What Am I Doing Here?

This will be Part I of Many, I'm Sure. I’ve had a few moments here where I am like, what in the hell? WHY? Why am I not spending my weekends by the pool sipping mojitos and my weekdays at a nice air-conditioned office, my clothes not covered in mud, my fingernails not filled with dirt that never entirely comes out and my meals not of lots of carbs and a little meat of mostly gristle and animal parts I would only see in biology class. Moments like this:

So maybe you wake up in the morning and are excited to see two of your dearly beloved mangos, which have been missing from the house in recent weeks, in a bowl in the bottom of the fridge and you start eating one and realize it is rotten on one side, but you take a few bites from the good side and then are like, this tastes a little funny, so you start eating the other mango in the bowl and when you are almost done some white jumping things in the bowl catch your eye, and you look closer and they are little maggots, and you know right away it was from the fruit that you started to eat, so you cut the rotten portion open and see yes, maggots inside, and maybe you just got over malaria (or you think you got over malaria, but you don’t know until later that you still are sick with it) and you really don’t want intestinal parasites in the wake hospitalization, so you call your doctor friend to ask about the bugs, but he doesn’t pick up, and while the maggots maybe harmless, you want the chance of falling ill as close to zero as possible, so you grab the large pot from the kitchen that is used to boil amoebas, typhoid and miscellaneous bacteria from the drinking water and bring it into the tiled room that serves as a bathing and laundering area and begin making yourself vomit into it, because the toilet in the small room next door doesn’t flush well and is generally full of floating, gelatinous matter that doesn’t appear sanitary and you really don’t want your partially digested mangos hitting the filthy water and splashing back in your face, maybe into your eyes, nose and mouth, so in the shower you stand over the pot for maybe 20 minutes trying to get everything out of your stomach, grateful that all you’ve eaten in about 12 hours are the infested mangos.

That actually wasn’t the what am I doing here? story. That incident was actually pretty amusing to me. The story that made me go, oh Africa! was this one:

I was staying the night at an aunt’s home in Kampala, a nice home. I was in the sitting room wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt with its hood over my head; only my face and the tops of my feet exposed. After a half hour, I noticed I had about five bites on one foot. I tell my African friends now that the best way to ensure they don’t get bit by mosquitoes is to have me in the room. Mosquitoes have a real special affinity for me, and it is most certainly not reciprocated. So around nine in the evening, sick of my skin being lovingly sucked by the pests, I went to bed to read under the safety of the net.

But while reading I kept hearing a buzzing noise. Paranoid of the nasty blood-suckers, I scanned the folds and holes in the net trying to find the critter that I just knew was there. And there she was. After two tries, I successfully made contact, but she just fell to the ground and I wasn’t sure if she was outside the net, plus the buzzing continued. So to the kitchen I went to find DOOM! bug spray while everyone else in the house slept. I mean, I really don’t want to get malaria again. I turned the switch on and heard plates crashing, and then something ran across the counter. It stopped and starred at me momentarily; the biggest rat I have ever seen. This isn’t saying much since I never see rats, but it was slightly bigger than a well-fed squirrel. I screamed and ran back to the bedroom and slammed the door.

Emma, a cousin a few years younger than me, was on the top bunk and awoke.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a rat in the kitchen this big!” I said gesturing so that my hands were almost a foot long.
“That’s a big one,” she said as she rolled over and fell back asleep.

I stared at her back for a while. I was surprised she hadn’t jumped up to rescue. I am not sure what I thought she would do, but I didn’t think it would be going back to sleep. I shrugged and climbed back under the net on the bottom bunk and lay there constantly slapping at my body and waving above my head like a mental patient, preferring the possibility of sharing the space with a mosquito to the rodent- feline hybrid snacking on leftovers in the kitchen.

So, I promised myself for every bad story to tell, I would share a good one, which isn’t difficult. Life here, each day in fact, is serious of surprises, at times brilliant highs and disturbing lows. The same day as the holed bed net- mosquito-rat trifecta, I got to cuddle with a three week old baby. The family I was visiting had a house girl who just gave birth, and I didn’t realize the infant was there until the second day of my stay. The girl brought the precious boy into the sitting room that afternoon wrapped in a soft, white cloth. I immediately clobbered him. As I lay on the couch watching TV, he rested on my abdomen, his tiny face lying against my skin listening to my heart as he drifted off. That night I fell asleep with the annoying buzz of the mosquito, the lingering scent of a newborn and a smile on my face.

No, Really, What Am I Doing Here?

I’ve had people ask why Africa? Why are you going there for community work? It is a valid question; need exists in every community the world over and one doesn’t need to travel 13,000 miles to give back. (I hope all of you are involved in a project near you!;) My decision to volunteer abroad was partly due to my personality and sense of adventure, as well as my enduring interest in African culture, but mostly because I desired to experience and alleviate in some small way the need here; its scope and depth beyond anything we could witness in the West. I knew living among it would be life changing, or at least affirming, and I can say it has more than met my expectations.

