Eleven Months in Country : and still on the roller coaster

Nancy — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:02:00 +0000

OK – It feels like I should be feeling a lightening of load – having made it through almost a year. And in truth, it does feel like we are getting close to something that might feel like we are on the down hill side. But that is 11 months in country and NOT 11 months at site, so we’re really not at the half-way point. Still – it does feel significant. And what follows I realize sounds like a lot of pissin’-and-moanin’. Guilty as charged and I send my apologies ahead of time to people with real issues. Because, honestly in the overall scheme of things and in comparison to the hardship I see here everyday – this is nothing.

For many of us – or maybe just me, it feels like it’s taken this amount of time to get fully vested in our organizations. At least I am fully integrated into the projects and feel I’m making a difference. Hopefully that translates to changes and information shared – being sustainable. But I can’t go there just now. It’s been an extremely tense week – huge amounts of data coming in the most random forms imaginable. Data collection can be challenging in the best of worlds, but it is especially problematic here to get the data delivered in any truly consistent format, regardless of our efforts to standardize it. Much of that is exposure; some of it has to do with the lack of quick and efficient communication to ask simple questions or the ability to deliver the information in an easy manner. Community Mobilizers, the people really on the ground who are working with MANY Parent Educators scattered in small villages in the bush – some unreachable in the rainy season – and ALL significant distances away must physically deliver the handwritten data when they can arrange transport.

Some ride bicycles many miles to get here. And then have to ride back. The information is detailed, changes weekly and has an extreme number of data points. And this data can only be assembled when the CM has made physical contact with EACH of hundreds of Parent Educators. Honestly – the effort that is involved to deliver these services and collect the data necessary for continued funding is daunting. I don’t know of anyone in the States who would even think of going to this amount of effort to deliver any service. These folks are for the most part incredibly conscientious and want to improve their lot in life. Unlike many who are simply asking for a handout – these folks are doing the work to change themselves.

It is just as daunting to try to translate the data to a spreadsheet, into finite categories. Really – I could go on, but nothing I could say would adequately represent the madness of this process. But to add another factor, which sometimes borders on the absurd, imagine trying to discuss this with a person who technically speaks the same language, but doesn’t really. My supervisor , Geoffrey (left), has worked with many American or “English Speaking” volunteers over the years, so he has the advantage of at least being able to “get” my accent but it is painstaking to communicate a concept. I, on the other hand, half the time can’t get HIS accent. Never mind that I must certainly be losing some hearing, they practically whisper and there is always background noise. The other day, I just looked at him and said: “I have no idea what you just said.” Fortunately he laughed.

Laughter gets us through a lot. He thinks frustration is funny. Sadly, I do not. Sometimes we will dance around a sentence for 20 minutes just trying to get on the “same page.” The fall-back question is: “Are we speaking the same language?” Thank goodness we both have a sense of humor. Otherwise, we could end up in a bloody heap.

So there’s that….

And next week I leave Gulu for 10 days to work with PC in Kampala and to deliver training to the new PC trainees coming into Uganda. I did not volunteer for this – I was asked. So I’m going, but not looking forward to this multi-day stay at a school surrounded by swamp, with it’s benchmark features being: hard to get to, its bumper crop of mosquitoes and bed bugs, communal showers and sometimes functioning toilets – when there ARE toilets and otherwise latrines – somewhere. Meetings will be held outside under tents. Evening meals will be served outside at dusk – translate prime mosquito feasting time and WE are the feast. The only thing I can say is – that from the sound of this – it will make OUR training look like a party and that is a terrifying statement… Somehow there is perverse pleasure in that…

To be able to do this, I must also find someone to stay in the Gulu house, because it cannot be left empty – as we are watched for signs of it being vacant. Housemate still in Kampala with the spare set of keys. We will cope. Finding a house-sitter in Uganda is no small task, and in most areas it’s not required. But this is Gulu and Gulu is a “big city” with crime and everyone knows where the Muzungus live.

So any illusions I had of leaving First World stress behind were pure fantasy. Here though, I am reminded that First World problems cannot compare to what we see here. I was walking to work the other day and a crippled man was crawling across the road. He had shoe soles on his hands and knees and had to be in his 40s. I am humbled by these people on a daily basis and as much as I bitch about the inconveniences, I still consider it a luxury to be able to take time from my First World life to come here and have this experience. It’s all perspective. There are SO many people up here with missing limbs, just going about daily life. Makes me feel like a real bitch to complain about anything else. But I do, because – I am not in fact a saint (how I KNOW that surprises you…) and it is hard to be here because part of being here is to witness this level of suffering and still see people going about life in ways that we could not endure for a week. It is a daily roller-coaster ride of emotions: fury, joy, frustration, humility, gratitude, laughter and tears.

I got a call from another volunteer who admitted that he’d not been this stressed even in a high power corporate job in the states. The good news is – I am not alone in these feeling. The bad news is – I am not alone in these feelings.

On a comic note, I was lured out of my office away from data-entering by the sound of a marching band in the parking area. I love marching bands! Could be a funeral, a parade, a dignitary being welcomed – many possibilities for a marching band here. So I went out to discover it was the Military marching band, practicing before setting out on its route around the city being led by a dozen brightly clad motor cyclists. The occasion: Celebrating male circumcision.

OK folks. Time to close up. The mosquitoes that carry Malaria don’t even give you an early warning buzz – they just come in a give you the silent bite. Nasty little blood-suckers these… Oh but that reminds me. Last week we went to the village and had the kids take pictures to go with a story I wrote on Malaria prevention. It’ll be published in their Children’s Magazine in English and Acholi! Seems I am doing more writing and editing here than I ever could have anticipated. Just finished another article about “Educating the Girl-Child: which will be published in a quarterly journal of the Human Rights Focus NGO. See? Roller-coaster ride…

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Eleven Months in Country : and still on the roller coaster