Farewell to Uganda...

This is my final post on this blog... After returning to Nakasongola from Rwanda/Congo, work picked up substantially as students in the agro-processing project hit the field and I prepared my final report. In between my farewell goat roasting party (where I wore the obligatory African dress) and watching Lorin slaughter her first chicken, I managed to type up some 67 pages of observations on Save's Agriculture and Livelihoods programming. After a lively presentation to Save's Ugandan Directors, I flew back to New York; my final year of my masters program starts Tuesday. I still have significant editing left to do, and I will be keeping my eye on the student projects, but I am finding myself almost immediatly swallowed back into student life. I look forward to drawing upon all my experiences in Uganda during the year ahead and hope to be back soon!

Reflections on my Final Report and Images from Kigali

My time in Uganda is rapidly winding down... As of pm on Saturday, I am furiously typing away at my computer in an attempt to find some sort of closure for my Final Report. However, despite already having close to 50 pages, I am no where close to being finished.

As I spend my last weekend in Uganda trapped in a hot office and battling mosquito, I wonder if anybody will actually read the report... I've made every possible effort for it to be both useful to Save staff and written in a friendly manner so those (meaning everyone) who does not have the time to read everything can find what they need. Will I succeed in this? I sure hope so, as I can think of a lot of better things to be doing on my last weekend in country.

But to spice things up, I am going to try and post a few pictures from my last day in Rwanda. It was spent at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where a mass grave of over 250,000 movingly overlooks the city where many of the atrocities occurred, walking approximately 12 miles out of the city to a recommended snack shack that was continually 'tout pres', and having a final drink at a car wash that also served as a bar. At this final stop, we found we has seriously miscalculated our remaining money when Lorin tried to pay for our food in Congolese Francs. Thankfully, we had just enough and the manager offered to drive us back to the motel (as we could no longer afford even a short ride on the back of a motorcycle taxi)....

Vacations in DRC

On Saturday, I walked to Goma for a $6 beer…

Goma is the de facto capital of eastern DR Congo, in the war wracked province of North Kivu.... What the heck was I doing in Goma drinking such an expensive beer? I found myself asking that very question; but before this is addressed, a short summary of Goma's unique history seems necessary...

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Hutu Interim Government responsible for most of the brutal atrocities had its headquarters just over the border in the town of Gisenyi on the stunning shores of Lake Kivu. With this beautiful backdrop, over half a million Tutsi’s and moderate Hutu’s were brutally slaughtered in less than a hundred days. As the internationally community stood aside and did nothing to stop the atrocities (and in the case of the French, actually abetted it), a Tutsi led rebel army slowly took control of the country and finally stopped the genocide.

The genocidaires and the Hutu Interim Government warned of impending brutal reprisals, and as the Tutsi army advanced, millions of Hutu’s fled across the border to Goma. At one point, close to 12,000 people an hour were crossing the border. The genocidaires (under the protection of the French), used this cover to flee with the refugees into Goma. Over a million were dead and millions more displaced when the fighting stopped.

The feared reprisals never materialized; instead, in the Goma camps the genocidaires blended with hundreds of thousands of innocent Hutu refugees. Receiving UN protection and food from the international community, they used this opportunity to rearm and began to carry out further massacres inside Rwanda from the refugee camps which they controlled. After pleading to no effect with the international community to dismantle the camps, the Rwandan government finally took action in 1997 and invaded DR Congo.

While solving the problem of the camps, the invasion sparked what is now known as the African World War and led to the overthrow of Mobutu, the dictator of DR Congo. The deadliest conflict since World War II, it directly involved eight African nations and 25 different armed groups fighting for control of DR Congo’s valuable natural resources. Five years after hundreds of thousands fled Rwanda to DR Congo, the mass human exodus had reversed itself. Despite a peace agreement in 2003, many factions continue to fight to this day. An estimated 5.4 million people have died since the conflict began. Goma has been a flashpoint throughout the conflict.

Yet there is more… in 2002, a nearby volcano erupted, sending a flood of lava through the center of Goma. About 40% of the city was destroyed.

And here my story begins... With only a couple of days for summer break due to a hectic intern schedule, I had planned on vacationing in Rwanda with Lorin, the Save the Children Food Security Manager I work for in Nakasongola. We were looking at visiting Gisenyi and joked about traveling to nearby Goma, but never seriously thought we would actually take the trip.

We first traveled to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, by bus from Uganda. Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills. They weren’t kidding… We took a well paved but very windy road through deep valleys and along the summits of very high ‘hills’. As we approached Kigali, the city could be seen resting on a very large ridge in the distance.

The first night was spent struggling to find affordable accommodation (partial success after about five different guest houses); the next morning struggling to withdraw money (failure as we soon learned that international credit cards are not yet accepted in Rwanda). Thankfully, Lorin had some emergency dollars stashed. Yet Kigali is very expensive and we were constantly afraid of running out of cash throughout the trip. That morning, we left for Gisenyi and Lake Kivu. The town promised cheaper accommodation and a beautiful lake. It was an easy sale.

On the bus to Gisenyi, Lorin sat next to a friendly Rwandan who was eagerly pointing out all the genocide memorials on the way. Most were churches; taking refuge inside, many women and children were massacred by Interhamwe militias (sometimes collaborating with local priests and nuns). Lorin asked the man about traveling to Goma. He surprised Lorin by stating that he though it was calm enough at the moment to visit. Furthermore, it was within walking distance of Gisenyi (about 5kms from city center to city center). After arriving in Gisenyi, we asked a few more people about the security situation. For the moment, Goma seemed to sound safe. We dropped our bags at a hotel, had a quick beer to assure our resolve and without delay, set off on foot.

Much of the road to Goma is gorgeous, gracefully winding under huge trees following the curves of Lake Kivu. It was hard to imagine millions of people fleeing on this same road (in both directions, depending on the conflict). The border itself was calm and customs on both sides surprisingly polite and helpful. Everybody also spoke English, which surprised me (both are former French colonies). After paying for a transit visa, we continued on into the heart of Goma.

Near the border, expensive offices and houses of NGO and UN staff hide behind barbed wire fences and armed guards. As we made our way further, we spotted the Save the Children office. We stopped in, chatted with some staff and commented on their really cool guard tower. We soon found ourselves back on the main road, walking towards the far side of town. Other than a strange parade sponsored by a mobile phone company (it consisted of two green pickups with music surrounded by many well armed soldiers), the city seemed fairly relaxed and chill. With its recent violent history and the real possibility of attack at any time, this seriously surprised me…

Lorin and I wandered the streets, getting a bit lost in the process and ended up in the mechanic section of town. After being pointed in the right direction, we found our way to the main road and decided to have a quick drink before heading back to Rwanda. We both ordered Tembo’s, an ale from southern DR Congo I had never seen before. After the Tembo’s, we debated over ordering a second round… As it was getting late (the border closed at 8), we chose to ask for the bill. $12 for two beers!!!

Heading back to Rwanda, we took motorcycle taxi’s as it was dark and we didn’t want to push our luck. Another easy border crossing, and our brief foray in Goma was finished. However, there was still much more excitement ahead upon our return to Kigali...

Soap from Moringa Seeds

soap Impromptu soap making workshop I held for Save the Children Agriculture Extension Staff and Community Development Assistants, using archaic knowledge from my Peace Corps days to turn tree seeds into soap, with a little help from my old pal sodium hydroxide...

Supporting Orphans with Oxen

Excerpt from a recent Case Study...

In Kazzi Village (Kakooge sub-district) lives Nassolo Gorret. Four years ago her husband died. She had four children with him, all of whom are still under her care. Nassolo is also supporting 10 additional children, orphaned when her brother and his wife died a few years back. She grows food for home consumption around her house, cassava for sale and does ‘small petty business’ (sale of small items like soap and biscuits) in a nearby town.

Nassolo came to know of Save the Children through a Community Reproductive Health Worker carrying out family planning trainings many years ago. Currently, she is active as a Key Farmer Coordinator and heads a Livelihood Support Group (LSG) with eleven other members. One of her sons is also enrolled in the Vulnerable Youth Mentorship Program as a carpenter.

Heifer International also helped Nassolo with a piggery project about a year back. Nassolo gave her first litter back to Heifer International earlier in the year, which was distributed to other vulnerable beneficiaries. Since then, she has been struggling a bit from the high costs of feed and has yet to see any financial returns to the money she put into the project. However, the second litter of piglets is a few months old and will soon be ready to sell.

At the beginning of 2008, Nassolo’s LSG chose to rent ox-ploughs. In March, SC gave the group two untrained young bulls and an ox-plough. The LSG was expecting to start earning money within three to four months, but after consulting with a local authority, the group found this was not possible. The oxen were still to young and small to train. The group plans to enroll the oxen in a three-month training program in December.

