My Last Few Days in Uganda

Somehow, time has decided to accelerate into hyperspeed, and suddenly, I only have 3 days left in Uganda. 

Similar to the days leading up to before I left to come to Uganda, it simply doesn’t feel like I have such little time left, and just as I couldn’t picture life here, I now have difficulty picturing life at home. As I spend the week saying my goodbyes and desperately trying to make my suitcase less than 50lbs, I thought it seemed fitting to try and reflect on the 3 main things I have learned from Uganda and it’s inhabitants. 

1) It’s entirely possible to be busy and not stressed, even at the same time.

For those that know me well, you will understand that this was a shocking realization for me. It would appear that there is some kind of way to balance being a busy bee but not becoming a lunatic running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. It’s fascinating. I have learned this lesson largely from my colleagues – many of them work 8-5 with me and then balance another job or school and/or a family at home on top of that. However, they are always smiling and open to having long chats with you on a variety of topics. One might say this makes for an inefficient day – but everything manages to be finished, if not that day, then the next. The Ugandans that I know seem to have their priorities in order and can draw the line between hardworking and letting work take over your life. This kind of perspective has been really refreshing for me, and I think a workplace can become a positive environment for everyone when stress levels remain low and we take some time to enjoy each other’s company as well as get work done.

2) Shit’s real. 

This may seem like a naive or somewhat vulgar statement, but it sums up a big realization I’ve had here. When you hear the HIV+ babies screaming as they get blood taken, when you see WFP trucks full to the brim headed to South Sudan, when you talk to people who were abducted by the LRA as children… it’s not a news story anymore. It’s real and it’s happening all around you. And it’s not like at home – there is no protest against child soldiers happening down the street, there’s no Facebook campaign coming together to raise awareness about X, Y & Z. It’s happening and they needed a solution yesterday. It can be somewhat paralyzing to realize that it’s not about short term solutions vs. long term solutions, it’s about both and finding something that can start tomorrow and then turn into a long term solution. Uganda at this time is doing fairly well – in comparison to it’s neighbouring East African countries, it seems that the darkest days are behind them (we hope). But nevertheless, a country that was terrorized by the Lord’s Resistance Army and held an HIV prevalence of around 15% for adults was only 20 or so years in the past. It is not yet a generation ago and many of the people here have known that very different Uganda. It is an incredibly sobering experience to see the evidence of all of those new stories right in front of your face, and really puts a face to the numbers. 

3) There is a certain sense of humanity that comes out of treating everyone like your family. 

This sounds like a fairly fluffy and romantic statement, but let me tell you that Ugandans take it quite literally. At times, it has been difficult for me to figure out actual familial ties because anyone that you work with in any form of organization, is your brother or sister. Anyone slightly older than you that you are in conversation with – your auntie/uncle. A woman who has visibly made it into old age – Mama or Jaja/grandma. I have several older colleagues who refer to me and other younger colleagues as Baby. Ugandans take the idea of treating others like family so literally that it even comes out in everyday language, and I’ve seen those values permeate through the actions of so many people I’ve met. While I can’t say I have never gotten lost in Uganda, I can say that I’ve never been stuck. There is always someone around to direct you, and people in general are always willing to lend a helping hand, whether it be giving you directions or helping you cross the crazy Kampala roads. It took some time for me to feel at home in Uganda, but once I did, I really felt adopted into the world around me. I think our cold Western culture can be all too conducive to alienating newcomers, and it’s really a different perspective to see a culture that is much more prone to friendliness, helping and sharing its world with you. 

Overall, I have learned a lot from Uganda. On top of these 3 main lessons, I have learned to dance, to pick up on very small social cues, to eat with my hands… the list goes on. I am really grateful to have had this experience, and must remind many of the people reading this blog that it would not have been possible without the massive support I received during my months of fundraising. As I finish up my last few days, I am full of mixed emotions about being excited for new adventures and a bit sad to leave this one behind. 

This Saturday, I will leave Uganda to head to South Africa to visit some family there for 10 days, and then I will be back on Canadian soil come August 13th, 6:00pm local time. While there might not be a blog next week, I plan to write a post trip blog after coming home. So, until then my friends! 

Alex 🙂 

Wherever you go, be all there.

Wherever you go, be all there.

This saying has stuck with me throughout my past few years of travelling, as a sort of mantra to stay actively present wherever I may be, rather than constantly thinking of somewhere else. However, this trip has showed me how faulty this statement can be.

To clarify, I am really enjoying my life here in Uganda. I am not trying to say I have been homesick throughout my time here, but rather point out the difficulties and irony of travelling and trying to stay in one place.

To travel, in my opinion, is to open yourself to a new part of the world – new foods, new languages, new cultures. New often means different, and this can challenge our flexibility and adaptability. This can often be difficult – as humans, we are creatures of habit and we are all most comfortable when we are in settings that we know and are familiar with. But to be able to become comfortable in a variety of settings is to me an invaluable skill, and we can learn a lot about ourselves from strengthening that skill.

Opening yourself to a new part of the world can be a difficult and uncomfortable experience, but I think that if you truly commit to it, it will always end positively because when you are open, you are bound to find people who are positive and friendly. From what I have found, every place is full with pleasant and unpleasant people, but the best way to find those who are positive and friendly is to be positive, friendly and open to people yourself. That way, you find these people, and you make connections to your new environment, rendering you more comfortable in your new surroundings.

