Joseph Quaderer is a student in the Langone program. On September 14th he began a sabbatical in Kampala, Uganda where he’ll be working for Educate! a non-profit organization that teaches native Ugandans and refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan the necessary skills to start and scale social enterprises - financially sustainable organizations that also address important social problems. While abroad he’ll be writing a bi-weekly column for the Oppy.
“What is your vision?” A soft voice from behind me asked.
I turned around. Tribe was standing in the doorway to the classroom we’d just left where we taught the students about the power of differentiation when launching social ventures. During class Tribe only spoke when he was called upon and even then he was barely audible. Now he was the one addressing the mzungu (Swahili word for “white person) by himself. His classmates had already gone to supper.
I was stunned. Not only at who was asking the question, but also at the gravitas of it.
“What do you mean my vision?” I stammered.
Tribe stared at me deeply. “What is your vision for me?”
I had only been in Africa for a few days. Tribe’s school, Gayaza Cambridge, in the rural outskirts of Kampala, was one of the first schools I visited. To get there was an experience in itself. On the first leg of my trip I took a matatu (large van that follows specific routes through the countryside) from my compound in Buziga to Old Taxi Park (which was the epicenter of the riots that rocked Kampala 4 days earlier). From Old Taxi Park I hitched another matatu to Gayaza which was an hour and a half (mostly over bumpy dirt roads) away from Kampala. We fit over 20 people in a 14-person van. I sat next to a woman that brought a bag of hay which she laid across my lap the entire ride. It seems like anything goes in these matatus – they have given me a newfound sense of patience and humor.
As we snaked through various provinces and neighborhoods in the matatu I was in culture shock. We drove through places that were destitute. There were children begging on the side of the matatu. There were donkeys, cows, longhorn cattle, goats, monkeys and chickens walking in the street next to cars and matatus and people. When villagers saw me in the matatu they shouted mzungu! Children stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the odd white person. Everywhere I went it was a spectacle. I felt like I was dreaming. It was surreal.
When we got off at the Gayaza stop we were greeted by 20 boda boda drivers (motorcycle drivers that take you anywhere matatus cannot) yelling “mzungu! mzungu!” and tapping their respective seats.
Amy, the program director, asked one of them if they knew where Gayaza Cambridge was. The man sheepishly nodded and quoted us a price of 500 shillings (25 cents). She asked him again – louder.
“DO YOU KNOW WHERE GAYAZA CAMBRIDGE IS?”
He nodded again and patted the seat for us to get on it. She shook her head and walked to the next boda driver in the throng. This boda boda driver was adamant that he knew where Gayaza Cambridge was and quoted us 1,500 shillings (75 cents). We got on and within 30 seconds we were flying through the Ugandan countryside – weaving around animals and potholes and branches lying in the street. I had never been on a motorcycle before and now I was sitting behind Amy, whipping around on the back of boda boda and entrusting my life to a man I’d never even spoken with.
“Why didn’t we get on the first one?” I shouted to her through the wind.
“His price was too low.” She replied. “If they don’t know where they’re going they’ll quote you something cheap. Once you get on the bike they drive away and ask you where to go. If you don’t know they charge you extra for getting lost and drive you back to the boda boda station.”
The boda boda dropped us off 5 minutes away from Gayaza Cambridge. After giving him 1,500 shillings we gave him another 1,000 shillings so that he’d come back and pick us up after our session. It was already dusk and we were worried there would be no boda boda’s waiting for us when we were done.
“Here is 1,000. Will you come back for us?”
He shook his head vehemently.
“6:20 sebbo (sir).” Amy said, looking him in the eyes. “We need you to come back. We have no way to to get back to Gayaza. Will you come back?”
He nodded and rode off. (He never came back).
After Tribe asked me the question he hung his head to the side and limply looked at the ground. I looked at him a little longer, trying to figure out what my response would be. Finally I said the first thing that popped into my head.
“Well – what do you want to be?”
Of all the difficult parts of moving from Manhattan to Uganda – what I struggled with most was effectively communicating with students in the Educate! program. I didn’t know how to speak with someone 10 years younger, from a completely different socio-economic circle and altogether different set of circumstances than myself. It was hard. I struggled, and I still struggle with it.
And while that was hardest part of my transition, the move to Uganda was much harder than I’d anticipated. I’ve always been a go-with-the-flow type of person. I usually don’t have a problem adapting to any situation. But this was different.
For me it seemed like everything was more difficult. I don’t mean to over-generalize or suggest this is the condition in all of Uganda – but they are the circumstances specific to my lodging and environment. Most of the items are petty, but it’s the small things in life that make one comfortable. Suddenly I felt I had no comforts, neither big nor small. Nothing seemed simple anymore – when I brush my teeth I can’t run my toothbrush under the faucet. I can’t drink tap water. Clothes have to be washed by hand. There is no coffee machine. To get hot water you need to flip a switch 15 minutes before you shower. There is no light in the bathroom (I was told I need to “aim straight”). There is a “pet mouse” named Juliet that occasionally keeps us up at night as she sifts through items left out, pads through the room at night and crawls around in the walls till the early hours of the morning. Going to the grocery store requires a backpack and 2 boda boda’s. When I was in Hoima I scratched my arm getting out of a matatu. The scratch was small – but because of the hygiene difficulties (2 out of the 3 days I was in the hotel I didn’t have water) and a lack of basic medical necessities (there was no hydrogen peroxide or disinfecting ointments in the entire town of Hoima) my arm has gotten infected.
And while these inconveniences make my life difficult - my work has been fulfilling beyond my wildest expectations. Looking at a young adults trying to start a business and knowing that my skill set will help them do that more successfully is exhilarating.
Tribe looked at the ground and shifted his weight back and forth on his two legs. He looked at the ground and then back at me again.
“I want to be an entrepreneur and an economist.” He said softly.
“I can help you achieve both of those goals.” I said. “I’ve studied both fields.”
“Can you teach me?”
I nodded.
I am in Kampala to help the Educate! students launch their social enterprises. Specifically I have to help them figure out: how to get start up capital; how to get ongoing cash to sustain their business and how their business can address a social problem.
While there are many business principles and concepts that transcend all geographic and cultural boundaries – the more I learned about the students business plans the more I realized I had a long way to go in terms of understanding how businesses operated in Uganda. Uganda is primarily an agricultural-based economy and many of the student’s ventures revolve around farming and livestock. Already I’d visited tomato, cabbage, cucumber, eggplant, chicken farms and goat rearing projects funded through the students, grown on school grounds and sold to students and community members. The earnings were reinvested into the student groups to help defray the cost of school fees and even pay 100% of certain students schools fees. I met one group, COBURWAS (which is made of orphan refugees from Congo, Sudan Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania) that created simple businesses so they could afford to send themselves to secondary school.
Besides understanding the way businesses operate in Uganda I also need to understand the societal problems that afflict Uganda as a whole and thus compel students to start social enterprises to address them. The problems in Uganda are far different than the ones in America – child sacrifice, school burning, terrorism, AIDS, children soldiers, government corruption, malaria, prostitution.
And my team and I can’t afford to make many mistakes. 95% of our students cannot afford to go to a university after secondary school. If we are not able to help them start a social venture they will enter the work force likes the rest of the Ugandans.
Tribe looked at the ground and looked up at me again. “Do you promise you’ll come back?”
I nodded again.
“When?”
“In a week or two.” I said.
He smiled and walked away.
I can be reached at Joseph.Quaderer@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment