Welcome to Kampala

When technology is working, it's like having the world at your fingertips. When technology doesn't work, it’s a really expensive and not all that attractive paperweight. Yesterday my technology was a paperweight and I wanted to chuck it out the window. Today though, it's back in the game.  And I now know that you can indeed have wireless internet in Uganda on any device. All you need is the right gear. For me it was a SIM card from the MTN network, air time credits equivalent to a gigabyte of data for about $18, and my baby...the iPhone. I just couldn’t leave it at home. It’s now both a phone and a wifi hotspot.  My laptop and tablet run off of it. And here in Kampala the wireless internet is pretty fast - as fast as what I’ve experienced in Dublin and the US anyway.

Which makes me wonder...with all the necessary infrastructure in place, are Ugandans tech savvy? Or because $18 is a lot of money for this country, is there still a digital divide?  Over the past few days I've done a bit of unofficial investigation, and what I've found is...mixed. Today I was having lunch with one of my colleagues at CDRN, Loy. Loy is the Administrative Assistant, and her husband is an Electrical Engineer with a beverage processing company here in Kampala. They have five children, four of which are still at home, and the two eldest  sons (one in university and the other about to start university) are typical millennials...they know all about technology and use it as part of their everyday lives. Loy and her husband though use their phones for talking and text and not much else. It's hard to say whether this tracks with the developed world,because many of the people I know are tech savvy, but many of the people I know also happen to work in technology so it's likely a biased sample. And speaking of samples, this is only one middle class family in Kampala. That can't be extrapolated to the rest of Uganda. This is something I’m going to have to suss out this summer as part of the research that I’m doing for CDRN in Kampala.

After a long overnight flight I finally arrived here Friday morning. What an incredible place. It is very different from anything I’ve experienced before.  It is, in some respects, beautiful. From my guest house you can see the red clay tile roofs of houses dotting the hillsides.   Exotic birds call out to each other from the tops of palm trees. It’s very green and lush. But it’s also chaotic and the air is hazy with pollution.

 

We drove from the airport to CDRN through mostly light traffic, with boda boda (motorcycle taxis) weaving in and out around us, dodging people walking on the side of the road. There were no traffic lights and there were no crosswalks, everyone just moved together from place to place, trying to stay out of each others’ way.  As we drove along we passed open air markets that sold practically everything, and every third stand was either a MTN or Orange mobile shop. Topping up cell phones here appears to be a big, but highly distributed business. Take Kenny for example. He works at my guest house but he's also one of the many mobile entrepreneurs here in Kampala who purchase air time minutes from the company at a volume discount and then sell them to the public at market price. He says he loves it because it's "fast cash" supplementing the monthly salary he gets for his guest house work. Kenny's dream is to open a mobile shop - and then after it takes off, to travel the world.

The best part of the experience so far has been the people. Margaret and Cox from CDRN greeted me at the airport with smiles of welcome. They pointed out the different districts in Kampala as we drove - Cox had Ugandan music playing in the background. It was beautiful. 

The worst part of the experience so far is the burning garbage. There really is no trash pickup in Kampala and so all trash is burned. And between the bottled beverages that many people consume and the plastic bags, that’s a lot of burning plastic. Burning plastic smells horrible, but worse yet it has terrible health effects.  It can increase the rate of heart disease, aggravate respiratory ailments, cause rashes, nausea and headaches. It can damage the nervous system, reproductive system, kidneys and liver. It hangs in the air like a thick fog until the rain washes it into the ground and the water system. There is one entrepreneur in Kampala who is beginning to collect plastic bottles for recycling, but I wonder, why aren't Coca-Cola and the other multinational beverage corporations taking responsibility for the environmental nightmare they're contributing to? Why isn't the Ugandan government providing recycling facilities? Do people know the damage that burning plastic does, and if so, why aren't they demanding a solution? I don’t know. That’s another thing I’ll try to suss out from CDRN this summer. This is what they do...citizen engagement.

The staff at CDRN are treating me like a part of their family, and I am grateful to them for it, particularly these first few days while I'm still adjusting to life here in Kampala. They shrug it off and tell me that this is just how guests are supposed to be treated. I love that – I wish that same ethic existed everywhere. Imagine what a welcoming world it would be.  

Goodbye Ireland

Well today's the day. My bags are packed and with visa in hand I'm off to the airport for the overnight flight to Kampala. I'm excited, nervous, and afraid that I've forgotten something important - like my shoes. (Am I the only one who takes one last look down when leaving the house?) Today feels a bit like that - and it feels a bit like the first day of school. I can't wait to see Uganda. I can't wait to meet the people I'll be working with for the next few months. Last night I prepared myself for the journey with a good night's sleep and before that, turned what was left in the refrigerator into my favorite dinner...pizza.

