The Clinic Up Country and a Wedding

Monday, 19^th December

Last Friday Nicole left Kampala to travel up country to a birthing center/clinic started by two American midwives, one of whom is based in Brooklyn for half the year, now, and in Atiak, the town I’m resting in, now.

I say resting in, because it really is a rest.  I worked for the last 17 of 18 days to ensure a proper transfer of my activities, and I write you now from a hammock in the birthing quarters.  There are no birthing patience disturbing at the moment, though I’m told they don’t make much noise at all during labor.  Strong women.  Strong women who have a very tough life, but I’ll let Nicole opine more on that later.

Today is Monday, I arrived yesterday afternoon after attending my colleague’s sister’s wedding.  I don’t believe it was a full sister, more of a half sister of sorts, maybe what we would call a first cousin, or maybe a mixture of the two.  I didn’t really want to dig too deep into the familial dynamic so I can’t relay the particulars of that family tree.

Saturday morning I hitched a ride with my colleague, her husband, other sister (half sister? as I didn’t really see her at the wedding, perhaps I just missed her), and husband’s cousin.  We were packed in that car with my big backpack and their Christmas break luggage for their soirée in Soroti.  Early in the trip I had the opportunity to rearrange the “boot” so my bag could stop disturbing us in the back seat.  Ugandans need to start playing Tetris.

Despite arriving in Lira with plenty of time to spare we were still late to the ceremony by about 15 minutes.  The church made me think of what an auditorium for a school in the South would be like.  At least the benches were the height of an elementary school’s auditorium.  There were some nice purple and white decorations along the sides which matched the bridal party’s outfits, and the obligatory Jesus is Good banner with his picture.  A white Jesus I might add.  Maybe that’s why, as a white man in Uganda (who is Jewish, too) I am such a celebrity among the kids.  It’s the same man they see on the wall every Sunday!

Time for a Game of Fortunately/Unfortunately

Unfortunately: The whole ceremony was in Luo, the local language of my colleague’s family/tribe. 

Fortunately, I was the only white person in the room of close to 250, so it was expected I wouldn’t understand anything. 

Unfortunately, it was hot and I had to keep my shirt on, unlike the boy in his mother’s arms 7 rows in front from me.

Fortunately, the ceiling fan closest to me was working, there were six of them, and only one other was working.

Unfortunately, the ceiling was pretty far away. 

Fortunately, I had a personal translator for the pastor’s sermon which was about treating each other with love and respect,

Unfortunately, he didn’t use those words.  He said, Don’t beat your wife, she is a treasure; when you argue, argue in Luo or in English, don’t mix languages because you might say something you don’t mean (I’m still trying to figure that one out); and then something about the groom’s big forehead becoming a characteristic you come to loath in your later years, learn to love it (again, WHAT?). 

Fortunately, the precarious flower pot near my head did not topple over on me or anyone else around during the surmon.

Unfortunately, the sermon went on for over an hour and half. 

Fortunately, I had an aisle seat for the recessional action which involved a walk consisting of a pattern of one step forward, rock back, rock forward, back again, forward again and then the next step forward.  All the walkers performed it perfectly in sync.  Well done Betty and Gerald (is it ok if I call you Jerry), and the rest of your bridal party.

Speaking of party, the reception was shall I say a spectacle.  The scene involved a series of open tents housing the guests on the typical plastic, easily stackable, chairs, which were arranged in a semicircle around the center area.  Something I learned about these weddings is that there is a lot of community involvement.  A committee is charged with preparing all the necessary means for the reception to elicit a community feel.  Thus, only some people actually receive invitations, the rest of the community is entitled to come.  And they came….bearing gifts of giant ceramic pots, money and chickens, very much alive chickens.  The gift giving ceremony included a sort of African conga line of the people carrying the gifts, and it is combined with the reception line, so everyone has a chance to shake hands and hug the Bride and Groom. 

But the party didn’t start just yet.  There were plenty of speeches, not just by the immediate family but any Members of Parliament (MPs) related to the wedded.  This can make things go long and off topic if political talk is not your thing.  Since we are not near an election we were spared much of the political tangent.

The ceremony of the reception went on to the cake cutting (with dancing) and some more speeches.  Finally it was time for food, but before I could even say Mazel Tov, the five food stations each had a line of 70 or so people squished and queued up for the feast.  Sounds of Jesus is the Greatest and some Kenny Rogers blasted through the gigantic speakers situated very near these lines.  I knew some people so we managed to cut one of these lines for a fastlane to the feast.  The standard, rice, matoke, goat’s meat, chicken, g-nut sauce, beans, and greens.  Save for some fish. It was not much different than my everyday work lunch.  I imagine they don’t make such a fuss over caterers and tastings in these parts.