By making these connections, you begin to leave little pieces of yourself – little pieces of your heart, even – in many different places. The more places you make connections, the more pieces are spread far and wide. Keeping that in mind, how can we be all there, wherever we go?

In addition to the pieces you leave while travelling, a large piece of yourself will always remain wherever you may call home. Maybe home is a place, or maybe it is a group of people, but those people are those who you are most comfortable with – the people with whom you feel most relaxed, as you just let all of your barriers down to be the most genuine version of yourself.

Therefore, I have deduced that it is impossible to ever be entirely in one place. And that’s not a bad thing. At the beginning of my trip, and on other trips as well, I have struggled with trying to fully absorb myself into a new culture while still maintaining relationships outside of it. More recently, I have decided to embrace the idea of my heart being spread across many places, rather than fighting to contain it. I am very lucky to have had the opportunities I have, and to be able to make connections in many places is a blessing, not a curse. I have been back and forth between trying too hard to keep my connections in other places and trying to completely shut them down. The key, like anything, is balance. We can enjoy our connections most by not trying to make them anything more or less than what they are. For me, they exist. I will never separate myself from them and I am truly so lucky to have connections in many places across the world. So, from now on, wherever I go, I will be just a bit everywhere.

My Day in Mulago

This week, I thought I would share with you the very fortunate experience I had recently to shadow a nurse at Mulago – the national referral hospital in Kampala.

This opportunity came about through some friends I have met here who are nurses at the hospital, and I was very lucky to be able to don some scrubs and follow these nurses around for the day. It was truly an eye-opening experience, as seeing what is “trending” in acute healthcare can often reveal underlying, bigger issues at work in a society.

We started our day in the endocrine unit. This unit was largely filled with diabetic patients – those recovering from a diabetic emergency, or those experiencing secondary health problems from their diabetes. These secondary issues can take the form of diabetic neuropathy – when diabetes damages nerve endings in the body, often causing some limbs to become numb, or ulcers, which often develop in the feet especially after the feet have experienced nerve damage. Because the feet are then numb, ulcers that develop often become very large and go unnoticed until they explode or begin to affect walking.

As with many health problems that are prominent in the developing world, such extreme issues from diabetes are not common in Canada. Thanks to our free healthcare system, it is easy to manage one’s diabetes and generally avoid such issues on one’s own. As we walked around the ward, and after talking to one patient in particular, it became apparent why this was prominent in Uganda. The patient in particular that we spoke to had been diagnosed as a Type I diabetic 4 years ago, but still had no idea what her own blood sugar was, how to read a glucometer or even what was a good range for one’s blood sugar. The problem of overpriced medical supplies becomes inextricably intertwined with a lack of education here. Glucometers and the accompanying equipment to monitor one’s diabetes is very expensive in Uganda, and while it can be affordable to some, many patients are therefore dependent on primary health care clinics for things like blood sugar testing. However, the lack of education then adds to the problem, because if no one is to teach these patients what a good blood sugar level is, then they will be unable to identify the feeling of being over versus above a good blood sugar level. As a result, they may poorly manage their diet and frequently experience diabetic emergencies and/or develop secondary issues – filling the endocrine ward I have been talking about.

The second unit we went to was the burns ward. Just walking into this ward was difficult – everywhere you looked were beds full of children. I should mention that this was not a pediatric ward, and that there is an undercover social problem at play here as well. For many children in this ward, this was their 5th or 6th visit in their short lifetimes to this ward, and for a reason you might not expect – epilepsy.

In Uganda, epilepsy is associated with a lower social class, and as a result, few parents are willing to admit that their children are epileptic. This social stigma leads to many cases of epilepsy going unmedicated and unmanaged. You may still wonder how this brings children to the burns unit – children in Uganda are usually in close proximity to two things: 1) their mamas; and 2) cooking. The inevitable result for epileptic children is experiencing a seizure while their mother is cooking, and them either falling into the surrounding pots of hot water and/or oil, or these pots falling onto them.

The burns I saw were in no way minor – many covered about 40%-60% of their bodies. I also observed some of their burns being cleaned, and the burns usually went deep into the flesh, showing where even large amounts of muscle tone had been burned clean away.

I spent the rest of the day accompanying the nurses on rounds and such, but at the end of the day, we stopped in at labour & delivery, where we had been invited to a c-section. I observed while my nurse friends assisted.
It was really an amazing procedure to watch (despite renewing my desire to never ever reproduce) and at the end, I was given this brand spanking new human to hold as they stitched up Mama.

As many people will agree (and as cheesy as it sounds), the experience of holding one of the newest little humans to join us on Earth is a moving one. You can’t help but wonder what’s ahead for this little life you’re holding.

What will the Uganda she grows up into look like? As public health continues to grow as a field in Uganda, one hopes that if she was to grow up diabetic, there will be better education and a better healthcare system to assist with the costs for managing such conditions. One hopes that if she was to grow up epileptic, there will be community organizations at work to diminish/eradicate the social stigmas and encourage medication (that is also hopefully made cost-effective by a better system).

