November...it's my birthday!

First off, I finally updated my pictures online. Look to the right for the link to webshots. It took forever to upload them. I’m not looking forward to having to do it all again when I come back from the safari/my sister’s trip here. And there are pictures posted of my house (including my new bathroom, which is finally completed…and working!). It was a long process and in the end my landlord didn’t come through with the money as he said he would to finish installing the water into the bathroom. Not a big surprise here in Uganda, but I had hope. He says he will refund all the money by the time I leave here…we’ll see about that. At least now my sister and dad will have a working toilet and shower, as they wanted, when they come to visit.

This past month has been quite busy. In short, I helped Red Cross with food distribution in one of the villages in Kumi (quite an experience!), attended a week of life skills workshop with Peace Corps, worked on launching our VSLA project, did strategic plan-writing with my organization and celebrated my birthday! I will highlight on just a couple of those activities:

At our life skills workshop (each PC groups has this workshop after 4-5 months at site). I’ve talked in my previous blog entry about life skills and how I have been teaching them at a girls’ primary school this past school term. Well, this workshop brought my PC group together along with our Ugandan counterparts at our jobs. Basically, we played games all week – the same games/activities that we play with the children (or adults) in order to teach them about developing good life skills. Some of the topics include HIV/AIDS, health, sex, gender vs. sex roles, among several others. This made for quite an interesting week, to say the least. Few examples: the Ugandans admitted that being faithful with your partner is not currently a reliable method in teaching how to prevent HIV/AIDS. This is because Ugandans cheat on their significant other. Almost all people do, they said. Maybe one day in the future, “being faithful” will be common, but not today. (Sad). Next, we had conversations on masturbation as a possible method to teach students how to abstain from sex. A few of the Ugandan men asked for a detailed discussion on what masturbation is. They claimed they didn’t know what it was…(it is somewhat of a “new” concept here that isn’t widely taught). But yes, that was an interesting conversation. Lastly, we had a session where the women and men were divided, and each group could ask the opposite sex any five questions. The 5 questions the females asked the men were: why do men neglect their kids, why do men think they’re superior to women, why do men treat their sons better than their daughters, what do men think of women who say ‘no’ to sex and why do men cheat (or have several girlfriends/wives) when they claim to be so religious and the Bible says ‘do not cheat’? That last question is one I wonder about ALL the time. Their response (which I can sort of understand) is that Christianity and the “western” religions came after their culture and customs were established a long time ago, and their culture includes polygamy.

Still, Uganda needs to move away from this and their practice of having kids at such a young age, and having too many children. Currently, over 50% of the population in Uganda is under the age of 18 (I think it may even be under 16). And I was just talking with my friend, Emma, the other day about this, and he told me that (I think I remember it correctly) in the next 10 years, that percentage is expected to rise to 80%! If I can do anything in teaching life skills, I want it to be to convince these young kids to wait to have children. Having sex is one thing – I don’t believe in teaching abstinence, but please do it safely and use protection…not only for HIV/AIDS purposes, but also to prevent pregnancy. I sware almost every Ugandan girl I know who went to university has a baby within 2 years of graduation (and is not married yet). And not only that, but the boyfriend is always out of the picture. It’s just the girl raising the baby, which I have no problem with. Because as my colleague pointed out to me the other week (she has a 7-month old baby and is not married but is engaged to the father), maybe she doesn’t want to get married to the father because she sees her sister, who has two kids and isn’t married, happy and successful in her career…and if she were to get married, she would just have to wait on the man, cook for him, clean for him, etc., and why does she want that extra stress? I totally agree with that. But what is the rush to have kids at such a young age before you even get a job…why do these girls want so much responsibility (not to mention, an enormous limitation on their freedom)?? My friend, Amanda, and I were discussing this the other day, and we both agree that women here want someone to look up to them, to love them, to need them…and that is achieved through having a baby. Ok that’s my rant on how many darn kids there are in this country! I can’t wait to see my sister’s reaction when she sees it…especially if I take her to the village where there are a million kids running around (seriously!).

Onto the next activity…VSLA implementation. My NGO finally got the money it had been waiting for in its account about two weeks ago so we are now putting two million shillings (roughly about 1,000 USD) towards the project. My two colleagues, Harriet and Clare, and I have bought all the materials for the kits (metal “safe” box, notebooks, pens, rulers, stamps, calculators). We are just left with buying the bicycles now for our CBTs (community-based trainers). Unfortunately, the arrival of this money has been at an inconvenient time as I was away for a week for life skills training, and then I’m leaving this week for 2 weeks of vacation with my sister, and then it will already be December when I get back, and Decembers here are basically an entire month of holiday. Schools are all out; people are in their villages for the holidays with their family (for most of the month). Seldom work gets done. So we’ve been using these last couple weeks to do planning amongst ourselves. When I get back in December, we will have a 2 or 3-day training for our CBTs (they are the people who actually go out to the villages to oversee the savings and loan groups). It’s been a bit stressful lately. Basically, I am entirely in charge of this project. My supervisor (the director of the NGO) handed over the 2 million shillings to me to budget for the project, and I am leading my two colleagues, who are the VSLA project coordinators, and essentially the ones who will be in charge of the project after I leave. I don’t really have anyone overseeing me. It’s a lot of responsibility. Yes, I know VSLAs – the concept, but I have never actually done one before, in practice. I have a great manual, which I’m reading over and over, but I feel if this project fails, it’s entirely my fault. I want so much for it to succeed. Hopefully, we’ll have the groups up and running in January…that’s my goal, but I’m thinking it may be more like February.

Finally, this past Friday (Friday, the 13^th!) was my birthday. I was in Kampala for a PC grants committee meeting that Wednesday and Thursday. I went out to lunch there with a few of my friends for my birthday, and then my friend, Amanda, came back to Kumi with me for the weekend. It was a good time! I had the chance to show her around Kumi, and we also finally visited these “famous” rock paintings that is halfway between Amy and I. The rocks and the scenery are beautiful, but the paintings…ehh, barely able to see them anymore. But still cool. Then at night, Amanda, Amy, my Dutch friend and I went to dinner at the main restaurant in my town. My counterpart, Rosset, also came with us to dinner, and she gave me a birthday gift from her and the rest of my colleagues at Transform. It was so sweet of her. The gift was some fabric to make an African dress, which I have yet to do since I've been here so it should be interesting. Good birthday! And thank you for all the texts, calls, facebook messages and packages! Love them!

Currently, this week is a bit crazy. Lots of meetings (my organization is also in the process of revising our draft strategic plan for the next 5 years), packing, cleaning my house (in preparation for my sister’s visit), wash, etc…it does take a lot more time to do things (like wash) here. Friday morning I will leave for Entebbe, spend the day with my friend, Celeste, and then leave at 5 am on Saturday for Tanzania to go on a week-long safari in the Serengeti with my sister. She will then come back here to Uganda to see Kampala and Kumi. She’s only here for two weeks, and we have a lot of people to see so it’s going to be quite busy, but I am sooo excited to see her! And I really do need a vacation right about now. Most of my friends in my group are going home for Christmas (yes, home as in the U.S.). So a safari sounds equally as good! I can’t wait!

Have a great Thanksgiving and Christmas if I don’t write before then. I’ll be sure to post pictures from the safari as soon as I can.