Fare Thee Well

I hate to say goodbye...as a matter of fact I'm awful at it. I tend to wax poetic and cry a lot. Everyone around me generally gets embarrassed. It's not much fun.  And so knowing this, and because I've had to say a lot of goodbyes in recent years, I've tried to find other ways to leave without actually leaving...thus fare thee well.

I love those three little words...they have good intent behind them. And more importantly they don't trigger me into crying like the thought of goodbye does. Goodbye is an end, but fare thee well...it doesn't end anything, it just means I wish you the best. It leaves hope that this isn't really the end, that there's more to be said and more to be done.

Left to right: Alfred, Peninna, Loy, Margaret, Boniface, Brian, Me, Dennis, and Joan. (Team members not pictured: Joseph, Pheona, Brenda, Denis, Rachel, Rashid, Cox, Paul, and Anatole)

Today I said fare thee well to my friends at CDRN and began my journey back to Dublin. I am going to miss them as much as I hate the mosquitoes here (in other words a lot). Over the past nine weeks I have worked with CDRN to build a new technology strategy, modify their existing ICT policy, come up with a plan to virtualize their resource center, and draft a proposal that I hope we'll be able to work together on increasing digital literacy in Ugandan schools. It's been a productive summer for me, but it is nothing compared to the gift that they have given me...an invaluable life lesson that I will carry with me for the rest of my days. I hope you can see why I am unable to say goodbye.

So instead I'll say fare thee well, and to add a bit of color to my hopefully temporary departure I have found an appropriate tune to send us on our respective journeys...OK to be honest this song isn't a perfect fit because it's an English folk ballad about sailing, but it says "fare thee well" over and over again and the examples below are performed by two great Irish bands, so it's definitely worth a listen.

Leaving of Liverpool - Version 1: the Dubliners    Version 2: the Pogues  Pick your favourite (or post your own).

And, there are a lot of people I need to thank for their support this summer...

Thank you Joseph, Rashid, Susan, Elaine, and Purity for bringing me to Uganda.

Thank you Musanje Brian for your mentorship.

Thank you Cox, Margaret, Loy and Denis for your help and support on those difficult first few days.

Thank you Joan for your bodyguard services. You are fearsome!

Thank you everyone at CDRN for your friendship and for making me a part of your family.

Thank you Mom for supporting my dreams.

Thank you Mary Anne for grounding me in reality.

Thank you Janet for being my role model in kindness.

Thank you Gearoid, Brian, Taryn, Craig, George, and Frank for helping me maintain my tenuous grip on sanity.

And thanks to you for reading. Fare thee well, and I hope you've enjoyed the story.

Maureen

A Single Story Before I Depart

I recently watched a TEDTalk where Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, discussed the dangers of defining a culture through a single story. It has made me realize that I may have made a mistake by writing so much about Uganda's ills...poverty, corruption, and the like...because it may have given you the impression that this is all the country is. What I have learned over the past two months is that Uganda is so much more.

In my defence, I have never before witnessed the type of endemic poverty that exists here, and so when I first came to Uganda, it was poverty that jumped out at me. It fairly assaulted me as a matter of fact...the sheer magnitude of it. It was so overwhelming that I began to see everything from that single point of view. 

I tried to understand why, in a country with an abundant food supply, high literacy rate, and rich resources, people could still be so financially poor. Was the wealth being exported through corporate colonialism? Was the concentration of power at the highest levels of government or perhaps the rampant corruption causing a redistribution of the country's wealth to an entitled minority? Was the lack of technology adoption hindering economic growth? Immersed in this analysis I found potential causes, but no solutions, and worse... in concentrating so myopically on poverty I almost completely missed the beauty of this country.

But I was shocked out of my obsession when I went on safari. The great thing about getting out into the wild places of this world is that their sheer majesty simply cannot be ignored. The beauty of the natural environment is just as overwhelming as poverty, but in a completely different and blissfully positive way.

Walking through the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains and feeling the steadfastness of their endurance reminded me that Uganda is a place of richness and beauty. And this beauty isn't just contained within the natural environment, it's carried within the spirit of the Ugandan people as well...in their traditions, their outgoing nature, and in their culture of hospitality.


And as a bonus, the kids here are just adorable. 

On the third day of the safari we travelled to a fishing village. As we stood at the edge of the lake watching the fisherman tending to their boats, children from the village began to gather around us. 

A little boy of about nine or ten years of age approached me, and looking up with bold eyes demanded, "Hey muzungu! Give me money!" 

I've come to despise the word for white person, muzungu. It strips me of my individuality and lumps me into the same category as every other white person who shows up in Uganda. 

