until next week,

Erica

Uganda!

Well, Uganda is wonderful so far. The plane rides took a long time, but we got here eventually, safe and sound. Also, all our luggage (a considerable amount) arrived too, and I got upgraded to business class for no apparent reason, which was greatly appreciated. We arrived at Entebbe airport at about 10:30 in the evening of the 17^th. As soon as I got off the plane, I was hit by a wave of heat and humidity. It was almost like someone had pressed a wet, hot cloth over my face. After clearing customs and meeting our team leader, David Moore (David went to Uganda two weeks before us), we piled our suitcases into a couple of trucks and drove to a hotel on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda’s capital city. 

My team-members and I spent the next day exploring Kampala. People often call it a ‘dirty city,’ but I didn’t find it especially so. We also gained a new team member – Grace, a Ugandan woman (mid-twenties). Grace has recently completed a Masters in International Development in the UK and was looking for an internship opportunity, so David asked her to come. I’m quite pleased – she adds an interesting dynamic to our Canadian group and is very helpful in translating and helping us incompetent muzungu (‘white people’ – similar to ‘gringo’ in Latin countries) learn the ropes.

            After our day in Kampala, we started the long drive to Mbarara. The trip is supposed to take six hours, but it took much longer because of all the stops we made. Still, I didn’t mind. It was a great way to get a proper look at the countryside. Of course, we had to clear Kampala first. It was very congested, with traffic advancing at a crawl and boda-bodas (little motorcycles that give lifts to people for a price – women ride on these side-saddle, and it’s absolutely amazing that they don’t fall off) weaving through cars and trucks with reckless abandon (and I do mean reckless – it’s one of the most unsafe ways to travel – many people are killed in accidents on these things).

Once we left Kampala, we were able to drive much faster. Most people say that the Ugandan countryside is much nicer than its cities, and I have to agree with them. The first thing I noticed was the difference in colour – in Canada, most of the landscape is made up of greens, blues, purples and such. In Uganda, there are more browns, reds, and yellows, although there is a fair bit of green what with the lush ferns, fertile fields, and palm trees. Also, the dirt roads are red – just like in PEI – which are lovely, although they are very dusty.

Mbarara is slightly cooler than Kampala, I think, and mercifully less humid. It is still hot, though. We have been here a couple of days (we are staying at ‘Canada House,’ a compound that ACTS owns – there are several rooms full of bunk beds for us). Yesterday was a day full of lectures. In the morning, we had a 4-hour language lesson in Runyankore, one of the dialects in Uganda (I think there are about 40 in all; fortunately, many people speak at least some English), which was rather overwhelming. Edson, our teacher, impressed upon us the importance of greetings in Ugandan culture. Over here, if you pass by someone without greeting them and later need their help, they will not talk to you (neglecting to greet someone is very rude). As a result, there are many, many different kinds of greetings (which I have already forgotten), but the one I remember is ‘Agandi’ (‘how are you?’) to which one can reply ‘nimarungi’ (‘I’m fine’). In the afternoon, a Ugandan professor gave a long lecture about Ugandan culture. According to her, community and relationships are everything to Ugandans – people take care of their relatives and neighbours whenever they can so that when they themselves are in need, they will be helped. Anyone who does not assist a relative in need is regarded with disgust.

As for this morning, Melanie and I attempted to do laundry by hand, but Grace informed us we weren’t doing it right and promptly showed us the proper way to do it. I watched and copied her scrubbing and squeezing method. I thought I was getting the hang of it and was about to say so when Grace shook her head and said ‘you’re trying.’ Ah well…

That’s about it for now – it’s been quite an exciting few days. I get the feeling that David is trying to acclimatize us to Uganda before throwing us into our work, which I’m thankful for. As for Ugandan food, I can’t really say much about it yet – Nancy says they’ve been spoiling us this week, but that will change at ‘camp.’ All in all, I really like my team-mates, and am looking forward to starting the actual volunteer work on Monday.

Until next time,

Erica