The LSG did not expect the high intermediary costs, which included vaccinations, spraying and caretaker fees. While the NSG does not keep financial records, estimates these have run about 17,000 sh ($10) per month. One of the cows also fell sick a few months back and the group had to call a veterinarian.

Two elderly members of the group were unable to meet the maintenance costs but wanted to stay in the group. A few members advocated for letting the two elderly members use the ox-plough for free, but not sharing with them money earned from rentals. Nassolo did not see this as an equitable solution and pledged to work with SC extension staff to come up with a better resolution.

Despite these setbacks and nearly a year of unexpected costs, the group are confident they can continue contributing to the seems very positive that they will soon see a return on their efforts. With limited resources, the oxen have been very well cared for. Nassolo says that she has learned a lot about cattle from nearby pastoralists, who she consults regularly. The groups remains satisfied with their livelihood choice of ox-ploughs and believe that their patience will soon be rewarded.

If all goes according to plan, this is very likely the case. Nassolo asserts that the LSG will have no trouble charging for their ox-ploughs. Manual ploughing for a ¼ acre runs around 25,000 sh. The LSG plans to charge 15,000 sh for the same area. Well trained and strong oxen can plough up to ½ acre per day during the two rainy seasons. By her estimates, including maintenance costs, the LSG should earn between 560,000 ($350) and 1,800,000 ($1,125) per year if everything goes according to plan. However, with high hopes, the LSG intends to reinvest much of this money back into the project and expects that if well managed this will eventually ensure that all group members are able to sustain themselves financially and provide their homes with a good supply of food year round.

Trinity

Visit to the Doctor

Last Tuesday morning I woke up with chest pains. Whenever I attempted to drink or eat, they became very acute and severe. I was also fatigued and the suffered from general muscle pains. I struggled through much of the week, hoping they would go away. By Thursday morning my concern grew to the point that I boarded a vehicle and made my way to Kampala. I was directed to ‘the best private clinic’ in Kampala called The Surgery.

As I started explaining my symptoms, the doctor quickly stated I must have a problem with high acidity in my stomach. I asked him if it would have caused my other symptoms. The exchange went something like this…

Me: “Doctor, would acid give me head and body aches, and make me feel very tired?”

Doctor: “No, but I still think it is acid.”

Me: “What would have caused this problem?”

Doctor: “You eat too much citrus.”

Me: “But Doctor, I haven’t had any citrus in over a month!”

Doctor: “Oh… Well, take these pills.”

Me: “What are they?”

Doctor: “Ant-acids.”

I made an appointment for the following day, when I hoped that I would what I felt was a more accurate diagnosis from the blood and stool tests. Along with the ant-acids, I picked up some muscle relaxants at a pharmacy. On Friday morning, when I arrived, the conversation went something like this…

Me: “Good morning Doctor”

Doctor: “Good morning. I have changed my mind. I think your problem is muscular. You will be better in three days.”

Me: “Okay.”

Doctor: "Also, you have an amoeba. It probably has nothing to do with your current problems."

Me: "Oh yes, thank you."

The Doctor then prescribed me the very same muscle relaxants I had bought at the pharmacy the previous day, along with some medicine to vanquish the amoeba. Returning to my original plan, I am now waiting out the course of this ‘illness’, or muscular issue, or whatever it is, and hoping it will just go away on its own.

Wyclef Jean

Wyclef played in Kampala on Friday night. It was madness trying to get into the concert grounds. What was once a line became a huge mass of people desperately pushing towards two very narrow entry points. A fence came down. The only way you’d have known was when you were pushed into it. People screamed that they were being crushed. It was essential not to trip as you would surely be trampled. Pickpockets worked the crowd. Once was caught and if there was more room to swing fists and kick, he would surely have been beaten to death (customarily punishment for thieves in Uganda). I had my hands in my pockets, holding tightly to my phone and wallet, while being swept back and forth as the crowd was thrust in all directions. On numerous occasions, I felt hands in my pocket, grabbing at my stuff. I jabbed as hard as I could with my elbows, but I didn’t yell thief as I didn’t want to be responsible for murder. Eventually I found myself near the two entry points. Police, hanging onto bars above, yelled and kicked at the crowd below. I made my way through and, with a breathe of fresh air, was in the venue.

After the entrance debacle (some of my friends didn’t make it through with all their possessions), we waited a few hours for the show. It started after midnight. Generally, a good performance. At one point, Wylcef yelled “Obama!” This seemed like a very easy and cheap way to get a loud cheer from the crowd. Then Wyclef bizarrely yelled “McCain!” The crowd looked around in confusion. A few politely cheered. (Many people here are mildly ambivalent about John McCain, knowing little about him, and not having strong feelings either way.) As the show neared it’s conclusion, the group I was with wisely decided to make our exit a few songs before the finish. We left the concert grounds around 2am and headed home.

A Surge of Power Surge

I returned to Kampala Sunday evening. Lorin, the Food Security Manager for Nakasongola, had asked me to put together a set of recommendations for a Livelihoods Regional Concept paper due Monday. I powered my laptop up, plugged in my phone charger, and settled down to what I expected would be a long evening, delving into the inner workings of goat husbandry, poultry feeds and ox-plow rentals.

A couple of hours passed. Looking up from my laptop, I noticed the lights in the guesthouse had become unusually bright. Suddenly, the bulbs exploded. My computer screen dimmed. I smelt smoke. Small flames were nipping out of my phone charger. I ripped the charger out of the wall and raced around the house turning everything off. Sitting in the dark, I checked my laptop. It seemed fine, but the battery was almost out. I charged it down went to sleep.

After our Monday morning staff meeting, the seriousness of the problem became very clear once power was restored. Computers rested listlessly in their offices. Phone lines were dead. The server was down. Something our satellite dish was inoperative. I realized that my laptop adapter was fried. The office sat idle, with everybody sitting around reading newspapers while we waited for a technician to come up from Kampala. It took a long time. I texted Lorin and apologetically notified her not to expect my report anytime soon.

When he arrived, the gravity of the situation became clear. He fixed the server, but the satellite remains down (I am uploading from an NGO office on the other end of town that has graciously given us a few minutes to use their connection.) Five computers rendered inoperative. I was planning on traveling down to Kampala to purchase a new laptop adapter when the technician told me that I should expect to spend about 300,000 sh ($200), as these electronic items are not cheap.

I was unsure what to do. I did not have $200 to spend on a new adapter, but without an operative computer I could not work. Thankfully, mere minutes before I boarded a vehicle back to Kampala, the technician said I could borrow his adapter for the short run. This solved the more immediate problem. However, I will soon have to return the technicians adapter and will once again be without a power source for my laptop.

It's a Long Way Down at Sipi Falls

A very short weekend of hikes, tunnel vision, Marburg infested bat caves, smiling children, muzungu walking sticks, glucose cookies and impressive waterfalls at Sipi Falls in Eastern Uganda.

A Day at the Fair

My expectations for the national Jinja Agricultural Fair were way off mark… I was expecting something tame, an interesting but unexciting meeting of scientific researchers and rural farmers. A decade back, the town of Jinja (better known as ‘the Source of the Nile’) used to be booming with industry and excitement. Now most of the industries have gone bust. I guess I expected the fair to be a reflection of the town. Instead, I was confronted with a strange mixture of American carnival, European beer festival, industrial seed fair, and African market.



The grounds were huge… There were actual demonstrations of fishery projects, gardens, and maize and tobacco fields. Giant pigs were penned nearby solar dryers, while participants showed off their improved mushroom cultivation techniques.



Yet you could walk for long distances with out seeing any of this! It was like Owino Market picked up and transplanted itself on top of the fair for the week. There were kapati and goat makomo sellers, scantily clad women lounging around pool tables, drunk old men, trinket vendors, large groups of military casually strolling with AKs slung over their shoulders and children everywhere… While some people came for Longe 5 Hybrid Maize Seeds, others obviously came for the spectacle.


Midway through the day, the sky opened with vehemence… Everyone rushed for shelter. Mine was ill chosen. I did not properly assess the burlap bag roof of the food vendor where approximately 30 of us took refuge. Within 15 minutes, large repositories of water starting forming above. Portions of the roof starting sinking dangerously… It was only time before it would come tumbling down!


With sticks, people tried to direct these growing repositories of water off the roof. This was only sometimes successful. An angry old man who was earlier drenched by kids from the neighboring restaurant trying to shift their own water laughed heartily and excitedly shouted ‘It is balance!” when the ceiling above them came crashing down. Everyone got very wet.


When the rain stopped, the party began. Beer companies competed for muddy fans, blasting music with gyrating dancers (including men dressed in drag) from large stages. Vendors walked around the audience holding bottles of local firewater while shouting “top-up your airtime”. It was clearly time to make an exit before things got out of hand. After meeting our farmers, most of who must have been as surprised as me, we quickly headed out of Jinja.

