an island, its people, our place

6/3/2011
Jinja:
We arrived in Jinja around mid-day on Friday with a driver who picked up two others from the airport who plan on doing some things around the islands as well. After a very nice lunch in Jinja, we went to the mainland SHIM office. Basically, we met tons of really awesome people who I have heard about for two years, but never really had any physical connection to. We met Andy and Keeky, Amanda, Julius, Ruth and their son Andrew, Papa and Momma O, Robert, Oryagi (sp?) and many others. I'm absolutely in love with Papa O, who cannot get over the fact that EDGE boys actually exist. "You are most welcome" is a common phrase to hear him say every single time you see him. He and everyone are so gracious to have guests in their homes, especially people (Karla and the EDGE project) who return.

Jinja is a very interesting city, relative to Kampala. It is a completely different feel because of it's location on the water but also its higher standard of living. There are actually houses with huge front lawns and fences, compared to the many small clay-brick and wood homes that cover Kampala. It reminds me a lot of my neighborhood in South Africa, Observatory, because of its hip downtown main drive with many cafes and shops. It was a nice change of pace from the busy Kampala. The air is much cleaner and my boogers are no longer black.

In the afternoon, we met with Andy and Keeky as a smaller group at the house where Keeky is staying, since she recently had a new baby. It was really nice to meet such great people and nice to be able to talk about EDGE and what we are going to do on the island this month. They seem very optimistic about our fencing project around the secondary school, as well as some of our assessment projects focused on the Lingira Women's soccer team and the grain mill.

Afterwards we met with Rose, one of the heads of an NGO based in Jinja, Women's Rights Initiative (WORI). Karla and her mother did a week long internship with WORI last year when Cathy visited. The group is focused on empowering women through many different programs focused on rights awareness campaigns. Many focus on domestic abuse and family-based situations. Anyways, EDGE is hopeful to get her to come to the island with her coworkers and hold some focus groups for the women around the three camps. We talked with SHIM, as it is a religious based group, to see what they think and they wholeheartedly believe that the programs are beneficial. Ideally we could get Rose to come sometime while we are here, but she and WORI have been doing these things for quite some time so we wouldn't provide much service to the programs.

Tomorrow morning we plan on going to the island.

6/5/2011
The island is everything and more than I expected. Surprisingly (and creepily), I know my way around because of my work on the map. It's funny though, because there are new buildings from the photo on Google Earth that was taken a few years back. We are close to the secondary school, which has around 120 students right now. The term recently started again, which is why so many of the students are wandering around the area most of the time. Paul and I played some soccer with the boys yesterday only to get our ankles broken. We didn't play too badly but damn these kids are fast! Paul ran into a little problem when he ripped off his pinky toenail on a rock. Trying to fit in without shoes is difficult, especially when you look really out of place because most kids have shoes on and some even had track cleats. Despite our skin color, we looked about as mzungu (white person) as you can get.

The many double takes and total stares have become a normal part of walking around because we look totally out of place. I can imagine it would be quite surprising to see people of a different race on an island that is totally isolated in the middle of a continent that is almost entirely black. The ocasional screaming child running to his or her mother is quite an interesting response to the mzungu. It is common to stop and say hello to everyone you know and greet everyone you don't as you walk around. This, along with the African internal clock, makes getting things done on time almost impossible. Even church on Sundays is three hours long, with many people showing up an hour and a half into the service. We went to the church service today mostly to get a feel for what a christian Sunday is like for Ugandans. Despite it being incredibly long, the music was sung by the secondary school girls choir accompanied by a couple drums. It was beautiful to listen to and most of the time the speaker had a translator from either Lugandan to English or vice versa. At one point I think there was a three way translation going on from Swahili to Lugandan to English. I'm pretty sure the EDGE project was welcomed four or five times throughout the whole service, including a portion where we had to stand in front of everyone and introduce ourselves and give greetings from Madison, Wisconsin, America and my personal favorite, Michelle and Barack Obama.

The food we have been eating has been simply amazing. Every meal involves copious amounts of fruit, no exceptions. Pineapple, passion fruit, papaya, watermelon and mango mango mango! We have been eating posho (which is basically a dense, starchy filler that resembles pop from South Africa; not soda pop). Beans, rice and greens also seem to appear at most meals. Mamma O and Ruth have been treating us so kindly and have been throwing in some extra special entrees such as beef and chicken. Meats are usually reserved for celebration so they will stop soon. I guess they are excited to see us!

We measured the total distance of fence needed to surround the entire secondary school, which is quite a bit. It's going to cost a fair amount of money, so I don't know how much EDGE can complete in this trip. There is a section of 100 meters that we are for sure going to start and finish, but there is another 120 meters (220 total) that is needed for the other side of the school. We hope to have the garden area, which is WAY larger than we originally thought, fenced in so the school can start growing the area. Tomorrow we plan on beginning the slashing process and digging of fence posts. Fred, the fine arts teacher for the secondary school, is hoping to get many of the students to help clear the area and put up the fence. It would be highly beneficial to have the students help build the garden because they will have a stronger connection to the land and their crops if they put the work into getting them harvestable. Exciting stuff over here!

