Wednesday, September 24th 2009
This morning I was in the kitchen “making coffee” when Emily walked in. We got to talking about the students we are trying to turn into entrepreneurs.
“What happens if we fail? What happens if we cant turn them into small business owners?”
“5% of them will go to a higher education institution. The rest will enter the workforce with the rest of the Ugandans.” She said. “They’ll become boda drivers. Subsistence farmers. Day laborers.”
I was astonished. “Well at least we can use that to scare them into becoming entrepreneurs.”
“Wrong. It’s actually very easy to drop out of school. To not give a sh*t. Ugandans are different than Americans. Even some of the poorest own land. The students know they can always not work, or become farmers on their parents land AND its culturally acceptable.”
I gulped.
“For many of them.” She said. “We are their last chance.”
How’s that to start your morning?
I spent the rest of the morning researching and then Sandra (one of the mentors) came over because I was to shadow her at Gayaza High school that afternoon. Sandra covers both Gayaza Cambridge and Gayaza High school. They are both in Gayaza – but couldn’t be further apart in terms of prestige and quality of education. Gayaza High school was one of the top girls schools in the country (and our most prestigious partner schools) and Gayaza Cambridge notoriously bad.
When Sandra got to the house was we walked across the street to the local restaurant (the one with a strip of ants an inch wide crawling up the wall – and yes – the ants were still crawling). I told Sandra I liked (liked being a relative term here) the beans and rice and she yelled at the lady to give me “many beans.”
It was the first time Sandra and I had really had the opportunity to talk and I was struck with how much she knew about American culture…and how little I knew about Ugandan (and African culture in general). She told me she woke up to hear Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. Her favorite college football team is the Virginia Tech “Hokies.” It was just mind boggling to me that she could talk about Virginia Tech football with me. The world is becoming so much smaller. We talked about this and that. She told me she’d never left Uganda (a trait that’s very common here, people don’t have money to travel) and that her father was polygamous (yet again, very common here).
After lunch we took a matatu to Kampala and then another matatu to Gayaza. Along the way Sandra pointed out Yoweri Museveni’s house. We passed Idi Amin’s former compound…
When we got to the school I introduced myself to the girls… my background, my skills, what I was doing at Educate…One of the girls raised her hand and asked me the question that lots of children here ask me, “Why are you here to help us?”
Its very interesting…but the people here are very cynical and doubtful of everything you say. They assume there is a hook in your promise somewhere.
There was no boda to take us back to town so we walked through the fields and along the way we saw children pounding the dirt and HUGE insects flying out of he ground. They were the infamous white flying ants of Uganda! And let me tell you…they are a lot bigger in person. Wow.
Finally we found a matatu and Sandra and I spoke the whole way back to Kampala. Two interesting / funny things about the trip.
One – Sandra told me she liked the rainy season because that’s when grasshoppers come out.
I was confused. “Why do you like grasshoppers? The sounds they make?” (I like the sound of cicada’s on summer mornings).
“No!” She exclaimed. “What are you talking about sound? I like to eat them!”
She made me promise that I eat my first grasshopper with her. GULP. She said they are as thick as a man’s thumb,
Second interesting thing – the matatu conductor (who is actually not the driver, but the man handling the door of the van. He is the one who remembers when everybody got on (and thus, how much to charge them). Also, when you come to your “stop” you need to yell, “coonducta…stage!” Its weird, but they understand mzungu’s better if you speak with a Jamaican accent…don’t ask me how these things happen, but they understand “coonducta” much better than “conductor.” Anyways, the conductor for my matatu was wearing a “Notre Dame Big East Tipoff Classic” t shirt. That is a very common, and very ironic thing that you see often in Kampala – some of the poorest people wearing clothes donated from the US, but they’re incongruous articles like, “Harvard Rugby” or “Princeton Crew.” Hmm…God must have a sense of humor.
When I got in Kampala I hitched a boda to Krur Thai Restaurant to meet up with the rest of the Educate staff. It was good, another mzungu hangout though.
Afterwards we went to Bubbles O’Leary, the Irish bar that was imported from Ireland. It was all mzungu’s – which led me to two conclusions:
One – while all the volunteers like to immerse themselves in the Ugandan culture. There ain’t no place like home and we all like to extricate ourselves from our newfound world occasionally to be back with the familiar.
Two – There are a lot of lost souls in Africa.
On the way home there was a random police checkpoint set up. Neither Angelica nor Emily had ever seen one before. Things seem to be getting a little odd around here lately.
We pulled over. A female officer walked over to the driver’s side and shined the light in Emily’s face. “Drivers license and registration?”
Emily looked in the glove compartment. She didn’t have either.
“I’m sorry Nyebo.” Emily said. “I took out my driver’s license and insurance when I travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
The lady stared at Emily. Another guard walked to the other side of the car. He shined a light at us on the back seat.
The lady shined the light in Emily’s eyes, “Have you taken anything tonight?”
(Emily was our designated driver and hadn’t drank at all.”
“No madame. I’ve had nothing.”
We all held our breath. We didn’t know what was going to happen.
“Are you sure you’ve taken nothing?”
“Yes madam, I’m sure.”
The lady shined the light at us again.
“What are we going to do about this?” The police officer was looking for a bribe.
“I am sorry madame. It wont happen again.”
“Be on your way.”
The entire car exhaled at once and we drove into the night.
Police corruption is rampant here. Bribes are commonplace. The episode reminded me of a Latin quote:
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
“Who will guard the guards?”
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