last week in uganda :(

So next week I will be leaving this beautiful country, and I’m not happy about it!  We’ve had a wonderful past couple of days, and are looking forward to the weekend – although we really want the time to slow down!

On Sunday we were lucky enough to meet a man named Hannington, who is the director of The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), a Ugandan-based NGO that has grown to be the most prominent HIV/AIDS organization in East Africa.  They have also started “mini TASOs”, one of which is the organization that I am here working with directly.  It was awesome to talk to him and hear TASO’s successes and ideas for the future of HIV/AIDS prevention and support throughout this beautiful country and beyond.

Monday was the first day back to school from Easter Holidays, and it’s crazy to see the school we’ve been living at for the past 3 weeks filled with kids!  Moses introduced us to each class in the morning, and we were greeted by the children with an abundance of questions and smiling faces.  Moses teaches math to kids aged 11-15, so we decided to sit in on his math class – three social science students who haven’t taken math since high school apparently are no match for Ugandan children.

Monday afternoon and this morning we were back in the garden, and we will be returning this afternoon.  We have finished cultivating a new patch of land, where we will be planting some more onions, so we’re really excited!

I have to run, sorry for the short post, but I have to get back to the village!  OH, last thing, last night we were eating dinner at our house with Moses and a little boy came running over to tell us that one of the goats had given birth!  So, naturally, we ran screaming like little girls to find 2 baby goats, just an hour old, and got to carry them down the hill to the goat house for their first night in the world.  So cute!! I took lots of photos so they will be uploaded soon after I get back!

Much love to all

adventures in mzungu land

So it’s been a while since I last posted, sorry to those who rely on this to ensure that I am indeed alive.  I had some pretty bad travel sickness last week, but I was back at it on Friday.  We learned how to transplant onion plants on Friday, and they’re looking great now!  Overall, the garden is looking fantastic, and it’s awesome to see our hard work paying off.

On Saturday we decided that since we were at the midway point in our trip, we had to do something touristy and experience other aspects of Uganda.  So on Sunday we packed up to head off to Kampala for the night before taking the 6 hour drive out to Murchison Falls for safari.  The journey there was interesting enough, as 3 vulgar Canadian girls were paired with 4 young girls who had been in Uganda since February with their church and somehow thought Besigye (the opposition leader) was the president.  They were all reading a book entitled “Freedom Fighter: God’s Heart for the Broken”, about a Christian missionary and her quest to “save Africa”.  These ideals are exactly what reproduces and further embeds the colonial discourses of Africa as being helpless, and, as this woman implies, broken.  We were really interested to see what these girls thought, so we asked them “how are they broken?” – their reply was simply a shrug and “I don’t know”.  It was then that we realized that this trip was going to be weird.

So we finally arrive in our campground in Murchison Falls, and it is Mzungu central!  We are so accustomed to greeting everyone excessively and dressing modestly, as per the culture here, and it was a crazy shock upon arrival to see girls in short shorts and skimpy tank tops, and no one asking how anyone is doing, or how their day is going.  We ended up just sitting with the people who worked there, and having a great first night!

The next morning (Tuesday), we left for our morning game drive at 6am, where it was 4 hours of giraffes, elephants, antelopes, hippos, crazy birds, buffalos, warthogs, etc.  We even got to see the king of the jungle, 2 male lions, which is really rare for that site, so we were really lucky!  After lunch, we went on a boat cruise up the Nile which was awesome.  Saw some more hippos (they were EVERYWHERE), lots more elephants, and some crocodiles!  Also saw some eagles, which were awesome and so majestic.  As we were approaching Murchison Falls, we saw the site where Ernest Hemingway got into a plane crash with one of his lovers, which was pretty cool – although most of the people on the boat had no idea who Hemingway was (sorry Carter Chaffey).

Later that night we were exhausted from the day’s activities, so we decided to go to sleep early.  As we were getting out of our tent to go brush our teeth, however, we met 2 friends who had decided to visit our campsite – and by friends, I totally mean hippos.  We had learned a few things about hippos upon our arrival, one being that they do tend to graze at the campsite at night (we didn’t believe that at first), and that if we do encounter a hippo, to keep our distance, not to make any sudden movements, turn off our flashlights and don’t take any photos.  Little tip – the only thing that can kill an adult hippo is another adult hippo, and hippos can definitely outrun a human.  So we slowly retreated into our tent and peered out to watch them graze.  Pretty crazy experience.