Just when the party was getting started and I was starting to learn some new hip gyrating moves, the rains came for the third time in the day.  Major bummer.  Many people left and others took their drinks under cover.  Almost 45 minutes later it let up enough for me to head to my hotel.  The weird thing was that no one seemed upset about this.  I think most of the wedding festivities were over and people were going to be leaving anyway. 

Though it wasn’t the rockin’ experience I anticipated, it was an authentic African wedding and I can say I’ve attended one.

By 2pm on Sunday I reached the clinic.  Yes, the road from Gulu to Atiok is bad, but what exactly does that mean?  1) it is dusty: when a double trailer truck or a bus passes by it is a good idea to have those windows closed, my bag sitting on the roof, I can ’t say I was able to keep that protected from the elements.  2) We rode at about 30 to 40 mph for over 2 hours to reach the town.  3) the ruts and holes on this road are bad, falling off the side of the road is a very real possibility if the driver is not careful.

But we were successful in our journey and I was dropped off right outside the clinic, door-to-door service.  It’s pretty much always the case.  Transportation here is no joke, there is a taxi, bus, or car to take you anywhere, it just requires some waiting.  I’ve learned to be patient.

The Clinic

The stories I’ve been hearing over the past week on my calls with Nicole are true.  It’s a compound of a few different huts, the hut Nicole was sleeping in has a nesting hen, keeping its eggs incubated at the foot of one of the two beds, it’s really quite nice.  The birthing center is basically a giant hut with eight small offshoot rooms which act as birthing rooms and one as an office.  The large middle space with bright orange and blue wall paint center around three very comfortable hammocks, which brings me to where I am right now, relaxing.  The business of birthing is slow at the clinic right now because of some rumors being spread by other traditional birth midwives who were not given the job at the clinic.  So there is some concern that a reputation building needs to take place: set a positive presence in the community.  I have a feeling that this won’t last long because this place is MUCH nicer than any option even within a two hour radius from here.  Two hours on a bumpy, dusty, sandy, skinny back—way-back—country road is nothing a woman in labor wants to experience. 

It’s no Ikea Bookshelf

I spent my morning helping out two, let us call them, contractors put together an 100% authentic African thatched roof.  They are building another sleeping quarters.  The circular shape foundation and walls are already in place, and today work on the roof began.  I was tasked with procuring material, specifically making the rope they will use to tie the skeleton structure together.  We used two kinds of wood, bamboo and another type of tree type from which we stripped long skinny pieces from to create the rope.  The starting point for stripping away the rope from the bark can be done with a few machete cuts or by merely biting into the bark.  I learned the proper method after some failure, but all learning comes with a little failure at first, and some Ugandans to laugh at you.  Each limb yields four long strips of rope.  And each hour of work yields some very numb finger tips.  It’s not easy work but the concept is certainly simple.  I’m on vacation now so I only worked half the day.  Tomorrow we put on the thatching and maybe throw that baby up on top.  You know, raise the roof.

All wrapped up in Kampala

….And a very merry Hanukkah Night 5  and a happy X-mas, too

Saturday, 17^th December

It’s been a while since I last spoke of the work I’ve been doing here.  I think the last thing I talked about was Interview Candidate #4.  Well I got a News Flash! Interview Candidate # 4 didn’t show up for an appointment he made to discuss terms of the contract.  Four days later another News Flash! Interview Candidate #4 alerts us that he has accepted a job from another organization (thanks but no thanks).  One and a half weeks later yet another News Flash! Interview Candidate #4 shows up at our door asking us to again to be considered for the position.  He says that the organization he accepted the job from had not been truthful about the amount of travel he would be doing. 

I discussed this with my colleagues and, at first, we disagreed on how to handle this.  My feeling was that he did a poor job managing his interview process and should have strung us along by not making the appointment to discuss contract issues.  Instead, he doesn’t show up for his appointment and prematurely sends us a notice about his other job offer.  He is a young man near the beginning of his professional career, let’s cut him a break.

However, my colleagues felt different.  They said that this exemplified the typical Ugandan way of doing things: coming to us when he wanted something but not alerting us of his absence for our meeting (his excuse was that his internet was down, he tried phoning the office but the office phone didn’t work, and the only other number he had was that of our ED, which he tried but she was in a workshop).  Perhaps this isn’t someone who will go above and beyond the call of duty, a key characteristic we are looking for.

Fast forward, we interview four more candidates for the position and hire a young woman capable of the job, though I had to teach her the double-click method for selecting icons (she has chosen to continue her right-click campaign despite my protests against right click > Open).  Almost simultaneously, we interviewed seven candidates for the Finance Officer position and found a really smart person from an International NGO, which we had to make a new category in our salary for, but he is well worth it.  He is plenty excited to get started and start tinkering around with the Excel tools I made to generate reports, and log transactions.  His past experience at a well run Netherland-sponsored NGO has equipped him with great ideas to make the internal operations more cohesive and robust.  Good Luck to you, Samuel.

