Forewarning:
this is a bit more serious than my last few blog posts, and it might be a bit
disjointed. These topics returned to my
mind only yesterday, and my ideas are probably still not fully formed…
A couple
weeks ago, my training group had its Close of Service conference, which happens
a couple months before our second year is finished. I’m a bit of a special case, because I will
be staying for a third year, but most people are beginning to transition,
figuring out what they will be doing next and wrapping up activities at their
sites. Maybe this sense of things coming
to an end has been the cause of my reflections over the past day or two. I’ve been thinking about the past
two years, what I’ve seen and how I’ve lived, and I’ve realized that, even
after living in Uganda for two years, I still can’t say that I really know the experience
of an average Ugandan. Sure, I’ve seen
things, I’ve heard stories, I’ve lived and worked with many Ugandans, but have
I really experienced any of it? Can I
really know what it’s like?
Based on
statistics, the “average” Ugandan lives in a rural area, has a bunch of kids,
farms for his/her own family’s sustenance, and doesn’t make much money (if he/she
is fortunate enough to have a job). While
most of Rakai District is rural, I live in Kalisizo Town, which is, in fact, a
town. While it isn’t a huge town, it is certainly
significantly more built-up than the surrounding villages. For example, none of Uganda’s banks have an
actual branch in Kalisizo, but one bank did recently install an ATM machine in
town. So, I’m not living in a strictly
rural area, although I’ve certainly gone to very rural locations and have spent
weekends in nearby villages. Besides
that, I have a reliable income that is more than sufficient for my needs, and
even allows me to eat a meal at a nice restaurant in Masaka from time to time. I don’t have a large family to provide for,
and I don’t need to garden (there’s no place for one in my compound
anyway). All in all, I have a relatively
comfortable life.
Others are
not so fortunate. For example, let’s
look at a primary school teacher.
According to a 2011 report from Uganda’s Bureau of Statistics, the 2009
median monthly wage for a primary school teacher was 150,000 Ugandan shillings,
which is about $60 (per month, remember).
This is further complicated by the fact that teachers are not often paid
on a regular basis. I was just talking
to the head teacher at a local primary school today, and he said that it has
been at least two months since government teachers have received anything. If this teacher has a spouse and, say, five
kids (which is less than average), that’s seven people in the family. Now, I probably spend more than 10,000
shillings a week, just on food that I cook myself, but let’s say that I have
expensive tastes (carrots are certainly more expensive than matooke), so let’s
assume 5,000 shillings per person per week, and we haven’t even addressed the
fuel needed to actually do the cooking.
That’s 35,000 shillings per week for the whole family, which, in four
weeks, comes to 140,000 shillings. Add in
a few extra days to round out the month, and we’re right around 150,000
shillings. So, a teacher’s salary is
maybe enough to allow a (relatively small) family to eat, but we haven’t even
included the costs of anything else (water, cooking fuel, utensils, a stove,
furniture, etc.). Maybe the teacher’s spouse
makes money from another job, but, most likely, a teacher’s family probably has
to farm to have any chance to getting by.
This opens
up another can of worms. The teacher has
to spend his/her days at school to have any hope of getting paid, leaving the
kids and spouse to do the farming. Once
the kids are old enough to attend school, the family has a difficult choice to
make. Sending the kids to school would
give them the increased opportunities that an education can provide, but those
opportunities are years down the road, and their absence from the farm would probably
mean a loss of productivity. Plus, even
going to a “free” government school still has costs – for example, if you want
your child to be able to eat lunch.
Also, as I’ve said before, government schools are, on average, not that
great. The sad truth is that, if parents
have money, the kids almost automatically go to a private school. I’m not sure what the costs are for primary
school, but, for secondary school, the fees for one term could amount to a few
hundred dollars or more, and there are three terms per year. Just having the money to send one child to
private school is hard enough, let alone five or more.
Those two
paragraphs highlighted only a few issues.
There are several more that would have further complicated the
situation. For example, I didn’t even mention
the detrimental effects of disease, or the common need to spend hours fetching
water and/or firewood, or the potentially disastrous consequences that could
eventually result from the intersection of environmental degradation, rapid population
growth, and climate change. This is how
people become trapped in a cycle of poverty, through no fault of their own. My point here (one of them at least) is that I
have not actually experienced this cycle, so how could I claim to know what
people here are going through every day? I might be able to explain the issues and how they
can arise, but I can’t begin to tell you how this affects someone on a personal
level. I can’t say how it might create a
sense of hopelessness, or how it might cause someone to lose faith people who
might be trying to help. If you are
willing to listen, people will talk about their issues and problems, but even
then, I doubt that I am getting the whole story. I doubt I hear the deepest feelings and frustrations
that weigh on a person’s soul. And it’s
hard for me to remember this, sometimes.
It's easy to get frustrated myself, when people don’t do something that
seems like common sense to me, and it’s easy to forget that every person has an
untold story, maybe happy, maybe incredibly sad, which informs that person’s
reactions to others and to the outside world.
It’s also
important for us to remember that, despite what we might infer from what we
read and what we see on TV, the experience of everyone in Africa is not the
same sad tale. First of all, of course, separate
places in Africa can be as different as separate places in the Americas (yes, I’m
including both North and South America).
Beyond that, within countries, even within communities, there are
significant differences. Near Kalisizo,
there are villages with houses made out of mud and sticks, with only an opening
where a door should go. Near Kalisizo, there
are also walled-in, gated compounds that contain huge houses with satellite
dishes on the roof. Similar to the USA,
significant inequality exists in Uganda.
I remember reading a quote from Bono about how an “accident of latitude”
(someone’s place of birth) should not determine a person’s opportunities. While I appreciate his recognition that
different areas of the world are certainly not on a level playing field with
one another, and his sentiment that things should be different, his phrasing
completely glosses over the intricacies of the situations within
countries. There are a significant
number of people in Uganda who are living a comfortable life, but there are
also many who live paycheck to paycheck (if they even get a paycheck). Not recognizing these complexities risks
overlooking a number of important facts about the progress Uganda has made so
far, about the work that Ugandans are doing to improve the lives of other
Ugandans, and about the nature of the work that remains to be done.
A special
report in a March issue of the Economist framed Africa as a “hopeful continent,”
where lives are improving, stability is increasing, and economies are
growing. In some ways, Uganda probably
fits into this idea, but, in other ways, maybe not. I have a friend who started nursing school
this year, which is a great step, but her continued attendance in future terms
is somewhat dependent on the weather. We are
in a dry season right now, and it’s been really dry. She tells me that, if it doesn’t rain soon,
her family’s coffee plants might die, and they might not make the money needed to
pay for her next term (by the way, nursing school is significantly more expensive
than secondary school). Opportunities
are increasing, but so are the risks that could take away those
opportunities. I could write an entire
post on the potential nationwide problems that could arise in the coming
decades if population, environmental, and climate trends continue along their
current trajectories. I hope that we’re
making a small impact, that we’re doing a little bit to improve people’s lives
and to ensure the country’s long-term success and sustainability. But, what do I know? Can I really understand how someone’s life
might be changed, when I haven’t lived that life myself? Physical changes might be seen, but emotional
and mental changes, for better or worse, are not so visible. And that mental/emotional state is probably
more important, because the most important work cannot be done by someone like me. It is being done by Ugandans, whose hope lies
within themselves, who have faith in their abilities and their goals, and who
believe that they and their neighbors deserve healthy lives full of
opportunity, promise, and love.