So after 3 days surrounded by Mzungus, we were very excited to arrive back in Mukono just in time for our regular Wednesday pork night with our 2 favourite people – Leslie and Moses.  It was great to get back to our house in the village, and get up early this morning to get back to work!  Moses was taken aback by how hard we were hoeing the ground – we actually really missed the work we have been doing, so it’s good to be back.  No more leaving Mukono for us for the next 2 weeks!

Well I know this doesn’t really have that much substance, but I will write again this weekend!  Much love to you all, I’m off to check some Canadian news to see what the idiot in power is up to now (we’re all scared to come home)!

dig hard, dance hard

We have officially been here for just over a week, and each day I fall more and more in love with this country.  We worked hard in the garden Monday-Thursday, and on Friday we helped Moses paint a room that he plans to turn into a computer lab.  It was a messy yet very fun affair (I still have paint 0n my feet!).  After reading through the posts that I spat out a few days ago (sorry for the mistakes), I realized that I did not say much about the actual organization we are working with.  So here we go…

We are working with an HIV/AIDS initiative started by a group of women who are infected or affected by HIV in our village in 1999.  The village has a population of 400, and there is a 15-20% HIV infection rate.  The aim of the initiative is to reduce the infection rate through education, and also enable those who are infected with/affected by HIV to support themselves through agriculture.  We are digging the demonstration garden, which provides fresh vegetables for the school, and those in charge of the garden invite local people in to learn how to plant low-maintenance yet healthy food in their own gardens at home, reducing the cost of food while often generating income.  Really neat idea, and through combining education and agriculture, they have reduced the infection rate significantly in the past decade.  They have also gained quite a lot of international recognition, even receiving donations from Elton John’s foundation.  I’m really stoked to be a part of this movement, and I want to stay involved even after leaving Uganda.

We have the weekends off work, so yesterday we went into Kampala for the day to wander around – ended up at a predominantly white restaurant for some Mzungu food (after eating all natural food food for a week, a chicken burger and fries made me feel like crap).  Wandered around a craft market looking for gifts, and then came back to Mukono to go dancing.  Moses takes excellent care of us, and he brought us one of his friends, Gertrude, to dance with us since she can, in his words, “shake it like Shakira”.  We had such a fun night dancing like crazy with our local friends and letting loose after a week of digging – our legs kill today from all the dancing we did!

Super short post (sorry), but my time on the internet is running out.  We’re going to a hotel in Mukono now to use the pool (and real showers and toilets – we have been using bucket showers and pit toilets, so we’re excited to have an afternoon with these luxuries).

Much love to everyone and a HUGE shout out to my amazing mother and grandmother, as it is mothers day today.  I love you Mom and Granny!

farming !

As people were enabling Stephen Fucking Harper (‘scuse my french) to win a majority government back home, we opened a new chapter in our lives as Mzungu farmers.  Over the past 3 days, barefeet with mud all over, we prepared the area by removing all the weeds (there were tons) by hand & hoe – first day we cultivated 200 feet of land.  It is surprisingly really enjoyable, and we are in good company who are patient and teach us the ways of the land.  On the 2nd day, we planted some beans and bananas, and today we prepared more land for transplanting cabbages.  Today we prepared more land for transplanting cabbages, and helped maintain the tomato plants (apparently weeds are really attracted to tomatoes).  Farming has been wicked so far, and we can already feel our muscles growing!  Peter and Moses make it really fun, and aren’t too hard on us – we do around 3 hours a day now, and once we get into the swing of things, we will be up to 5 hours.

One thing I really love about this country is that no one is in a hurry.  Peter and Moses stressed that we all take breaks throughout, even if it is just to stretch and take in the scenery.  Compare this to the Western capitalist mentality that productivity is everything, then examine how happy Ugandan farmers are at work compared to boring old Western businessmen – you get the idea.  Capitalism sucks.  But that’s a whole other post.

Everyone here is really appreciative of the work we are doing.  On the 5 minute walk to and from our farming site, we get so many well-wishes and thank-yous for the work we are doing.  We are contributing to a new system for the village – self sufficiency for the schools, reducing the cost of food for the children, and enabling them to be fed with completely organic and locally produced meals every day.  It is really satisfying to see just how much we are doing as we do it – our beans will be coming out of the earth within a few days!  It is also great to know that the locals really appreciate our work.  To bring in a Haitian proverb – many hands lighten the load.  I am really happy with what we are doing, and will continue to do for the next month.

