the outsiders

Since moving to Kampala, I've been exposed to a lot of really great organizations and companies doing some pretty amazing things development-wise..... But many of these sources of development are headed up by Americans or Europeans.... outsiders.


Because of this, I've been led to consider a rather uncomfortable question.... If most of these organizations are initiated by outsiders, do Ugandans care about the restoration of their own country?


And the truth is they do. During my time here, I've had some pretty sweet examples of this. It definitely isn't the most prominent thing I see, and I think its natural that I'm exposed to more efforts made by outsiders since I am one myself. But I wanted to share a couple examples I've seen recently.


A few weeks ago in church, a Ugandan family got up on stage for a baby dedication. This was a special case apparently because they were asked to share their story with the whole church, which ended up being incredible. The new mother shared, and one of the first things she said was that her new son was adopted from one of the local babies' homes. They already had a couple children of their own, but they had felt that God was laying on their hearts to adopt, and this little baby boy came into their lives soon after that. He was only a couple weeks old, but he already had some health problems... These medical issues worsened after he came home with them, and they were in and out of the hospital for about a month. Then they ended up needing to go to South Africa for treatment and surgery, because it got so serious and life-threatening. But now their son is just fine, and recovering really well.


Hearing this family speak touched my heart because I know of quite a few families from my home church who have adopted and passed their heart for adoption on to me. I just think it is such a beautiful image of what God has done for us... this family adopted a little boy that they new had some pretty serious issues. He was broken, but that didn't stop them from loving him. And they went through great lengths to care for him... Trips to South Africa and medical bills are not cheap, but when this woman was up on stage sharing her story, I could tell that cost was the last thing on her mind- she was tearing up just at the memory of how hard it had been to have to face the possibility of losing this little boy. And I think one of the best things about all this is that its not some American family that has swooped in and "rescued" this child... Its a Ugandan family, caring deeply for a Ugandan orphan.


And just this week, I had the opportunity to witness another example of Ugandans promoting the restoration of their country. I went to a benefit concert for the international hospital here, and the crowd was made of maybe 30% ex-pats, but was mostly attended by Ugandans. I went with my roommates, and it was so cool to be doing something so typical of our lives in America, but in Uganda. In the states, I've been to numerous benefit concerts, special events, and African Children's choir performances to raise money for some cause in Africa. But this event was held in Uganda for the local hospital. It was just so much more meaningful to see Ugandans responding to needs in their own country than Americans reaching into their pockets to support a cause across the ocean.

There can be a tendency for people here to get into mindset that the white-man will just come in and fix everything for us... the whites will build us hospitals, and care for our orphans, and construct clean wells, and they will take care of us. I love seeing that mindset combated. It is my prayer that more and more Ugandans will drop that old mindset and pick up this new one that takes ownership of the issues in their country... and that more and more people would strive to rebuild and restore this place in any way they can.

seasons change

.... but sometimes they don't.

I never thought I would struggle to adjust to the lack of seasons here. Coming from Texas, we joke about not having seasons. We just have hot, hotter, and a short month of "cold." But here, there really, genuinely are no seasons. There's the rainy season and the dry season, but temperature-wise things are usually only within about 10 degrees of each other. It's the middle of November and its in the 7o's everyday. Sounds great, right? If you know me well (or even have just driven in a car with me), you know that I tend to be very temperature sensitive, so this sounds like an ideal environment.....

Okay, I promise I'm not just rambling about the weather.... the point is in this observation: time goes by differently without seasons. In fact, it flies. There aren't the usual makers that keep time going in a regular pace. I feel like time just takes off running since there are no season changes to hold it back. I arrived in Kampala in May, almost 6 months ago... and because the weather is exactly the same, part of me feels like no time has gone by... That when I got back to the States, it will also still be summer.

Will I feel stuck in summer 2010 forever?

Not sure... I wonder if I just need to find another way to mark the passing of time. I'm just not sure how to do it.... Even though it doesn't feel like fall, I wonder if looking back on this time, fall 2010 will have any distinction from the other seasons I spend here.... When I reference life-events, I usually reference a season a long with it. Like, "my family moved to Houston in summer 2007" or "in the fall of 2008, I was really missing my friend that was studying abroad."

I also think that for me, seasons provide a good reference point for reflecting on how my life has changed. I can think back to last spring and see how much I have grown in a certain area. Or view a new season coming as hope for a new season of life when I'm struggling with something. Right now, it just feels like time is moving along and there is nothing stopping it, so stopping myself to reflect for some reason takes more effort. I don't know if everyone is like this, but I also think of my life in seasons (outside of the weather-changing type of seasons).... seasons of struggles, seasons of feeling beyond blessed, seasons of doubt.... seasons.

I'm not sure if my time will be broken up in seasons here.... Right now, the way I think of it for the most part is in the form of people coming and going... who is living in the Cornerstone basement.... who is my roommate... who is up in Gulu. In Uganda, the seasons stay the same, but the people come and go. So I think, looking back, instead of saying "in fall of 2010, this happened...", I'll be saying "when Emily and James were around..." or "when Jon and Amanda were here..." or "when Brooke lived in Gulu..."

So I guess life-seasons still change, even when weather-seasons don't.... I'll just be thinking of these shifts in terms of people instead of temperature. What an adjustment....

normal..... what's that?

Last weekend the crew from Kampala went up to Gulu for a Halloween party. This was the fourth annual Halloween bash that was hosted at the Invisible Children house, and I've been hearing epic tales about this party since I arrived in May.... stories of Celine Dion and her back-up dancers.... the Village People... orange haired trolls.... the list of amazing costumes went on and on. We knew that for the 2010 party, our costume idea would have to be huge. We went all out.

Yes, we were Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka. I think we pulled it off pretty well. These were pre-party pictures... As soon as we left the house to go to the party, it started pouring. We were sopping wet Oompa Loompas sprinting down the road in the rain. And the whole time we were running, all I could think about was what the locals were thinking. We passed by a bunch of waving kids on our way and everyone else was just staring at us from the shelter of their houses.

There are a lot of muzungus in Gulu, so I'm sure the Ugandans there are used to seeing Americans like us doing crazy things. They have probably gotten used to ridiculous sights like we were running down that road in our costumes... Just a typical day in Gulu.

The idea of a typical day here is a funny concept in and of itself. I've gotten used to odd things happening here... My roommate, Dani, actually just wrote a post last week about how things around just seem not quite right sometimes.... But what I think is funny is that I could describe my day in a completely "normal" way, and it would sound just like anyone else's day. Or I could describe the exact same events to make my life sound as strange as it is.

I'll give a couple examples.

Last night I ate dinner with my roommates, read a book, took a shower, and went to bed..

OR ... Last night I went down to the vegetable stand outside my gate and bought a dozen tomatoes for 50 cents to add to the pasta I was making. While my roommates and I were cooking, the power went out so we scurried around looking for candles and matches to finish cooking our meal. Then I grabbed my head lamp and used it to read a book for a bit. After that, I hung the lamp from a nail sticking out of the wall in the bathroom so I would have light to take a "shath." {Shath is a term that was coined in our house to describe the shower-bath combo we have to partake in. The water pressure is so low, that we have to sit in the tub and let it get filled as we use the hose that's connected to the faucet to try and wash ourselves... Did I mention the water is cold?} After my nice cold shath, I crawled into my bed, tucked my mosquito net around my bed, and fell asleep to the sounds of the Glee soundtrack blasting from the dorm building next door.

To start my work day, I went to a meeting at Cornerstone. Then I went to buy some fabric from the market in town and headed home after making some purchases.

OR... After waking up to the sound of our neighbor's obnoxious rooster, I start my work day by heading to Cornerstone. I walk out my gate and there is Denis the boda driver waiting for me. I hop on the back of his bike and ride through town. At the first stop light, I encounter a bunch of hawkers, trying to sell me anything from car chargers to maps of Uganda to live goldfish. We speed past them as soon as the intersection clears and I make it to my meeting quite windblown. After my meeting, I hop on another boda to go into town to the fabric market. After weaving through traffic, we make it near the taxi park and I opt to walk to rest of the way because the jam is so bad (yes, instead of abbreviating "traffic jam" as just "traffic," people here call it "jam"). I walk into a store where I'm a regular, and am greeting by the lady behind the counter asking me how America is and when will I get her a job. She thinks I'm Liz (my boss), because many Ugandans can't tell muzungus apart. {Often I'll be walking down the road or through Owino market, and someone will call me Jennifer because some white girl named Jennifer was once their customer}. After buying the fabric I was looking for, I push my way through the crowds to get on a taxi home. After weaving through the park with my arm-full of fabric, I find the right taxi and wait for it to fill up. Once its full (about 16 people fit in these "matatus"), we head off on our bumpy ride toward my neighborhood.

