Health Promotion and Leadership

Today our group of 3 Canadians, 2 Australians and an American walked 40minutes in 35 degree heat and humidity to the village of Gankaga to build a kitchen for a child headed family. The two 21 year old sisters Olivia and Sestoon were happily awaiting our arrival so we could continue the bamboo reeds and banana leaves structure. Once the frame is finished, mud will be applied and left to dry. My job was to go out and find dried banana leaves, chop off the unnecessary black pieces, strip them into two, wet them in a bucket and then tie them into a long rope of 4-5 pieces, which will then be used for lashing the bamboo together. While Mike Holmes may not have approved, it was nice to make a completely sustainable home that benefited someone. It made me think about Canada and what is currently going on with the homeless population and the occupy movement. Who is right between Uganda and Canada? Uganda allows homeless people to build their own homes, even if some are known as shanty houses, at least it provides some protection from the elements, while the Canadian government prohibits homeless people from any shelter construction. I am not sure of the answer but I would like to see a debate of both sides.

As 2pm neared and our 1:30 lunch came to a close, we were meant to travel to Kyetume Primary School to do a leadership and health talk but a thunderous rain began to bucket down. The rain beat against our tin roof for 20 minutes and hindered any transportation. After it stopped, we jumped into the URF van and with Jahan driving, we set off for the school with our gas tank on empty. Women in Uganda are not allowed to drive (or whistle or eat standing up for that matter) and for once I was happy because it was all terrain driving with the many pot holes and close calls with the botbotas (motorcycle drivers that do not wear helmets and carry up to 4 passengers, babies included) and children walking by.

At the school we spoke for 2 hours about leadership and health promotion, I discussed public speaking and HIV/AIDS. We sat at the front of the class on plastic chairs. I noticed the chairs right away because the production and renting of the chairs is run by the men’s empowerment group at URF and each chair is rented at 300 shillings each. We introduced ourselves to the many students aged 5-13 in English. I said that my name was Kirsten and that I came from a town called Kamloops in Canada, so that in every way I could be, I was a guest on their land, in beautiful Uganda and thanked them for having me. The men in our group were asked to speak first and then I was next. I was going to be speaking English, and Martin would be translating that into Lugandan for me. I stood up and said that I was going to be talking about public speaking, but that I wanted them to see me as their equal and not their teacher because they had a lot of knowledge that I hoped to learn from them. I also said that we had received the chance to introduce ourselves, but that I was looking forward to learning all of their names over the next 4 months. Both the students and teachers broke out into huge smiles and appeared to like this very much. I said that speaking without distractions was important so that people could focus on what was said, and in Lugandan did two examples, a good one and bad one of public speaking about how I liked cows and chickens and goats which made everyone laugh.

I wanted to discuss HIV/AIDS in a non-frightening way due to the young age group so I started with an activity. I said, "give three people a high 5, now give 2 people a handshake, give someone a hug. These are all safe things to do with someone that has HIV/AIDS. You can also eat food prepared by, drink the same water and share a towel." Then I talked about how HIV/AIDS was a blood disease that lowered your immune system, how it was transmitted and how and where you could receive treatment. I finished by saying "I think this is the most important thing to know, that everyone is equal, we are all deserving of love, respect and acceptance. We are a person before an illness." All the teaches and students nodded in agreement and clapped.

During one of the other presentations the students had to get into partners. One girl did not have a partner so I went into the audience and became her partner. She stared up at me as whispers of "muzunga" filled the room. I shook her hand and brought her a seat, I could tell this was going to be bragging material for her for a while.

At the end of our presentations we left the class and walked to the bus. The students ran after us, and we talked to them all in Lugandan, I had a handful of young female students come up to me and shake my hand with their left hand on their forearm and kneel down, the ultimate sign of respect and the first formal handshake I have seen.

Food

The food made here is high in carbohydrates, salt and staples. There are three types of bananas we eat, small yellow ones that taste like sugar has been sprinkled on them, long yellow ones that ripen on trees so that when you peel them, the outer skin falls off instantly and green ones that are cooked into matoke. Mataoke is a dish where the bananas (indizies) are peeled, smashed, placed in a pot and covered in banana leaves to keep the heat in. All the cooking is done over the fire and prepared by a woman we call Aunty. At dinner you can expect white rice, pineapple, spaghetti and purple peanut sauce made from ground peanuts that function as a source of protein. These five things are eaten every lunch and dinner. Breakfast usually consists of a tea and cereal but as a treat, we sometimes make rolexes, which is flour and water cooked into something that resembles nan bread and an egg.

Occasionally the married Australian couple, Jahan and Jess, make potato and green pepper curry, which is the best curry I’ve ever tasted in my life because there is so much flavour and spice. You can buy the curry packets at the local markets and trading posts. I am always grateful when they make a curry dish because the food, even after only a week is very repetitive and I find myself taking smaller and smaller portions but still having enough to eat. All the non-Ugandan volunteers look forward to Sundays because we travel into Masaka and eat at a small western style cafe ( that I am sure is kept in business by the many Holland tourists) that serves pizza, hamburgers and milkshakes. My favourite at 9,000 shillings (about $4) would have to be the chocolate and banana milkshake, which because of the fresh bananas and milk, tastes a bit like heaven.

Fish and Chips- A Tourist Favourite

My phone is not working, but I would like to send my love to my parents, davey baby and family

Human Nature

Today I sat in on a women’s empowerment and banking meeting called co-save, a grassroots 12 month bank that allows the women to save money, collect interest and take out small loans. At the end of 12 months, depending on how much money they have saved, they will be able to pay medical fees, school fees or start a small business like a clothing store, food stand or fireplace construction. Once the rural women succeed at this, they are encouraged to continue or work with the World Bank micro financing projects.

Martin, a URF staff member encouraged me to bring a chair to the meeting. Once we arrived a blue tarp was set out of the ground for the women, our laundry line swung in the background and a cow and calf called to each other nearby. Not many people know their ages here, so I could not ask the ages of the women, but they looked to be in the range of 16 to 65. I could not imagine sitting on a chair, at my young age, while these women, who were informed about the meeting sat on the floor. I politely declined my seat and joined the women on the tarp, hoping that despite the language barrier, they saw my gesture was one to establish equality.

After a few minutes three people dressed in suits and fancy dresses arrived, their hair immaculate and with an air of superiority they sat on a bench and began to call out numbers and passed out bank booklets that belonged to the women. If you were not quick enough, your book was dropped onto the dirt. Two women on the tarp moved closer to the front and began to pass the booklets back. Money began to be passed back and forth from the women on the tarp to the people on the bench and totals were penciled into a small record book. All of the women on the tarp spoke Lugandan so we could not converse, except to say hello and how are you (Oolioatcha, jendi, calle). They looked at me with interest and mild amusement as my feet fell asleep from sitting on the hard tarp and I tried to shake them out inconspicuously. After an hour of the meeting I pulled out a notebook and begin to draw a picture of the women’s traditional dresses. A young boy in the audience looked at me, wondering what I was doing, I passed him my journal, and with glee he began to pass it around, everyone smiled and warmed up to me. A couple of the young women in the group took the pen and paper, and after a bit of encouragement from me, drew their own versions of a dress.

One woman in the group with a very stern face looked at me, and transforming her features with a smile, appeared almost girlish and flirty, she motioned for me to draw her. We both laughed at the same time and I drew her picture, and then passed it over to her. All of a sudden the meeting stopped, the people in the suits on the bench began to smile and the picture was passed into every pair of hands. The man at the front on the bench walked to the back of the group and into the group of women on the tarp to take a look. The picture was met with laughter and smiles. When I received it back, a note was written next to it, "Good drawn –G." The meeting carried on more casually than it had before, the people on the bench were laughing and started to tease women in the audience, the women teased back.

In the afternoon I taught the students at the Uganda Rural Fund secondary school computer classes on Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Office Word , typing and Movie Maker. The 9am to 5pm day ended with making health and leadership presentation talks for the week on public speaking, breastfeeding and weaning and HIV/AIDS.

Beauty

Today we traveled to a small orphanage on the outskirts of Masaka. Nazarreth orphanage cares for children aged 2 to 7 years that have had both parents die from HIV/AIDS. The woman who runs the orphanage is named Josephine, during a talk later in the day she told me she was going to be a nun, but instead took the little money she made from a food vendor business and bought the building. Funding for the orphanage comes from community donations and crafts that she makes. I bought a few of her necklaces and plan to give them out to students in Kamloops that have been working on conserving their energy usage. There were other volunteers there as well, a nun named Sister Eve, Andrew and Caroline, they were peeling potatoes when we arrived. The children were not shy and quickly clung onto the volunteers, noses running and mouths smiling. My hair in particular was quite enticing for them, because it is looser and longer than the local hair, the children touched it constantly. One of the girls, no older than 4, sat on my lap and leaned against me, after a while she took my hand and showed me around the property, she showed my all pigs and chickens and walked around to the front door. We sat there with Josephine for a while and said hello to everyone that wandered by. Later in the afternoon the children were playing a game and with so many hands and legs moving a little girl got hit in the throat and fell down, she started to cry. Within a second I picked her up, sat her down on my lap and brushed her tears away with my sweater. I held her against me and rocked her and she stopped crying quickly. Another boy came over and leaned against me so I put my arm around him and pulled him in as well. It struck me that, although these children were well taken care of, they had enough to eat, and shoes on their feet, I didn’t think Josephine was enough to fill all their needs for affection and love.

While preparing lunch, sister Eve told me that she would be the first to baptise any babies I should have, and proceeded to say I should have a baby with a Ugandan man. I said I did not think my boyfriend David back home would like that very much, but that if I ever had a baby she would be the first to baptise it (not having the heart to tell her I am not religious). She asked why I didn’t want a Ugandan baby and I think may have taken that as an insult that I didn’t want a Ugandan baby. Changing the subject, she said she liked my skin. When I commented that hers was beautiful she said that she didn’t like hers because it was too dark.

It is not just sister eve that has internalized racism, European style hair extensions and skin lightening cream can be found in many rural stores. At a religious school I was told that all the girls had to keep their hair "nice and neat," which translates into shaving it off. There are no afros, no long hair, only shaved heads for both boys and girls. This bothers me because many schools receive funding and were started by western religious groups years ago and I worry that "nice and neat" is really colonization at its peak. No matter where you are, women have hair extensions, braided, clips in hair pieces, wigs and chemically straightened hair. Women that cannot afford these treatments wear hats and scarves to cover their hair which is shaved underneath. I want to convince everyone here that they are beautiful just as they are, but that lesson won’t come from a muzungu, and it won’t come in four months.

First Impressions

A typical day involves being woken at 6:30am by the rooster crowing, a run through the banana patch at 7am, showering with cold water and buckets, brushing your teeth, wearing western style clothing like blouses, pencil skirts, cardigans and putting in earrings and jewellery. Everyone dresses up here and unless you want to be seen as a dirty backpacker like most foreigners are viewed as, you do what you can to fit in. Except for the stench of sunscreen and mosquito repellent, we do fit in. Breakfast is at 8am and you take your doxycycline malaria pill immediately after and work starts at 9am. The smell of burning fills the air in the morning as people throw their garbage on the sides of roads because there is nowhere else to put it and when the garbage gets high enough, someone will light it on fire. Electricity is variable it can be on for 2 days and then off for 2 hours, then on for an hour and off for 5 days. I have learned to charge electronics when I can and to keep my flashlight close. Most nights we eat dinner in the dark, headlamps and cell phone lights lit up. The sun goes down at 7:30 exactly and it feels like all the light in the world has been sucked up into the stars, making them look so bright you almost need sunglasses.

The most interesting experience you will have in Uganda is taking a taxi (because I have never taken a botabota, or at least that is what I tell my mother). In Canada we think of taxis as vans or cars, painted yellow that transport one group of people that are known to each other to a specific location. Not so in Uganda. Taxis are buses that are privately owned, painted white with blue racing stripes and travel 100km/h over potholes, construction, dirt roads, honk at every person, botabotas and vehicle and pass between objects, sometimes only with 1cm of extra space, as the drivers expertly navigate the roads. Each passing of a vehicle of the road seems like it will be a car accident, and then surprisingly never is. Uganda has the 2<sup>nd worst car accident rate in the world and it is easy to see why. The taxi will pick you up and you must first bargain for a price, muzungas always can expect to pay more, anywhere from 3,000- 5,000 shillings (~$2) and then the fun begins. Expect to stop and pick up anything. One time you’ll pick up a woman, her daughter, a baby and the 8 feet of bananas they plan to sell at the market. At the next stop you will pick up a man with 4 chickens tied together at the feet and whenever they squawk he will beat them unconscious with his fists. PETA and the SPCA would have a fit over here. At the next stop you’ll pick up a family. When it is crowded you’ll be sitting on top of each other, when it is empty, you will sit on the side of the street for hours, looking for more people to fill up the taxi with. But no matter if you are coming or going, you will always run into someone you know, often people will say "hello Kirsten," and I’ll have no idea who they are but grin back and ask how they are doing. If you are having trouble finding a taxi, it is best to take a botabota to the next small village on the route and wait for a taxi there, I wish someone had told us that earlier before Greg got frustrated and paid 40,000 shillings to buy an entire taxi to take us home.