I thought I was going to have to go over a month without playing the guitar, but Andy actually has one at SHIM! I got it tonight with his permission and he said I can keep it in our room while I am here to play when I want. It will be nice to have some music to play during down time.

6/8/2011
Paul and I walked up the mountain the other day. It is super rocky and difficult to find a good foot hold. I'm surprised we didn't roll our ankles! The top of the hill (a MN mountain) provides a brilliant view of the surrounding islands and mainland. I have seen so many photos of this hill and people looking out over the lake for the past two years, I can finally say that I have been there too. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, my camera that I purchased the day before flying out is already broken, with sand in the lens and a screen that freezes. I have been taking plenty of video though, and plan on using Karla and Paul's cameras for the rest of the trip. We descended the hill near the secondary school and to my surprise and content, we saw children slashing away the weeds and plants where the garden is going to be. After talking to the teachers and having them announce in class about the garden, the secondary school boys and girls were excited about the project and wanted to help! Although the project is nowhere near complete, it was very rewarding seeing them focused and interested in having a place for hands on agricultural learning. In the end, I think we had 10 or 12 slashers (bend blades for cutting grass) and about 60 students. Despite our lack of tools, many of them were having fun watching Paul and I make fools of ourselves trying to use these things. Our hands are full of blisters; good, rewarding, hard-working blisters.

We have drawn out plans for the entire fence area in the secondary school. Right now, we have three possible plans. The first being a fence around the entire school, which is not really possible considering how expensive fencing is here. The other two are more focused on fencing in the area where the garden is going to be. They are much cheaper (though not as cheap as fencing in the states) and use some of the school buildings to cut down on total distance. It's unfortunate how expensive basic fencing is here. It's actually quite absurdly priced considering the poor quality. Once the garden actually begins to produce crops, which could be a year from now, Paul and I are thinking that the school could set up some sort of nursery program to grow seedlings for sale to the rest of the island. They would be a lot cheaper because of low transport cost and would provide income to the school while providing sustenance other than fish to people living in the camps. This seems to be an end goal for the garden. A sustainably growing seedling population to slowly lean away from reliance on fishing to being able to grow in small places with poor soil quality. Obviously a lot of work has to happen before this, though.

I'm getting used to sleeping here. Its always quite at night except when Honey, the dog, sees something at three in the morning and barks for a while. Mosquito nets are annoying, although entirely necessary, and the bathroom situation is… well… not as relaxing as most, to put it subtly. As I type this, I'm pretty sure an ant just crawled inside my computer. That's comforting.

After some talks with Robert, one of the heads of SHIM who seems to be very acquainted with the island and focused on working for the needs of the island, we still find ourselves running into dead ends. He, along with everyone else who knows about Lingira that I have talked to, sees a lack of community on the island because of its high turnover rate from fishers. There is relatively little land considering that we are on an island for people to entirely focus on farming and little in market resources for people to sell goods that they produce or create. It's quite demoralizing seeing someone who lives on and knows so much about the island run into the same problems that EDGE has continually had to work around. Lingira Island is such a confusing place for establishing sustainable programs. Robert also seems concerned about EDGE as an organization. He has noticed the drop in numbers of people coming to the island and since Paul and I are the new directors, his initial contacts with the project are changing drastically. The only way of making him feel better about this is continuing contact with him and showing that Paul and I are able to run the organization with the same vision and initiative as the original ladies. I find myself continually trying to self-motivate to push on with our programs. After such a long time of seeing little response and impact from the island, one has to find motivation from within. Working here is the first time where my mind and body have struggled to keep up with what needs to get done. Though there is a lot of down time, thinking about our projects and their probability of working is overwhelmingly tiresome.

Despite all of this though, I am enjoying actually doing something. Everything we do is for actual people. It's not a research paper or a case study in lab, it's real life with real consequences. Taking action here is much more difficult, but has to be done. We're learning how to make the best choice when all choices are difficult to make. This idea in itself is what keeps me going. It's an obsessive rush to think that something that I think and do could help someone else.

We plan on going to Jinja on Saturday to bring Karla back to mainland for her departure. On Sunday, Paul and I are purchasing our shopping list from around the area and it all back to Lingira. This includes chain-link fence, barbed wire, fence posts, concrete, paint, and wood boards. Quite a list! But one that is required for any of this garden to work.

Will try to update more frequently from here on out. I miss you family, friends, Madison. I'm so happy to have such wonderful people in my life to think about when I'm away. Thanks for being. Cheers, folks. Bottoms up.