Long Road to Recovery

The Washington Post's "Seeds of Peace" series has a front page article and video today on Uganda's 'long road to recovery', focusing on life in the IDP camps, LRA abductions, and the slow and tenuous process of reintegration.

Sights from the field with Makerere University student groups...

When there is no time for long winded stories, pictures will have to suffice....






I will be off line until next week, traveling to the National Agricultural Show in Jinja tomorrow morning with a team of 30 farmers and 28 extension workers / community development assistants, learning about the wonders of bio-mass solar dryers, hybrid orange fleshed sweet potatoes, and improved apiary techniques...

Students Blog While Preparing for Field Visits

The primary project I will be overseeing for Save during the next month, a collaborative pilot between Bangladesh based JOBS, Makerere University, and Save, is starting to pick up speed. Most of the Makerere student led teams will be arriving in Nakasongola on Monday to begin initial consultation with Save beneficiaries. Two teams will be working with our farmer marketing groups and the third will be engaging an ‘out of school’ youth group specializing in gardening.

The impetus behind their work is to start small agro-processing businesses with the farmer groups, while building the capacity of our beneficiaries on post harvest handling, processing and marketing techniques. The Makerere students have already conducted one previous field visit and since then have been testing potential products in Kampala.

During the course of this pilot, the students will be blogging about their experiences. There are three separate blogs: The Kewerimide Marketing Group, the Katugo Marketing Group, and the Irima ‘Out of School’ Youth Marketing Group. I encourage everyone with an interest to check them out!

Major WASH Initiative Seemingly Ignores Kitgum as Fatalities Rise

I just came across another relief web update on the still growing Hepatitis E (HEV) outbreak in northern Uganda I focussed on earlier this summer with UNICEF. The only thing that seems to change in these articles is the number of sick and dead; the rest of the text remains the same. Despite much advance warning and a growing number of casualty's (the total number has tripled since I arrived), there seems to be no momentum for a major intervention despite reports of it spreading to other districts.

A few weeks ago, the European Union and UNICEF announced the launch of a major ‘WASH Initiative for the Rural Poor in 21 Districts in Uganda, contributing to the attainment of the MDGs’ project (water, sanitation, and hygiene)'. Which District is not among the 21 listed? Kitgum, where the outbreak is the worst! What is the primary factor for the spread of HEV? Water, sanitation and hygiene! This report left me utterly confused and struggling to understand why one of the areas most needing of WASH related interventions, desperately struggling for funding at the moment, failed to find itself included in this initiative... My only hope is that they were included, but for some unknown reason were not mentioned in the report.

Transversing the White Nile

I was not prepared to be unceremoniously thrown into the air and dumped into the river. It was much too early. Moses, our Rastafarian guide, had warned us of the class five rapid just ahead. It was very rocky, and thus was an area you wanted to avoid finding yourself in the water.

Rapids are ranked with numbers between one and six. Five designates the largest rapid a raft can possibly navigate. So as we were cruising along a rumbling class three, with our thoughts on the bruising class five that was awaiting us just ahead, none of us expected to be launched. But launched we were… All of us, including our guide, went from being contentedly seated and paddling to under water without any warning.

I popped up quickly and with paddle in hand, grabbed the boat. A few second later another paddle swept without an owner… I seized it as it went by. One of my boat mates thrust her head out of the water, struggling to get out from under the boat. I stuck out one of the oars, she grabbed it, and I pulled her back toward the boat… After a quick assessment, I realized I could see less than half the originally team, while the boat was moving quickly towards the class five ahead.

Suddenly Moses appeared out of nowhere, and throwing himself into the raft, starting shouting frantically. He grabbed me by my jacket as I struggled to get in and hauled me aboard. I turned and we each pulled in a couple of other people. I tossed Moses my paddle as he raced to the back of the raft to regain control. As Moses yelled at everyone to paddle, I looked around… With half our boat’s crew missing, we also had only two paddles, including the one I gave to Moses.

There was some nervous laughter when this was pointed out. Yet we were starting to pick up speed. Somehow Moses managed to steer us to the side, just before the rapids got really nasty. The lost crew members were spotted a ways back up river, having been rescued by another boat. Rejoining our raft, we continued on despite some team members being a bit shaken from getting caught under the boat and swept downriver. We were still short paddles, but unlike the last rapid, we handled the class five like pros.


Adrift Rafting led the days’ expedition. We had 13 rafts on the river, a paddle boat, and about 30 rescue kayaks. Our entourage was quite impressive. My boat was made up of a chance assortment of nine foreigners traveling solo (like myself) or in pairs. We merged quickly into a formidable rafting team. I was sitting shotgun, paired with a Mexican mountaineer by the name of Ignacio.

The banks of the Nile are a verdant green, speckled with locals washing clothes, farming or just observing our rafting antics. A large number of islands rested throughout the river, which is constantly splitting, reforming and creating the rapids which we came to ride. The day began near the source of the Nile on Lake Victoria and would take us just over 30 km downstream.

As the morning session was nearing its end, our crew had regained confidence. We had one more class five before lunch. The river feeds into a narrowing passageway with a very steep, long drop. After the descent, there is a large wave, followed by three small waves and then a large bruiser at the end before the river mellows out again. Moses told us that most rafts that managed the first section flip at the end. I wasn’t worried… Not long after I realized this over confidence was a mistake.

The first drop was spine-tingling. Leaning over the front, I blindly held on as we rushed down the face and hit the first wave, clobbering out raft with a massive wall of water. I was sure I was going to be thrown. I could barely hold on. But we passed the first big wave into the second section.

I did not know this because I could not see it. I was still blinded by the water slamming into my face. But I could feel it. I was surprised I was still in the boat and started to count the small waves. I didn’t get past two before once again I was underwater. There was no warning, nor was there time to think while I was in the air. Simply, one second I was in the boat, the next second I was under it.

I now understood the fear that other members of my crew spoke about earlier. Getting stuck under the boat in the rapids is terrifying. I pushed and kicked, and trying to stay as calm as possible, attempted to disengage myself. I am certain I managed this in under five seconds, and maybe even less, but it felt much longer. Still holding my paddle, I finally extricated myself and kicked for the surface. I got my head out and a good breath right before the final bruiser. I never saw it coming. Wham! Back under water, with no idea which was is up.

When I came up this time, I was able to keep my head up long enough to see a rescue kayak on its way. After some fumbling in the still rough rapids, I managed to grab onto the back and was pulled out. As I was deposited back on my boat downriver, I found out that all but me and Ignacio at the front of the raft made it through the rapids unscathed. The boat didn’t flip, but both of us vanished midway through. Back on board, I vowed to hold even tighter in the next rapids.

After breaking for lunch on an island midway through our trip, we continued to navigate the rapids with skill while other boats flipped. The last of the really fun rides we had came near the end. Ahead was a long drop into rough rapids. To the right was a six foot waterfall. This was the goal; however, to get there you had to paddle across a particularly fierce current. The water level was low and today this was going to be particularly difficult. If you couldn’t get across, you were pushed out into open water safely but without the thrill of hitting the waterfall.

After watching a couple of groups attempt this, only one managed to get across and shoot the waterfall. We were determined to be the second. After the first big drop, we crouched in the boat and paddled like mad. We barely made it across. Just before, there was a calm spot at the top of the falls. Our raft erupted in mad cheers. We positioned ourselves at the edge and down we dropped. At the bottom, more than a few helmets bumped but we were psyched. It was a great ride! Resting near the bottom, we watched the other rafts try for the falls but most failed. Luck was on our side…


As the sun started to set, we arrived at our final destination in one piece. Our bus, and boxes of cold Nile beer, were waiting. All in all, a great day. Needless to say, I wasn’t able to take any pictures during the trip. However, Ignacio had a water proof camera so at some point in the future I might be posting a few of his pictures here.

Food Aid in Wajjala

With planned Agriculture Sector trainings put on hold this week, I decided to join the Commodities Unit on a USAID/Food for Peace "Title II" food distribution. Donated by the US Government, the food is distributed by organizations like Save to at risk and vulnerable populations.


Through conflict, adverse weather conditions and disease, large portions of the population in some parts of Africa have found themselves unable to maintain their livelihoods. Where traditionally in Africa a kinship based social welfare system would have provided for the elderly, when larger community structures break down many vulnerable people find they have no one to turn to for help. Despite this, food aid is a controversial practice in the development community, as there are significant concerns that this builds dependency while distorting local markets. Putting policy aside, I wanted to simply observe the process in a non-emergency setting first hand.


Save provides for about 2,000 at risk beneficiaries in Nakasongola District. These people are identified by Save extension staff and Community Health Assistants. Child headed, chronically ill or incapacitated, and food insecure HIV affected households can usually qualify for food aid. Additionally, mothers with malnourished children are referred by local clinics through Growth Monitoring Promotion activities and are registered for a three-month supplementary feeding program.