Will keep you updated!  I have lots more to write, but not a lot of time.  I’ll be getting to a computer this weekend, so I will have more time to spit it all out!

Much love from Uganda xx

loving uganda!

HI WORLD

This is the first chance I’ve had more than a few minutes on a computer, so time to update.  It’s my 6th day in Uganda, and lots has happened! Here’s a little recap…

First day (29th) was MAYHEM.  I arrived at around 9am and was collected from the airport by Leslie, our wonderful Canadian coordinator and director of The Real Uganda.  She has lived here for several years, and she, in one word, is RAD. As we were driving along getting acquainted and bonding over our mutual vulgar Canadian humour, we saw tons of Ugandans running in the opposite direction to which we were driving.  I had been told by numerous sources that Ugandans simply do not run, so it was a tad unnerving to say the least.  As we continued to drive in insane traffic, many Ugandans kept calling at us “Mzungus (foreigners)! Don’t go that way!” – we could not turn around since there was a meridian in the middle of the road.  Leslie handed me a hankie, and I got my first anti-tear gas lesson. Sweet.  So after an hour of trying to maneuver our way in a convoy through fires, tear gas and military police, we found ourselves at a heavily guarded Western-owned hotel where we immediately ordered a glass of wine – it was then, when we were safe, that Leslie told me what the real threats we had faced were – basically we could have ended up with no car, no luggage, no passports, no money.  We were very lucky, and our hearts went out to those who were not as fortunate as us – a few people died, many more were injured, and about 300 were arrested in the riots.

These riots went down because Besigye, the main opposition leader here, was arrested, tear gassed and brutally attacked on the 28th in relation to his “Walk to Work” protests.  In the past few months, prices of fuel have skyrocketed, along with food inflation rising from 6% to 29%.  Ugandans are understandably upset at the sudden increase in the cost of living, and when Besigye, who has a HUGE following here, was arrested simply for publicly declaring that he would rather walk to work than pay for fuel, people got really pissed.  Let me just clarify this before I begin to project a distorted image of the people here – Ugandans are very peaceful people, and they do not want this to happen.  They have been living in a country ruled by President Musevini since 1986, and his actions rarely reflect the wants and needs of the people.  The only way left to draw attention to their cause is to riot, which is unfortunately met with limited positive responses from the government, and results in the bloody suppression of Ugandan resistance.  Every Ugandan I have met in the past few days have been overwhelmingly welcoming and kind, and open about how they want things to change but don’t know how to do so with such a corrupt government.

To calm some nerves (hi mom and dad), these protests are primarily in Kampala (I am 2 hrs away, just outside of Mukono), and when they are in Mukano, they stay on Jinja Road (the main street), and only happen on Mondays and Thursdays.  After hiding out for the afternoon near Kampala, Leslie and I decided to drive back to Entebbe instead of continuing onto Mukono – we hung out at a backpackers hostel near the airport and waited for Kelsey and Liz to arrive.  It was so good to see my amazing friends after a stressful day.  The next morning (Sat the 30th), we all drove to Mukono and got the grand tour.  The Real Uganda has a guest house in Mukono where volunteers from all of the placements can come and hang out on weekends, so we got to meet some cool people from around the world – Scott, an Australian gap year student, Eliza, a Canadian gap year student, and Stacey, a teacher from Alaska.  All awesome people with some insight into life as a Mzungu in Uganda.  Walking around Mukono, we were met with smiles and very warm receptions.  Leslie took us to all the key places (supermarket, internet cafe, bank, etc.), then left us to wander around and explore.  While Liz took a nap, Kelsey and I went out to explore the market – got caught in the rain and were offered shelter by pretty much everyone around us (people here are so friggin nice!), then we ended up in a bar (naturally) called Ballistic, where we met a wonderful woman named Brenda.  She gave us the low down on politics, and pretty much everything else we needed to know, and we realized that we have met our first Ugandan girlfriend – right after I finish this entry, we’re going to visit her!  Awesome lady.We were all really tired, so we passed out early after a day full of mental and physical stimulation as we adjusted to our new surroundings.

