Week of 19 September, 2011 (Post by Josh)
My first day of work went terrific, really. There’s something to be said about working after not having done so for two months. I guess I’m not ready for retirement yet. I felt rejuvenated after that first day. We have been traveling and moving around a lot and perhaps we grew tired of that routine, if it can be called routine. Over the weekend we came to know our neighborhood, but didn’t really explore much beyond. By the end of the weekend I had feelings that the next three months could be long. But day one of work put my mind on a different track.
My commute to work involves going through central Kampala. I take two taxis, or matatus. The first takes me to Kampala city center, the second I take to the end of the line, about a seven minute walk from my office. The matatu system does not have a map, you just have to know it, ask for directions, or guess/feel it out. People at work were very reluctant to let me journey alone my first time. So I received a ride from one of my new colleagues on my first day. She lives one or two neighborhoods away so it wasn’t that much extra for her to take me to and from work.
Once at work it was right down to business, after prayers and a two hour meeting. Apparently the custom here is to pray before a meeting. And it was perhaps the sweetest prayer I have ever heard, but I might be biased. Thank you lord for bringing us Joshua. Please keep him safe and allow him to complete the work … it went on with a few more things, but obviously it was very nice and I felt very appreciated.
The meeting’s purpose was to outline my work plan, going through all I will be involved with during my stint at the organization. I learned who everyone was, which was easy because there are only four other people who I will be working with in the office. Sarah, is the fifth and her 2-year old son is the sixth. Sarah is responsible for the cleanliness of the office space. Emma, short for Emanuel, the son, is usually hanging off his mother’s back with a serong-like strap. But he’ll run around from time to time, pushing a blue pail pretending as if it were a giant truck. A real cute little guy.
The office reminds me of my two experiences with small start-ups. It’s basically a house with a reception area-type room at the entrance, a kitchen, a larger boardroom (comfortably fits 6, but we’ve crammed 10 or 11), and two other offices/rooms. It is a comfortable atmosphere and my colleagues will occasionally walk around without shoes on. I walk to work in my hiking shoes and change into my loafers when I settle in for the day. Therefore I have no guilt about dirtying the floor for my colleagues’ feet. Each morning I sing Mr. Rogers’ “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” to myself as I switch from sneakers to shoes. Didn’t Mr. Rogers go from sneakers to sneakers? All I need is a zip-up sweater, but it’s too warm for that. What I really need is a fan.
I could now go into what I’m expected to do for the next three months, but budgeting, analysis of court cases, and creating expense tracking systems might be boring. The more interesting topic is the actual issues the org is involved with.
The biggest subject at play is that of land grabbing. I’ll try to be brief as my current knowledge of the subject is cursory, but as I get more into the analysis I should have a better “grasp” of it.
There are a few land rights issues the organization is involved, but high on the action list is land grabbing. Land grabbing is a hot issue among people in the same family or clan. The reason it is an issue is because 80% of land in Uganda is governed by what is called Customary Law, which is a hybrid of the clan’s traditional rules and enforcement and the country’s judicial laws. The problem with the clan is that they themselves are not fully carrying out their laws and making decisions based on their rules. Instead, they are focused on harmony. When a widow’s brother-in-law tries to take his dead brother’s land, the clan will ask the widow to share the land, as opposed to standing up for the widow, which is what they are supposed to do. The widow will not turn to the judicial system because local behavior has not reached the point where all people will look to that system for help. The problem here is that even if she does stand up for herself and go to the courts, the land grabber may not show up and the courts have no power to enforce anything. The laws are not fully flushed out and the widow is left being harassed or losing her land.
Some of my work will involve looking at the cases that have reached the courts and doing analysis of trends to give the organization a way to tailor the information they distribute.
