This altered-universe feel was heralded by the realization that my organization seems to be imploding around me – the changes too numerous to address – except to say that if feels chaotic, disorganized and in peril.  My efforts to affect productive change have been for naught – despite  doing what I was “hired” to do: be a Program Adviser and advise. I wrote a very good SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses and Threats) and submitted it prior to our annual strategic planning conference where everything in it was validated when each point was independently voiced by staff – and dismissed by management. This is a blame-first culture and change is difficult in the face of fear.   Therefore I have turned to things over which I have at least a modicum of control. Those are – in fact moving forward: the Children’s Library and Peter.  There continue to be details regarding the accident.  I have gathered my friend’s belongings to get them to her in South Africa and elsewhere, cleaned out her little house and distributed items.  The trial is coming up this week so there are things happening with that.  The charges have been upgraded to manslaughter with a potential sentence of life in prison.  In Uganda, when someone goes to prison, I’ve been told the family has to provide food and and some essentials, so the burden of the sentencing spreads across the entire family.  Not entirely sure of this as I get mixed information,  but to say the least the income stream if there was one is interrupted and there are some concerns about reprisal.   

On a happier topic, two leadership camps (BUILD for boys, GLOW for girls), both sponsored by Peace Corps happened a couple of weeks ago in the north and another two were held last week in the south.  A strange sense of calm descended on Gulu which was essentially  “empty”  because all the other PCVs were at the camps acting as counselors.  I was able to sponsor Peter to go to one of them and he excitedly washed his clothes, got all packed and left with the group.   Here’s a picture of Peter (dark shirt) with the counselors and director and three little kids who scooted in thrilled to be in the picture.  

Peter returned absolutely glowing with excitement and feeling good about himself and life.  It was a first for this former child of the streets.  In the week following camp he would have no place to sleep, study, eat, etc.  A friend of his located a small grass roofed hut where he can stay safely and study.  I’ve paid for it and have been giving him funds for food during the day.  Much to his credit, Peter refuses to take money without giving something back in return. He’d been a big help at the library and yesterday spent the day cleaning the floors in my house (his insistence – not mine) because I don’t really have any work for him.   If he works full time, as is his custom while on break to pay for food) he can’t study and falls behind in school.  My house has never been this clean  even when I moved in.  Dust and bugs are so pervasive that the patina of filth builds with such unfailing exuberance that it feels futile to hand-mop concrete floors everyday. One gets accustomed to living with a layer of grime which would take a year to develop in the states.    But TODAY, I have a clean house.  

Some interesting stories have emerged as we’ve been working in the same space. He casually told me how – before boarding school, he would find a way to hide his school uniform before returning to the street to sleep, and hand off his books to a friend to keep overnight.  The police know Peter in town because he was able to convince a rowdy gang of street kids who’d followed him up here from Kampala to return there.  He’s earned the respect of police (who helped him get an ID Card) and district officials alike and it will be interesting to see who Peter becomes.  

The library has been painted courtesy of funds from Matt Boddie (a PCV who extended a year) and his malaria organization and the almost heroic efforts of a Ugandan painter friend who called me “fearing” that I has been involved in the accident.  Shelves (some) have been moved courtesy of Peter and one of the teachers from his school and almost comically leaned against each other and walls to be sure they keep standing.  They are now loaded with what children’s books there are and while it’s a far cry from what we in the States grew up with in terms of libraries, it’s a first for Gulu.

This week I hope to get table legs cut down to convert big people tables to kiddie-size tables and find homes for more duplicate sets of 15 year old text books that keep spilling out of hidden spaces.  One small step at a time…

A talented young student-artist is doing a wonderful job copying malaria -prevention artwork to a wall mural, in exchange for art supplies.

Onward into the day.  I have a clean house and an empty kitchen – so a trip to the cuk madit is on the list, a little laundry-doing and some giving away of stuff.  I love that part – means things are winding down even as things intensify in terms of activity. 