On Sunday we packed up and left the guest house to move to our village, about 15 minutes outside of Mukano.  We are living at a school called Johnson Mkosi Memorial Primary School, in a guest house called Boston House, which is attached to a house owned by a man named Dennis and his wonderful family.  This place is unreal.  Moses, our “go-to” guy and supervisor, is a 25 year-old business student with so much ambition and drive, and really amped on implementing positive change through agriculture in his community.  He’s hilarious, and in the past few days, he has really become a good friend.  On our first night, he introduced us to some street food called “Rolex” – best thing I have ever tasted, and only 2500 shillings (1 US dollar).  Through our first experience with local street food, we really got a glimpse into the gender roles here, as if you are traveling around town with a man, he does everything – orders food, pays, and takes charge of every aspect of life outside the home.  If we try to order something while we are accompanied by a man, it makes him look bad, implying that he does not take care of us properly.  So we just smile and greet everyone, allowing Moses to take care of everything and we will slip him some cash for whatever he purchases afterward.  It is also assumed that if a man is walking with multiple women that they are all his wives (it is very common here for a man to have multiple wives, so us traveling with Moses must make him look pretty badass – 3 Mzungu wives!

We also learned another interesting traditional Ugandan custom – it is considered very rude to not finish your meal.  So we were faced with a dilemma at every meal – we received HUGE pots full of all different types of food (all fantastic and organic) and not enough appetite to eat it all.  After 3 meals of stuffing our faces and forcing smiles and conversation throughout, Liz and I went to talk to Agnus (Dennis’ wife and our phenomenal cook), and kindly told her that we love and appreciate the food, but we don’t need that much!  We’re on great terms with our new family already (a little first aid on their 14 year-old daughter, Lillian, goes a long way and warrants a lot of respect; this respect definitely goes both ways). Dennis and Agnus also have a 3 year-old daughter named Peace, an 8 year-old son named Junior, and a 12-year old daughter who we have not yet met – she is away with relatives.  We love these kids, and I will write more about them when I have time. Everyone here goes out of their way to make us feel welcome here and it totally works – we feel at home already.

Going to end this post now, and write another one about the farming (the reason I’m here, duh!)

Me… Farming

Hello all,

For those of you who read my blog from Haiti, I will apologize now – rarely updated it, and when I did, it was a few sentences as I ran in and out of an internet cafe.  This blog, however, I will *try* to keep up.

So I’m going to Africa tomorrow… word.  I’m going to Africa to farm… what?  For those of you who know me, farming is not my forte (i.e. I’ve never even done gardening in the backyard).  So why travel across the world to farm? Good question.  Way back in summer of 2010, I received a scholarship from a New Zealand-based organization called Global Volunteer Network.  The scholarship prize included a spot in the ‘Be The Change’ course/conference, where I will be learning how to start my own NGO or Non-profit organization, $2000 for travel expenses, and one month volunteering in the country of my choice.  So why Uganda? And why the hell am I going to be doing organic farming?  When I was deciding where to go, I was bouncing back and forth between childrens programs in Nepal and Kenya.  I’ve always loved working with kids, and I know that in the very near future I want to do something sustainable to improve the lives of kids and youth around the world.  ‘Sustainable’. That’s where the organic farming comes in.  I believe that agriculture is the backbone to any society, and can aid in pulling a community out of poverty.  Think about it – in a globalized world, local farmers find it increasingly difficult to compete with the cheap imported food that come from lowering tarriffs.  They lose their jobs, the land becomes significantly less arable, and the community they live and farm in is no longer self-sufficient as they are thrust into an extremely competitive global market.  Enabling local farmers to create a living for themselves and provide for their community is, in my opinion, a significant step to positive, long-lasting change.

Bringing it back to kids, I’m hoping to create an organization combining education and farming.  Having a farm and a school on the same patch of land (obviously if the land allows for such) opens a world of possibilities.  In addition to providing food for the students and a source of learning a new, valuable skill outside the classroom, the farms open up new employment opportunities for the local community – putting the power back in the hands of the people who are constantly affected by the decisions of others.  That’s one thing that I’m huge on, and the ideals of The Real Uganda (the amazing organization I will be working with in Uganda) are parallel to mine – enable local people to create change in their own communities on their own terms.

This whole idea of mine may confuse some when it comes to logistics.  It even confuses me; I have no idea how to go about doing all of the above.  However, I’ve been given the most amazing opportunity to learn, both in Uganda and at the ‘Be The Change’ course, and I’m more excited than ever.

Well, I’ll end my first rant here.  T minus 5 hours until I leave for JFK to depart on the adventure of a lifetime.

Tunaalabagana!