Today Save coordinated three food distributions. Large trucks filled with USAID food were sent out to distribution local centers. I went to the one at Wajjala Town, serving just over 100 beneficiaries. Most had already arrived when we pulled into the small dusty town, abutting a large but un-picaresque lake. Sitting under a tree listening to the Community Health Assistant sensitize on hygiene issues, the majority of the recipients were women dressed in their most colorful clothes. There were about ten community volunteers present to help with the distribution.


Before long, the beneficiaries were instructed to help offload the truck. Carrying heavy boxes of vegetable oil and 25 kilo bags of soy fortified cornmeal and lentils, the food items were positioned on a tarp near the truck.


A tent was hastily constructed to provide shade, and the community volunteers began to sort and divide the food items. While community members sat quietly under the shade of a large tree, Save field staff called recipients up one at a time. Before the beneficiaries could receive their food, they had to present their Save ration cards, weigh any malnourished babies, and sign off (usually with a thumbprint).


The vulnerable household heads each received a 25 kilo bag of cornmeal, approximately 10 kilos of lentils and about 8 liters of vegetable oil. Upon receipt, the food items were then tied to the back of bikes or carried on heads. Adolescents were on hand to help some of the particularly infirm and incapacitated. At about two in the afternoon, we finished the distribution, loaded the tent into the empty truck, and headed back to Nakasongola.

While it was interesting to observe, there was nothing unexpected or notable that offered me any new insights into the food distribution process as a whole. Those that received food were obviously in great need. Did the food itself fundamentally alter the situation that caused them to be vulnerable in the first place? Unlikely… Is that wrong? Not necessarily… Was an opportunity created where beneficiaries could increase their capacity to be more food secure in the future (by learning new skills through other Save initiatives)? Quite possibly… Does this outweigh potential market distortions and dependency issues? I have no clue... At this point though, I do not feel I know enough to evaluate the larger picture and can do little more than observe.

Investments? Try Africa...

This morning, the Washingtonpost published an article on bullish markets in Africa. While the NASDAQ tanks and other world markets are taking big hits, stock exchanges in places like Nigeria, Ghana, and Botswana are reaping record profits. Could investing in Africa spur much needed economic growth while being very profitable at the same time?

Another Ugandan dormitory burns to the ground

By all appearances, there seems to be an arson epidemic sweeping Uganda's schools. Yesterday, another dormitory in the north of the country burnt to the ground, bringing the total number of school fires in the past three months to 29.

The mid-morning fire, which raged for about four hours, burned down a dormitory housing 80 students at Migadde College in Wakiso district. Nobody was hurt.

The school's principal does not rule out foul play. "We can't rule out arson. I strongly suspect arson as the cause," said Joseph Kisubika.

Many of the fires have been in the greater Kampala area. Arson is suspected for the majority of incidents, yet there have been virtually no arrests. With this case in the north, it seems disaffected students elsewhere are begining to copy this disturbing trend that shows no signs of abating.

Planning for Pigs

This week I have been concentrating my field visits on Save’s Livelihood Groups. These groups are made up of ‘vulnerable populations’ that receive Title II USAID food aid that Save administers. In the next couple of months, Save is concluding their five-year program in Nakasongola and looking to start a new program in the war torn north. In response to this move, late last year Save began focusing much more energy on sustainability issues for their beneficiaries. When the Save program in Nakasongola concludes, so will the food aid.

With this in mind, Save began forming Livelihood Groups, made up of around 10 beneficiaries. They were given training on small business enterprise and then encouraged to come up with a project that Save would help support by providing some of the major inputs. Ideas ranged from goat and pig rearing, poultry farming, boat renting and feed production. In most cases, Save gave a few animals to start the projects.

There are now 159 livelihood groups incorporating thousands of people. I have visited a handful of these. groups Some are going very well, while others are struggling. Generally, for the livestock projects one or two group members takes on the role of primary caretaker while other members are expected to contribute time and small money for upkeep. In the case of animal husbandry, the primary caretakers are generally offered an extra animal when they birth as recompense. However, this was not always clear. At some sites, there seemed considerable disagreement over what was fare, particularly when other group member contributions were far less than expected.

Some of the problems emerged from unrealistic expectations by the beneficiaries. Very few groups have created a constitution or by-laws. When not clarified from the outset, expected inputs, labor, and ultimate profit (and profit sharing mechanisms) can be ambiguous at best. Some beneficiaries were discouraged when they did not reap profits as quickly as they expected.

The idea of using groups as a platform for livestock based production is an issue I plan to explore further. Coordinating producer organizations for post harvest handling, bulking and marketing makes a lot of sense, particularly for agriculture. Economies of scale come into play. When small farmers are able to act as a group, they can compete more effectively with large private enterprises.

However, for actual production of commodities and other products, the results of group based enterprises have been much more mixed. Livestock is particularly complicated for both group production and group marketing, as it is much easier to bulk and preserve maize than it is pigs. In the months ahead, I plan on conducting many more field visits in order to gain a better understand of general trends for group based enterprises.

Unify Like its 1999

Last night as the Save generator suddenly sputtered out of gas, my internet connection vanished (and with it access to Skype mid conversation), leaving me in the dark with mosquitoes swarming. This was nothing out of the ordinary. To me, this signaled the end of the work day.


As I walked outside of my office, I was thrust into something completely unexpected. Huge speakers were being set up in the Save courtyard and a local DJ was priming his sound system (on what looked to be an ancient Mac IIe). Bewildered, I looked toward my counterpart Prossy for some sort of explanation. Unification had come to Uganda.

In any given country where Save is active, there are usually many different versions of Save working in the field. Just in Uganda, there is Save (UK), Save (US), Save (Norway), Save (Denmark) and Save (Uganda). Sounds confusing? It is…


All operate under their own (but very similar) mandate. This has led to some internal disorder, as policies are not harmonized or money utilized as efficiently as it could be (each office has its own overhead). As of midnight yesterday, this changed in Uganda. In a world wide effort, Save is slowly beginning to unify its country offices.


From the sound of it, this was a long, difficult, frustrating and often laborious process. Merging five different programs could not have been easy… Responsibilities changed and not everyone was rehired. However, as tough as the last year has been on many of the staff, everyone seems to agree this is a necessary change that will strengthen the program as a whole.


Last night at midnight, Save Uganda was officially unified. The Naka office put together a spontaneous celebration. Along with much of the Naka staff, a few aid workers from Concern showed up. Music pumped from the sound system throughout the night. There was lots of dancing, a couple of speeches and a cake. Despite all the rave reviews of Kampala’s nightlife, I had more fun in Naka than all previous outings in the capital. Ange Noir has nothing on Naka.

Failed States Index Ranks Uganda 16th Most Unstable Country in the World

The annual Failed States Index ranks Uganda as a tie for the 16th most unstable country in the world in 2008, assessing its level of vulnerability to collapse or conflict as “critical.” The Index, compiled by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, determines the rankings based on 12 indicators. High levels of internal displacement, uneven development, demographic pressure and the “delegitimization of state” contributed to the Index’s ranking of Uganda.


Uganda's high rank gives me cause to question the arbitrary and subjective indicators the Failed States Index uses. Does Uganda deserve to be only one spot behind North Korea? Is Uganda more likely to turn into a failed stated than Yemen, Burundi, East Timor, Congo, Liberia or Sierra Leone (none of which are even in the top 20)? I have my doubts... How do you decide if Belarus is more likely than Georgia to 'fail'? And other than the obvious examples of states that are in the actual process of failing, what does a list like this really hope to accomplish?

Makerere University Takes the Field

Today we held our first joint field exploration with Makerere University, looking at potential agro-processing projects. It was very encouraging. Over the next couple of months, I will be overseeing the pilot project for Save, utilizing the technical skills (and enthusiasm) of students from one of East Africa’s top schools to promote value chain production. The primary goal is to add value to products such as maize and mangos through post harvest handling and preservation, while building stronger links with both local and national markets.

During my pre-project field visits, this was a primary concern for Save’s farmer groups. While they were able to increase their crop yields in the past few years through a number of initiatives, the farmers found it very difficult to get their raw materials to the market. Because of poor roads, long distances and a breakdown in organization, goods are not commonly bulked, sorted, graded or processed. Many of these basic commodities spoil quickly. Middlemen exploit this situation, offering very low prices for these commodities. Farmers have no other option and have to take the price that is given.

Yesterday I had my first meeting with the students from Makerere. There are six Food/Science and six Information Technology students participating, broken down into three teams of four. They will be working with Save’s Marketing and Livelihood Groups (which are essentially local farmer led organizations) to create a strategy and business plan to address many of these post harvest problems.

Before taking them to the field, I taught an hour and a half module to the students at the University, adapting elements of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) strategies to give them an introduction to conducting focus group and key informant interviews. I went over techniques such as community mapping, Venn diagramming commonalities, prioritizing interests by beneficiary subsets, and transect walks. We then spent the rest of the morning focusing on team building activities with Yousouf and Michael, their mentor-professors.