All of this being said, the healthcare system in Uganda is just one aspect of life. Uganda, while in many regards better off than many other African countries, still suffers from the unfortunately “classic African” issues of corruption, war and disease. I was reminded of the concept of the birth lottery – as unfair as it seems, some of us have simply been born into geographical areas with more opportunity than others.

But being mindful of one’s relative success in the birth lottery does not mean ashamedly pushing it to the back of one’s mind. No matter what level of success we’ve experienced in this lottery – whether you were born in the developed or developing world – every human has huge potential for impact on the world around them. If you have been so lucky, however, to have been born into the developed world, you are at an advantage, and I encourage you to make use of it. Seek to critically understand the issues in the world around you, and support them however you can – whether it be through your time, words or money.

Until next week,
Alex 🙂

Canada Day in Uganda

In honour of Canada Day and the strong scent of nationalism that has been going around, giving everyone World Cup Fever, I thought I would dedicate this week’s blog to some of the big similarities, as well as the big differences I have seen between Uganda and Canada.

It’s important to beware that this list could literally go on for one billion years. I have chosen a few comparisons that have stood out to me and attempted to break them down for you into more blog-sized pieces – here we go!

We’ll begin with the more obvious comparison – differences. Your perspective will always depend on what you choose to focus on, but this is the list that definitely holds more potential to go on forever. However, we’ll try to move past the glaring differences, like Uganda’s lack of winter and Canada’s well organized pedestrian road crossings. One of the biggest differences I’ve noticed in Uganda compared to CaCnada is a fairly widespread lack of stress. People here are aware of tasks that need to be accomplished, and generally accomplish them more or less on time, but the North American hamster-in-a-wheel mentality of nownownow is not there. This is not to say that Ugandan people are not busy  – on the contrary, many of my friends and colleagues here have two jobs, or work full time in addition to school, and/or juggle several different projects at one time. Canadian workloads can often be similar, but for whatever reason, we are distrusting of tomorrow, and seem to be constantly scrambling to accomplish as much as possible in the confines of today. Ugandans, on the other hand, have a much healthier relationship with today and tomorrow, giving today whatever they are capable of while holding onto faith that things will continue on and work out with tomorrow. This is a difference I’m growing rather fond of – it’s incredibly refreshing to slow my life down by one or two (or ten) notches.

A more serious but inevitable difference I’ve seen due to the nature of my work is disease – namely, HIV/AIDS. I did a bit of research prior to leaving and was shocked to find that about the same proportion of Canadians have cancer  as Ugandans have HIV/AIDS. When I think about my friends and family back home, I can’t think of a single one that has not been affected by cancer in some way, shape or form. These are both horrible, horrible diseases and the last thing I want to do is pit one against the other. I offer the cancer comparison simply to give you some scope of just how widely AIDS affects Uganda – a country that is even often considered a success story for it’s prevalence rate sitting around 7%. However, due to the nature of HIV/AIDS being a communicable disease, the social implications are very interesting to note.

There are many avenues to prevent HIV/AIDS, and the mantra Uganda has stuck to so far has been the ABCs – Abstinence, Be faithful and Condomize (in that order). This mantra did very well to bring down the prevalence significantly in the early days of the fight against this disease, but as of recently, Uganda’s prevalence rate has since become somewhat stagnant around 7%, although some say it is slowly creeping upwards. With this conservatively-minded mantra, the high value on religion, and many other factors, the social stigma (from what I’ve seen) remains as the elephant in the room. Because of this stigma, the endless programs and funding from all over the world risk being irrelevant. As long as the open discussion about HIV/AIDS is avoided, people’s education about the disease remains dependent on the black market of gossip and old wives’ tales. I believe this contributes to why I see HIV+ positive people of all ages coming into our lab – even babies, despite the free PMTCT treatment that can greatly reduce mother to child transmission that is available for all expectant mothers in Uganda.

I can think of no comparison in Canada in terms of such a deadly disease that is most prominent in our social relations – namely, our romantic relationships. It truly puts a massive weight of responsibility and seriousness on relationships regardless of age. Since it is a lifelong disease, often the impact of transmission from one individual to another changes their relationship forever, whether it be mother and child or romantic partners.

Now, to move on to the similarities. One that has stood out to me as very interesting was the idea of secondary culture. In Canada, while most of us will proudly identify as Canadian, a large majority of us also identify with at least one secondary culture. This comes as a result of our “mixing pot” nation and it’s fairly accessible doors for immigration. For example, my mother immigrated from Scotland, and therefore all of her side of our family still reside in Scotland. While I hold my Canadian culture near and dear to my maple-syrup dipped heart, I am equally proud of my Scottish heritage (despite our sometimes questionable cuisine).

In Uganda, there is a similar sense of secondary culture. While everyone identifies as Ugandan, people are also aware of what tribe and which village they originally come from. Many of my friends here spend their time off returning to their village and reconnecting with family. Much like Canadian children, many Ugandan children grow up learning at least 2 different languages, and I am constantly amazed by the ease with which people flip between languages, even in the middle of conversation.

Finally, in light of World Cup, I have noticed another similarity – the people share over sport. While it has sometimes baffled me – how people can spend hours watching a group of people attempt to kick, hit or throw a certain object into a designated area – it is truly lovely to see complete strangers strike up a conversation over “last night’s game”. Football (soccer to us Canucks) is to Uganda as hockey is to Canada, and although the Ugandan cranes were not strong enough to qualify for the World Cup, this has not lessened World Cup Fever in Uganda. Most Ugandans continued to cheer passionately for their brother on the other African teams (until last night, anyways). While I also think that a lot of money and resources can be wasted on these large scale competitions, there is an undeniable and serendipitous spirit of bringing people together all over the world.

