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.

The Okeng Community - Still Up Country

Post by Josh

Today we set out with more sodas and biscuits in tow to the Okeng community, which is about a 90 minute drive from Lira, a small town with many bicycles where the hotel is.  We turned off the main road and the road became muddy, bumpy, and swampy: it was more a path than a road.  We bumped over standing water, in which we spotted some tortoises.  Then another turn and the road got narrow, tall lush brush scraping against both sides of the van.  Finally we reached the Okeng community.  A rural village consisting of about 70 mud huts, and few brick ones.

This hut was the best kept hut I’ve seen yet.  It is owned by a young male, not yet married.  Apparently, after marriage these little things of looking good in the neighborhood fall to the wayside as other responsibilities take over.

We parked by the giant mango tree which is the community meeting place.  The Okeng community, unlike the visit to the clan on Tuesday, consists of a few different clans, striving to live in harmony together.  When we arrived word was sent around that we were going to hold a meeting.  Apparently the initial invite went just to the clan leaders, some individuals were sent around on bikes to rally the rest of the villagers.  In the meanwhile we toured the gardens, crops, and new community grazing site, with boundary markers sparked by the work of my NGO.

The community was greatly appreciative of the aid from my org.  They now have demarcated public grazing space and residents’ farming areas, or garden, are marked and mapped.  A surveyor has been out to the site and today we presented the community with a deed plan from the surveyor.  This is a huge step for any community such as this one.  Few have been able to make it this far, mostly because of disputes arising from challenges related to coming to agreements with each other during the process.  Okeng village has also written a charter regarding the rules of the grazing area.  Land disputes in this community have decreased, people are more familiar with their rights, and they have tools such as maps and boundary markers to protect themselves from encroachers and land-grabbers and prove exactly the location and size of their land.  Hurray for advocacy and the aid of NGOs!  In addition, women now have a much larger presence at meetings and speak during them because people in the organization spoke to them about their role in the community.  In sum, people are happier. 

But this is just one community, there are many more hidden out there amidst the roads that aren’t really roads in Northern Uganda.  The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony displaced many people in a 20 year period ending in 2006.  The issues displaced people that returned to their land face are plenty.  Land is just about all people have.  They pay no bills, rent, or anything of the sort.  They really do live on less than a dollar a day, but they don’t need money on a day to day basis as most of their food comes from their land or through barter.  However, despite this fact, money is important, and some families value it more than others.  I saw a few families that have chosen to have a crop that yields more money, such as small red hot chili peppers, which allows them to have brick and mortar home as opposed to the standard mud hut.  On the flip side, “excess income” can be spent by the man head of household on drinking, which is obviously not the best use of rare funds.  Necessary changes to the community like surveyors, boundary markers, and deeds cost money among other one-off items like bicycles and dowry. It’s not just the future of land rights in this part of Uganda that needs coaching, organizations preach women’s rights and other issues in this country as well.  Some of those organizations were touring these communities with us and are figuring out how they can work with us to best solve these problems. 

The Okeng community took two years to get to where they are today.  Other communities do not see the importance of title or survey, or there is too much disagreement within them to arrive at the stage I witnessed in Okeng.   Communities will continue to face land rights issues until they start to understand the importance of equipping themselves with the proper tools for protection and start working together.  The onus is very much on them.

Such stories like the Okeng community are remarkable to witness firsthand.  The people are incredibly grateful, especially when we return to their community, for any reason.  When they are happy, they work together well.  I also learned the importance of having enough soda and biscuits for everyone.

The mid-meeting break consists of Fanta, Coke and biscuits for everyone.

"Up Country"

Post by Josh

I keep hearing about traveling “up country.”  It’s where the work of my organization is done, they have two field offices “up country.”  Land rights became a bigger issue after the turmoil that occurred “up country” back in 1996-2006 and we are trying to create peace, harmony, and justice there.  I’ve also heard that it is just gorgeous there, where?….”up country.”

On Tuesday, I left for the greener parts of Uganda (yeah, yeah “up country”), with two staff members from my NGO and representatives from nine other NGOs.  This is supposed to be a learning trip for other organizations whose mission overlaps with ours in the realms of land rights and/or women’s issues.  The idea is that the other participants learn what my org is doing and more about the laws governing land rights.  Because the customary laws—rules within the clans—and the new Land Act have had little time to coexist, the real governing authority is not clear.  As these organizations are well familiar with, people start to act on their volition and take whatever they feel they can have.  Victims do not know where to turn to and the organizations deployed to help may also be jaded by all the wrong ideas that are consistently followed.  Hopefully they will learn something from my organization which is on the leading edge of land rights knowledge in the country.  The second fold of the trip involves one of our donor organizations.  They also donate to the other organizations represented and this is an opportunity for them to see the work we are performing in the field and also speak with some of their other grant recipients.