The markets are lots of fun to visit and I always get asked where I am from and if I have pictures. People are very friendly and enjoy having their picture taken and seeing what it looks like, children especially could do this for hours. Many people here have huge smiles but often adopt a more serious, closed mouth look for the photo. With thoughts of the "male gze" swirling in my head I handed over the camera to the Ugandans and said they could take pictures of anything they liked, I plan to post those pictures on Sunday. Another time I was walking in the market when it started to rain, knowing it was about to bucket down a salesman called out to me "Muzungu! Come join us in here!" where we proceeded to talk about his family and Canada.

A few nights ago we attended a graduation party in one of the small villages. Two women were graduating from secondary school and many speeches, food and dancing were expected. As we arrived, a large group of over 100 children crowded around Leandrea and I and without saying a word, smiled at us with curiosity. Thinking that they were bothering us an older woman picked up a large tree branch and wielding it with two hands, aimed it at the children’s bums, bringing it down on one male child and making him cry out. The children quickly scattered.

The dancing was started out by the traditional dancing by the men and women in the village and ended with our group being asked to dance in front of everyone. I will post videos and pictures of the night.</sup>

First Few Days

We arrived in Entebbi, Uganda at 6am local time and drove the 2.5 hour trip to Kampala, stayed there for a night at the College Inn and then travelled the 2.5 hour trip to Masaka the next day. From Masaka we traveled 45 minutes to Kyetume village, a trading post that is 15 minutes from the Uganda Rural Fund property.  Internet is sketchy and sparse so I can not upload any pictures yet but pictures and video clips will be posted Sundays.

As always, love to David, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Kelly, Barb and Kienan.

Leaving for Uganda

Hello Everyone!

Just to quickly update you on the trip, our group of 10 leaves on February 13th (Monday) and will spend a total of 2 days travelling through the different airports (with an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam) to arrive in Nicaragua, Kenya, and travel to Uganda from there. We will spend 4 months in Uganda and return on June 15th 2012.

I have attached my intern description for anyone curious about what they will be hearing about for the next 4 months.

Position 3: Community Health and Women Empowerment Officer

Position Description: The intern will work with the URF Community Health Outreach and Women’s Empowerment Programs and play a supportive role in delivering health talks, organizing medical camps, and facilitating workshops on income-generation, parenthood, nutrition, child-rearing, basic hygiene and domestic violence. The intern will assist with seminars, special events, family visits, and practical support to child-headed families. The intern will also support administrative work as needed. The intern will:

• Assist in the planning and delivery of a URF Women’s Spirit Day –bringing women together to discuss issues affecting women and map out a practical strategy for addressing them.
• Share Indigenous approaches to family and environmental issues- what lessons from Canada could be adaptable to the Ugandan situation
• Assist with the formation of a women’s group that meets for storytelling sessions with women and girls from the program
• Schedule days for pregnant mothers to come to the clinic for basic check up and counselling on pregnancy issues and child care. This can also be done when you go out for health talks or at medical camps (work with URF nurse)
• Organize a Mother’s Workshop for April to address maternal and general women’s issues (this could be the same as the Women’s Spirit Day above)
• Work with the URF nurse on Women's health issues 
• Organize short workshops for girls at Hope Academy and youth group to discuss female concerns and be available provide one-on-one counseling as needed.
• Help with skills training such as leadership training, cope up with stress
• Help with facilitating health talks in villages and in schools
• Assist with organizing and facilitating medical camps in villages
• Help to equip (Village Health Workers) VHW’s with skills in Midwifery (health issues)
• Develop small grant proposals to fund women's empowerment programs
• Research for funding agencies and raise funds for local projects
• Help explore possible market for women's products such as baskets, beads etc.
• Research and present case studies on successful women's programs and recommend project ideas for URF women’s group
• Help with teaching computer skills at Hope
• Assist women in the community gardening project
• Assist with any other URF projects as needed and directed by staff

Staff Supervisor: Jane Namukwaya and Stephany Namujjuzi (nurses)

Health talks: http://www.ugandaruralfund.org/2011/11/17/preventative-community-health-outreach/

Clinic: http://www.ugandaruralfund.org/2011/06/11/medical-clinic/

Medical camps: http://www.ugandaruralfund.org/what-we-do/health-care/medical-camp/

Village health workers: http://www.ugandaruralfund.org/what-we-do/health-care/village-health-workers/

And as always, love to my cousin Avery, Robbie, Misty, Sharron, David, Mom, Dad, Riley and Kienan.