"I don't have any money for you." I replied in an annoyed voice as I looked down at my tiny tormentor. 

I expected him to admit defeat and leave but he was not so easily dissuaded. He reached over and started to lift the flap on my messenger bag, apparently to check for himself whether or not I was telling the truth. I slapped his hand away and tried a different tactic.

"Tell me your name." I commanded with an imperious glare.

He glared right back at me, not about to be intimidated by a tourist. "I am called Isaiah" he replied in a strong, clear voice.

"Hello Isaiah. I am called Maureen" I said, and softened my glare to a smile...deciding that all was forgiven...we were going to be friends now. 

Big mistake.

He rolled his eyes and wobbled his head and mocked in a sing-song voice, "I am called Maureeeeeen." Then he paused for a second, gave me a hard stare and with a menacing growl, started to reach for my bag again. 

Clearly I was not having the adult-in-charge-of-this-situation effect that I was hoping for. 

So I responded with the first idea that jumped into my mind. Fight fire with fire...or in this case, childishness with childishness. I slapped his hand away again, growled back at him, and then crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue. Yep, two can play at this game little man.

That gave him pause. I was not behaving like a proper tourist...or like a muzungu should. He stopped his assault and tentatively smiled at me, and I looked into the eyes of this beautiful child and smiled back. In that one brief shared moment of humanity, we became friends.

I wonder what kind of man Isaiah will grow up to be. Will he be a fisherman? A businessman? The President of Uganda? He is one of the 35 million souls of this country, a place that defies generalization because it is the sum total of each and every unique individual here.

Every day I watch a sea of people walking up and down the road in front of CDRN's offices...some of them in suits, some in beautiful traditional dresses, some in casual clothes, and some in rags. It would be an easy assumption to just lump them into a category of poverty, but instead I imagine the lives they lead, the work they do, the families they love, their triumphs and regrets. I see these people representing the many stories of Uganda. With just a few days left here I don't have the time to tell them all, but I want you to at least understand that these lives are much richer than just one simple message.

Safari! Queen Elizabeth National Park Uganda

I was up at 5 am Saturday morning to meet Ronald for my long awaited and much anticipated safari. Remember Ronald from the previous post? He is a great guy and an excellent driver. He's incredibly nice, very funny, he puts his clients first and best of all...he will come and pick you up at 6 am or 9 pm or any time in between with no problems.

Despite the high esteem I hold Ronald in, I still chose the budget safari. He didn't take it too badly when I told him the news. He was happy to drive me to the Red Chilli drop off point on the other side of Kampala. So off we went in the predawn hours to join the tour.

I'm not exactly sure what I expected to encounter when I got to the hostel, but after living a Ugandan life for the last two months, I was definitely not prepared to find myself in a room full of Europeans and Americans sitting around drinking French press coffee and eating porridge...killing time watching the BBC while waiting for the tours to leave. For a split second I thought - am I dreaming that I'm in a European hostel thinking about an African safari? No that can't be right. I'm still in Uganda.

The safari left Red Chilli at 7:45 am for Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda. There were nine of us in total - Nasar our driver, four of us from the U.S., two from the Czech Republic and two from Holland. It was a long drive out there (about 10 hours) but we stopped along the way for lunch and other short breaks. Uganda has rolling green hills that turn mountainous as you go west. Traffic thins out after leaving Kampala and the main road is actually quite good. It was a beautiful and peaceful drive.

Over the next four days we went on game drives, took walks through the communities and forests within the national park, and just relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. For me, it was a chance to see something of Uganda beyond Kampala. Of course, me being me I tested Internet connectivity the whole way there and back, but other than this one concession to the siren song of technology I switched off, relaxed and appreciated the beauty of everything around me.

The whole time I've been here I've been weighing my pre-trip expectations against the reality of what I've seen around me. There are some things I've seen that have lived up to my expectations and some that have not. The safari has exceeded my expectations. I was completely blown away by what I saw, and so impressed with how this national park is managed and with the professionalism of Ugandan tourism.

So, with that I'll stop talking and send you to the photos on Flickr. Fair warning...I'm not a very good photographer and my iPhone 4 camera has lighting issues these days. :-)

Adjustment

It's pouring rain today in Kampala and even though the glass shutters are closed on the windows, a bit of mist is still making it through with the breeze. It's lovely and cool. It reminds me a bit of Dublin.

I lived most of my adult life in Indiana - first in West Lafayette at Purdue for college, and then about three hours northeast to Fort Wayne where I finished school, started a career, got married, and did all of those things that you do when you're building a life somewhere. When I left for Boston three years ago it felt a bit like I was leaving everything I cared about behind.