Namaste my friends.

The post A Slightly Tilted Universe appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

Time passed and, as volunteers, we finally got deep enough in our projects and gained enough credibility to try again and take time away from our primary work.  Although, the library task is in line with LABE’s goals and secondary projects are encouraged, things just needed to come together.  It took a while.  Another volunteer had some university books donated  – though no funds to GET them here.  Shipping books is pricey even via the M-bag route which coast around $250 – $300 – as some of you already know!  

Since getting the books here wasn’t working, we put our heads together, and re-engineered the original idea – boosting literacy and reading.  We approached the library (study center) again are were lucky enough to find the real librarian there and he was very excited about the project.  He’s not requiring us to jump through administrative hoops (you have no idea how huge this is) and embraces everything we’ve suggested.  So – we have been granted permission to claim a secondary room as a children’s room, but to do that we must clear the existing chaos:  organize thousands of newspapers for several years (back to 2009!)  into title, year, date, day, getting rid of thousands of duplicates, etc. etc.    Here’s a sample of what we found:

There is no storage or shelving for them so we have been creating a makeshift system using discarded grocery boxes.  There is also no money for binding the newspapers.  So witness the current solution (below) – boxes with paper separators….    Makes us realize anew how fortunate we are in the States to have funded libraries!  When life gives you boxes – make shelves…  Samir, our favorite local grocer, gave us these.  That may not sound like much, but other places wanted $7 US for a discarded box.

After the newspapers, there are rooms full of old donated books that need sorting – and hundreds of books for the adult section have to be processed and some discarded.  Some of those will go to the new library in Wakiso my homestay host is starting and others will hopefully  go  to schools and a local youth center.   There are new shelves in the adult section and they are empty.  ALL (thousands) of books must be moved from old shelves to the new ones. When that’s done, the children’s room will get the current (more child-friendly) shelves and by then we should have at least the newspapers done and the text books figured out.  THEN we can start categorizing the hundreds of children’s books into reading level categories.  Forget Dewey Decimal System, no one will ever refile a book by number and there is no such thing as a card file or inventory of books.

Since there are not children’s chairs or tables,  we’ll shorten the legs on a few adult tables and make them available for kids.  We’ll get a few mats from the market and create play and reading areas, paint when we can get paint donated….  And!  There is a  local teenager who is a budding talent and we’d like to encourage him – sooo – we’re hoping to get him to paint fun images on the walls to brighten the place up.

Here’s what it looks like now:

That blue thing you see is a huge iron gate being stored.  We have no idea about how to get it out of the building since it’s both taller and wider that the door. I’m thinking of painting it and calling it the “Gateway to adventure” – or some such.

Ahhh it goes on and on.  Creating the space is only Phase I.

The bigger challenge is “mobilizing” schools, parents and children to get them to USE the room.  As I’ve said before, this is not a reading culture.  In the library, there are only text/academic books, nothing for pleasure reading.  Our goal is to provide a children’s space, so children and parents will have a place to get books, come for reading-hour,  have some puzzles available,  and plan some kids activities. This means visiting schools, holding events for children, and maybe someday creating a mobile library to get books to the field.  Some of the doors have already been open by LABE as they take the books you all have donated to the field to Home Learning Centers.  

The post Children’s Room Project! appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

I know it sounds perverse, but it was very gratifying and concrete.     So much of what we do on a daily basis is “seed planting,” both literally and metaphorically. It’s often frustrating because it may be years (if ever) before our labor or indeed our contributions  bear fruit. We may never know the results and many of the benefits are not measurable or tangible.  But – as I said,  this was concrete work:  before – chaos, after – order and function.    Also, in our daily work, there is little feedback or gratitude expressed.  Not that that’s a requirement or even why we came, but it does feel good on those rare occasions when our work is acknowledged (as opposed to people just wanting more…) And the work seems to have been deeply appreciated, so, it was a real boost to my mood and sense of accomplishment.  This is work I’m not known for here, so it’s nice to have it discovered and be relevant after all.