My work with the SACCO in the villages has finally resumed since I fell sick. I wake up in the morning and travel by taxi for about 45 minutes to the edge of Jinja, the Nile Brewery stage, and then board a boda boda to take me via another, thankfully, paved road to the SACCO office in Wakisi Sub-county.

our humble SACCO office


I met the board members there so that we can travel together further into the villages and so I can pay for their travel as they don’t have a few extra shillings for their own way. We then walk back to the road to board a taxi to take us down the paved road away from Jinja. The taxi drops us off after say 10 minutes then we ride boda bodas on narrow dirt roads into the villages. This is one of my favorite parts of the day; sweeping up and down gentle slopes through the villagers’ maize, plantain and bean fields, by their self-made homes, sometimes of concrete paid by wealthier relatives in town, or traditional construction of mud and branches, they wave at me as they perform their chores in their dirt yards, the children giggle and shout, “Goodbye!” or “How are you?” as I glide by.

nicer homes across from SACCO office



Yesterday we traveled to a village resting on the edge of a tea field, which are vibrantly gorgeous crops that paint the landscape in surreal greens and textures. Before the land gave way to the sea of tea leaves, we wound through a portion of protected forest, the vegetation dropping over heads fully shading the winding road. Women slowly passed us with babies dangling from their backs tucked in cloth wrapped around the women's waists. My co-worker sat cramped on the back of the boda boda with me and said, “It must be inoculation day; all the women walking with babies.”

tea field


Before the meeting along the edge of the tea field, my co-worker took me to a school down the road to pay a visit to the kids who, as usual, were out of their minds with excitement to see me. I took several pictures of them, and they kept shoving each other to see the exposures in the camera. I said, “No pushing!” They politely stopped. On the walk back down the road they followed me whispering and laughing to each other; I could hear them imitating me saying “No pushing!”

schoolchildren posing


The SACCO board’s community outreach involves each of us giving a speech on how the SACCO operates, its contribution to the community and reminding them that it is now backed by the government, assuring greater accountability and security. We meet in any area that is conducive to gathering about 50 to 100 people: in a barren brick room, a primary school classroom, under the shade near shops, in a clearing along a tea field. Most in the audience are elderly since the SACCO used to be the Wakisi Elderly SACCO, but after its recognition by the government as the official SACCO of the sub-county, it has opened its membership to all adults in the area.

elderly man at meeting


During my speech I tell them why I am in Uganda, why I am in Wakisi in particular, how the SACCO will help them, and how it should be used; reminding them that it is a tool, and like any tool, it requires responsible use to benefit everyone. I also remark on the women’s involvement. I say that I am happy to see women at the gathering since I know sometimes they are intimidated or maybe discouraged by community-wide endeavors, particularly ones that involve money; and that developing countries around the world have been using community-based lending and saving institutions to overcome poverty for decades, and through these years of experience, the international community recognizes that women are generally the best recipients of small loans since they use the funds most responsibly, to help themselves and their children and not carelessly waste it on booze or other vices. The women always start clapping at this point. They usually sit expressionlessly listening, but hearing this makes their eyes light up in pride. Most of the men usually start clapping too understanding its truth.

meeting at tea field, co-worker in chair


In addition to assisting with their mobilization effort, I am also trying to secure life-safety items to sell through the SACCO at subsidized rates. For instance, bed nets are a necessity here, helping to combat child mortality at the hands of the malaria parasites. The nets can be purchased for about USh 15,000 or about $7, which is prohibitively expensive for most villagers. I am hoping to buy nets in bulk and sell them through the SACCO for about USh 1,000 or $0.50.

This sounds simple enough, but providing bed nets has its challenges. For example, many of the villagers don’t have beds. As such, there is nothing to drape the nets onto, not to speak of the discomfort and inhumanity of people forced to sleep on the hard, dirty ground, which is why I am also hoping to buy mattresses in large quantities and resell them at a price affordable to the community.

Now you may be wondering why these items can’t just be given to the needy? They can, but documented development projects worldwide, and Ugandans’ personal anecdotes suggest that it’s sometimes better for people to pay a small amount for needed items, rather than have donated for free (with the exception of things like say medical care, vaccines and counseling). Making a small sacrifice for bed nets for example, provides greater assurance that the community will use them to protect themselves from mosquitoes, and that the men won’t fish with them, the women won’t get married in them, the kids won’t play with them. It also instills a sense of ownership and pride that they have worked for something and purchased it themselves.

The villager’s needs are truly overwhelming. I tried to capture their destitution in my Village, Town & City blog, but it’s difficult to envision its intensity and scale without seeing it firsthand. I could help build schools, clinics, community centers, latrines, boreholes, coordinate outreach sessions on family planning, safe sex and HIV, malaria, agricultural best practices, nutrition, sanitation, or set up sponsor programs for school children, orphans, the elderly, the widows, or those without marketable skills, which is almost all of the 37,000 people in the area. I am focusing on supplying life-safety items for three reasons: one, it can benefit all of the families and communities stretching across the sub-county, unlike building a structure in one area; two, buying and reselling products is easier for me to coordinate than construction or education projects; three, and very importantly, this project’s success is not contingent upon donor sustainability, which is important since I am not sure how long I can stay.

child sitting on steps of nicer home pictured above


There are many other items that the villagers need that could be a part of this program, like blankets, seeds and school supplies. Working with the SACCO board, I am in the process of determining which items we will provide and developing tracking and evaluation processes to measure our impact; a goal being direct feedback from the community as to how they are using the items, how helpful and efficient the program is and so forth, enabling us to make changes if necessary. I am also starting to research suppliers of the needed items and donors for subsidizing them. With that, I hope any of you reading this who maybe has a few dollars to spare might consider donating; all money will go to the community! There are no overhead costs since I am volunteering and paying for my own travel and incidentals, and since I am personally overseeing the entire project, all funds will be accounted for (e.g. transparency and no stealing!). I will be setting up a PayPal account and provide information on donating, our finalized work plan and project goals soon. I hope to complete this in the coming weeks, so look out!

Rest of Wakisi pictures.

Boy at meeting with bottle cap necklace