Greetings from Kampala! I am in town for my second weekend off, this time in the capital. I forgot how overwhelming Kampala can be after spending a month in a rural community and then Jinja, which is not nearly as busy. In any case, I am happy to have a day or two to relax and reflect on the last month. I am now 1/3 through with the program, and have four months of work to go, although we have a holiday and five days training in April so it won't be as busy.
Work is proceeding well. The last two weeks were more or less the same as the first. We still had baseline surveys to complete, although we started to do some more activities as well. As a livelihoods volunteer, I spend a little bit of time in schools, but a lot more time with our out-of-school youth groups. We have done some sessions on club development and management as well as entrepreneurship. I think that things will really pick up in March. We have a ton of targets to work towards, and will be doing a session almost daily. As well, the rainy season is starting, which means that people start planting their crops. Our team is planning a demonstration garden near the house, where we can instruct people on how to use different techniques for organic farming. My team partners have promised to teach me to dig like a Ugandan, and I even bought rainboots this weekend so that I will be well prepared for garden work. I'm a bit nervous but really willing to learn, so I hope that it goes well.
I am also starting to get used to day-to-day living in Busaana. I have been making friends with some of the locals. The kids near our house help me to pump water sometimes, and I have been getting better at cooking some Ugandan food. There is no electricity in the village, but the government has recently been putting up the wires to get it started. The main source of electricity in Uganda is hydropower from the Nile, and it is really starting to expand into the more rural areas.The community volunteers that it may even be switched on sometime in the next month or so, and I am really interested to see how this changes things, if at all. I am getting really used to reading by oil lamp and head torch, and I doubt that this will change as Restless Development volunteers are not the first priority for service delivery!
Another thing that I have to get used to is the teamwork. Things move a lot more slowly in Uganda, even though we have a lot to do, and communication is sometimes difficult as things get lost in translation between cultures. I feel like this is one of the most interesting parts of development - I know that I could get a lot more done by myself, but I feel that we really need to do things as a team if the work is going to be sustainable, especially where the community volunteers are involved. This can be frustrating at times but throughout the month we have improved, so I am still optimistic. Change is really slow and difficult to achieve, especially when it comes to more abstract subjects like 'empowerment'. I think that sometimes all we can do is give people information, so that a few people can act on it. One of the questions we had to ask in our focus group discussion (one of the baseline tools) was about gender-based violence, and the participants turned the question on us by asking what we thought they could do to prevent it. This came after a really discouraging discussion about the persistence of gender inequality, and made me feel like we are getting somewhere, if only little by little. The more I talk to people in the community, the more I see that there is so much false information out there, mostly because there is nowhere to get any accurate story. Knowledge in this case really is power.
March is going to be really busy, but I hope to get a couple more blog posts up to let you know how the real work is going. I am planning another weekend in Jinja at least, so stay tuned.
Cheers,
Lauren
P.S. The title of this blog post refers to the disney song of the same name, which is played constantly in Busaana by the "ice cream truck", which is a motorcycle with a box on the back. I am not brave enough to try the ice cream (the travel health guide says no to dairy!), but I am serenaded almost daily. The only other song they play is "My Heart Will Go On", but I didn't think that one would make as good a title... lol.
P.P.S. As promised, here are some pictures.
Work is proceeding well. The last two weeks were more or less the same as the first. We still had baseline surveys to complete, although we started to do some more activities as well. As a livelihoods volunteer, I spend a little bit of time in schools, but a lot more time with our out-of-school youth groups. We have done some sessions on club development and management as well as entrepreneurship. I think that things will really pick up in March. We have a ton of targets to work towards, and will be doing a session almost daily. As well, the rainy season is starting, which means that people start planting their crops. Our team is planning a demonstration garden near the house, where we can instruct people on how to use different techniques for organic farming. My team partners have promised to teach me to dig like a Ugandan, and I even bought rainboots this weekend so that I will be well prepared for garden work. I'm a bit nervous but really willing to learn, so I hope that it goes well.
I am also starting to get used to day-to-day living in Busaana. I have been making friends with some of the locals. The kids near our house help me to pump water sometimes, and I have been getting better at cooking some Ugandan food. There is no electricity in the village, but the government has recently been putting up the wires to get it started. The main source of electricity in Uganda is hydropower from the Nile, and it is really starting to expand into the more rural areas.The community volunteers that it may even be switched on sometime in the next month or so, and I am really interested to see how this changes things, if at all. I am getting really used to reading by oil lamp and head torch, and I doubt that this will change as Restless Development volunteers are not the first priority for service delivery!
Another thing that I have to get used to is the teamwork. Things move a lot more slowly in Uganda, even though we have a lot to do, and communication is sometimes difficult as things get lost in translation between cultures. I feel like this is one of the most interesting parts of development - I know that I could get a lot more done by myself, but I feel that we really need to do things as a team if the work is going to be sustainable, especially where the community volunteers are involved. This can be frustrating at times but throughout the month we have improved, so I am still optimistic. Change is really slow and difficult to achieve, especially when it comes to more abstract subjects like 'empowerment'. I think that sometimes all we can do is give people information, so that a few people can act on it. One of the questions we had to ask in our focus group discussion (one of the baseline tools) was about gender-based violence, and the participants turned the question on us by asking what we thought they could do to prevent it. This came after a really discouraging discussion about the persistence of gender inequality, and made me feel like we are getting somewhere, if only little by little. The more I talk to people in the community, the more I see that there is so much false information out there, mostly because there is nowhere to get any accurate story. Knowledge in this case really is power.
March is going to be really busy, but I hope to get a couple more blog posts up to let you know how the real work is going. I am planning another weekend in Jinja at least, so stay tuned.
Cheers,
Lauren
P.S. The title of this blog post refers to the disney song of the same name, which is played constantly in Busaana by the "ice cream truck", which is a motorcycle with a box on the back. I am not brave enough to try the ice cream (the travel health guide says no to dairy!), but I am serenaded almost daily. The only other song they play is "My Heart Will Go On", but I didn't think that one would make as good a title... lol.
P.P.S. As promised, here are some pictures.
 |
| My placement team. Left-to-right: Alex, Clare, Agnes, Fred, and Me! |
 |
| My friends in Busaana. |
 |
| Where we live... only we have a little room at the back. |
 |
| The kitchen. |
 |
| The bedroom - where Clare and I stay. |
Hey Lauren,
ReplyDeleteI've really enjoyed reading your blog - I almost feel like I'm back in my Restless Development days in Zambia. Good luck with the rest of the project!
X