The trip up was smooth, which is a big deal in Uganda.  In Uganda, people either say the roads are very bad or the roads are very good, fortunately, this road was the latter.  It even had lines, yellow ones and white ones, but still one way in each direction.  The road took us over a pretty fast moving part of the River Nile and then past some baboons hangin’ on the roadside.  There were also many people hangin’ on the roadside.  Just one of those moments I realized that we are not so far off from our monkey friends.  Just six years ago, the only way to travel in these parts was with a convoy of about a 100 cars and army vehicles situated in the front, midddle, and back.  Cars would wait by the Nile crossing until enough amassed and then make the trip, fast, and without stopping.

Tuesday’s main attraction was a visit to a property belonging to the Mwa Otira Tok clan.  This is a clan that is over 900,000 strong, at least that was the reported number of registered voters in their last election, a fact I learned while sitting next to the elected Chief on our way back—that’s right, I sat next to a Clan Chief!  The 70 or so at this meeting were just a tiny sample of the population.  We caravanned into their property in two white vans, a pickup truck, and a Land Rover.  Our reception was load, and proud.  I experienced, for the first time, African women singing (for lack of a better word) in a high pitched way: lalalalalalalala.  One woman came up to shake our hands while kneeling before each one of us.  Obviously, this organization has done something good here.

Hail to the Clan Chief

While we were sitting in a small patch of property beneath a thick old tree whose branches fingered out and above us to add much needed shade from the hot Up Country sun, I observed the skin of the clan people.  It was rough and beaten: much different than my own and that of the other NGO workers in attendance.  The people here don’t work in the city.  Instead they spend their whole life working the fields and outdoors, under the sun.  Many were barefoot and their feet had a whole layer of collouse that my delicate feet do not obtain.  The women all bend at the hip and waist, and fold over like a jackknife.  The grandma seated next to me would get up by first standing, then her hands leave the ground once her legs are straight, then unfolding to an upright position, 

NGO workers mix with the Mwa Otira Tok clan 

My organization has helped this clan in two ways: education through teaching the laws and rules around land rights, and boundary trees.  Boundary trees are a certain type of cheap, easily acquired tree that can be rooted in the ground.  When planted close together like in the picture below it is hard to remove and clearly demarcates the land boarder.  

Boundary trees keep a kid goat from grazing on the neighbor's land

We brought treats of biscuits and soda for those in attendance.  At first I didn’t feel good about giving these treats out, it almost seemed like bribery and a poor use of donor funds, but people flocked to get their “reward” for meeting with us.  The clan chiefs asked us if we had extra notebooks (cost: less than 50 cents).  We did and they were very grateful.  Some things just don’t make sense, I understand that income for clan members is low and a soda seems like a great treat, but when the better-dressed clan chief asks if he could have a 50 cent notebook, I am perplexed. 

As things wrapped up and people were mingling, one of the grandmas got my attention and asked me if there was any more soda.  She asked in her native tongue and after much back-and-forth and some help by one of the younger men I understood that she didn’t get a soda.  I ran back to the cars but the truck with the sodas had left to pick up more program participants.  I went into our van and grabbed a juicebox, you remember, the kind that used to get packed with school lunch every day.  Apple black current.  I brought it to her and, figuring the wrapper and straw might present a problem, opened it for her.  The site of grandma sipping out of a juicebox made others around laugh and made her very, very happy.

Day 2 Up Country

Today was a grueling day of presentations by all the other NGO representatives.  Some were better than others.  There was quite a bit of overlap in the work they all do.  This was mainly an informative session, and not a sharing of ideas on how to benefit from each other’s advances in the field.

Tomorrow it’s back in the field as we visit more people that we have helped in the past. 

To date, the coolest cane I've seen.

CFO for an NGO

...well at least for the next two and a half months. 

...And maybe not CFO, but I just found out that I have all financial responsibilities of the organization I’m working with.  Let me rewind a smidge, yes?  I knew I would be taking over some duties, the main one being QuickBooks, from a woman who is very pregnant, her last day is Friday, the Friday at the end of September.  But there was no urgency on her part to bestow upon me the inner workings of her position, despite my poor attempts to set up a time to meet with her.  From my initial perspective it did not look like she was terribly busy.  And I was not clear on when her last day would be. 

On Monday I reminded people that I would be out of the office Thursday and Friday due to Rosh Hashanah, aka the Jewish New Year.  All of a sudden it’s an emergency in the director’s eyes that I have all the knowledge of the finance operations of the NGO.  I’ve got two and half days to learn it.  Somehow two and half days shrinks into a 4-5 hour review of budgets and QuickBooks entries.  I will be writing checks, making bank withdraws, issuing the payroll checks, managing the keys to the safe, transferring the wires into Ugandan Shillings from the donors (chances of receiving donor funds in the next three months are slim), and all things related to finances.  I’ll also need to devise a system for creating a more accurate budget.  At this point the budget is a very rough estimate of expenses with a 5 percent inflator on every single line item, rent to program costs, across the board.

