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.