Guess Who's Coming to Dinner-Black Uhuru

Today was a much needed rest day.  Many of our group headed into Kampala for the day but since some of us did that last weekend, we got to stay and rest for the morning.  It was a beautiful morning and we were able to catch up on sleep, reading, and email.

At mid-day I met up with the special ed immersion group to help them with some of their deliveries.  Over the past week they have been working with a number of children with disabilities in both Mukono and Lugazi.  They have worked tirelessly to create two walkers from scratch and also provided wheelchairs to two students and clothing and food and toys to other families.  I was able to go for several food and clothing deliveries and one of the walkers.  The walker we delivered today was for Jordan who is one year old and has yet to walk to talk.   Bethany and Lauren sized up the seat for the walker and then sewed it in just a few minutes.  It was so amazing to see Jordan begin to jump around and use his legs within just a few minutes of being in the walker!

It was a heart warming and sobering experience to visit these families.  Children with disabilities are often poorly taken care of because their families don’t have the means or knowledge.  Often the parents were so thankful and happy that we were able to help in some small way.  We delivered some clothing and food to Juliette who is HIV positive and currently has malaria.  We also delivered a dress to Daphne who was almost murdered as a child because one of the neighbors believed in child sacrifice.  She suffers the loss of her left hand and some severe scarring.

Meal preparation

This is a cooking banana

We had to rush back to UCU to pick up Michael and Aino as we had a dinner event.  We were hosted by Steven and Margaret Ssenyonjo for a traditional Ugandan meal and were able to learn about the process of preparing it.  Most Ugandans cook outside or in a room separate from the house because it generates so much heat.  Most people here use charcoal stoves for cooking food but sometimes they also use wood because it gets hotter.  I learned a lot about bananas today!  We've seen huge bunches of green bananas and also eaten a lot of yellow bananas; I assumed the green ones eventually turned yellow.  However, today I learned that the green are matoke or "cooking" bananas.  These are the ones they mash up and cook to make matoke, which is a starchy side dish served at most meals.  The yellow bananas come from a different tree and are called "eating" or sweet bananas.

matoke cooking on the charcoal stove

Ugandan food is pretty easy to eat gluten free.  There is often a base of matoke or rice or both.  Then there is some kind of other starch or vegetable-steamed pumpkin, cassava, sweet potatoes, chipati, etc.  There is often some kind of meat stew made with beef, chicken, or pork.  Finally there is almost always fruit-pineapple, watermelon, or mango are the most common but passion fruit, avocado, or papaya are frequently used as well.

Caught By the River-Doves

Coming down a class V rapid, aka 12 foot waterfall

Today was amazing, whitewater rafting on the Nile, saw a huge island with thousands of swarming bats, and got to ride my first boda boda since Michael had been encouraging me to try it-not much more to add, the pictures say it all.

Stuck at the top of a waterfall

My boda boda driver-he was very safe :)

I didn't take this picture because we couldn't have our cameras, but this is exactly what it looked like!

Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) Pet Shop Boys

Today we had two main areas of focus-microenterprises and supporting economic development and whole child education.  We were spending most of the day at Pastor Francis’ school and we learned the meaning of the phrase “TIA” (This is Africa) when we learned late the night before that Pastor Francis wouldn’t be there because he was in Rwanda.

This was actually not a huge problem since Jessi, Michael, and I had been there for a week and had a good understanding of all of the projects so we were able to help lead the group.  We made a quick stop at George’s yogurt shop so the other participants could see one of the more successful microenterprises that Pastor Francis has assisted.  We then walked to the school for a quick introduction and tour before the students had their break.  Once on break, everyone spent time playing and talking with the kids who are so personable and loving they can’t be resisted!

At eleven o’clock we began our microenterprise work.  We asked all of the microgrant applicants to come and speak about their requests.  We had about twenty applicants and so divided into two groups with each of our participant groups hearing from about ten applicants.  It was so fun to share some of the stories we had been hearing all week with the rest of our group.   

Here are just a few of the stories we heard:

George owns a yogurt shop.  He started as a small business out of Pastor Francis’ house.  He now has a shop on the main road and sells yogurt, juices and bagged water.  He owns a plastic sealer, which allows him to seal the plastic bags containing all of his products and he sells to individual customers and also supplies some grocery stores.  When the sealer overheats he has to stop work for two hours while it cools down so he was asking for a new sealer (250,000 shillings or $83) so he could alternate the use of them.  He also asked for a label maker (150,000 shillings or $50) as he is interested in making his own label and developing his own brand of yogurt.

Zemu is a single mom of three.  She has been raising chickens for eight years and teaching her children how do it as well.   She requested about $120 for 30 more chickens, feed, and some cement so she can construct a building to hold her chickens.

James owns a millet grinding business.  He has been successful but would like to purchase some large bags of millet (300,000 shillings or $100) so he can get ahead on his profits and reinvest them in his business.  He also requested some seeds so he can grow more millet and generate more profits in the future.  In the long term he’d like to develop better marketing and branding for his business and expand to more wholesale customers.

Celestina is a single mother of two who has advanced HIV.  She has been selling small food items and charcoal in a roadside shop for the past seven years.  She requested about $100 worth of items for her shop ranging from charcoal to fish to cooking oil to bananas and spices.  These funds would help her develop and expand her business.

 

Charles is a carpenter by trade but an artist at heart.  He went to three years of art school and then determined he must make functional art in order to make money.  He does beautiful wood carved furniture as well as some sculpture projects.  Charles doesn’t have employees but rather hires secondary students from local schools on the weekends in order to teach them the skills of the trade.  Charles requested 600,000 shillings for a heavy duty router so his work will be more consistent quality and faster as currently they are using a hand chisel.

