March 9-15, 2006

Erica and Marcia drink coffee in a bungalow at the Mbale Resort, Uganda.
My laptop’s on the far left side ;o)

A few weeks ago I was privileged enough to accompany my colleagues in Africa – Erica and Marcia – to a WORTH launch training in Mbale, Uganda. Since working in Kenya was my first time in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda was quite a new and amazing experience for me also.

The training originally was to have been held in Kampala, Uganda, and I was looking forward to catching up with some of the other hunger fellows based there (hi Todd, hi Peter!), but unfortunately, it was much more convenient to hold the training workshop out in the field, where the beneficiaries of our program (and local implementers) are based.

That’s how I found myself on a plane to Entebbe, Uganda, peering out the window at the beautiful and quite massive Lake Victoria below. The plane ride itself was short, and once collecting our bags, we were whizzing away with Sully, our taxi driver, alongside the gorgeous lake (Entebbe is stunning), on our way to Kampala.

In downtown Kampala – which looks completely different from Nairobi, and a bit more visually appealing – we stopped at a famous hotel (Hotel Speke) to change money (ugh, more shillings, different exchange rate), and then on to the Rwenzori Café to meet up with our donor counterpart, Holly for a late lunch.

One thing about Africa, they have phenomenal coffee – after being completed detached from it in Cambodia (lack of to-go cups), I became a complete addict in Africa. That explains the iced lattes Marcia and I made sure to grab after our yummy lunch with Holly. The restaurant reminded me of some place back in the states, and it was in a strip mall – which I guess has become a popular form of architecture in Africa.

After collecting Holly, her things [and our lattes!], we drove off towards the countryside of coffee and papyrus plantations, mud houses, and little school children in their brightly-colored uniforms – like dancing Easter eggs prancing along the highway. One of the most popular colors was a bright pink, and they just looked magical wandering next to the lush fields.

Uganda is a lot greener than Kenya – it seemed tremendously lush, comparatively. But in Kenya’s defense, I’ve spent little time out in the countryside, other than the “bush”, so I could be completely wrong in this assumption.

The four-hour drive seemed to go relatively fast, as we all had a lot to discuss about the upcoming training. The gorgeous landscape provided a great cinematic metronome that supplied a soothing background and helped us pace our discussion:

- good highway: talk about work.

- horrible road: watch with curiosity as Sully maneuvers along the wrong side of the road, while trying not to let your head bump the ceiling.

- Coffee plantations: Wait for Erica’s announcement and then try to catch these with a quick glance before they zoom by.

- Cross the start of the Nile River: ooh and ahh, then talk about PR for WORTH

You get the picture. (I’m actually amazed that weeks after we made this trip, I’m still remembering that kind of detail :o)).

Once in Mbale – a very rural town at the foothills of a mountain range [I can’t for the life of me remember], we drove up a gradual hill and around a bend to the Mbale Botanical Hotel. In the driveway were a pack of potential WORTH-ees who greeted us with big hugs and smiles. We were shown to our rooms – very basic with shared bathrooms – and after a brief tea with the Director of Women’s Ministries, we turned in for the night.

The next few days were a blur of all-day training gatherings, after-hours meetings, and planning sessions in our rooms, munching on bagged popcorn and apples and fresh peanut butter (the lunch food was pretty awful).

We began most mornings with a 6 am walk around the neighborhood where we watched cattle grazing, women working in the fields, and little children on their way to school. (I actually think this is when it *finally* hit me that I was in Africa, because it was the first chance I’d had to explore any of it on foot). Even if we didn’t go for a walk it was nearly impossible to sleep past 6 am as the roosters were crowing by around 5:30 am. Then it was time to shower, which was always a challenge. Holly and I shared a bathroom that consisted of a large bathtub, stained by clothes dying (I’m pretty convinced), and no shower tap. Regardless if we had hot water (every other day, but barely) or cold, I spent my showers squatting in the tub, pouring buckets of water over my head, a muffled shriek slipping out for the first dunk, if it was a cold-water morning. I thought I was being especially quiet in my reaction, but later on Holly pointed out that she could almost hear my body contort (which it did) as that first chilly splash soaked me.

Breakfast was usually some pineapple slices, a few hard-boiled eggs, and French-press style coffee, without the press. It was also intermixed with morning worship and devotionals as the Salvationists are very disciplined in their religious practices.

Once the training began, all of us were running around, hooking up equipment, tracking down TVs and VCRs that could play Western-recorded videos, chasing down markers and pads of paper, and trying to keep everyone on-time for the next portion. It was completely exhausting, and I did very little of the presentation part. The energy of the participants was inspiring though, and they frequently broke into song – albeit usually referring to Jesus and all his glory – but the music was gorgeous. As an aside, after visiting both Kenya and Uganda, I’m convinced Africa is “Jesus Land.” Missionaries, STOP, everyone is ALREADY converted. Save your money. Woah.