I think that was why I struggled for the first six months or so. I felt like a fish out of water...I was constantly getting lost, every week or so another two feet of snow blew in across the landscape, and nothing was familiar. Most days I felt like an outsider...like the only person in New England who hadn't lived there for six generations. The fact that my family and friends were thousands of miles away didn't help either. But as time went on, things became familiar and I started to develop an appreciation for Boston. I loved the city - the museums, the restaurants, and the architecture. I made friends, I discovered my own favourite places, and in short - I adjusted. After living there for almost two years, I didn't want to leave.

But I did, and this time to Dublin...a modern city built from the bones of its ancient ancestors. Guinness and music and witty banter. I still struggled. It was the same situation - nothing was familiar, I couldn't find my way around, and I felt like an outsider. This time though I had a good friend who helped me get settled. I also had 20 other classmates who were equally new to the area. We sort of struggled together I suppose, and for these reasons it was an easier and shorter adjustment period of just a few months. As you probably could tell from my Goodbye Ireland post - I now love living in Ireland. It is literally everything that it's hyped up to be - an incredible place with incredible people.

I'm glad I had those two prior experiences before I came here to Uganda because I'm not sure if I would have been able to go straight from Indiana to here - it is just too different from anything I've known before. And it's easy to feel like an outsider when everything around you is different from any prior experience. But CDRN has made me most welcome - they've treated me like family - and for that reason it has been easier. I have adjusted relatively well.

I wonder how it would be different (or if it would be different) if I were still in my 20s. As I've gotten older I've noticed that I am a bit fixed in my ways. Is it easier to adjust when you're young? It seems like it...my classmates are having a great time in their respective placements (the proof is in their Facebook posts). And I'm having a good time as well, but I hate to admit it, my experience is tempered a bit with my reaction to everything I'm taking in...all the new sights and sounds around me.

When I talk with family and friends they say, wow, what an incredible adventure you're having! What an exciting life you lead! It must be so much fun! Well....it is. But it's also a bit nerve wracking sometimes. What this experience and all of the other experiences where I've had to adjust are teaching me, though, is how to be more flexible - how to adapt.

This morning at the guesthouse the cook didn't show up to make breakfast. It was his day off and nobody was covering for him at 7 am when the first guests wanted to eat. I was sitting outside watching the sun rise over the hills when one of them approached me.

"Do you know where the staff are?" he said.

"You mean the people that work here? Uh...no." I replied.

"Nobody is here to serve breakfast and the kitchen is locked." I could tell he was annoyed. I wanted to help, but there wasn't much I could do. I shrugged and went back to watching the pink and grey sky. That's what life is like here - sometimes people show up to make breakfast, sometimes you have a Snickers bar. You adapt.

And this is probably the greatest gift that I've received so far from my stay in Uganda, an opportunity to learn to be a bit more flexible. I'm hoping that the next place I move to, wherever it is, I'll not worry when I'm lost and I'll not care that I'm an outsider. I'll just enjoy the mist and watch the sunrise.

Freedom of Speech In Uganda...POMB

Imagine you're walking down the street with a couple of your friends. It's lunchtime and you're headed from the office to your favorite cafe. As you walk along, the conversation turns to the latest governmental disappointments...party politics, scandals, inaction and other common issues. If you're in New York, London, Stockholm, or Paris this conversation may happily continue as part of the freedoms of speech inherent in these societies. If you're in Kampala; however, you could be stopped by the police for engaging in a demonstration without prior permission as outlined in the Public Order Management Bill (POMB) passed last week by Uganda's parliament.

The objective of the bill is to provide for the regulation of public meetings. The intent is to safeguard "public order without compromising the principles of democracy, freedom of association and freedom of speech". It does this by managing public order and outlining procedures that should be followed for public meetings.

The scope of the bill includes public gatherings of three or more people that discuss "principles, policy, actions or failure of any government, political party, or political organization." It excludes "a meeting of members of any registered organisation...convened in accordance with the constitution of the organisation and held exclusively for a lawful purpose of that organisation"; or a "political party or organisation, convened in accordance with the constitution of the party or organisation, and held exclusively to discuss the affairs of the party or organisation." It also excludes, funerals, weddings, sports events, and parties.

If your meeting is in scope then you have to fill out a series of forms that are submitted to the police no less than 3 days in advance of the meeting, seeking permission to gather. They can grant permission, and if so they'll show up (with guns!) to provide protection. They can also refuse permission or have you reschedule your meeting. If you don't like the decision then there is a process for redress, but failure to comply, as mentioned, could mean jail time.