One difference with employment in Uganda is that both these new employees’ former organizations required a one and two month(s) resignation notice, respectively.  If they were to leave any sooner, then the missing weeks of pay would be a burden of the employee.  In both cases, since we needed them to start during that penalty period, we shouldered the penalty.  We have also changed our contracts to reflect a one month notice, or pay stipulation.  When in Rome…

The rest of my time at work was spent training new staff, ironing out all the changes I made, teaching them to the staff, and making sure I leave a proper trail of the new way of doing things.  Dropbox was a big implementation—for those curious, I ditched the Google Docs because of strong recommendations from a consultant the organization will have as part of a grant they are participating in.  Concerns such as network reliability are serious here, and Dropbox allows users to update forms and documents while not online, which Google does not provide, yet.

So now I’m finished.  Made a few manuals and did my very best in attacking as many issues regarding the internal operations as I could with the intention that it is sustainable, easy to carry out in my absence.  I organized a protocol for budgeting which will allow them to better plan for the future as opposed to making funding requests based on short-term immediate needs, and I learned a lot about NGOs and how they can get so much done with so little resources.  There is a lot of work to do here, and people are knowledgeable in the subject matter, but there could definitely be more technical support when it comes to regular office management, financing, and conducting monitoring and evaluation (M&E) two to four times a year. 

What Was it Like?

The big question I would ponder before departing on this journey was What will it be like?  Working and living in Uganda.  What is Kampala like?  I’d never even seen an African city before this trip.  What will the office be like?  What will the people be like?  How will I get to work?  How big are the snakes?  Those were the fears.  My hopes revolved around being able to make an impact at my org.  Lucky for me and them, the role I played was in line with my strengths and much more pivotal than I could have ever imagined.

Working in Kampala was an experience, to say the least.  I can honestly say that the first month to month-and-a-half were much more difficult than the last month and change.  The longer we were here, the more I felt like we could do this for a longer stretch of time.  The this I’m referring to is not the life that Ugandans lead, though.  Our fellow muzungu friends all had cars, nice large living spaces, ate plenty of nice meals (out or cooking in), and had a comfortable network where they would frequently see each other as a large group.  Always something to do.  It was similar to life in New York, but a lot more manageable, we were not overwhelmed with a social life here, but we certainly enjoyed the company we kept: unique and fascinating people with similar interests to ourselves.

In the last few weeks I did not let my frustrations get the best of me.  Sure I had my rare—and much needed—venting of emotions in whatever form it came out in, but in Uganda, in Kampala, like any abroad situation, it is best to roll with the punches.  When the price is too high, bargain it lower; when the taxi is crowded, shrink up into a ball and throw your hand out the window beckoning for more to join; when it’s just another boring Sunday, go to church to hum along to the beats of Jesus and Jehovah; and when it’s raining so hard that you can’t see the ground in front of you, just wait it out, everyone will understand.  Just one thing I never got used to, everyone answers their phones.  I trained two new employees and each incoming call was handled.  Learn to expect it and use it as a bathroom break.

Wrap your Head Around This

Someone just asked me in an e-mail what has blown my mind, most, here.  As we near the end of our three-month stretch it’s probably a good idea to reflect back and begin to process all we’ve done and seen.  I thought about this question for a while, here’s my answer.

I wrote the previous post a few weeks ago—though I tricked you and posted it a few days ago—and I think is a good prologue to answering the question at hand.  We are both amazed, in a few ways, at at the world which exists here.  The first is communication and language among those that live in the slums and don’t speak a common language.  It is a world where day-to-day interactions between boda-boda drivers and the street-side lady selling ground nuts is done by pointing to the desired item and responding with the number of fingers representing the first of the four-digit price.  It’s like watching a foreigner buy something in the local language, but this is routine among locals.

Uganda’s national language is English.  The other East African countries—Kenya and Tanzania—both nationalized Swahili.  I’ve heard that Swahili was the language used by Amin’s men as they brutalized people in most of the country, and no one wants to speak it.  Luganda is the second national language (yup there are two national languages) and is most similar to the other 100 or so languages spoken here.  I’m guessing they chose English over Luganda because it gives the country a better chance of competing with the global world.  Still, speaking English outside of Kampala is like playing baseball on a cricket field, it just doesn’t work that well.  It is astonishing to think that an entire country can struggle to communicate within itself.

