Slowly Settling In, Some Statistics, and Friends, Old and New

Well, it’s been a bit over a week since I took the plunge and headed off to my site in Kalisizo.  I think this first week has gone pretty well, although getting settled in does take a little while.  I’m slowly accumulating all of the stuff I need to survive over the next two years…I now have a bunch of bowls (that I attached some simple covers to) for food storage, a set of shelves in the kitchen for putting those bowls of food, spices, dishes, and other random food-related items, a nice little stool that I will probably use as a place to put my water filter (more on that later), a cover for the latrine, a bucket of wood chips from a local carpenter to pour down the latrine to help with smells and bugs, and a pretty decent supply of food.  Oh, and I also have an order in at another carpenter’s shop for two chairs (so you’ll have a place to sit if you come and visit!).

As for the water situation (this paragraph is mainly for those concerned about my health), the tap in my compound still doesn’t work most of the time (though it was working for a bit one day, and I filled up the two Gerry cans that I had at the time), but I almost have my entire water storage and treatment scheme set up and ready to go.  I bought a big 220 liter (about 60 gallon) plastic tank so that, once the tap does start working, I can fill that thing up right away and have a reliable extra supply that will last for a while.  Then, I have a 20 liter Gerry can that I’ll fill up and let sit for several hours, allowing any relatively big junk to settle to the bottom.  From there, I’ll pour the water (except for the junk at the bottom) into a simple water filter.  Peace Corps medical issued all of us these “porcelain candle filters” that can catch just about anything bigger than bacteria and viruses (and there are things bigger than bacteria and viruses that we need to worry about).  I took a big plastic bottle, melted a hole in the bottom by using my propane stove to heat up a bit holder that I then basically just pushed through the plastic.  Then, I bought a slightly smaller bucket and a tap, had a guy in town fix the tap into the bucket so that it was sealed, fixed the candle filter into the bigger bucket using the little hole, and put the big bucket on top of the smaller bucket.  It works…the water goes through really slowly, but it works.  Then, I take the water from that, fill up a bunch of plastic bottles, and stick them out in the sun all day to get some disinfection action happening (I talked about the technical aspects of this a little while ago).  If done for long enough, this should get rid of anything else in the water.  I’d like to do this with all of the water I use, and then, for drinking water, I’m going to add in an additional chlorine disinfection step, just to be excessively safe.  I still need to figure out exactly how I’m going to work in that chlorine step at the end, but it will happen somehow.

For food, the selection in town is pretty good.  I can get lots of veggies and fruits at the market (tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, potatoes, eggplant, peas, oranges, passion fruit, pineapple, papaya, avocadoes, and all sorts of varieties of bananas…and it’s not even mango season yet).  I can also get bread, rice, and eggs in town, and I’ve found some pretty good local peanut butter, and some jam from Kenya.  I could also get meat if I wanted, but, at least when I’m cooking for myself, I’m planning on being a vegetarian for the next two years.  Dry beans are also readily available, but they take a long time to cook, and I can buy canned beans in Masaka, the big town about a half an hour away.  In Masaka, there are also different types of pasta, spices, and cheese (yay), and there are even a couple restaurants where I could get a cheeseburger, if I really wanted…So, the point here is that I can definitely eat a nicely balanced and filling diet.

In addition to picking up all of this stuff, trying to make friends with some of the shop owners, carpenters, hardware store owners, and motorcycle drivers, and piecing together from some people in town the big news about Qaddafi (by the way, how many different ways have you seen that name spelled?), I also did a little work this week, amazingly enough.  I was working with my counterpart Max a lot, making the beginnings of a marketing plan for the brick business (not that I have any idea what I’m doing when it comes to making marketing plans), seeing some of the masons working on a rainwater tank, and working on getting a big job over in the southwest part of the country.  I didn’t do too much with Peruth, because she was in Kampala most of the week…she’s on her 35^th week of pregnancy, so she’s got a lot of stuff to be thinking about right now.  I actually feel like it was fairly productive for my first week…but there’s a lot to be done in the coming weeks…

Finally, after the Friday afternoon Skype call with the Positive Planet director in New York, a great weekend began.  A friend from my church back in Pennsylvania who works with Compassion International, Kevin, is in Uganda now for an East African staff training, and he decided to spend the weekend in Kalisizo with me.   Over the course of Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday, I showed him around the town (as much as I could after being here a week), we walked miles searching in vain for a Compassion project nearby, we had some good food (in my opinion, anyway), and we went to a big Catholic Church service on Sunday.  This was finally my first church experience in country…up until now I’ve been so beat by the time Sunday rolls around that I’ve just wanted to sleep and relax…anyway, I obviously hadn’t done my research.  The service we went to was a “children’s service,” with about 10 adults and almost 1,000 kids (seriously, Kevin was counting)…not that it’s a bad thing.  It was kind of fun to be completely surrounded by the little ones in the middle of the sanctuary.