It felt a bit like a last meal.

I can't believe I've lived in Ireland almost a year now. Even though I'll only be away a few months, I'm going to miss this place. It feels like home. A while back I was renting a car in Dublin and after scanning my credit card the agent looked up from the terminal and with a puzzled expression asked, "I thought you were American?"  I replied that I am American. He then smiled and said, "well sure but you live in Dublin. You're not a real American are you." I've thought about that ever since. I'm not a real American anymore...I'm not Irish either though. I fall somewhere in between.

Most conversations here with new acquaintances begin with:

"Are you American?"

"I am."

"Where are you from?"

"Originally around Chicago, but I lived in Indiana for many years and then spent the last two just outside of Boston before moving to Dublin."

"And now you're off to Uganda - you're travelling eastward then."

"Yes I suppose that's true."

"Well we'll be sorry to see you go."

That's one reason I love Ireland - even people you've barely met are sorry to see you go. I have been struck by the many random acts of kindness I’ve seen...returning money that was dropped on the street or an umbrella left behind, just to name a few. Ireland is a country where people help each other.

That spirit of helpfulness extends to the Irish language. I’m not exactly a genius with languages but I'm not terrible either...I speak passable French and a bit of Spanish, but I can't speak Gaelic (Irish) to save my life. Normally this is not a problem because everyone speaks English, but many of the names of things are in Irish, and try as I might I struggle with pronunciation. My friends try to help. Over the last year I have learned that Cobh sounds like cove, Gearoid sounds like garodge, Dail sounds like doll, and I'm still working on Padraig, Taoiseach, and (I’m ashamed to admit) my own name. I was mortified when I realized soon after moving here that I don't pronounce it right. Maureen is an anglicized version of an Irish name, but pronounced with an American accent it sounds like marine - which everyone interprets as Marie.

So now I try to pronounce it the way you'd say it in Ireland, ironically just like it's spelled, Maureen (accent on the "maw"). When I do, recognition dawns in the face of the person I'm introducing myself to and I'm rewarded with a personal story. "Ah Maureen O'Donnell, what a beautiful Irish name. My Aunt Maureen was a lovely woman - the heart of the family so she was." My very name creates an instant connection with almost everyone I meet, and even though my ancestors left Ireland more than 150 years ago, I have found family here in some of the most meaningful friendships of my life that began with a conversation about a name.

Another topic of conversation here is the weather. One could argue that it is THE topic of conversation most days…it’s notoriously difficult to predict and while I have been to places that say they have four seasons in one day, it is only here in Dublin that I’ve ever actually witnessed that phenomenon first-hand.  They say that the changeable weather in Ireland reflects the national mood. Maybe that’s why one in ten people here suffer from depression. It is such a part of everyday life that people talk of depression's dark recesses like they've caught a cold or the flu. The high rate of depression might also have something to do with the link between creativity and mood disorders. Ireland is the birthplace of iconic literary figures like Oscar Wilde, WB Yeats, James Joyce, and Patrick Kavanagh. Dublin itself is a Unesco City of Literature, and a culture of literature, music and art is carefully nurtured in every community across the country. It's easy to immerse yourself in Ireland's creative genius, but sometimes it's a bit like standing too close to an open flame.

The Irish though, seem to dance effortlessly back and forth across the thin line that separates joy and tragedy. This dichotomy has become starkly apparent to me in conversations about the ups and downs of the Celtic Tiger. The standard response when asked about the cause of the economic recession is "well we were just getting above ourselves." The Irish are the only people I've ever met who would view a financial crisis as divine retribution for living to excess. They are also the only people I've ever met who would use a recession as a way to build community -  a well-fought collective battle to put things right with the country where everyone sacrifices something for the common good. Above all there is a sense of fairness here. There is also a "sure it'll be grand" pragmatism  of accepting reality and getting on with life.

There's a baby boom happening in Ireland. That was a shock when I first arrived...seeing children everywhere. And while I am sure parents all around the world love their children with a fierce intensity, here I see a love that is uniquely Irish. The other day I was walking near a park. There was a father pushing his toddler in a stroller along the sidewalk. Suddenly he gave the stroller a good shove and started running along side of it, pushing it fast and steadying it at the same time, shouting in falsetto "Oh no Shaunee! What're we going to do? I can't keep hold of her much longer! AAAAHHH!" The toddler was laughing wildly and as they flew past me, I saw a look of unbridled joy that only the very young and those who love them unconditionally can experience. My connection to Ireland goes back through my father’s family, and in this shared moment I remembered him.

I moved here to Ireland to immerse myself in another culture. It was a way to experience intense personal and professional development, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to avoid, as Stevie Ray Vaughan sang, living life by the drop*. My first year here has been an incredible adventure - great craic.

So today I say goodbye to Ireland, my adopted home, and I'll also say goodbye to everyone here who has given me the gifts of belonging and friendship. I'm sorry to go. I'll miss you, and I'll see you again soon.

*Note: Life By the Drop is, I believe, the only song Stevie Ray recorded with a 12 string acoustic guitar. The lyrics are contextual to my post, but it's a very simple song. If you want to hear the magic that Stevie Ray Vaughan can create with a guitar then you might give a listen to Little Wing. 

Tips for Traveling to Africa

Medicine

My mother is a travelling pharmacy. When we go on vacation she has one large plastic bag full of vitamins and supplements, and another filled with band-aids, aspirin, allergy medicine, cold medicine, motion sickness pills...pretty much anything you would need if you had to do without medical service for a few months. I've always thought she was a bit over prepared. There are plenty of pharmacies in Italy, Iceland, and other countries where we've traveled. Medicine, though, is apparently something you want to bring with you when travelling to Uganda or any other African country where drugs can often be out of date, bad generics, or sometimes even placebos. So while this all still feels a bit paranoid, I now have my own personal pharmacy of supplements and pills.

Chief among them is Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic, and Malarone malaria medicine. I have been vaccinated against every possible disease you can get in Uganda or anywhere else but there is no vaccination for malaria. Worse yet, I'm a mosquito magnet and the Anopheles mosquito found across many African countries carries the deadliest form of malaria parasite. I'm taking no chances. I have pills, bug spray, and every night I'll sleep under a mosquito net brought with me from Ireland. I never would have thought to bring my own mosquito net (and hooks that screw into the ceiling to hang it from) if it weren't for tips I'd received from friends who have been to Africa.  There are a few other items that I wouldn't have thought to pack either. My suitcase inventory now includes a flashlight (torch), suitcase locks, a door stop, ear plugs, extra plastic bags, and a travel pillow. I have never been so well prepared.

Information Technology

The biggest conundrum for me though is technology. Normally when I travel I am the IT equivalent of my mother - a walking data center. I bring my laptop, iPad, and iPhone and not one, but two wi-fi networks so that I am always connected. But my friends who have been to Africa tell me not to bring any technology with me that I can't afford to lose. Three months ago I lost my iPhone in Brussels and you would have thought from my reaction that I had lost a child instead. I was beside myself until some wonderful anonymous person turned it in to the lost and found. My technology is like my electronic family - it would be smarter to leave it all at home. But I'm a technologist working on technology projects...how can I not bring it with me?

The answer, I hope, is inexpensive substitutes that will not be a complete tragedy to lose. I bought an Acer Android tablet that got good ratings and cost less than 120 euros.Thanks to Camara I also have a loaned laptop that has a longer battery life and weighs far less than my one at home.  The final dilemma then is what to do about my iPhone. It's not just a phone, it's my mobile email, internet, camera, recording device...everything I need for research. But to be honest, my iPhone is my baby (if babies were small, square, and made of metal and glass). If I lose it, the emotional trauma will only be outweighed by the replacement cost. And I'm not even sure I'll be able to use it as a phone. I've heard it's hard to get the microsim card in Africa that iPhones require...so I may just buy a used Android or Blackberry in one of the shops here in Dublin and be done with it.

Visas

For the past few weeks, packing has been the least of my worries. I wasn't even sure I'd be going to Uganda this summer because I ran into visa problems. Along with the application there are forms, photos, proof of vaccinations, money orders, etc. that have to be sent - I expected that. What I didn't expect was that the embassy would run out of visas. How, you ask, does one run out of visas? I don't know, but in a country aggressively competing for tourism dollars you would think they would have an extra stash of them somewhere for emergencies. Unfortunately they did not, so the month that I allowed for the application process wasn't enough and I had to push my travel back a few weeks. Which is OK - Dublin is beautiful this time of year.

But the visa setback is still a bit disappointing...my classmates at Trinity have all gone off to their respective countries, posting Facebook updates that sound like they're having the time of their lives. I feel sadly left behind.