Unfortunately, even in Kampala it is difficult to understand the accent on some people.  There is a heavy accent from one’s local language, on top of the British accent they learn in the school.  I’ve been hearing a stronger, cleaner, British accent in the younger people, or those working at the bank, because they have been schooled abroad.  Yet, that is not always the case at our offices.  Often in meetings, and especially over the phone, I have realized I’m not the only one asking people to repeat themselves.  Maybe the phone network is not a high quality, or the phones are poor.  It just seems like there is always a wall to talk over and conversation does not always come through clearly.  Other times there is a failure to fully explain something.  For instance, we asked a man for directions and he pointed back the way we came and said, “slope down.”  (Maybe because Kampala is a city of many hills “slope down” and “slope up” are inevitably in every set of directions.)  The way I would have phrased those directions is this: “Turn around, and make your first right and go down the hill, at the end of the street turn left and you’ll find the restaurant you are looking for.” 

The glass is more than half full, Uganda has come a very long way in a relatively short period.  One hundred and fifty years ago the British came here with the English language and tea to name a few things.  Back then there were no roads, no shillings, no government and parliament system, and not much contact with the rest of the world.  When things move too quickly not everyone in a large country can keep up at the same pace.  We see that when we head up country.  People in the rural area are not too concerned with the government (they are easily bribed to vote a certain way), money, and all the other treasures from the developed world.  As long as there is land and perhaps a bicycle life is complete.  My colleague’s family in the “village” has never seen a TV, movie, and probably never read a book.  That’s sort of mind blowing.

One More Mind Explosion

Here’s something else that recently blew my mind.  A sack of sugar about one and a half the size of a large potato sack was purchased by someone at the office the other day.  Four of my colleagues split the sack for their own personal consumption.  Already knowing the answer, I decided to ask anyway: What are you going to do with all that sugar?  Use it for tea, of course.  Anything else?  No, just tea, maybe make a cake for the holidays.  There isn’t much baking going on in these parts.  Now, I’m fine with using the sugar strictly for tea, nothing wrong with that, but why is there basically one kind of tea?

Despite Internet and Mobile Phones….

….Everything else is a throwback to earlier times.  I am often reminded of the life my grandmother lived when she was a young girl in 1930s Poland.  Ugandans that are not wealthy, the majority—those without two-story homes and big fancy Mercedes Benz’s—use tools to clean and cook similar to those grandma likely used in the “old town.”  The main type of work is sustenance farming, cleaning, and running a small roadside business.  After work women sit on the roadside selling maize on the cob slowly roasted over a coal fire.  Commuters sitting in “the jam” place their order from the car (think taxi driver buying a pretzel just outside the Lincoln Tunnel).  Other times people walking home on the roadside will stop for a fresh roasted ear.  It’s interesting to see how the two worlds (those with cars and driveways vs. those who survive without electricity or running water) intersect. The class-divide, although in existence throughout the world, seems more apparent here.  I heard someone say that life in Africa is “life in the raw” and we both now have a very clear picture of what that means.  I’m reminded of this phrase often, especially when I  walk by dwellings with no privacy: where cooking, bathing, laughing, eating and general living are done essentially in public.

Instruments are seemingly impromptu.  Brooms consist of a bunch of straw tied together at the end.  Every once in a while a stick is attached to the bundle, but most everyone else I see with the broom, bends at the waist to sweep, sweep, sweep the dust that never seems to go away.  Mops are ad hoc too.  In the big center-of-town shopping center, much of mall promenade area is outside, covered by an overhang.  After it downpours—as it often does for a few minutes every day this time of year—the mall staff is out with squeegees that have an old towel draped over the rubber blade, pushing it around the floor and wringing it over a bucket.  I think I’ve seen them clean the floor with soapy water in much the same fashion.

How do I open this can of tuna that I brought 7,000 miles to my kitchen in Kampala?  Well, that dull knife used to peel carrots and apples, yeah, that one over there, point it straight down into the inside rim of the can and bang on the butt of the handle.  Move it over a centimeter or two and repeat, all the way around the can.  Tuna never tasted so good when the work to open it is so palm-numbing.  (Editor’s Note: In order to facilitate more quantities of tuna, I broke down and bought a can opener for $1.50.)

Grandma always had a way of getting the grass stains out of my jeans, and was the woman to turn to in order to get the good silverware polished and looking great for the holidays.  Now, when I scrub the heck out of my socks and other clothing, I realize that this is a much more efficient way to get those pesky stains out, at least to be certain they come out.  Sure there is Tide and Tide with Bleach, GM performs studies and experiments and spends millions of dollars to find the best way for their state-of-the-art machines to get those stains out without elbow grease, but from the looks of my sparkling clean tennis shorts, there is nothing quite like a bar of soap and some knuckle rubbing.  It’s too bad I have the cuts on my hands to prove it.