Yesterday I went to the mall to print some
documents, make a photocopy, and pick up a few things at the grocery store
(which is in the mall). In my mind I was going to achieve half the things I
needed to do that day before our staff meeting at 11:30.
I left my house, hailed down a boda boda (motorcycle
taxi), negotiated a fair price, and then took off to the mall. It was a few
minutes before I realized he was going the wrong way and it took another few
minutes to explain to him we were going the wrong way and for him to understand
where I needed to go. We turned around and headed in the right direction. Once I
got to the printing/photocopy place in the mall it took a few minutes to get my
documents up and then they wouldn’t print. The employee tried a different
computer and a different printer but nothing would print. Then another employee
tried to figure out why the document wouldn’t print. Finally we figured out my
documents were save in Adobe Acrobat and their computers only have Adobe Reader
so they were not going to print. The next closest place to print was in the
other mall which is right next door but I didn’t have enough time to go over
there. I did manage to get a photocopy of my passport.
After that I went to the grocery store but of course
they did not have what I was looking for. So one hour later I am back at the
office for our weekly staff meeting and all I have to show for my trip to the
mall is one photocopy. I’ll have to try again later. After our 2 and a half
hour long staff meeting I ate lunch and prepared to head out and try another
grocery store at the other mall. Then of course it started raining which means
I am not going anywhere because the only means of transportation is a boda
boda. It poured for about an hour. Finally when it was only sprinkling I
decided I could face the light rain and go to the mall. So did everyone else in
Kampala. The traffic was awful! The roads were also flooding. There was about 4
inches of water on the bottom level of the parking garage. I made it to the
store and found the ingredients I needed for our group dinner I was in charge
of planning. We fought the traffic again on the way home which was even worse
than earlier. My boda driver drove on the sidewalk/grass for a little while.
All in all on Monday it took the entire working day
for me to make one photocopy, attend a meeting, and go to the grocery store. If
I didn’t go to the grocery store during traditional working hours (hours which
don’t really exist here) we would have been eating dinner at 10pm. I still
haven’t completely figured out why it takes so long to get one thing
accomplished but it can take a whole day to check one thing off your to do
list. What I could get done in one day in the U.S. will probably take me a week
and a half to do in Uganda.
Welcome to “the African slow down.”
Other than “the African slow down” giving me some
trouble I am having a great time so far and I love my job. Sometimes I don’t
really know what to do with myself during traditional working hours aka 9-5
because my main job right now is to get to know the kids, the homes as a whole,
and the mentors who live with the kids but the kids don’t get home from school
until 6pm. HALO has four homes in Kampala and I visit a home every Tuesday and Thursday
and sometimes Wednesday and Saturday depending on what is going on elsewhere.
Last Saturday I did community service work with the Makerere and Bukesa homes.
They cleaned trash out of the overgrown weeds on the side of three roads near
the Makerere home and then cleared all the weeds and grass away.
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| Working hard! Dumping more trash on the pile. |
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| Still more road to clean. |
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| Cleared road |
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| Tie Dye Twins! |
There are now three much cleaner roads in Kampala with more room to walk and drive because the weeds are not taking over the road. After community service I hung out with the kids at their house. Since I work at night and on the weekends I sometimes don’t work all day during the weekdays.
Before I give a recap of the month activities I
wanted to briefly explain HALO’s relationship with the Ugandan nonprofit
Cornerstone Development. Cornerstone is a Ugandan based NGO that has been
around for almost thirty years. Cornerstone has many programs in Uganda which
includes providing homes and education for former street children and children
who were involved in sexual abuse and/or prostitution. Cornerstone has 12 homes
for kids and HALO fully funds and does the programming for 5 of these homes.
Since HALO is not a register nonprofit in Uganda we run our program through
Cornerstone.
Cornerstone
also runs a secondary school for boys and one for girls in Uganda and a few
other East African countries. Their secondary schools are also known as leadership
academies and they are two of the best secondary schools in Uganda. Cornerstone
also has a mentor program which takes upstanding university students and places
them in the Cornerstone youth homes where they live and work while attending
college. The mentors are the daily care takers for HALO children. The work of
Cornerstone probably deserves its own blog entry, but hopefully this brief
explanation will serve to help you understand how HALO operates in Uganda. My
office is in the Cornerstone office building and I live in the guesthouse
located below the offices.
Monthly recap:
- I finished training with my predecessor, Dani, and
she went back to the U.S. to prepare for her wedding. She is engaged to the son
of the director/founder of Cornerstone. She will return in August to live and
work with Cornerstone for the next 5 years. I am now taking on all HALO responsibilities.
- We celebrated Dani and Eric’s wedding by throwing a
traditional Ugandan wedding ceremony. The traditional ceremony is called a
Kwanjula which translates to Introduction in English. Dani and her family are
literally introduced to Eric and his family. The ceremony is basically a long
play in which the two families are introduced to each other and the man’s
family brings tons of gifts to the woman’s family. This was the first Kwanjula
anyone who attended had seen done in English. The ceremony was beautiful and
fun. Here are some pictures of the event!
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| The ceremony from above |
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| Me in my traditional Uganda outift! It is called a Gomesi. The Ugandans looooved seeing white people in their traditional outfits. I even walked down the street in it and got lots of compliments. |
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| Me and some of the boys from Makerere home. |
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| Some of the mentors in their traditional outfits. |
- We also had a few bridal showers for Dani hosted by her various friends in Uganda. They were both really fun and actually the first bridal showers I have ever attended!
- I officially went to all the HALO homes and meet all
the kids and mentors. I went to Gulu, about 5 hours to the north, with Dani and
spent a few days with our home there. I will visit the home in Gulu every other
month.
- I started planning my first art program I will do
with the homes.
- I have been brain storming ideas for programs I want
to create and implement and also ideas for improving our existing programs.
Mostly this first month in Uganda I have been trying
to get used to living here, finding my way around, figuring out what to cook, meeting
new people, and learning what my job duties are. I am looking forward to what
the next month will bring me here in Uganda and the many months to follow.