In some ways I can make this job much more difficult than it is, in others I can go along with the system they’ve set up, make a few excel models that can be used in the future for predicting budgets and call it a successful volunteer run.   

In short, I will have a lot to be busy with these next few months.  My mission is to keep things simple but create a more accurate way for the organization to plan for the future when I am no longer there.

Organizational Change?

One thing I don’t think I will be able to change is avoiding these crisis modes of operations.  I have learned my lesson that I need to be a bit more direct in arranging meetings with staff so that we don’t end up meeting at the eleventh hour.

This got me to thinking about managing style in Uganda and the US.  I’m speaking about the average norm, in both cases there are certainly exceptions on both sides of the spectrum, but the general feeling is different in the two places.  In the States there are a variety of manager types but the basic mentality, countrywide, is the expectation that employees do their work and perform to some level of expectation.  When the boss says to do something, it gets done.  I’m wondering if that is the norm in Uganda. 

What I’m finding and hearing, is that in Uganda there is a level of expectation from the employee that as long as he shows up to work, he will get paid.  This is not a mentality that starts in the corporate or nonprofit workplace.  It is spread throughout all sectors, most notably, the government.  Corruption is rampant in the government sector.  The expectation has become that the government doesn’t provide, but donor funds from the west will support the country.  In fact, donor assistance contribute to almost one third of GDP.  To give credit where credit is due, President Museveni has done a magnificent job enticing donors from all over the world to contribute to his country.  For the students who make it to the university level, I was told recently, that they are there to “think, not to do work.”  Upon entering the workforce, given the environment of leaders leading through taking bribes and receiving other monies on the side, and an education background that graduates students for not necessarily completing all the work in the syllabus, employees then expect to be paid merely for showing up.  One would encounter this more regularly here than in the States, of course this mentality exists in American too.  Again, this is the general stereotype of the Ugandan worker, not necessarily the mindset of people everywhere.  

So when the boss kicks an employee out of a meeting for not producing their quarterly report, which is supposed to include highlights of the work that the employee has performed in the past three months, the employee perception is that the boss is mean and strict.  In a world where traffic laws do not cover what lane of traffic you are in or how fast to drive, and banks cannot track a person who takes a loan and moves to another town when they cannot pay it back, the feeling of freedom is much stronger than that of an American who has to deal with so many rules, courts and the system that can track and follow through more thoroughly.

In jobs where the pay is much less, like the taxi drivers, police and street market vendors, any opportunity of easy money is seized upon.  The mentality for most of these workers is that the White West has all the money.  And for the most part, it is true.  If I pay four dollars extra in a special hire cab, I probably won’t know or make a big deal about it.  Sometimes it’s not four dollars. 

A friend of ours was recently pulled over by a policeman for answering his phone while driving.  This was not a traffic policeman who is the only police that can issue a traffic ticket, evident by the type of uniform they wear.  This officer said that talking on a phone and driving is a very criminal activity and that the only way to cure this situation was for our friend to mobile money the officer three million shillings, about a thousand USD.  Mobile money is a way for people to send money through their mobile phones.  Our friend does not have the mobile money service and the officer took whatever money our friend had and told him to get the service and send the money.  They exchanged numbers.  As luck would have it, a few days later after not following through on the officer’s demands, our friend was driving by the scene of the incident and the same officer pulled out and started following him.  Our friend decided to head straight to the US Embassy.  At a stop along the way the officer pulls up alongside our friend and orders him to pull over.  Our friend replies that what the officer is doing is harassment and that he is driving straight to the US Embassy and not to bother him again.  The officer continues to follow until our friend is about two blocks from the embassy, at which point he stops his pursuit.

The officer’s plan of an easy three million shillings went terribly awry and he grew scared.  So scared that he called our friend a few days later to find out what happened at the embassy.  Now with the upper hand, our friend told the officer over the phone that nothing will happen as long as the officer does not harass or do anything further regarding this matter.  The officer’s reply was “thank you.”

My point is that the expectation of the worker is different, much different from what I am used to.  Uganda is a country where people get by with very little money.  Even with a job, the rungs of the ladder get very narrow and not many people can get themselves up it without receiving help from someone higher up on that ladder.  Jobs are scarce and many qualified people work for free or nothing.  Some people take matters into their own hands to earn money, and easily get away with it most of the time, that is what their leaders do.  I’m hopeful that this mentality is changing.  Western culture is becoming more the norm and as the country develops so will the schools and the workplace….hopefully.

Settling In

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.