"Normal" life here can sound like normal life in the US.... or not so much. But life is life, wherever we are. And our concept of normalcy can adapt quickly.... Whether you're a Ugandan watching an American with green hair, an orange face, and white overalls hauling it down the road in the rain, or an American girl trying to make it through her work day.

sipi adventures

I just got back from a great weekend trip to Sipi Falls near Mount Elgon (is it just me, or does Mount Elgon sound like it should be in Mordor instead of Eastern Uganda?).

This is where we camped... no big deal. It was stunning. We only hiked to two of the falls, but on the drive up the mountain, we passed probably a dozen more like the ones we saw.

The first stop was at one of the falls with a cave behind it that you can walk into, so you can see both sides of the falls.

The next one dropped down into a cave and disappeared. All of us went up to the edge of it and got totally soaked from the mist.

The whole hiking experience was great. Instead of taking an official guide, we just let some local kids lead us around. They took us on trails that went through coffee plantations, banana groves, onion fields, and their own houses. This was their neighborhood. This was where they got to grow up.... in the presence of so much beauty. I wish we could just transport Sipi to the edge of Kampala, so I could take it in all the time.

Sipi Falls was great. The only thing that wasn't so great was my sleeping experience the next night. On Friday night when we got there, it poured rain from 4 in the afternoon until evening and our tent was flooded before we even went to bed... So, we opted for the bandas that provided more shelter from the rain. Saturday night we were still in the bandas, just because it was easier to stay where we were, and the skies were threatening us with rain again.

At about 3:00 in the morning, I was awake, wishing I was outside camping. Why you may ask? Because I was awakened by the sound of rats scurrying in the walls of the banda. One of the rats got trapped in the wall right next to my bed and was doing something that sounded like the rat-version of screaming (I would say squeek, but that word doesn't convey the volume of this noise). So off and on for about an hour and a half, I battled the rat. I would hit the wall with a book, and shine my headlamp at it, and plead with it to go away, but it did not.... In resignation, I put in my headphones and tried to fall back asleep without much success.

All in all though, it was a great weekend. Great view. Great people. Great adventure.

mr. president

This past Friday, I went to Uganda's 12th Annual Prayer Breakfast... We arrived around 7:30 in the morning, along with many influential people of the city who came together for the occasion. The breakfast buffet included things like eggs, sausage, fruit, croissants, imitation coco crispies, and a few stranger items like baked beans and chicken wings (its always amusing to me to see what other cultures consider to be "breakfast food"... needless to say, I did not participate in the baked beans at 7:30 in the morning).

While we were eating, there was a performance by a local children's choir, solos sung by Judith Babirye (who I'm told is the Ugandan equivalent to Amy Grant.... go figure), and the musical stylings of some man in a purple velvet shirt who was lip syncing to a recording of one of his albums. Then there were several leaders who got up and prayed.... for the country of Uganda, for its leaders, for the world... and then the performances started up again as we waited for the host, President Museveni, to arrive... Let's just say a lot of singing took place that morning, because Museveni didn't show up until around 10:30. After the president walked in, the guest speaker began his presentation.

The man who spoke was a professor from South Africa and gave a great message about how we will only be able to achieve peace and progress if we recognize each other's humanity.... When certain groups start seeing other groups as less than human, that's when genocide happens. That's when a country that took a step forward, takes ten steps back... Dehumanization... there is a history of it on the continent of Africa, and the speaker was encouraging Uganda and its leaders to learn from the past mistakes that South African had made. The talk was titled "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" and through that he emphasized the reality that we are all responsible for one another. All in all, I really enjoyed his talk.

Then Museveni took the podium... he was the host for the event and when he got up he acknowledged that the host doesn't normally give a speech, but since he had a mic, he was going to... For the next forty five minutes or so, Mr. President talked about a smattering of topics... from the progress of Uganda, to what the Bible has to say about discipline and work (ie "he who does not work, does not eat"), to the recent growth of the country's corn crop... But the comment he made that was most interesting to me was this: he called Uganda one of the "African Lions."

The term "African Lion" is in reference to the "Asian Tigers" (Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan), and if I remember correctly from my econ classes in college..... all that was needed was a little capital infusion to get those economies goin'. Just a little cash and these relatively poor countries took off to become the up and coming economic powers of Asia. But I just don't think that's going to be the case with Uganda, or most African countries for that matter... Sorry Museveni.