All meetings must start after 6:00 am and end by 6:00 pm, and if you want to use any kind of voice amplification, you have to have prior permission from the police. If your meeting goes sideways and starts to disrupt the peace (as determined by the police in attendance) they can stop the meeting. If you, the organizer, don't comply, then you can be fined up to a million shillings ($375 US) or 3 months jail time.

So...you can read the entire text of the bill provided through the link above if you want, but those were just some of the highlights I found interesting as I skimmed through it.

The bill has generated a lot of debate, particularly among Civil Society Organizations and Human Rights Organizations. Here are a few quotes.

New Vision: "The Bill...has been widely criticized by both human rights activists and political organizations saying it infringes on human rights and it’s a replica of the already existing laws."

Voice of America:  "Those opposing the bill say it violates the rights of Ugandans to freely associate, a right guaranteed by the constitution." 

Human Rights Watch: "The government should not respond to criticism by imposing overly restrictive laws. Instead the bill should be amended to protect the right to assemble and express one’s self freely." Livingstone Sewanyana, head of Foundation for Human Rights Initiative.

Amnesty International: "The Bill imposes wide ranging restrictions on public meetings and gives the police unprecedented powers to prohibit and disperse public gatherings of a political nature. This Bill represents a serious blow to open political debate in a country where publicly criticizing the government is already fraught with risk,' said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s deputy Africa director."

There are, I suppose, three gaping loopholes in this bill. The first is that it applies only to public spaces. If my house holds 10,000 people, I could invite them all over for a meeting about the government and since this is my private space, I wouldn't need permission. 

The second loophole is that public space is defined as the physical world. So I can stand up a Facebook page or launch a Twitter campaign criticizing the government and there's nothing within this bill that would make that illegal. With so few Ugandans on the Internet and even less on Facebook, it's not going to be much of a debate though...a better plan is to use radio. I could broadcast a lively political debate over the airwaves with no prior permission required. 

The third loophole is the topic of the meeting. I could, for example, hold a massive animal rights demonstration (Meat Is Murder!) and as long as I say nothing about the government, I wouldn't need prior permission.

It's that third loophole that makes me wonder whether this is about public safety or about suppressing political debate in advance of the 2016 elections. But, I'm an outsider...I could be wrong. I'll leave it up to you to decide for yourself.  

Geeky Pastimes

I know I'm a geek because this is what I do for fun  on the weekend...play with Google. A while back I read an article about the interesting directions you can get from Google maps and so I decided....hmmm, I wonder if I can get from Kampala to Dublin? 

Turns out I can. Watch out though, there are a few traffic hazards...construction in Spain and a stalled vehicle blocking traffic in France. 

I wonder what the rental car charge would be for this trip?

Update

I've been here in Uganda now for just over a month and I have just under a month left in my stay. Given that I've passed the halfway point I thought it might be good to provide a quick update on some of the things that I wrote about earlier...so here goes.

The Weather
When I arrived in Kampala it was 80 degrees (24 C for my metric friends). Most of the time the highs reached the mid-80s during the day and cooled down to about 65 degrees (16 C) at night. The sun rose at 7 a.m. and set at 7 p.m. and in between, nothing but dry dusty sunshine.

Then a week ago everything changed.  It became overcast and cool - the temperature hovered at 65 degrees morning, noon, and night. We began to enter the second of two annual rainy seasons.

Suddenly I noticed Ugandans walking around in long pants, sweaters, coats and scarves, blowing into hot cups of tea...warming their hands. The standard morning greeting of "Hello! How are you?" was replaced with "Hello! Isn't it cold today?"

Having lived in Ireland for the past year and the Midwestern U.S. for most of my life, I'm still wearing short sleeves, happy that I can finally sleep at night now that the oppressive heat has ended. They look at me as though I've gone mad.

The Food Monitors
Every day at CDRN we eat lunch together in the training center. Eating together in a group reminds me of the best family dinners I had growing up (the ones where nobody argued or got yelled at). There's just one problem...I don't eat enough.

For Ugandans this is the main meal of the day and so they eat a full plate of food. For me, breakfast is the main meal...generally I'm not hungry when lunchtime rolls around. So I take a small plate of food, and for this I get teased mercilessly.

"What, you are taking only two beans today!?!"
"There are no more than three peas on your plate. Why do you not eat? Do you not like our food?"
"Are you trying to maintain your figure? You don't want to look like Ugandan women?"
and my personal favourite...
"You will go back to Ireland and they will think we have starved you."