By the way, let me interject some statistical info here.  I recently got a letter that asked about religions in Uganda, and I realized that I haven’t really given you any sort of general overview or statistics about the country.  So, here’s some info (all from our PC training, actually), if you’re interested:

Some important political dates: 1850 – people from Europe began coming to the region that would eventually become Uganda; 1862-1864 – Egypt attempts to colonize Uganda (because it contains the source of the Nile…the attempt failed); 1884-1885 – The Berlin Conference (when European nations divided up Africa for themselves…no input from the Africans, obviously…the Ugandan area went to Great Britain); 1894 – Uganda becomes a British colony; 1962 – Uganda gains independence after a period of political weakening of the British colonial government; 1966 – Obote ousts Mutesa II and declares himself president; 1971 – Obote is overthrown by Idi Amin (you might have heard of him); 1979 – Amin is pushed out by the military, with assistance from Tanzania and Obote, and Professor Yusuf Lule becomes president; 1980 – Obote is elected and rules again; 1981 – Bush wars begin, with Museveni leading the opposition (he said that the elections were unfair); 1986 – Guerilla war ends and Museveni takes power; 2011 – After ruling for 25 years, Museveni is re-elected again for another five year term

Some cultural info: Uganda contains 56 ethnic groups, falling into four groups (Bantu, Western Nilotics, Eastern Nilotics, and Sudanic).  English is the official language, but Kiswahili and Luganda are also used commonly.  The Ugandan flag has 6 horizontal stripes…2 black, 2 yellow, and 2 red.  Black stands for Africa, yellow symbolizes the sunshine, and red symbolizes brotherhood or blood.  Along with the central government, Uganda also contains six traditional kingdoms, and loyalty to a kingdom or tribe often plays a big role in politics, finding jobs, etc.  As for religion, Uganda is predominately Christian.  Catholics make up 42% of the population, Anglicans comprise 36%, Pentecostals make up 4.6% and Adventists comprise 1.5% (for a grand total of 84% of the population being Christian).  After that, 13% are Muslims, 1% subscribe to traditional religions, and 2% fall under some other umbrella.

Some info related to population, health, and economics: Uganda’s population stands at about 34 million, with about 1.5 million people in Kampala.  And the population is growing fast…the country has the 2^nd highest population growth rate in the world, a Ugandan woman gives birth, on average, 6.7 times, and 50% of the population is under 15 years of age.  Unemployment is currently around 35%.  Life expectancy in 2008 was 52 years, HIV prevalence is currently around 6.5% (though malaria is actually the leading cause of morbidity and mortality), and 75% of the disease burden is preventable.  Economically, agriculture dominates, employing over 80% of the workforce.  Much of this is subsistence agriculture, but some commercial agriculture also takes place (allowing me to go to the market and buy all kinds of veggies and fruits).  Major exports are coffee, cotton, tea, tobacco, flowers, and fish, and other major economic activities include fishing (there is that big lake), raising cattle, brick making, trading, and transportation.

Whew, all right, back to the weekend story.  Throughout Kevin’s entire visit, I think we had some great conversations about the work I’ll be doing, the work that Kevin’s done (he’s spent a lot of time in Bangladesh, and now works all over the world), the role of faith in development, development work in general, and stuff happening back on the home front.  He had also brought along two bags filled with stuff from home: lots of canned food, shirts, some books, a hammer, and some other helpful things.  At least 80% of the stuff was stored inside socks (apparently Mom’s favorite way to pack things)…so, if nothing else, I know I will not experience a shortage of socks (especially considering the fact that I have been wearing sandals almost exclusively for the past ten weeks).

Along with all of that stuff, I also got some nice notes from friends and family back home, which I really enjoyed reading, and Mom had packed a few framed pictures (in pillowcases this time, not socks) that are very special to me.  One was the mural painted at Bucknell commemorating the 10^th anniversary of the Bucknell Brigade in Nicaragua, one was a framed verse from Revelation that I think applies pretty well to the work I’ll be doing (“To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life”), and there were a few pictures of very close friends…friends from home, and friends from college.  I’m going to assume that you probably know who you are…I was thinking about you a lot on Friday night.  Just let me say that I miss you and love you very, very much, and that there are many times when I wish that you could be here with me.  But, I know that you’re all doing wonderful things in all sorts of places, and that makes me feel pretty happy.

One of my closest friends has a very special place in her heart for kids, and that brings me to my last story for this post.  Kevin left town after lunch on Sunday, needing to get back to Kampala for the training this coming week.  (Oh, by the way, he took a whole lot of pictures, so if my amazingly descriptive writing style just doesn’t work for you, find him…or find Mom, who I’m sure will have the pictures very soon after Kevin returns to the states next weekend.)  Anyway, I got Kevin situated on a bus back to Kampala (which hopefully didn’t take 3 hours to fill…he was the first person on it, I think), and then took a back way back to my house.  As I was walking through a field, I ran into some kids playing football (soccer) with a volleyball.  At this point, some of my friends from high school will be cringing, because doing anything with a volleyball besides playing volleyball is, of course, a cardinal sin.  So, I decided to rectify the situation, and I showed the kids how to use their hands instead of every other part of their bodies.  As other kids walked by and saw the Mzungu standing in a circle with a bunch of kids passing around a volleyball, we ended up with a pretty big group of volleyball players and fans (all under the age of 12).  That was a very fun way to spend 30-45 minutes, and I think the kids enjoyed it too.  Now, they’re still significantly better at football than at volleyball, but maybe I’ve set the wheels in motion to build capacity for a Ugandan national volleyball team…maybe.

On a more serious note, you might remember a post a while back where I talked about a burial site for victims of the Rwandan genocide…well, my next post is going to revisit this topic.  I’m reading a book right now called An Imperfect Offering – Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-First Century, by Dr. James Orbinski, a former president of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), and I’m working my way through a 95-page chapter on his time in Rwanda during the genocide.  Sometimes, I actually have to stop and catch my breath, because the stories are so horrendous, heart-wrenching, and disturbing.  I had a similar feeling when I read Elie Wiesel’s Night, about his time in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.  Anyway, I’m going to be thinking about this a lot over the next few days, and my next post is going to focus on those thoughts.  Writing helps me to process, and I’m just going to need some kind of outlet after reading through this first-hand account of a terrible atrocity that occurred less than 20 years ago…I was alive when this happened.