Moving Through Mobilization

The past couple weeks of my project has focused on mobilizing the community of Bugembe to do ONE thing - attend a free training on savings skills. You even get free food out of it! What a deal.

Unfortunately, mobilizing has been harder than I thought. Despite trekking all around the community for over a week spreading the word about the training to groups, schools, and churches, we only received an attendance of 50 on Saturday. Out of a target group of 300. Did I mention that they all arrived 2 hours after the training was scheduled to start?

Fortunately, even though it was a small number, the training was successful and I feel the attendees earned a lot. Hopefully it will translate into a larger number of people attending the second training and signing up for lockboxes!

Part of this problem can be attributed to African time (aka the attendees showing up 2 hours late), and so it's something pretty much out of my control. The attendance is the frustrating part! It shows how essential proper mobilization strategies are in a community where formal advertising doesn't take place and is expensive. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of stimulating people - and it takes time and energy. It takes talking to the right people, talking to a LOT of people, and visiting groups. It also takes knowing that you don't have the easiest product to sell - can you see how difficult it would be to convince people to come to a savings training when they have a deep-seated mistrust of banks?

But the most rewarding part of that aspect of my project is making impact in the community by changing misconceptions and establishing appropriate savings skills! The project isn't just about increasing working capital for the SACCO: it's establishing new culture.

Go Down that Grade 5 Rapid? Oh, No Problem

Despite being bruised, cut, a little chipped, and maybe sick for about a day, Laura and I survived our rafting trip down the Grade 5 run on the Nile River! Grade 5 rapids are usually rapids that'll flip your raft - as we saw on Sunday. Out of every rapid we went down, we probably flipped on all but two. The last rapid, a Grade 5 named "The Nile Special", flipped our raft on the first wave. There's nothing that wakes you up like the second wave hitting you - POW, right in the kisser.

We had an interesting raft companion named Matt who liked to dive out right into the rapids and float downstream to safety. If Matt was asking if the water was deep, we knew he was going to bail on us right when we got into the whitewater.

After every rapid, there was usually a long stretch of calm water where we could take off our helmets and go for a swim and float around. We were served fresh pineapple while floating down the Nile - nothing is more serene! I was so glad I got the opportunity, and really glad to take my first rafting trip in Uganda down the Nile River.

Unfortunately, I think I swallowed some of the lovely Nile on Sunday, and so on Tuesday I woke up with a tummy bug. Lessons learned - love the Nile, raft on it, but drink the beer, not the water.

The Struggle Boat

Sunday Mallory, and I knocked a big one off our bucket list - white water rafting the grade five rapids of the Nile River! That was not the easiest feat if I say so myself. A glaring sunburn, a few bruises, and one chipped tooth later we came up out of the water alive!

Along the way we definitely encouraged each other as our raft continued flipping over (nearly)every rapid, but really we had a great time with some other interns, our guide, and that peace core volunteer who kept jumping ship...

(no you can't see me in this one - I was in the back, thus I was at that point under the boat)

(Some Muzungu Birds)

(The Dream Team)

That struggle boat we were in was one of many struggles I have faced throughout this summer.

It's time to get real on this blog and let you in on those struggles.

I'll begin with that brief mention of a chipped tooth - yes that was me of course. It is now expertly filled by a Jinja dentist who does not believe it necessarily to use anesthetics before digging right in.

On a less physically painful note, my project keeps slipping behind in its schedule. It is incredibly unfortunate - but what can we do when the road is washed out from construction right before the heavy rain, or when a community member passed away and the savings group is making burial preparations. My supervisor in the field is very supportive of trying to find solutions and we are finding ways to skip some steps or revisit them later as time allows.

Also as we visit groups I hate reaching that point of our presentation where we need to clarify that some groups will not be included in the pilot program - they smile, eyeing me and say "I think you will pick us..." I may have learned how to give a bad news message (shout out of thanks to Jeanette Heidewald and the Kelley School) but it is still not something to look forward to.

Through careful communication we will keep moving forward, and I am proud to say we have organized our brand goals, developed respectable logos, and chosen three savings groups for our pilot branding program! Ever the optimist, I laugh off the setbacks with my colleagues who face the same challenges every day - rather than for a short eleven weeks - and get back to work!

Organized Chaos

I love when I learn about some reason or meaning for typical parts of life in Uganda, especially concerning their language. For example: A Rolex (no not the watch) is Chapatti rolled up with a fried egg omelet and costs around 1000/= Ugandan Shillings (Again not the watch for $.50 USD, that would be too cool). Anyways, it was named a Rolex because you take the food, and roll it up. Plain and simple, and delicious.