Here's a little proof: this is a Wall Street Journal article that describes the plight of Bono's fashion company called Edun. The intention of the company was to have all its products manufactured in Africa and then marketed in the US. Bono, of course, had crazy connections in the fashion world, and the line was soon in the top stores and fashion weeks etc.... But even will all his millions and awesome connections, the project took a turn for the worst.... Quality issues began to arise... In the article, one of the Edun promoters said that she planned a promotional event to take place in semi-darkness "to draw attention away from the clothes".... Really?



And now Edun does their manufacturing in China.... womp, womp.

So much for capital infusion.

It isn't just going to take good designs and billions of dollars to put Africa on the map for fashion, manufacturing, or investment-appeal... And Bono's wife, Ali Hewson, came to recognize that: "the aesthetic we always new would be important... but we didn't realize how difficult it was going to be to achieve quality." It's quality that's key. Making a quality product in Africa takes more than just an injection of cash. But just because Bono gave up on manufacturing in Africa doesn't mean its not possible. It is possible, but just its not easy.

Anyways, that was my train of thought during Museveni's speech. From that poor comparison of African Lions all the way down to the Bono-fail... I had plenty of time for this train of thought though because all in all the prayer breakfast lasted for about 6 hours. Starting at 7:30am and ending around 1:30pm, it probably should have been called the "Prayer Breakfast, Lunch, and Afternoon Tea." It was quite the experience. Definitely on the long-side, but I'm really glad I had the opportunity to attend.

what an interview can do

A week or so ago a photographer named Lane Davis came and visited the Sseko workshop. He was traveling around the African continent taking pictures, and had a couple spare days in Kampala, so he came to check out Sseko..... and last week he did a great post on us: http://totellastory.org/2010/09/22/sseko-designs-interview/


Doing that interview for the post was really good for me. I have an amazing job and work for an amazing company that does amazing things.... but some days I forget that. There are moments when I get overwhelmed with orders from suppliers, or getting shipments out, or reading up on the investment code to make sure we register for the right license... It was good for me to be asked about the heart of Sseko, about our incredible girls, about our hopes and dreams... Because I don't ever want this to become just-a-job. Being here is something that is very meaningful to me, and I don't want that to change.


It's funny (or not so funny, I guess) how I tend to forget things that are really important to me if I don't remind myself of them... or have someone else around reminding me. Things as little as forgetting about a restaurant I really enjoy eating at, but also things as big as my purpose in Uganda, and even my purpose on this earth. One of my college roommates, Claire Berger, used to always talk about preaching the gospel to each other, and how we needed to do it everyday so we didn't forget. At first I thought that sounded like a little bit much, but I see so much wisdom in that now. Life happens fast and it is important to refocus and be reminded of whats really important.

I almost wish that I could be interviewed everyday. That everyday, I would have someone asking me why I'm doing what I'm doing... why I'm living the way I am... why. I guess I'll just have to make more effort to ask those questions of myself, to stop and examine my heart more often to make sure I'm never just going through the motions.

stay or go?

The past month or so my mind has been filled with that question: "stay or go?"

At the beginning of August, I found out that I had the opportunity to stay on longer with Sseko. It took me a little time to sift through the decision making process.... I had to ask myself questions like..... Do I want to keep living in Uganda? If so, how much longer? If I didn't stay, what would I do? Where would I live? Where would I work?... Lots and lots of questions. But in the end, they all boiled down to the big one- stay or go?

And I've decided to stay! I'll be living in Kampala through August 2011... I decided on that time because one of the big factors that lead to me staying longer was that a good deal of the work I'm doing now is in preparation for the next class of girls. I want to be able to see all these things through. By staying through the end of next summer, I will be able to see these new girls go through our whole program and then go off to college. I am really excited about the idea of getting to see them all the way through.

Sseko isn't the only reason I'm staying though... I'm also staying for the people I've met here and started building relationships with. Julie and I already have synchronized thoughts- multiple times a day she will take the words right out of my mouth and I swear she can read my mind so I can only imagine how much scarier that will be when we've spent a whole year together.... Dani just moved in- this morning she caught me working out to my Jillian Michaels workout video, The Shred, and instead of just closing the door and rolling her eyes, she started doing the invisible jump rope right along with me.... Amanda and I have weekly lunch dates- I could say so many things about her, but I'll just keep it simple and say that spending time with her is like a breath of fresh air.... These are just a few of the people here that I have come to know and love. And those three ladies specifically will be here for a pretty big portion of my time here. The community in Kampala is pretty transient- people come in and out so often, so it will be so SO good for me to have some consistency in these girls.

I am excited to call this city home for a little longer.