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 Without much of a clue where to stay, I chose a cheap hotel by random from an outdated guidebook, and with the airport being about 30 kilometers from the capital, I hitched a ride to the outskirts of town with an American teacher working in the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.