Also I have learned so much about Boda Bodas this week!

First interesting fact is that their name was shortened from border-to-border. Motorcycle taxis provided cheap transportation across the border in the East to Kenya and became known for taking people from one border to another. Convenient name? I think so!

The second thing I learned is that they are incredibly organized! While visiting Mallory and another intern, Nick, in Bugembe on Wednesday I arrived rather early with no idea which way to go. A colleague was dropping me from work (hence the early arrival) and instructed me to sit with the bodas and wait. Among the ten bodas at this boda stage, I met the Bugembe boda Chairman! They have a chairman! So does Jinja apparently, and everywhere.

After being introduced to each by their name and religion, I asked about how they got stationed at this particular coaster stop. It is a prime location, and I am not sure how some end up working that corner, and another guy sits all day at the end of my street waiting for someone to come by. No clear answer emerged from the conversation. All I know though, is it may be more competitive than I first thought!

I'm so curious about this taxiing industry, I have many follow up questions for my new friends next time I visit Bugembe, but perhaps I will save that for a sunny day!

(View of Lake Victoria from some hilltop in Bugembe)

Top 20 Best Things About Uganda

Like Laura was saying earlier, it's shocking how the weeks have gone by - next week we will be going on our midterm retreat, and my program will be halfway done! I wanted to chronicle all the best things about Uganda (so far...).

1. Friendly people
2. Awesome weather and amazing, lush scenery
3. Boda boda rides!
4. Tea time + dubbed over Spanish soap operas = supreme happiness
5. Coming home to your host family and being tackled by your host brothers/sisters
6. Fresh fruit and vegetables - avocados, mangos, bananas, pineapples, passionfruits...
7. Organic/nonprocessed food in general
8. Street food! Chapati, rolex, samosas, pancakes...
9. Sodas. A Stoney (spicy ginger ale) a day makes a happy Mallory.
10. Awesome FSD interns
11. Being so close to the Nile makes for great scenery and tourism opportunities!
12. Our favorite hostel, Backpackers, has an awesome crowd of 20-somethings from the U.S. or the U.K. on weekends.
13. Beer. Big beers. Good beers. My favorite is the Nile Special.
14. Blue Band. It's this margarine spread from Unilever and it's sooooo good.
15. Ugandan friends calling you to update them on where they are and what they're doing.
16. Obama-fever. There are Obama tote bags, hair salons, belt buckles...
17. National football matches! Vuvuzelas, anyone?
18. Copies of your favorite movies and TV shows before they're even in the stores in the US....
19. The Ugandan ice cream truck
20. Chickens, goats, and cows running all over the place. I think I just really like farm animals...
21. The markets in Bugembe and Jinja. So lively and so much good food.
22. The touristy shops selling traditional crafts. It's all I can do to keep from buying them all!
23. Ugandan fabrics. I bought a purse in Kampala that's made out of traditional Ugandan fabric, and it's my favorite thing.

I lied and went over my list! Definitely more good things to come, so I'll just keep this running for now.

Energy Woes Pt 2

In the past few days, I've started to see a lot of differences in how much energy I consume versus how much my Ugandan counterparts consumer. In another idea from Tom Friedman’s book, he talks about how people around the world aspire to live the “American lifestyle.” The expansion of the global middle class is a testament to that. The issue is, Americans use more energy per person than any other country on the globe.

As an American in a country with an energy shortage, I’ve grown acutely aware of how much electricity I use. I have to charge my laptop, my iPhone if I want to listen to music and call my parents, my lantern, my Ugandan phone, my camera, etc etc etc. I can’t think about how my host family’s electricity bill is going to go up because of me.

I’ve also realized how much stuff I have. My host mother told me that I had the most bags out of any intern she had ever seen. Did I really need to take my iPad with me? Did I really need to take all these clothes? It’s become my new goal to reduce my bags from three down to two, so hopefully I won’t struggle on my way home!

Up the Nile without a Paddle

Hopefully I will not actually lose my paddle as Mallory, myself, and four other FSD interns take on some 25 kilometers of Grade Five rapids on Sunday!

I heard from a very persistent tour guide that it takes approximately three months for water to travel the entire 6000 miles to the Mediterranean Sea. That made me think about how far I've come on my journey here, which will be just shy of three months. I suppose at three weeks in I must be somewhere in Southern Sudan on my metaphorical journey downstream.

Upon arrival I thought eleven weeks was somewhere beyond the horizon - past some matoke, villages and monkeys - but I was wrong. My work plan timeline is flying by, and weekends are filling with adventure! I am grateful for this blog for a chance to record everything that's happening, and I really hope I can get down to business with my branding project, rather than letting time continue to float by.