While I mentioned earlier that these lists could go on forever, what’s important here are not these two categories of same and different. As any good KI student knows, dichotomies are a trap, and at the end of the day, any two people are the same and different, all at once. A balance of learning about both of these things is what will bring us to a better human understanding. Recognizing our differences is the first step to respecting them, and then moving towards discovering the similarities that can bring us closer together. We are all the same humans at the end of the day. As I try to balance my focus between similarities and differences, Uganda has and will continue to teach me a lot, and Canada will as well as I return with a new perspective in my pocket.

All for now – again, thanks for reading!

Until next week,

Alex 🙂

My Ugandan Birthday

So, given the weightiness of my last few posts, I thought I would keep this post a bit lighter and tell you about my experience of having my 22nd birthday here in Uganda! I have been away from home for my birthday before, but this was the first time I had been away for so long surrounding the time of my birthday. So, it was a new experience for me, and I tried to keep my expectations low as I didn’t know what to expect.

I woke up in the morning, and given that I was the first one up of my 3 other roommates, I just sat in bed and listened to music as I waited for everyone else to wake up. Not a very exciting start to the day. But I tried to prepare myself for the day, to tell myself not to expect anything because I wasn’t so sure how important birthdays were here in Uganda. Then, the day got going and Maddy and I started off with some yoga before breakfast. Following a lovely breakfast of bananas and chapatti and tea, we went into town to send some postcards from the post office (I am hoping I don’t beat my mail home…). I had tried to make a good amount of plans for the day to stay busy, so after the post office, Maddy and I went to the Gaddafi mosque in downtown Kampala!

May seem a bit random to go to a mosque, but Maddy is a Religious Studies student and I was intrigued by rave reviews of an amazing view of Kampala from the top of one of the  minarets. Turns out they were right… (please excuse the annoying smudge on my camera lens!)

The mosque (more pictures to come in my giant post-Uganda Facebook album) was truly a beautiful piece of architecture, and a very kind man also offered us a tour while we were there. We had already paid for entrance when he came to give us a tour, so I was a bit worried about being swindled into paying more money for a tour, but he just seemed to be a man who knew a lot about the history of Kampala and the history of Islam and was happy to share with us while taking us around the property. Was very nice to have such a genuine experience in a tourist location. The building was very beautiful and peaceful, and I learned a lot of new things about the Islamic religion. We were also given hijabs to wear while we were there, which was a new experience for me. It was surprisingly light and airy – even on a 35+ degree day in Kampala!

Next, we continued the hunt for cake mix. The Official Cake Mix Hunt had actually begun 3 days before, and we had already scoured two different grocery stores to no avail. We had begun to think cake mix was simply non-existent in Uganda, but after asking several clerks, they said they usually had lots, but were out of stock. Apparently, there was some secret cake-baking festival going on unbeknownst to us. After continuing the search into two more grocery stores, we finally stumbled upon our treasure – not only cake mix, but chocolate cake mix!

We got back to our house in the afternoon to bake the cake and to Skype my family. It was so nice to see my family, and I even got to meta-Skype to Scotland with my grandma, aunt, cousin and cousin’s son! At this point, it was really starting to feel like my birthday as we still had so many plans for the day and so many people had taken the time to message me to wish me a happy birthday from so far away!

The next few hours were the most exciting and surprising for me. The wonderful lady who cooks for us during the week, Santa, showed up and began cooking so many delicious things – including my favourite Ugandan food, g-nut sauce (a type of peanut sauce)! And then, so many people started to turn up to celebrate my birthday with me! I had mentioned to some of my friends to come by for dinner to have some cake on my birthday, and next thing I knew there were 12 of us sitting around the table for food! One of our good friends’ wives even made a small cake for me and brought me a picture frame! It was so nice and really made a girl feel at home in a new country.

From left-right: Otto, Innocent & his family, me, Jasper, Maddy, Samson, and Steven (also taking the picture was Leila, a visiting German volunteer!)

After dinner, we enjoyed some cake and then we prepared to head to the German embassy (a place I have come to frequent thanks to their free beer and sausages…) to watch the Germany vs. Ghana game. It was a very exciting game and we had a lot of fun. We even took a #WorldCupSelfie…

Overall, it was really and truly a lovely birthday experience. It was definitely a different experience, but it was so nice to see the amount of love and caring from people I had so recently met. I was so lucky to get to celebrate my birthday across 3 different time zones – I think anywhere can feel a little bit like home if you are open to new experiences and meaningful connections.

Until next week,

Alex 🙂

Circles & Unintended Consequences

“The Law of Unintended Consequences, stronger than any written law -whether or not what you has the effect you want, it will have at least three that you never expected …” ­–Robert Jordan

                This week at work, the American Centre for Disease Control (CDC), our biggest funder, has been conducting site visits at our various sites in Kampala. Of course, this is a stressful event and has been the only thing anyone has been talking about for the last few weeks. What has been especially interesting to me, however, are the discussions that have come about because of their visit.

                Charity work is a difficult moral dilemma to me. This may sound strange, as I have volunteered to do charity work with many different organizations over the past few years. I have done so because I enjoy it- I enjoy feeling as if I can contribute and I think it is a positive way in which to travel the world. But as a whole concept, it can be a difficult moral path to tread. For me, the biggest reasons for this are because of the circular nature of the work, and the frustratingly unavoidable law of unintended consequences.

                What I mean by the circular nature of the work is that most charities or initiatives to help any disadvantaged groups should be by definition, unsustainable. The work that they are doing is in order to eradicate the need for the work they are doing. For many organizations, it is difficult to reconcile how to help others to rid a society of a problem while simultaneously making a plan to help employees of that organization transition to something else once the problem has been eradicated. It is difficult, especially in terms of job security and financial stability, to have someone technically working themselves out of a job. Not to mention, many charities working to solve these social problems are based in developing countries, where job security and financial stability are in desperate need. We have seen the importance of local involvement in order to truly solve these problems, so we are left with a dilemma. How do you construct a solid organization, expand it in order to best address whatever problem you have chosen to address, and then work towards essentially de-constructing all of the work that you have done as the problem disappears? How can you employ local actors in the issue and then tell them the harder they work, the sooner they will be out of a job? You can see my dilemma in that the nature of this time of work must be unsustainable, but also must be attractive to local actors in the issue.

                The other issue here is with the law of unintended consequences, which is also inextricably linked to the previous issue. An example I can give you from work is that CDC distributes funding based on the number of clients an organization has. As a result, in the work that we do for HIV/AIDS, the number of people employed by an organization, and the security of those salaries is dependent on maintaining a certain number of HIV-positive clients. How can an organization work towards zero new cases of HIV/AIDS when their job security depends on maintaining a certain level of positive clients? This is unfortunately ironic, because HIV/AIDS is not a curable disease, and it kills; killing 63 000 people in Uganda alone in 2012. I see this dilemma as an unintended consequence from good intention. Another example of unintended consequences which I found very interesting came up while I was chatting to a co-worker when I was working with the mobile clinic. He was telling me about a client that he had that cried upon hearing the news that she was HIV-negative. This may seem strange, but through our organization, clients that are HIV-positive receive food aid for young children, free healthcare and meals when they are at the clinic, and can apply for their children’s school fees to be paid for through our Operation Child Support program. The unintended consequence (again coming from good intention) has been that HIV-positive clients are actually better off than HIV-negative clients, because we have assumed that the majority of people living in poverty will have already contracted, or are at a high risk of contracting, HIV/AIDS. What happens as we move forward and people are HIV-negative, but remain in poverty?

                What I have been realizing following these discussions with my co-workers is that there are inevitable flaws in the aid system. It is difficult to organize a structure to help others while simultaneously writing into its mandate the plans for its demise. It is difficult to know what the unintended consequences of your actions will be, no matter how much good intent you set behind them. I might argue that we can never avoid this issue, but we should never stop trying to. It is also difficult to apply for money to create an organization that will “help wherever it’s needed and see where things go”, in terms of liability and results.

                I should also remind you that while there are flaws, it is not to say the aid system is wholly unhelpful. Uganda is an excellent example of that, as they saw a decline in prevalence rates from about 15% in 1991 to about 6% in 2007 through the use of extensive social programming and allowing many initiatives to start up to address the problem. However, there is discussion nowadays that prevalence rates in Uganda in particular are now back on the rise.

                What I mean to indicate through all of this is that no system is perfect, and how to navigate a system that is destined to eradicate itself is an incredibly difficult one. What is important is to remember is the need to constantly re-evaluate, and to at least try to approach the issue from as many different perspectives as possible to minimize the number of unintended consequences.

                I don’t have answers to these questions. I just mean to bring them up to hopefully be a bit thought-provoking and allow you to be as much a part of this experience with me as possible! I apologize again for this blog being a few days late, work has been quite busy with the CDC visits. Next up in Kampala: it is my birthday on Saturday and Maddy and I will be travelling to Ssese Islands next weekend!

Til next time,

Alex 🙂 

My Experiences as a Muwala Muzungu

[translation: muzungu = white person, muwala = girl]

This week’s blog is a bit more difficult to write, as it is coming from a place of frustration more than anything else. I have known since my arrival – since my first walk to work, since my first encounters with Ugandans, that this would be a topic that would not be able to escape my blog. It is unfortunate, and frustrating, if not downright infuriating… the rights and perceptions of women in Uganda.