Re-entry to Gulu was difficult.  After enjoying a week of water (and power)-on-demand (mostly, except for drinking water, which still has to be purchased) and electricity around the clock, it was a rude awakening to come back to discover that “power-is-finished and a house full of bugs, mouse/rat droppings, rotten food and mold. The geckos and lizards can stay, except for the big buggers known to arch their backs and hiss when confronted…   The up-side was “water is there.”  

Two trips to Umeme (power company – an oxymoron because there is seldom power) and I perhaps will get some response.  In addition to the usual lack of and off-and-on nature of power, it seems I have an intermittent problem with electricity EVEN when “It is there.”  As we were bumbling around in the dark, the tenant house in back had power.  Equally as often, we will be sitting with power in the evenings and it is all of a sudden “not there.”  We scramble for some form of light: a match, a phone, computer screen – something to go dig around and light a candle.  The flip side of that is sitting in the dark, reading by candlelight and the power comes on.  Everyone jumps up with shrieks of delight, plugs stuff in and 30 seconds later – power is gone – for the night.    To exacerbate a nasty mood, the other tenants have water at their outside tap, when – because of water pressure issues, we will have no water in the house. Such are the vagaries of daily life in Uganda. In that case we trek a couple of blocks up the dirt road and haul water back in the ubiquitous jerrycans.  The only plus to that  (diggin’ deep here) is that I’m usually greeted with big smiles of surprise at the sight of a Mzungu hauling water.    

That is life in Uganda and it seriously interferes with getting anything done – even the most basic tasks.  For example: finally, our organization received approval for the funds to buy fuel for the generator, desperately needed to accommodate the nearly total lack of power during the workday for days on end. The generator didn’t work and was repaired Friday.  Little power over the weekend at the house meant that I arrived at work with two dead computer batteries and anticipated being able to plug in.   That was before realizing that, over the weekend, someone broke a panel in the glass door and cut the cord off the generator!  Still – some movement does happen against all odds and here are some of the projects that are are taking form. somehow. For those of you who wonder what I really DO here other than haul water and gripe, here is an update. I hope I don’t bore you to death – read at your own risk.  

• I do a lot of Organizational Development work:  looking at systems – when there are systems – and determining what’s working and what’s not,  then devise procedures and documents with the goal of creating order out of chaos.  (I’m an optimist). It’s basically what I’ve done for years with clients, but at an entirely different level.  PC has a term for this approach and it’s called a SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.    Who knew there was an acronym for what I’ve been doing all these years.  Gratifying in some ways.   Thus far, I’ve created Asset and Inventory  
• Tracking Spreadsheets, Vehicle Tracking Systems, Excel spread sheets out the wazoo for Project Monitoring and Evaluation (big deal here for funding purposes) and various and sundry other documents and processes.

Much of this starts and ends at my desk (below) in the corner of a room shared with my Counterpart Geoffrey.

• Office organization: analyzing, organizing and purging thousands of documents, creating a filing system, etc. ad infinitum,  and in the process doing inventory to enter into the Inventory System.
• Website editing and content creation is ongoing.

• Writing books for use in the Mother Tongue Language program. To date, I’ve written two children’s books: one on Malaria for which we went to the field to take pictures of important elements to prevent malaria.  Included in those were photos of water collection and garbage management. Another book targeted sanitation (building a hand-washing station for the village to cut down on intestinal maladies).  The next is one on nutrition.  Right now they are in the draft stages, but the Malaria book is taking off and soon I will go to the field to participate in trainings and the collection of pictures for the book.

