Last Full Week in Uganda!

We’ve had a very busy week!

On Monday, at TASO, I went to another sustainable livelihood organization in Jinja to check out their monitoring system. Tom, the trainer that I interviewed, was so knowledgeable and passionate about farming! When I listened to the recording of the conversation as I was transcribing it later, I realized that I really should have brought a video camera, because the words alone could not capture all of his gestures and jumping around! After telling me about their program, he showed me many different types of gardens. Unfortunately, at some point that day, I also developed some sort of bacterial eye conjunctivitis (diagnosed using Wikipedia), so I wasn’t able to wear contacts for a few days.
On Tuesday, I spent a lot of the day doing online research on international sustainable livelihood organizations and working in the pharmacy, where I counted out sets of 400 vitamins from containers of 1000. When I do tasks like these, whether it’s typing up notes or counting pills, I sometimes feel like I’m wasting my time, because it’s such a dull activity. However, these are probably some of the most helpful things I can be doing. The people working at TASO are always so busy, when we went in to see the drama group last Saturday, it seemed like half of the staff was there working on things from the week. If I can help them get these little jobs, like counting out packets of 56 pills, out of the way, then maybe it can help them to be able to devote their time to the more important part of their jobs, or at least help the organization run a bit more smoothly. After work, Nadia and I walked into Jinja’s downtown area and went to a little restaurant that had been recommended to us by another group at the hotel. It is run by a little Australian lady that has been in Uganda for 20 years!
Wednesday was stress management day at TASO! In the morning, there were presentations on a research project that TASO is participating in, and in the afternoon the whole staff went to the Kingfisher resort for lunch (a buffet of Ugandan food: rice, matoke, potatoes, beans, etc.) and activities! I played volleyball for awhile, but spent most of the day watching the antics of my coworkers. At one point, I was excited because I thought that they were bringing out dessert, something I’ve really been missing here. But it turned out to be a big container of roasted goat meat on sticks, with bones and all. That was a let down. Overall, the day was great, though, and I had a lot of fun.
On Thursday, I was reminded of one of the major reasons that I love traveling, all of the other travelers that you meet. At breakfast at the hotel, a man came up to me and struck up a conversation about what I was doing in Uganda. Eventually, it came out that he was an optometrist, in Uganda to do eye exams for children! Remember my eye problems? He was able to diagnose it and give me eye drops, and a recommendation for an antibiotic! It turns out that he was actually raised in Tanzania and moved to the US when he was 16. He had many sad stories about giving eye exams at local schools, but one really great one about this boy he encountered at a school for the blind. It turned out that he was not actually blind, he just needed really strong glasses, which the optometrist was able to order. He took the boy outside with the preview lenses (I don’t know what they’re actually called) and the boy was able to see a soccer game for the first time. I really like the idea of people taking their skills and using them to help people who need it. At work, I helped the data guys with some transcribing and worked in the pharmacy in the morning. Later that afternoon, I had a long talk with my boss, Simon, about my project. My project has turned into designing a monitoring form that counselors, field officers, or project managers can take with them on home visits to monitor the success of a sustainable livelihood client, and also the effectiveness of the program in addressing food security and economic empowerment. It seems like this will be really useful for them if it is actually used, but I’m concerned that it will take a long time for them to implement it, if they do at all. I wish that I could come back for a longer period, like for a few months, and work on the implementation, because it seems like most people at TASO have way too much to do already. Later that afternoon, I interviewed a client, Florence, who is about to enter the SLP, about her expectations. It was so interesting to hear about her experiences, particularly about how much her life has improved since she was put on antiretrovirals, she is so excited to start earning her own income.
On Friday, I did an interview with another local organization, and spent some time talking to a new intern that is here for a year about the possibility of her taking over my project. I would really like that because I feel like there is a good chance that the form could otherwise just sit on someone’s computer rather than actually being used, despite the need for it. After work, Nadia and I met in the downtown area for dinner.
On Saturday, Nadia and I went kayaking on the Nile! We were on the water from about 11 in the morning to 6 in the evening with a half hour break for lunch. In the morning, we learned basic kayak skills, including what to do when you capsize, which is to either unhook yourself from the kayak and get out, or to stay strapped in and bang on the bottom of your boat until someone comes and bangs their boat into yours. At that point, you find their boat with your hands, put your head on it, and flip the boat over with your hips…I learned how to do that method, but decided that if I flipped over, I would get myself out. After lunch, they took us on a truck with our gear to the top of some rapids. We did some more practice, where Nadia and I secured our positions as the worst kayakers in the class. But, when we started actually going through the rapids, we were the only two in the class to stay upright. I think that this was due less to our skills and more to our fear of flipping over, because neither of us had any interest in hanging upside down underwater and banging our hands against the boat. It was so much fun! At one point, I went down a few rapids by myself when I drifted away from the group. Luckily, I crashed into some bushes soon after and got stuck, so everyone else was able to catch up easily. The scenery along the way was amazing, I wish that I could have brought my camera in the kayak. After we finished back at the camp, we had dinner at the campsite with some people from the class. Everyone has such interesting stories about why they’re here. There was one man who has been traveling around Africa in a truck with a tent on it for three years, another couple took a year off from their lives to travel the world doing volunteer work, the instructor is from the US, and came here to do a project similar to ours, but keeps on extending her stay as she finds new activities. Today really inspired me to do more traveling. We had to get a taxi home, which we shared with an Australian volunteer that we met that is also staying in Jinja. After we dropped her off, the car stopped working for awhile and it had to be pushed. Nadia and I seem to have that effect on cars, this was the third one this trip that has stopped working while we’ve been in it. Then, I accidentally left my phone in the taxi, and called the driver about 10 minutes later, but the car had already broken down again, so I needed to pay for him to take a Boda to the hotel! I will NOT miss the complications of Ugandan methods of transportation, but I’ll miss pretty much everything else.