                 If the feminist within me was ever lying dormant, Uganda has re-awakened her at full force. Before I describe any of my experiences, it is important to note that my personal experiences are inextricably tied to being white in addition to being a woman in Uganda. Because of these two aspects of my social location that are impossible to separate, my experience is obviously different than that of a Ugandan woman. However, all I can do is share my own experience in hopes of offering some perspective. I say I have known this would come up since I first arrived, and that is because despite the fact that I dress conservatively enough here to be considered a Mennonite back home, I have yet to walk down the street without facing harassment of some format. “Muzungu baby… Hey, my friend, come here to me… Hey! Why won’t you talk to me? Come here muzungu…” While I should also note that I have met some incredibly lovely and genuine men here, I have also had men come into the clinic asking for me to bleed them “so they can get touched by a muzungu girl”, and had enough leers and winks to make a girl’s skin crawl. My worst experience to date came last night, when a group of friends and I were standing on the street waiting for public transit in order to get home. We were standing with Jasper, a male German volunteer that we live with, and a boda-boda driver (translation: a taxi, but in motorcycle format) pulled over to offer us a ride. We politely declined, but for whatever reason, he felt like staying for a chat. He continued to try and convince to get on his boda, but after a while, he noticed Maddy and I – the only two white girls of the group – standing beside Jasper. He then changed tack… “Hey, these two are nice… Let me take one, c’mon they are so nice. Hey, well done… let me take one…” It took every ounce of energy inside me not to explode with some comments about how we were actually not a couple of nice mangoes for sale in a stand, or other comments that included some more colourful language.

                I felt like an object, to say the least. Something that this man felt he was entitled to own, to possess, to purchase. For the sexist among us that might read this and jump to conclusions, let us also note that I was wearing blue rain jacket and old leggings… not that it should matter. But it has unfortunately been a reoccurring event – that I have felt degraded to being simply a woman, or simply white, or both. In these circumstances, I have been reduced to something that does not have the right to an opinion or a voice, and that is expected to subject to the higher-ranking opinion of the man. While these situations have absolutely also occurred in Canada, the incidence rate has definitely taken an upwards jump here in Uganda. I have spoken to co-workers about the Ugandan tradition of paying a dowry for your wife, only to hear their genuinely shocked response – “Canadian girls are free?” Other Ugandan traditions that demean women are found more typically found in the villages rather than the big cities, but nevertheless, continue to exist. These include women washing the hands of men before they eat, and then sitting on the ground to eat while the men sit at a table – so that men are always are at a physically higher level than the women. Women are also expected to greet men by taking their hand and kneeling in front of them, and I have even heard of women who do not believe their husbands love them unless he beats them.

                These are the most extreme cases that I have come across, and while there is a certain amount of space for cultural differences, I have been unable to shake the feeling that things aren’t right. I struggle a lot with this, and some of you may ask, why not do something? Why didn’t you go off on the boda-boda driver? Why don’t you just walk around with your finger constantly up? First, that gesture unfortunately does not hold the same weight here, and second – it does begin to feel like a losing battle. Who am I, as a 21-year-old Canadian girl, to come into a foreign country and start pointing fingers that all of these patriarchal views are oppressive and wrong? Where do you draw the line between cultural differences and oppression worthy of intervention? Does responding to negativity with more negativity truly solve anything? And where does one possibly begin to attempt to change the patriarchal values of a society that have been growing roots for decades?

                Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers to these questions. The realistic, however pessimistic response is that I am a visitor to this country for 3.5 months. I will not change – nor do I feel I have the right to change – the unfortunately oppressive view of women deeply entrenched in this society. However, to think that one has absolutely no avenues or power to make small change is always incorrect. I can discuss my personal views on feminism with those around me, and I can look to support organizations that empower women to take on non-traditional roles and use their own strengths to become leaders in their communities. I can do my best to remain polite and respectful, and assume that intentions are good until proven otherwise – without this, I allow the negativity to consume me and turn me into a rude and unfriendly human being. Finally, I can tell the next boda-boda driver who harasses me that I actually only take boda-boda rides from drivers who treat me like a human being, because if you treat me like a mango for sale on the side of the road, I will act like one, and typically mangoes don’t carry any money to pay for boda-boda rides. 🙂 

Adventure is Worthwhile

After a whirlwind last couple of weekends, today has been a very lovely day off, as it is a public holiday here in Uganda. It’s Ugandan Martyrs day – essentially a group of Ugandans died for believing in Christianity under the rule of a dictator in the 1800s. Two weekends ago, Maddy and I went to Jinja, where we explored the tourist market, went horseback riding and white water rafted. Horseback riding was a beautiful and wonderful little piece of home for me in Uganda, and getting to gallop through the Ugandan countryside was one of the best feelings ever. White water rafting was potentially one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life. Unbeknownst to me, Maddy and I were placed in the “extreme” boat, and we flipped over 4/8 of the rapids! At no point throughout our day did the rapids get any less scary – every single time we headed towards one, my heart felt like it was going to pump out of my chest and I thought there was a serious possibility my previous meal would come back to visit. Then, we would either flip or come very close to doing so – if we did flip; it involved a short period of what felt like drowning and then swimming towards the boat as fast as you could. Casual. We survived the day and indulged in well-deserved free beer following the event. This past weekend, Maddy and I went on safari in Murchison Falls National park. There, we saw beautiful waterfalls, elephants, African buffalo, antelope, giraffes, hyenas, lions and more birds than my grandmother could ever dream of. It was so amazing to see all of these animals in their natural habitats and see so many kilometres of untouched land.

If that last paragraph seemed a bit show-offy, I apologize. There is a point I would like to get at with describing my recent adventures (other than giving an update!) – and that is the cheesy but genuine idea that adventure is worthwhile.

This may seem obvious, and if it seems cheesy, that may also because it is the quote written on the front of the journal I bought for this trip. But I think we think of adventure as something that is all well and good, but something we don’t have time for. We get so wrapped up in routine that we forget what else is out there. We become attached to our routine, and we begin to use it as a security blanket. We think we need to wait for adventure, plan for it to come at the exact and most opportune time and then carry out the necessary steps for this “adventure”. But that is not adventure – that is a planned (albeit new) routine.