Today the students were bussed up to Nakasongola. They were given a brief introduction to the concept of Food Security and Save’s operations in the field by Paul, the Agriculture Coordinator. After lunch, we took them to a site in a sub-county called Kalongo, about 40 kms away, where Save has a very active Marketing Group. We first visited a model farm that was experimenting with improved varieties of cassava and coffee. The students seemed very excited to interact with a few of our best farmers one-on-one.

We concluded the day with a large focus group discussion. About 25 members of the local Marketing Group showed up. The majority were older women, dressed in their Sunday best. After letting the group members address recent constraints impeding their farming activities, the students began asking questions. Although much of it was in Luganda (and I had a bit of trouble following along as much went untranslated), the discussion was animated and lively. This is not generally the case in Uganda, as people here can be very reserved and quiet.

The students were very deferential and showed great respect for the knowledge and experience of the farmers, yet offered a host of potential local solutions to many of the problems plaguing the farmers. The farmers loved this, commenting on some, laughing at others, but in the end made a point to state that they really felt that the students were leaving them with a lot to think about.

In the coming week, the students will begin putting together proposals for inexpensive processing projects for a range of available raw materials and create business plans (which will even include their own transport!) At the same time, we will finalize the three Save groups they will work with. The students will then go back to the field in their smaller groups of four to meet with the farmers and begin putting together their projects.

Wrecked by Westerners

No time for detailed updates, no laptop for image uploads, and no clean clothes for maintaining desired hygienic standards...

What was supposed to be a two-day weekend in Kampala has turned into a full workweek. I came totally unprepared. Tomorrow, I lead a module on participatory development techniques for students at Makerere University, one of the premier colleges in East Africa. They will be providing technical, marketing and business support to the JOBS pilot I will be overseeing during the next two months. Among other things, today I raced to adapt a brief introduction to Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA).

I am completely wiped out. I had hoped my first weekend without work in months would be relaxing. I decided to stay at the recommended ‘Backpackers Hostel” last Friday. It was nothing short of torture. I was given a spot right next to the front door in an 18 bed dorm. The other 17 beds were made up of very young British University students. Between the banging of the front door every five minutes, the constant noisy drunken talk, phone calls, and the early morning construction outside, I got no sleep.

Early the next morning, I moved to a four person dorm. This wasn’t any better. It was open aired, but directly above an area that served as an outdoor patio and general meeting spot. A large group of people decided to hold a jam session, with guitars, drums and constant screeching, until a little after 4am. My dorm quickly became an ashtray with all the rising cigarette smoke. Someone went down to complain. He was beaten up.

When they finally went to bed, another large group of people began meeting for some adventure tourism trip. My dorm was so close that I had no problem following at least seven conversations simultaneously. I might have been able to deal with all this, but I was also attempting to use a mosquito net with holes so big that I could literally crawl through them. I eventually just gave up, covered my face, and let them bite me until the morning constuction started below.

At this point, I was so tired that I couldn’t hold any food down for two straight days. I was nauseous and running a fever… I immediately got out of “Backpackers Hostel”, found a new hotel and during a full work week am still trying to recover.

A Town Time Forgot: Nakasongola

I am just starting to settle into Nakasongola, my home for the next 10 weeks while I work for Save the Children’s (SC) Food Security sector. My arrival coincided with SC’s Final Evaluation of their five year project, the unification of four separate SC offices (SC UK, SC N, SC UG and SC US) and a visit by a Bangladeshi consulting group called JOBS. The office is hectic as everything is in flux, but by next week I hope to be comfortably integrated into my new internship.

It looks like initially I will be serving as SC’s focal point for JOBS's Agro-Processing Pilot that will be implemented during the next couple of months. With prices for basic food commodities rocketing worldwide, vulnerable populations are most impacted (as in rural communities, the vast majority of household expenditures is often for basic food items like maize and rice). JOBS (and Uganda in general) is trying to take advantage of rising prices and support rural agriculture in the form of increasing access to markets, assisting formation of producer organizations (taking advantage of economies of scale) and adding value to local products (through processing).

There is one expat staff who lives in the SC compound. Local staff stay at nearby guesthouses. Electricity is infrequent at best; during office hours (8 to 5 Monday through Friday) they run the generator but otherwise, it’s candles and flashlights. Internet is also very inconsistent, as the generators often don’t have enough juice to power the satellite uplink.

This is the main drag in Nakasongola. There is not much here. There is a store with warm beers. A man down the road sells roasted pork (or so I'm told). And there's a small market at the other end of town. I've also heard of a local 'movie house' (a TV in front of plastic chairs) that plays Nigerian movies and very bad action films (does anyone remember Delta Force 4?) As there is not much to do in sleepy Nakasongola (particularly without power), it sounds like on the weekends everybody from SC takes off for Kampala (which is about 2 hours away), turning the facilities into a virtual ghost compound.

The second to last door is my temporary home in the SC guest house. The room has a bed with a mosquito net. There is also a chair. At the end of the structure, there are shared latrines and bathing areas occasionally with cold running water.

This is the main outdoor meeting facilities. When I am not in the field, I will be working inside the main office area at the end of the tent.

Switching Gears in Kampala

I arrived in Kampala last night. UNICEF dropped me near their office… When traffic is bad, the last vehicle you want to navigate the daily snarl is a UN land cruiser. The fastest, and often most thrilling option, is the ubiquitous motor cycle taxis (boda bodas). Despite the fact that I had some serious baggage with me (two backpacks and a large piece of luggage), I knew this wouldn’t be a problem as boda boda’s are often as precariously overloaded as the largest truck, with up to four riders on a single bike. Placing my luggage between me and the driver, I grabbed onto the wobbly back as we sped through town.

I decided to check out the Lion Hotel on the outskirts of town in Mengo. It was recommended by my former overland partner Nate Calhoun, whose judgment I will forever call into question. He was once mad enough to agree to drive 20,000 kms across Africa in a beat two-wheel drive 1979 Datsun Skyline in the name of AIDS research. The basis for his recommendation was that it was next door to the best pork joint in Kampala.

After a night at the Lion Hotel, I am relieved to say Nate’s recommendation proved sound. The hotel is a great value (for $15 I have a private bathroom and a TV!), the roasted pork is outstanding, and despite being outside of the city center, Mengo is quite lively in the evening.


Tomorrow I will head about an hour west of Kampala to a small town called Nakasongola. This will be my base of operations for the next couple of months, as I work with Save the Children’s Food Security Program (LINK). One of their primary objectives is to support strategies to increase food production and access for vulnerable populations. Some techniques are promoting alternative livelihoods and improving the ability of beneficiaries to market their products.

I will be traveling up with a consulting group called JOBS, who are attempting to start small scale agricultural processing activities. Makerere’s University’s Dept. of Food Science and Dept. of Computing and Information Technology will also be involved developing technical and business models of the clusters. Save the Children will be providing logistical support, assimilating this project into current livelihoods programming. While my role in this is still to be determined, it sounds like I will likely be utilized as Save the Children’s focal point for the agricultural processing activities.


While I am no longer actively involved in the efforts to contain the Hepatitis E outbreak in the north, I will try to occasionally post updates on the situation. Best case scenario for containment assumes a 6-8 month period of massive mobilization (which there are currently no funds for). After assessing current sanitation facilities in Agoro, this is quite an optimistic scenario and fears that Hepatitis E might become endemic are well founded.

A Not So Hygienic Farewell to Kitgum

Today is my last official day working full time for UNICEF New York in Uganda. I will likely attend a meeting or two in Kampala sometime in the near future, and possibly present the results from my assessment of the Rapid SMS System, but for all intensive purposes my assignment has been completed. I am now switching gears, starting work early next week with Save the Children, one of the largest Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the world. Over the next couple of months, I will be helping the Food Security Team in a town called Nakasongola with their Final Evaluation.

While I wait for a vehicle back towards Kampala, I remain stuck in Kitgum. I have shifted from the home of the UNICEF Kitgum Head of Office to a local hotel while I remain in town. Bomah, the local ‘aid worker’ lodging, is priced beyond my reach. With limited options that won’t leave me bankrupt, I chose a place called Acholli Pride. During past stints in Africa, I am slightly embarrassed to say that when traveling I would sometimes choose the less expensive ‘room with shared public facilities’ at local hotels in order to save a few dollars. This can mean dealing with rank bathrooms and bathing facilities. This time around, I was prepared to spend a couple of extra bucks for a bit of proper sanitation. Unfortunately, this was not an option.