• Early Childhood Reading Program: With the goal of contributing to developing a reading culture in Northern Uganda, I’ve spear-headed a local reading Program where we’ll do a much-publicized  story-hour with activities, games and reading aloud to give children the experience that reading can be fun.  Most have never held a book or seen a book with beautiful pictures.  To date we have over 200 hundred books, wonderful puzzles, art supplies etc.  to use in the program. (Thank you again everyone!)

One phase of this will be a lending library, but first the kids will be read to and get some instruction on how to care for a book.   When they are ready, books will be loaned for a week or two, and picked up later.  Think Mobile Library for people who have no hope of ever getting to a real one.  There is a library in Gulu and it has a good collection of children’s books but they are mixed in with adult history, law and accounting books!  The first step is to organize that collection and I’ll start that project in a few weeks.  I have to have permission from the Town Clerk even to volunteer…   and checking out books will be another hurdle.

• Pillow-case Dress Project: about 160  Pillow Cases have been donated (thanks to Welches Elementary School in Welches Oregon for 150 of those!) for a project that will feature teaching village women and women in prison how to sew.  Pillow Case dresses are easy to make (relatively) and will not only provide clothing for little girls (many of whom wear rags), but also teach a skill (sewing) which might be turned into what PC likes to call an Income Generating Activity (IGA).      In the process of instruction, self-esteem is boosted and they will get practice in reading, following directions, numeracy and other aspects of functional literacy. 

• I am also participating in the training of the 46 new PC Trainees that arrived last Friday.  My sessions will be Marketing, Monitoring and Evaluation and a voluntary course that’s all my own called:  Keeping Sane in Peace Corps:  Boundary Setting and Survival Strategies.   (Fellow PCVs might take issue with the implication that I am sane however).  It’ve been requested to offer at at the All-Vol Gathering in August as well.  Now I’m having fun… 8.  Going back to Kampala in June to continue and wrap up the putting-in-order of PC HQ.

I walk to and from work everyday and home for lunch, walking a total of 4 – 6 miles every day.  Good exercise and another opportunity to “greet people”  and frustrate the Boda drivers.  Each day I walk by a group of Boda  drivers who know I don’t ride Bodas.  At first they were downright hostile about a Mzungu who refused to support their business.  Now, it’s become a good-natured joke and as I pass they all laugh and wave – shouting Boda-Boda?  Followed by Woto madwii-dwii  (walk fast-fast).  I guess you’d have to be here to appreciate it. 

Work starts at about 8:30 and come home at about 5:00.  It’s pretty much a typical work day, except we seldom have power at the office. and that makes it anything but typical from the  U.S. perspective.  On those days I escape to work where there is Power and Internet:  the Coffee Hut.  They make a LOT of money from the Munu (Mzungu) population here.   Weekends are spent washing clothes, shopping at the local market for veggies, etc and collapsing on the couch reading and hopefully seeing some friends. 

 I’m keeping a tally of books read thus far:  55 to date ;-0   I’m not doing much travel to interesting places, though I hope that changes.  There’s just not a lot of energy left over at the end of a day or at the end of a week.  Our stipend translates to about  $300/month and Gulu is an expensive place to live in Uganda compared to other locations.   

Public transportation chews up a lot of time and even more energy. Usually, one goes to a bus park, finds the right bus or taxi (matatu) in the middle of unbelievable chaos,  gets a seat and waits until the bus fills.  Sometimes that’s a 4 hour wait.  There is ONE bus company that leaves on time in all of Uganda and it is run by the Post Office.  It also has the distinction of not allowing live goats or chickens in the passenger section, although they can and do ride in the luggage compartment under the bus.    Luggage has come out covered with chicken droppings and Goat  piss.   One more reason to pack light and make it a carry on.

And on that happy note, I’m headed for lunch. Looking forward to an actual tuna sandwich from Travis’ incredible stock of foil packed tuna. I’ve even located pickle relish and sometimes I have Mayonnaise (which has not tunred to Ptomaine paste with lack of refrigeration. Yum.

The post But What Are You DOING There??? appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.