Adventure is worthwhile because it teaches us to go with the wind for a while. It is an excellent lesson in flexibility and adaptability, as well as a good reminder of the bigger picture. I think we often get wrapped up in what our plan is, down to the hour, and when presented with any sudden alternatives, we automatically refuse. There is a routine to follow. But adventure is worthwhile – does whatever task really need to be completed today? Could you spare a few hours to see where you end up?

Maddy and I planned our last couple of weekends on a whim, with little research on what exactly we would be doing where (especially white water rafting…).  But we had an incredible time! When I began to think about it – I realized that this sense of adventure should not be tied to being on a four month trip to Uganda. Here, I work 8-4:30 days Monday to Friday and we still managed to fit in adventure. No matter where you are and no matter how long you may have been in that place, I am willing to bet there are places within an hour’s journey that you have never seen. Adventure is worth a few hours. It is good for the soul and the brain. Adventure can be relaxing, fun, scary, but above all – different. And this is something we should embrace, rather than shy away from.

In conclusion, here are a couple photos from my safari this weekend – I wish I could upload more, but internet problems as always!

Backwards Beauty

To begin, there are many things that are backwards in Uganda. People wash their clothes by hand whilst talking on their cell phones and my work has a high-tech fingerprint recognition system for employees to sign in in the morning… but then also has pit latrines. But something that has really stood out as backwards to me has been concepts of beauty and women’s rights throughout the world.

In terms of beauty, what is considered “beautiful” is definitely different here. This surprised me at first, considering how much influence the Western world has seemed to have over such a majority of the world. But walking around town, you see mannequins made with bodaciously wide hips and thighs, and in the supermarkets, you can find skin-lightening cream. This is so vastly different than the malls at home chock full of tanning creams and mannequins with double zeros wrapped around them, held on by giant clips. While you may have your own opinions about what is better/healthier, I have difficulty saying either one is better than the other. I recently talked to a Ugandan friend around my age who told me about her friends that take appetite-enhancing pills, and do all that they can to get “fat”. Being called fat here is actually a compliment in most situations (that was an adjustment) and many of the young girls I have seen around here just seem to be naturally long and lithe creatures. Now, I can hear the shaking of so many fists from some of you back home, but it’s important to think about the bigger problem here.

Societies around the world seem to have constructed ideas about beauty around whatever is opposite of their native women. Are you white and have a tendency towards a slower metabolism? Chances are you will be bombarded with advertisements for tanning oils and “slim-down” diet pills. Your skin is black and you are naturally thin? Skin lightening cream and models with big hips. The comparisons continue with Asian companies selling products to make your eyes look bigger, and other companies with products to make curly hair straight, straight hair curly, brown hair blonde, and blonde hair brown. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we’ve made a business out of beauty. It is an entire industry based around change.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe any human being has the right to experiment with how they look and try new things if they so choose. Where I see an issue is when we fill our advertisements with ways to “change ourselves for the better”, instilling the idea from a very young age that your natural beauty is simply not good enough. It seems that the true oppression of women in today’s society lies in getting us all to subscribe to an utterly unattainable image of beauty. Whatever you are not and must struggle to be – that is where “beauty” lies. If we celebrated women for being who they are and looking exactly how they do – what would you buy?

This form of thinking is enough to make a girl want to pour her foundation down the drain and brandish her mascara wand against the evils of the beauty industry. But I don’t think it’s all bad – it is undeniably fun to get dressed up and try out different kinds of make-up. But it is important to remember that you are enhancing, rather than masking, your natural beauty. Seeing such different standards of beauty has really gotten me thinking about the social construct we have made out of women’s beauty. In conclusion – don’t be afraid to leave the house without make-up, and try to catch yourself the next time you see yourself admiring a girl in a beauty advertisement – remember that the girl in the mirror is pretty dang gorgeous too!

A More Informational Post

In order to give you a better picture of my time in Uganda, I thought I would describe my day to day life here. This may turn out to be incredibly boring, so bear with me. Through this description, I hope to show you some of the cultural differences between Canada and Uganda, so I hope you enjoy.

7:00am-8:00am : Every morning I wake up at 7am and get ready for my day. This involves taming what my co-workers call my “wild muzungu hair” (muzungu meaning white person), and getting dressed in a very conservative manner for the day. I have yet to expose my knees in Uganda – the women here dress more conservatively than at home, so my wardrobe consists of baggy officewear pants and anti-cleavage shirts. I leave the house at 7:40 in order to walk to work by 8am.

8:00am-9:00am : The reason I really have to get to work by 8 these days has been because I have been working with Mobile Van – an outreach branch of Reach Out that goes to different communities every day and sets up a clinic, lab and counselling area for clients to come and find out their HIV status and receive other medical, emotional and social support. Mobile Van also does vaccinations, offers packages of mosquito nets and milk to expectant mothers, and hands out ARVs and other necessary drugs to clients. In theory, Mobile Van leaves the main site at 8:30. In my two weeks with Mobile Van, that has happened one singular time. Mostly we pack the van by 8:30 and spent the better part of 8:30-9:30 trying to gather everyone who needs to be in the van into the van!