Last night, I walked into the bathroom facilities only to be confronted by a young Ugandan male, to all practical extents stark naked, practicing some sort of bush martial arts in the smelly narrow hallway. He seemed to be mimicking Martin Sheen’s whiskey driven war-like dance in Apocalypse Now. I gave him a “Good Evening Saabu”, causing him considerable embarrassment, and proceeded to the shared faucet to shave. In a place like this, it is essential to make every possible effort to avoid any contact with everything in the area. This often means precariously stacking your bathing items on something, such as a water bottle, that will be discarded upon completion of using the facilities.

I peered into the room designated as the ‘toilet’. Consisting of no more than a hole in the ground, the whole room was absolutely filthy. When I tried to turn on the light, I understood why. There was no light bulb, and residents had to do their business in complete darkness, for better or for worse. Outside the communal shower, there was a sign asking guests to avoid urinating inside. As evinced by the overwhelming stench, this was clearly only a suggestion. I quickly bathed, and returned to my room, which in comparison seemed like a miracle of modern sanitation. However, I really have nothing to complain about. Acholli Pride is much nicer than many other places I have had the pleasure to lodge at. And tomorrow, I leave Kitgum for Kampala.

Fear and Loathing on the Sudanese Border

There has been a noticeable increase in tension across this entire region since last weeks Lords Resistance Army (LRA) attack in Southern Sudan and movement towards the Ugandan border. The restaurants and shops are full of rumors of ‘sleeper cells’ and potential rebel incursions. Worries of fears of attacks inside Uganda are already impacting activities aimed to contain the growing Hepatitis E (HEV) outbreak. Village Health Teams are starting to become reluctant to travel to the areas where they are needed the most. New cases continue to rapidly climb, and we’ve now passed 50 confirmed deaths in this district alone (although the true number is much higher).


Thursday afternoon, I went back to the Agoro IDP camp with a small team from UNICEF Kitgum to run a host of tests using the Rapid SMS System being developed by NY Headquarters. With the security situation in limbo, my boss here first checked if we needed an armed escort. We were told that this was not yet necessary, but we needed to be careful and keep our eyes open. The hills around Agoro were one of the primary staging points for LRA attacks in the past; this is one of the more likely areas for any new outbreak of hostilities. It is a significant distance past the Ugandan border post in Madi Opei. Parts of the Agoro camps sprawls into the mountains of Southern Sudan, which is historically LRA country.


On the way, nearly everybody we passed were military heading toward the border. Many were on foot, carrying heavy rifles and machine guns. Others were on bikes (some two at a time), with guns slung over their shoulders. It felt like the entire Ugandan Army was being mobilized. In operations near the border, the military doesn’t often travel in vehicles, as they are too easy to ambush. Instead, they have adopted guerilla tactics and fan out on foot, covering wide swatches of the country side while limiting risk of a direct attack.

We arrived at Agoro around lunchtime without incident and headed straight to the Health Clinic. There was a long line of very sick people silently waiting to be seen by the resident nurse. With limited staff, many would have to come back tomorrow and try again. We sent a young man to fetch Patrick, the Health Assistant who, despite his unimpressive title, is responsible for a quite substantial sub-district that includes tens of thousands of people.


Under a tree a short distance from the clinic, we discussed the challenges Patrick is facing. Much of the monitoring is done by himself and the Village Health Teams. He said that it was difficult to travel to some resettled villages, a few of which were nestled high into the hills in very inaccessible areas. He described constraints such the NGO community’s inability to harmonize messages, gaps in monitoring, and inexcusable technical blunders (ie latrine construction) that were putting the lives of the IDPs at risk. Patrick even noted that the borehole in the clinic was contaminated with fecal matter and could no longer be used.


In the past week, 11 stances (the equivalent of 22 latrines) in Agoro have collapsed. One occurred with an old man inside. Patrick explained that due to high quantities of alluvial deposits, soil erosion is a major problem in the area. The latrines holes are being dug too wide and not reinforced with cement or limestone. When heavy rains fall, the base around the slaps tumbles into the hold and the entire structure plummets into the hole. There are currently over a 100 of these stances in the village. Many more will collapse in the months to come.


What was most frustrating is that the NGO (name redacted) continues to build stances with the same, or very similar, technical specs right next to the collapsed latrines wasting literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. Patrick complained that locals were not only never consulted, but actively ignored when they raised objections to the types of latrines being dug. Later in the day, an old man nearly in tears asked me why nobody asked the community what they wanted, while continuing to build these ticking time bombs.


The primary areas Patrick felt the Rapid SMS System might prove useful were conducting quick surveys (as we were about to do with the latrines), qualitative or open ended queries that would allow them to expand on the surveys, urgent messages (such as the collapsing latrines), notifying authorities about depleted supplies at the clinic, and recording audio messages for expressing frustration with problems that they felt were being ignored.


Patrick affirmed that recorded audio should be used on the radio, which he said even women in the camps listened to during the evenings, to promote frank discussion and create accountability within the community. Patrick also felt that there should be better utilization of the schools, using pupils as an entry point into the community (“Normally when a child tells parents something, they tend to listen more”.) During the next couple of hours, we attempted to mimic all these possible scenarios using the Rapid SMS System.


Because Agoro is so densely populated, there is no room within the camp to put latrines. Instead, the camp is completely encircled by these festering, disease ridden death traps. As they collapse, they are forming a revolting moat of human waste, besieging the IDPs. Many camp inhabitants, duly worried about their safety, are now defecating around the latrines, exasperating the situation. The children, never sold on the latrines to begin with, continue to use the entire camp as a toilet.


There was no mobile reception at the clinic, so we drove to the primary school where we could get a signal. As I started to show Patrick how a mobile phone might fill many of the gaps in monitoring and communication that he previously highlighted, a middle aged man staggered up to us. Blasted out of his mind on local sorghum booze, he incoherently shouted something about Europeans. As I was showing Patrick how to conduct a simple SMS survey, he tottered up, put his face next to mine and started repeating everything I said. His breath reeked of alcohol and sickness.

I couldn’t concentrate, so I suggested to Patrick that we move and attempt to record audio messages instead. The blasted man started yelling “United Nations… United Nations is the Children’s Emergency Fund”. He must have shouted this line verbatim at least a hundred times, laughing to himself after each time. A small crowd started to gather. Curious children nearby pointed at him and giggled under their breaths. We gave them some distance and a recorded couple of audio messages, before deciding to head towards the camp latrines to mimic the scenarios that Patrick felt the Rapid SMS System would be useful.


We were at the latrines for a long time. The camp started to become suffocating. Irene, my UNICEF counterpart, joked about navigating a fecal minefield while pointing to all the fresh logs on the ground. I tried not to laugh, primarily because I didn’t want the swarming disease carrying flies in my mouth. The whole area stunk of human waste, mingled with the noxious odor of fermenting sorghum. Malnourished kids were playing everywhere. I peered into a collapsed latrine and nearly vomited. The midday heat, amplifying the stench, started to take its toll. We had lingered too long in this area of the camp and I was becoming thoroughly disgusted. We jumped into the land cruiser, dropped Patrick off at the clinic, and headed back to Kitgum.

Hours later, as I finish typing, I am still unable to completely rid myself of the stench.

Pre-Uganda UNICEF Photoshoot

On a sunny day in New York, a few days before I left for Uganda, I was hustled into what I thought was a dusty closet at UNICEF Headquarters. Inside, I was shocked to hear Barry White crooning while Erica, a senior communications officer, gave her best "James Bond's Second Mistress" look. Daniel, one of the resident tech experts, shot away in what looked like a fully loaded, professional studio...


Very strange... Little did I know, I was next in line. I ran through my repertoire of stock poses, from 'thinking man' to 'angry Nigerian official looking for a bribe'... The results? Well, you can judge for your self...

Drunken Teachers

In lighter news, Oyam District in Uganda Forbids Drunken Teachers... For too long, teachers have been passing out mid lesson, negligently breaking the only piece of chalk in the school, and locking themselves in the latrines. "Drunkenness among teachers had become rampant, leading to poor performance," Okello Engola, the district LC5 chairman states... It's about time the Ugandan Government got serious and said no more drunk teachers!

Escape to Fugley's

After beginning the weekend with more UN drama than I had thought possible, I escaped Sunday to Fugley’s, a weird and strange place that seemingly defies both location and time. It is run by a South African veteran named Patrick and Lynne, his Rhodesian wife. During the last LRA offensive a few years back, Patrick was the only non humanitarian expat allowed to stay in the Kitgum region. While unspeakable atrocities engulfed the north, he dug in and waited it out.

Fugley’s is a special meeting place of sorts, a liminal space into which aid workers can escape and converse freely. It is also a bar, a restaurant, and a lodge. If none of this is your thing, you can also pay them to sink you a bore hole or a latrine. Duikers chase small dogs across the lawn, US soldiers play chess in the corner, and owls guard the pool. This is a place where regular patrons will drive many hours on horrendous roads just to get a good bite to eat.

However, you can not come here without an invite. It is in no guide books. Nor does it have any desire to be. But then again, neither is Kitgum.

LRA Moving Towards Ugandan Border

With the peace deal in tatters and a recent attack on Southern Sudanese soldiers killing 23, the Ugandan rebel group the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) seems poised to resume its campaign of terror. After 20 years of conflict, in 2006 the LRA were pushed out of northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, and retreated west into uncontrolled areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With ties to Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir and Khartoum in the north, there are worries that the LRA is establishing a new base in the lawless Central African Republic, with plans to meddle in the deeply intertwined conflicts in eastern Chad and Darfur, as well as undermine the new government in Southern Sudan. This would be disastrous for the region.

However, this morning there were reports that the LRA might be moving back into Uganda. LRA Moving Towards Uganda Border (Click here for story) This is a very worrisome development, as the situation in the IDP camps here is very tenuous and resettling the population has proved to be a very difficult task. An outbreak in hostilities could completely destroy any progress that has been made in the past two years since the last major round of fighting.

Abyssinian Chronicles

A few nights back, I finished reading a captivating novel called "The Abyssinian Chronicles". Highly ambitious, the story follows the tribulations of a Ugandan family from the end of colonial times through the current Museveni regime. Mingled with heavy doses of humor, this novel quickly transitions to crude and chilling scenes, reflecting the harsh realities of recent Ugandan history. Occasionally mired in ornate and lofty language, none-the-less "The Abyssinian Chronicles" makes for a powerful read.

"In his hugely impressive Abyssinian Chronicles Moses Isegawa renders the chaotic swirl of life in Uganda, from a lazy, remote village to the urban rush of Kampala. Containing within its 460 pages weddings, funerals, infidelities, public struggles with corrupt dictatorships (a section called "Amin, the Godfather"), and private struggles with God ("Seminary Years"), this is a first novel of epic ambitions." (Amazon.com)

I decided to pass this book along to Okello, an old callused soldier who guards the UNICEF compound. Early last week, I noticed he was reading a trashy spy novel. I asked him about it, and Okello said books were very hard to come by in Kitgum. There were a number of other people I knew who would really appreciate reading the novel; however, I felt that this novel would be valued much more by somebody who over many years had lived key moments of this story but had probably never read anything about it.

LRA Rebel Attack in South Sudan

Ugandan rebels, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), responsible for 20 years of atrocities in the north of the country, pulled out of peace talks this past week and launched an attack in Southern Sudan, killing 23 people... "The LRA have started War" (click here for story)

Hepatitis E Primer

Relief Web story (click here) about the growing Hepatitis E epidemic in northern Uganda... However, this is old news... There are now reports of infection in Gulu, the largest town in the north. In addition, the reported cases and deaths are generally assumed to be 2 to 3 X higher than these official totals...

There seems to still be a lot of mystery about Hepatitis E. Since its first documentation in India in 1955, there have been a handful of outbreaks, the last being in Darfur a few years back. All of these were in contained areas, and other modes of transmission beyond contaminated water points are unknown. A team from the Center for Disease Control, Atlanta arrived a couple of days back to do tests.

One of the most worrying things about this crisis is the long incubation period (6-8 weeks). By the time health facilities get their first reports, the disease might already have spread and infected large numbers of the population. While it had been confined to Kitgum, it the past week it has spread to two other districts.

Our Stories

On Friday, with the hepatitis outbreak in northern Uganda spreading into new districts, I began looking at how a UNICEF initiative called Our Stories could be used as a tool for behavior change in an emergency setting. I conducted an informal discussion group meeting about using Our Stories as a tool for sensitization and social mobilization with members of a Primary School in Padibe camp. The Australian woman who coordinates the project has lived in Kitgum for over 15 years, running schools for 8,000 children during the worst phases of the civil war. As recent as two years ago, Kitgum was brutally attacked by LRA rebels, who are notorious for using mutilation as a tool for terror while kidnapping children to be employed as child soldiers and sex slaves.

The Our Stories project was originally conceived as a way to collect, preserve, and share online the stories of the world's people and their cultures and communities. Because current functionality requires an internet connection, I decided to utilize another UNICEF communications tool under development, Rapid SMS, for collecting audio over mobile phones. Surprisingly, national mobile companies have managed to blanket much of the country with coverage, giving you a signal in even the remotest of camps. This audio would then be saved on a central server where I could access at a later date.

I tested the program using a cheap mobile phone with four students from Childcare Padibe. With very little prompting, they recorded very informative stories about health and hygiene in their community, and how it related to the hepatitis outbreak. I had hoped to get stories that would make excellent components for health related radio broadcasts, likely increasing accountability and ownership of both the message and the crisis. After many years of dependency on foreign aid, some IDP communities are unwilling to lift a finger without payment, waiting for outside ‘assistance’ for simple things they should be doing themselves. The children did not let me down.

(In addition to recording the stories, I gave the children my camera to document the process themselves. All photos below are taken by the children I was working with.)

Empowering potential beneficiaries with a voice in both emergency settings and development is essential if the goal is any measure of sustainability. Too often, organizations come and try to dictate to communities what is in their best interest. They ignore local capacities and often rely on completely inappropriate technologies. I have been pushing for a more participatory role in social mobilization and now believe that the Our Stories project can play a role in this.

I spoke with Ugandan teachers about the project. They felt that it could be a very simple, yet effective tool to empower and build confidence in students, give a voice to the community, reinforce important messages, and create accountability ("it is OUR students who are saying this!").

This could easily be replicated at a larger scale with minimal inputs. It seems like at every school somebody has access to a mobile phone. All that would need to be provided was minimal credit. (With 1,500 shillings, or a $1, we recorded 5 minutes worth of stories').

At the moment, I am focusing most of my attention in a slightly different direction, looking at how best to strengthen general monitoring activities. However, I firmly believe that monitoring should have a strong participatory component, and that these two projects are mutually beneficial.

Tomorrow, if I get my security clearance, I plan to travel to the camps in the evening with a ‘social mobilization van’ that plays health related film shows. I want to record impressions, thoughts and reactions to the film, and see about broadcasting them on upcoming radio shows. I hope to convince those in high places that this is a simple but effective method to effect behavioral change.

Distribution Lines and Being Lost in an IDP Camp

The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) team from UNICEF has been racing around all week to meet with all the major organizations working in the area to coordinate a joint proposal for emergency cluster funding for the hepatitis epidemic. I have joined them on most of their visits with Irene, UNICEFs Monitoring and Evaluation manager in Kitgum. Monitoring and data collection varies dramatically from agency to agency. We felt it would be a good idea to learn more about other agency methods to see how best we can improve our own system, while trying to get the key indicators and monitoring components for the emergency proposal as harmonized as possible. This is an incredibly difficult task, as organizations have vastly different mandates and objectives (MSF, for example, only works in emergency settings while IRC integrates development focused components into their work).

On Thursday, I joined the WASH team from UNICEF for a field visit to a Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) distribution line in Potika B, an IDP camp an hour and a half from Kitgum. Hepatitis is viral disease transmitted through fecal-oral route. In the IDP camps, some with tens of thousands of people crammed into an area the size of a couple of football fields, hepatitis is starting to spread like wild fire. Proper sanitation and access to clean water is the primary problem, as traditional clay pots can not be effectively cleaned, water points are contaminated, waste disposal (ie latrines) are either inadequate or not being used, soap is unavailable or too expensive and hand washing is not consistent.

When we arrived, MSF was midway through a jerry can distribution. These are meant to replace the clay pots, while chlorination stations are being set up around the water points to ensure that the water is uncontaminated and that the jerry cans are regularly cleaned… It sounds easy in practice, but in the field it rarely goes according to plan. Aid distributions are notoriously unpredictable, as riots can break out over something as small as a bar of soap. This was not a problem here. The MSF coordinator had put together a very orderly and organized operation. There were hundreds of people massed around the gates of the MSF camp, while guards were letting in a few people at a time to pick up their jerry cans, given one to each household. Once the jerry can was collected, MSF workers checked off previously issued household distribution cards to ensure nobody was double dipping.

After a surprisingly congeal and productive meeting with MSF, who are renowned as being very wary with having anything to do with the UN system, we headed to the Agoro IDP camp. The MSF field coordinator indicated that the conditions there were abysmal and would be worth assessing. Agoro is past the last checkpoint into Sudan, only accessible on a military access road. Nestled in an impressive mountain range where former Sudanese SPLA leader John Garang’s plane crashed a few years back, the IDP camp is located in a stunning area. It is estimated that about 12,000 people live in here.

After meeting with the village chief, we toured the area. The huts in the IDP camps are packed incredibly close together, and it can be very disorientating to navigate. As we made our way to the outskirts of the camp to assess the latrines which were currently being constructed by the Ugandan Red Cross, we somehow managed to lose Brett, our Water and Sanitation expert from Britain. Brett called my mobile, and pleaded “Help, I am lost in the camp!”

I tried to keep myself from laughing at the situation. I looked around, looking for any sort of landmark that I could direct him towards. He indicated that he was surrounded by hundreds of kids, pointing in all directions! The only thing I could think of using was the sun. I told him to keep the sun at 10 o’clock and walk straight, until he popped out of the camp. A few minutes later, he found us. After completing our assessment, we headed back to Kitgum.

Hepatitis E Outbreak in Kitgum

I arrived in Kitgum yesterday to find UNICEF (as well as every other major NGO in the area), on emergency footing…

A Hepatitis E outbreak is sweeping the region. This dramatically altered my previous plans to work with a local school testing a new UNICEF communications strategy. Instead, I was quickly given a prominent role assessing the monitoring of the epidemic in a quickly constructed UNICEF rapid reaction team. We are rushing to put together a plan for social mobilization and preparing a proposal for emergency funding…

During twenty years of civil war in Northern Uganda, over two million people were displaced. The majority of these people live in camps spread throughout the region, consisting of hundreds of tiny huts packed tightly together in appalling conditions with limited access to water and, if they are lucky, a few rancid latrines.

Many livelihoods such as farming are an impossibility, as these internally displaced people (IDPs) have no legal access to land. Additionally, as they are not officially refugees (in that they have fled to a neighboring country), international organizations such as UNHCR have no mandate to provide basic services. A much anticipated peace deal with Joseph Kony, leader of the notoriously sadistic Lords Resistance Army responsible for the violent displacement and recently indicted war criminal, has fallen apart. As of yesterday, the government truce expired and Koney has pulled out of peace talks.

Kitgum, a large frontier town near the border of Sudan, was at the epicenter of the civil war. Surrounded by IDP camps, with serious water and sanitation concerns, the Hepatitis outbreak was a disaster waiting to happen. There have already been thousands of reported cases and rough estimates show around 100 deaths so far. However, because of disinformation, many IDPs are not forthcoming and deaths are being concealed. International NGOs are struggling to mobilize resources to address the problem, as cases are now appearing in nearby districts. Making matters worse, Kitgum itself has been without water or electricity for weeks.

This afternoon, after hastily receiving a security travel clearance, I was surprised to find myself representing UNICEF at an Emergency Task Force Assessment and Coordination Meeting in Paloga, one of the worst hit IDP camps in the region. I was joined by representatives from the other major organizations working in the sub-district, including the World Health Organization, Medecins Sans Frontiers, the International Refugee Committee, and Oxfam. We spent a couple of hours touring the IDP camp and assessing the impact of recent (and critically inadequate) interventions meant to improve hygienic conditions. In Paloga, these have not been effective in halting the spread of the outbreak.

One of the most serious problems at the camps was the latrine systems. Locally built latrines had collapsed earlier in the year due to floods and NGO donated latrines (similar to western versions) were not appropriate for local conditions. They are very cramped and closed, trapping heat, flies and the smell of festering feces inside. Additionally, there is no local ownership of the latrines, effectively ensuring they will never be cleaned without payment by outside organizations.

Additionally, because of poor harmonization of messages (primarily that Hepatitis has no cure), people are staying away from health clinics, and prices for chickens are skyrocketing as people seek help from local witchdoctors.

It will be a difficult couple of weeks as we fight to contain the spread of the epidemic. I don’t expect there will be much time to rest in the foreseeable future. After devising a work plan with my team this morning, we plan to be back in the IDP camps by midday.

Week One: Arrival in Kampala, Uganda

I arrived in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, this past Monday. Without much of a clue where to stay, I chose a cheap hotel by random from an outdated guidebook, and with the airport being about 30 kilometers from the capital, I hitched a ride to the outskirts of town with an American teacher working in the area. Taking a taxi into the city center, I was impressed with the utter chaos and incomprehensible madness around the main car park very near where I would be staying.

I have never seen traffic jams so tight where there isn’t even enough space for pedestrians to cross the road between stopped vehicles. A couple motorcycles, the preferred method of taxi transport when in a rush, that weren’t stuck in the traffic were driving on the shambles of what once might have been a sidewalk, dodging vendors, beggars, hawkers and a teeming mob of shoppers. In this bedlam, it took me nearly an hour to travel less than a kilometer.

Despite my initial encounter with this madness, I have a very positive impression of Kampala. The people are friendly, politically engaged, and more aware of world events and American politics than even most US citizens. Obama’s campaign has already done wonders in what will be a long process of repairing the US’s tarnished image abroad. The city center is surprisingly clean, there is an incredible array of food and entertainment options, and in general Kampala is one of the safest capital cities in Africa. The city feels vibrant and optimistic about its future.

After settling in, I spent this past week in the greater Kampala area monitoring and evaluating five schools which are participating in a pilot project funded by UNICEF and implemented through an American Non Government Organization (NGO) called I.Could.Be. I traveled to the sites with their man in the field, a dedicated Ugandan by the name of Christopher Damulira. The project involves linking schools in Uganda, Ethiopia, Germany and the US through class wiki’s. (A Wiki is a series of user generated pages on the internet that can easily be edited, changed and adapted by everyone). Because reliable internet access and high costs are a huge problem throughout much of Africa, UNICEF was limited in which schools could work on this project.

These wiki’s are being created by the students and, among other things, already have profiles of the schools, individual students, responses to questions posed by other participating schools, in addition to showcasing stories students have created using curriculum created by I.Could.Be. Employing this curriculum, the students are going out into their communities, interviewing people, taking pictures and writing stories on topics including health and poverty. (Click here for the link to the website http://connectingclassrooms.net/)

I was tasked with troubleshooting a number of technical issues that were impeding full implementation of the project. Over the course of a couple days, we were able to resolve all the major technical issues. During the site visits, I was very impressed with the high levels of motivation from both teachers and students. The students at some of the schools had put tremendous efforts into creating great pages. Producing a wiki is not always an easy or intuitive process. I was surprised at how quickly the students caught on.

I quizzed the students on what makes a good wiki page, encouraging repeat visits by users. I was looking for answers that included proper placing of newer content, page spacing, where and when to link, how much text is appropriate, how best to employ pictures, and avoiding excessive usage of different fonts sizes and styles. The students nailed all these techniques straight away with little or no prompting. I was suitably impressed with the project from the Ugandan side and feel it has a lot of potential (and I am a heavy skeptic about the overall effectiveness of most aid and development projects which, if poorly conceived or executed, can make existing situations much worse!)

With the field work portion of this phase of the project completed, yesterday Christopher took me to the sprawling market slums in Ndeeba Parish on the outskirts of Kampala. Christopher is working with a community NGO there, focusing on a variety of health related issues. There was to be a community meeting in the heart of the slum to address concerns of serious sanitation problems. Before the meeting started, Christopher wanted to show me the squalid conditions many people there lived in.

Navigating through a maze of narrow alleys lined with open sewage cannels and all manners of rotting trash, small tin roofed brick houses intermingled with local eateries, bakeries, hair salons and butcher shops displaying huge slabs of meat masked by flies. The area is much to heavilypopulated, most houses do not have bathrooms, there is little way to dispose of the rotting trash, and everything sprawls to within a few feet of the railway tracks. When the rains come, flooding in the town is considerable, inundating many houses with up to three feet of raw sewage and driving people from their homes.

AIDS is also a tremendous problem that Christopher’s NGO is dealing with in Ndeeba Parish. While talking with people in the slums, I was confronted with one of the most uncomfortable situations I have found myself in a long time. As I was speaking with a group of youths who were upset about the lack of opportunities in the area, a young man approached, and grabbing my hand he got right up in my face. As I tried to greet him, he brusquely declared “Me, I have the AIDS… What do you think of that?”

I was completely unprepared for such a question phrased in this manner. As he stared at me with considerable intensity, I could not come up with anything even remotely resembling a suitable response. As I started to speak, he said “Why are you smiling? Do you think this is funny?” I quickly mumbled something slightly incoherent and managed to switch the focus of the discussion to other issues. After much reflection, I still do not know how I should have answered his initial question.

The health and sanitation community meeting was held on the railroad tracks in the heart of the market. A few hundred men, women and children turned up. As customary, the meeting consisted of hours of speeches by health workers, religious dignitaries, local government leaders and community members. I could not understand anything as it was all in Luganda, the most widely spoken language in the area.

However, there was one disturbingly poignant moment that stuck out. As a representative from the local council was talking about the detrimental effects the unhygienic conditions were having on children, a young girl of maybe five sauntered by a few feet in front of him as he spoke. In her hands was a used, dirty condom that she had picked up off the ground which she was playing with. There was an awkward chuckle from the crowd as a man ran up and grabbed the filthy condom out of her hands. It did not seem to me that this was that out of the ordinary. I hope that I am wrong. Thankfully, in the vast majority of Kampala, this would not have occurred.

On Monday, I leave for Kitgum in the north of Uganda.