Helen is a single mother of six whose husband rarely comes home. For the past year she has been traveling to the market once a week and buying clothes and then selling them door to door in her neighborhood.  Helen requested 200,000 shillings worth of clothes (about $70) in order to help get her business gaining more profits and so she would not have to travel to the market and pay transportation for a few weeks.

Fred is currently a cook at a school but his dream is to become a farmer.  He has moved back to his village and built a pen for pigs and a coop for chickens himself to save on expenses.  He has seven pigs already and requested 150,000 shillings ($50) to buy three more so he can begin breeding them in a few months.  Once he makes enough money he’d like to buy up to 300 chickens and use that money to expand his business, feed his family, and pay his children’s school fees.

Margaret is a widow with five children.  Her meat shop has been open five years where she sells pork and other food items.  She is currently renting a food stand and she would like to open her own shop.  She requested about $100 worth of products for her shop.  She hopes to earn enough money to acquire her own shop and pay school fees for her children.

Each person was given a few minutes to talk about their business and then our group members asked some questions.  We had some new applicants that required translations so our process took quite a bit longer than we had been expecting.

We worked until lunch and then headed off to the Sugar Corporation complex where we had an amazing Indian lunch and also toured the golf course.  The flowers were amazing.  After lunch, we were back to Canaan School for a presentation on child psychology in Uganda and then we wrapped up the microenterprises.  It was a busy day!

Team-Lorde

This morning begins the official Uganda program.  While we’ve been working on immersion projects, spending time working with specific organizations in depth, this week we will be getting more of an overview of Ugandan education and community programs and visiting several places and having discussion sessions of various topics each day.

Nine new people have joined our group, bringing our total number to 19.  Since half of us have been together for two weeks and the other half are new, we started the day with some team building.  We drove through a rainforest to Adventure Park on Lake Victoria.  The scenery was beautiful! 

We divided into teams and had several relay competitions.  We were climbing rope ladders, hopping in burlap sacks, army crawling under nets, hula hooping, dancing, and having a blast for two hours.  Each team won a competition so I would say the bonding goal was successfully accomplished!

We had a delicious lunch and then a presentation on the Ugandan school system.  In Uguanda there are 7 years of primary school, 4 years of lower secondary school, 2 years of upper secondary school and 3-5 years of university.  In 1997 Uganda passed a policy called Universal Primary Education and ten years later, in 2007, they passed Universal Secondary Education.  While the effort was well intended, there were significant obstacles to the success of the program.  For example, there are not enough teachers to teach all of the students, there is not enough funding to ensure every student can attend school so parents must pay fees-even for public school, there are not enough textbooks, and many teachers don’t show up consistently because they are paid poorly.  As a result, 68% of Ugandans don’t complete primary school, only one third of those continuing complete secondary school, and only 3.3% complete university.

 

Many girls will drop out of school around ages 12-14 to get married or they become pregnant.  Also, many students will drop out because they don’t have enough food and are hungry.  Boarding schools are preferred by parents because they are seen as being “better”.  About 35% of primary schools are boarding schools and almost all secondary schools are boarding schools.  Commercialization of education has also become a problem because many will see schools as a money-making operation and they compete for students but don’t necessarily provide a sound education.  Many students attend school because of “sponsorships” from wealthy Ugandans or people in the U.S. or Europe.  However, this can be problematic as well because once a student is sponsored, their parents may not claim them any longer in fear that they’ll lose their sponsorship.  At the heart of many of these problems is an overall lack of economic development.  There is high unemployment so even if someone attends university they may still make less than a boda boda man.  There are obviously many challenges facing Ugandan schools but we are here to learn about how people are tackling these challenges and finding ways to help students.

A girls' boarding room

Some of the things schools are doing that are proving successful are focusing on application and skills based learning and focusing on the whole child and meeting all of their mental and emotional needs.  After our presentation, we were off to visit a school for a music and dance presentation and a discussion about the role of music in Ugandan schools.  We were welcomed to Christ the King Primary School (Ugandan is very Christian and many schools and shops have religious names) by all of the students.  After a quick tour we sat down for the performance.  This school is fairly small (it has about 250 students) and many students receive sponsorships in order to attend school.  The condition of the classrooms was pretty similar to the conditions at Pastor Francis’ school-wooden benches, homemade learning materials on the walls, one chalkboard.  Students receive a snack of porridge at 10:30 and then either go home for lunch or have lunch at the school if they can’t afford to eat.

The school bell

The students performed a number of welcome songs and several traditional Ugandan dances.  These are becoming recognizable to me and are known for super fast hip movements.  The students asked us to perform for them so we did a round of Row, Row, Row Your Boat, the national anthem and wrapped up with a dance to the “Casper Cha Cha Slide” which was a big hit and had all of the students cracking up.

The teachers were introduced and we talked about the role of music in schools in the U.S. and Uganda.  In elementary grades, the role if pretty similar with students attending music classes a few times each week for about an hour.  However, in Uganda, students learn traditional songs, dances, and drumming.  They learn the dances of their own tribal groups as well as those of others to promote unity among Ugandans.  After the discussion, we asked the students why they thought it was important to use music in school and their answers were insightful.  They said, it takes away stress, it makes you happy, promotes friendship, and promotes unity.

 

After the discussion, we all stood up and the students tried to teach us some Ugandan dance moves.  They were so hard and the students had some good laughs at our expense.  As we drove away, students chased our bus for more than a mile.