9:00am-10:00am : We arrive to the site usually just after nine, and then begin to set up. Mobile Van has two large tents that we set up, one that houses the clinic and the other the counselling section. We set up the laboratory in the back part of the van, after all of the stored supplies for the tent and other sections come out. Setting up the tents is truly a team effort, and depending on the site, level ground can be hard to find. We finish setting up and then sit down for break – what is considered breakfast here. It is a very minimal breakfast – very sweet tea and a bun. That has been an adjustment… I got very used to a filling breakfast of eggs and fruit every morning at St. Paul’s!

10:00am- 1:30pm : Work time! I have been helping out where I can in the laboratory section of Mobile Van. In the mornings, I usually do data entry, filling in test results from the previous day. Reach Out tests clients for a variety of different things, and only a few cannot be done from the Mobile Van. We do Complete Blood Counts and biochemistry results for renal and liver functioning from the main site. While data entry sounds a bit boring, I do actually enjoy it because the results sheets are quite informative, and you can see where deficiencies and excesses in specific cells can lead to different outcomes.

1:30pm-2:30pm : Lunch time! Our lunch comes anywhere between 1:30 and 2 and we are usually back to work by 2:30. Lunch is provided to Reach Out staff as well as clients, but since we are by definition offsite, a kind man named Joseph brings us our lunch by motorcycle every day! Our lunch is beans and rice. Without fail. Every single day. I think by the end of this placement, I will have had enough beans and rice for a lifetime. Sometimes we also get vegetables… that is true luxury.

2:30pm – 4:30pm: Work again – my work varies for the afternoon. Sometimes I register clients, sometimes I get to bleed them for HIV tests, and sometimes I help with the other tests. We have a handy little machine at Mobile Van that can do CD4 counts on the spot! CD4 counts are for HIV positive clients, and it tells us how many white blood cells they have on the job of fighting infection. I find these results very interesting, and I have seen clients with CD4 counts anywhere between 8-1000. The standard that has been set by the Ugandan Ministry of Health is that any CD4 count under 500 is reason for concern. I believe CD4 counts under 500 begin taking Ceptrin, while counts under 200 immediately begin ARVs. Ceptrin is a weaker drug that helps to improve the immune response, while ARVs are stronger. We usually finish up with clients around 4 – although, in accordance with Murphy’s law, we always have a large influx around 3:55. We then take down the tents and pack up for home!

4:30pm-5:30pm : We get back to the site at some point in this hour and I walk home. If I see a mango stand, I have a consistent weakness to buy a mango… they are so fresh and delicious here!

5:30pm – 7:00pm: This is my relaxing time, and my time to be introverted. I usually come home, check my emails and then spend some time reading, journaling or listening to music. These are the activities I notoriously neglect in my sometimes-hectic Canadian life, so it will be an important lesson to carry forward how good keeping them up has been for my mental health!

7:00pm-9:00pm: Around 7, the lovely woman who makes our food on weekdays, Sandra, prepares porridge for us. At first, this tasteless millet soup was a bit hard to stomach, but Maddy and I have learned the wonders of a healthy dose of sugar and now even look forward to our cup of porridge before dinner. We usually hang out and chat until dinner around 8:30 (very different than my strict 5pm dinner at St. Paul’s!). Dinner usually consists of some combination of the following (not all, just 2 or 3 of the following options…): matoke, a type of plaintain mash; irish potatoes, or what we would call half-roasted potatoes; posho, a type of maize mash; rice; greens, usually some form of cooked spinach; eggs; beans; chicken; beef; fish; and/or g-nut sauce, a type of peanut sauce. It has taken some getting used to but it’s actually starting to taste very good! I most enjoy g-nut sauce, probably because it is one of few things containing flavour!

After 9pm, our activities vary. Often we watch the English news at 9, but on Mondays, Maddy and I sweep and mop our floors. On Wednesdays, we go with Jasper, a German volunteer staying with us, to see a kind of r&b/jazz band and have a beer at a nearby club. On Thursdays, sometimes we go and see more jazz at the university, and we have taken up movie watching on Fridays. Maddy and I also try to do yoga every night- much to the amusement of our Ugandan housemates. On weekends, so far we have done a lot of relaxing and sleeping in! Since the rest of our housemates are quite religious, and Maddy is in religious studies and very interested in religion, we have accompanied our friends to morning mass both Sundays so far. All I can say is while I find it difficult enough to concentrate on a sermon in English, let alone Lugandan, the music is far more fun at Ugandan church. People bust out harmonies left and right, and there are exponentially more bongos.

So! That is currently what my week looks like. There are a few changes in store – I think I will be moving to the stationary laboratory at the main site next week. While I have been helping where I can and have learned quite a bit from Mobile Van, there is not really enough work to sustain me much longer there, so I am moving to the main lab where I think there will be lots to learn and more opportunities to try new things! Maddy and I are also planning a fairly exciting weekend rather than sleeping in – many of our housemates are also travelling this weekend, so we have planned a trip and if all goes well, we will spend our Saturday exploring Jinja and going on a sunset horseback safari (complete with a boat cruise and post-safari wine… important details) and white water rafting on Sunday (also complete with complimentary post-rafting beer, also important). So that will be our May 2-4 fun for the weekend!

Until next time,

Alex