My favorite part of the training was getting to know all of the local implementers and hearing their reaction to WORTH and the appreciative methodology (APA). It was unbelievable to watch them transform overnight, from slightly timid and dubious, to complete micro-finance WORTH converts. As I began to discover in my graduate thesis, discourse plays such an important role in international development, and seeing “it” in action, was extremely fulfilling – like everything has finally come full-circle.

At the end of each day, we closed our workshop with a type of evaluation, and then the participants took over. Literally every day, without fail, we were summoned to the front of the room (and I didn’t deserve this praise as much as Erica and Marcia), where the attendees cheered for us and shared “Coca Cola’s”. I don’t really know how to explain a Coca Cola without physically demonstrating it, but lets just say it’s an exaggerated pantomime of people shaking cans of Coke and spraying them all over the training leaders. It was hysterical to watch, I felt like I was back in elementary school – yet it achieved it’s desired effect, I felt completely “washed over” with appreciation.

In the evenings we wandered into Mbale town to find something more palatable than the poorly-cooked Ugali, Mtoke, and bone stew. Similar to Kenya, there are tons of Indian restaurants in Uganda, even in remote areas like Mbale where we managed to find two. On the other days we went to another restaurant in town that seemed to have the best variety of food in the area. I think we went there a total of three times to indulge in their kabobs (not like KB at all, Rob). The place was usually packed with other Westerners – lots of Americans, lots of missionaries.

Every other day the power went off, for the whole day. We had a generator for training purposes, but it was extremely loud and made it difficult for us to concentrate. It was also fairly hot (though I’m laughing while typing this because today was one of the hottest days I’ve ever felt in my life, in Cambodia), and without well-operating fans, it got really sticky. At night I wrestled underneath my mosquito net, which didn’t fully cover my bed. When the power was on I turned on the fan, but it just blew the net around so much I felt like it was attacking me during the night. Even once I got comfortable I was usually awaken by a revival out in a field nearby, some animated discussion from the “doily room” (everything was lace, like a grandma’s valentine), or a female coming-of-age ceremony that concluded at dawn with a loud worship a few buildings down. Needless to say, I got little sleep and each day wore us out completely.

I thought we’d get a bit of time to catch up on our sleep on the Sunday where we weren’t training, but it seemed as though we worked straight from dawn till near midnight (in my case). We did get a ride over to the Mbale Resort, where we worked in a bungalow out on the lawn, had a large thermos of coffee, and ate salads while we typed up presentations and I worked on the monitoring and evaluation system. The change of scenery was nice, and it felt *so* good to be doing challenging work, all the time we spent actually working, was relatively painless. It just felt amazing to be useful.

When the training neared its end on the 15th, the participants threw a little party for us with a cake, soda (mmm Stoney!), cupcakes, and Cadbury Eclairs (yes folks, they make more than “eggs” in Africa). Poor Erica and Marcia had literally made themselves sick from working so hard that week, and Marcia barely had a voice, however I think this last day for them made all the hard work worthwhile. We all wandered outside and stood in a circle to make our personal commitments to the program. It was so wonderful to see everyone so passionate and dedicated to the program and it was sad to say goodbye to these amazing women and men that we had spent the past seven days with. I really expect incredible things from our Uganda program, absolutely incredible.

The ride back concluded the way the ride to Mbale began – good road, bad road, good road, Rwenzori coffee. Then we hit traffic, relatively BAD traffic. We all tensed a bit because we thought we might not make our plane, but about 45 minutes later the traffic cleared and we neared Entebbe, alongside the gorgeous Lake Victoria.

The training [and all my time in Africa] really renewed my spirit and passion for development work – it was where the rubber really hits the road, and where we as change agents, foster real – and in this case internal – transformation. Being there made WORTH come alive for me in a way I hadn’t yet experienced. The energy there really was beyond description.

People’s lives have changed because of our program and this first [of many] training, and these were just the implementers being inspired. Wait till the women get hold of WORTH. The whole week was an absolute self-discovery of how I could positively contribute to the broader spectrum of development work [and how unbelievably hard development work is]. I have to say I couldn’t have two better mentors – watching them make our program come alive was awe-inspiring and I can only hope that someday I have equally strong facilitation and programming skills.

For any of you who are more versed/experienced in development fieldwork, I’m sure you’re likely rolling your eyes at the description and my reaction, or better yet, saying to yourselves, “this was how I felt before I got jaded.” Call me a non-cynic or rather an optimist, but I actually believe that this program is different, that how it works is completely different, and that it really will change these women’s [and men’s] lives. Instead of doubting these emotions, I’m embracing them, because if there’s one lesson I’ve really learned in the past eight months of working overseas, if you don’t have hope and passion, you have no power.