My grandmother wasn't half as good at laying a food guilt trip on me as my colleagues at CDRN, and I consider her to have been at least a high ranking amateur. These people are professionals. Fair play.

The Internet & Technology Landscape
There are many problems that Uganda faces...poverty, unsafe drinking water, Aids, Malaria, and declining public services to name but a few. The Internet seems a luxury in this environment, but it shouldn't be. It should be the foundation for a new knowledge economy.

But there are two problems.

First, new computer equipment is expensive. It costs 1,350,000 shillings ($525 USD) for an Acer E series laptop that I can buy in the U.S. from Amazon for about $460. A new iPhone 5 will cost 2,299,999 shillings ($895 USD) in Uganda versus $699 in the U.S. Of course Uganda isn't alone in the premium price they pay for technology - that same iPhone in Ireland costs 679 euros or $910 dollars - but I suppose the point is why is the US getting a deal on technology when the rest of the world is not? It seems particularly unfair given the developing world can't afford U.S. prices let alone premium prices. The U.S. and Europe have subsidized food programs for Africa, they also have subsidized medicine programs...where are the ICT subsidies?

The second problem is that good Internet service is insanely expensive and bad Internet service is only marginally less expensive. Every morning, like Charlie Brown hoping he'll finally get to kick the football, I plug the network cable into my PC at CDRN and cross my fingers.  Once in a while it's fine. Most days it's incredibly slow. Increasingly it's non-existent. Here's this morning's message...

 

It looks a lot like yesterday's message...and the day before's message.

 

And the crime is that Uganda Telecom Limited's (UTL) hamster powered Internet service is costing CDRN the equivalent of $150 USD per month.

 

Of course I'm only tortured by this for a few minutes each day. As soon as I confirm that the Internet is DOA as usual I fire up a 3G Wi-Fi hotspot on MTN's handy cellular network and return to the broadband age. It's costing me about 100,000 shillings ($40 USD) per month, which, as you can imagine, would be financially limiting when scaled to a 20 person network.

 

This situation makes me angry. Before coming to Uganda I had read that the country was doing a good job of technology infrastructure building and provision. It wasn't until I got here that I witnessed the reality. This is why Uganda is ranked 110th out of 144 countries for its ability to capitalize on the digital age. THIS is the "Digital Divide" because right now the only people who have access to the technological fast lane are the government, multi-national corporations, international NGOs, and the wealthy.

 

Access to current ICT should be a fundamental human right, just like safe drinking water and childhood education. The MDGs specify access to technology...why isn't this recognized and supported for Uganda?

 

OK jumping off my soapbox and recognizing the marginal bright side...the previously mentioned 3G cellular networks are available in most population centers. There are technology-based NGOs that fund and support technology capacity building (CIPESA in Uganda, SPIDER in Sweden and Indigo Trust in the UK are examples). There are also NGOs that fund technology insertion as part of a broader development project (US Aid, Irish Aid, UNDP, etc.). So I think the support is there to get the ball rolling. The government needs to step in as well, though, and provide better technology support and funding. Kenya is a great example of this with their eGov initiative and (iHub) technology incubators. 

 

There is a way out of the digital doldrums - it is possible.  

 

My "No Touching" Policy
After I posted the entry about safety and getting grabbed on Kampala's streets, my friends and family started calling and emailing, concerned I was going to end up a statistic on the evening news. It's OK - part of the touching is just a cultural difference between the US and Uganda. Physical contact is much more prevalent here. So while I'm not excusing the behaviour of the street kid who tried to steal my bag or the scruffy man who grabbed my arm and tried to lead me God knows where, I'm learning that when someone touches my arm or holds my hand it's not necessarily with malice aforethought.

Here in Uganda, acquaintances and colleagues hold hands. Earlier this week Moses took my hand and led me to his car. He's a driver that CDRN uses from time to time. I had asked him about the possibility of hiring him, and he just wanted to show me how great his car was. Nothing more. When I was in the city center with Joan (a colleague at CDRN) she held my hand as we crossed the street for protection purposes.

This is not how the US and Ireland treat business associates and so it makes me a little uncomfortable, but I'm thinking I need to get over myself. Human contact is a fundamental part of life. I like it that Ugandans are demonstrative to more than just family and good friends. So I've relaxed my No Touching policy here. When I get back to Ireland I'll revert back to my cultural norm, but while I'm here, as long as there's no harm intended, it's OK to take my hand.

Final Thoughts
And in closing, I'm getting a serious farmer tan. The safari is booked. And the fruit is still awesome. :-)