But the good news is that the visa is finally on its way. It's currently somewhere in Illinois, working its way toward me over the next few days. I have optimistically registered on the US Smart Traveler Enrollment Program website. Hopefully I'll leave soon.

One of my friends said that he doesn't worry about visas...he just shows up in a country with his passport and hopes for the best. So far it has worked for him, but I have another friend who tried that same tactic a few years ago in either Vietnam or Indonesia...I can't remember...and couldn't get in the country.  So in addition to the wise advice from all of my friends documented above, my advice which I can now say from experience, is to allow plenty of time for the visa application.

About Me...About Uganda

I have never been to Africa before. It's good to know that for my first visit I'll be going to "The Pearl of Africa's Crown" as Winston Churchill once described it. Uganda is a landlocked former British colony in eastern Africa that after achieving independence in 1962, had a rocky start as a fledgling country, first under the dictatorship of Idi Amin and then Milton Obote. Since 1986 though, Uganda has achieved relative stability and economic growth under a multi-party democracy led by Yoweri Museveni.

There are almost 35 million people in Uganda. Most are farmers under the age of 25, growing the country's major export, coffee.  The good news is that unemployment is only about 5 percent and three out of four Ugandan families live above the poverty line. The government has worked to provide decent infrastructure (for example - 100 percent cellular coverage) and regulation (raising producer prices and other "farmer friendly" reforms). The bad news is that a child born today in Uganda can expect to live an average of just 53 years. Perhaps that's because there is only 1 doctor for every 10,000 Ugandans. Or perhaps it's because 16 percent of Ugandan children under the age of 5 are underweight. Or perhaps it's because there is a "very high" degree of risk for Malaria, HIV/Aids, Hepatitis A, Typhoid, and a host of other nasty diseases. These issues are what I have spent the last year of my life learning about in Trinity College Dublin's Development Practice Program.

Being a college student for the past year has given me an opportunity to learn, and has also fed my desire to "level the playing field" between the developed world and the developing world. But more than that I am convinced that there is innovation in Uganda and other African countries that the developed world can learn from. The use of Information Technologies is one example. Kenya had a mobile payment application (M-Pesa) well before the US or Europe. We talked about it...we marveled at it....but did we ever stop looking down our paternalistic noses and ask for help in applying that innovation to the developed world? Not really. We're still figuring it out - paying millions to Silicon Valley startups to reinvent the wheel.

From a personal perspective I'm trying not to show that same hubris but some days it's hard. Being a "mature" college student for the past year I have had to acclimate myself to the realization that I'm often the oldest person in the room with the least amount of subject expertise. It's character building. I used to get paid a lot of money for my knowledge, and my job in the defense industry afforded me the opportunity to work with some incredible people; but most days I felt like I was pushing the same rock up the same hill. Now I earn very little....just freelance work that I'm trying to grow into a proper business (actually more of a social enterprise) but it's a different rock and a different hill every day. And it's exciting. I started technobility.org in 2013 because I wanted the freedom to choose my causes and follow my passion. I wanted to make helping others a full time career. Our vision is "A better world, one byte at a time" and we achieve it by using IT to create a snowball effect of small impacts that add up to a big difference.  And the best part is that I still get to work with incredible people.

And here is an incredible looking bird...the African grey crowned crane, the Ugandan national bird.

I really hope I get to see one of these up close when I'm in Uganda.

This is the red and black thorn spider

I really hope I never see one of these up close in Uganda or anywhere else.

I am really looking forward to spending two months in Uganda, and I'll be updating this blog regularly with stories of my adventures. This summer I will be based in Kampala, working on two projects for CDRN and Camara. If you're interested in more details, check out the Our Clients page of technobility.org. I hope, as the official Ugandan tourism website promises, to be "captivated by its beauty, overwhelmed by the friendliness of its people and intrigued by all that Uganda has to offer". I also hope to learn more about technology's role in Ugandan development, and perhaps find some unique innovations that could help other countries. More than anything though, I hope these two months will provide clarity, purpose, and maybe even change my life yet again.

Oh Uganda, Land of Beauty (National Anthem)

Oh Uganda! may God uphold thee,

We lay our future in thy hand.

United, free,

For liberty

Together we'll always stand.

Oh Uganda! the land of freedom.

Our love and labour we give,

And with neighbours all

At our country's call

In peace and friendship we'll live.

Oh Uganda! the land that feeds us

By sun and fertile soil grown.

For our own dear land,

We'll always stand,

The Pearl of Africa's Crown.