sad day

Today is a sad day...Ben is moving out. For those who haven't followed all of the story lines, Ben is the Australian who lives with us and works at ILF. Well I should say worked, as his 6 month contract is up and he is heading back to Melbourne where if he hasn't shipped out again by Feb I hope to catch up with him when I am down there. Ben is a very seasoned Aid worker, this being his 6th stop I believe in war/disaster torn areas over about 7 years. It has been phenomenal to have him here to work with and learn from. He has been a great help long past the adjustment period and has been a huge influence on the growing world view that I am slowly developing the more and more experience I get. Beyond the experiences he's had and shared I have picked up a lot from his work ethic and sense of dedication and passion about a project that he is only a part of for 6 months and was not there for the beginning and will not see the end. As good a project as it is, and as proud as I am to work with it for even just 2 months, he has shown a lot by the effort he puts in to make sure it is as good as can be. That has been a specific influence on me as I came in to the MAPLE project after the start. Though I am here for and having the most influence on the founding and establishment of the organization in an international capacity, which gives me a great deal of ownership, the project at an academic level was around long before I joined. To that same degree the goal of all our time and effort is to establish something that lives on long after I leave U of O in a term and thus I will not see the end of it. However, that doesn't stop us from putting 110%, often more than we probably should, into the work here and getting MAPLE into as good a spot as possible for our return. It is truly sad to see Ben go and loose his daily impact, but hopefully this is not the last I will see of him.
Its been a time of a lots of thinking as with the power troubles there has been a lot of time to sit and ponder. I've moved through the movies in the house and while I can read for a time, I eventually start thinking and it spirals out of control. I've certainly formed a lot of opinions about the people and the policies here as well as those back home and their overlaps and what I can take from that. I have certainly developed an appreciation for living simply and streamlining, which for anyone who has been in my room or the few of you who helped me move out know was not the case before. I knew going into this that it would be a time of personal growth, which most assuredly has happened but I think it happened in a very different way than I ever expected. The poverty truly is the last thing I notice. I think that is because I try and live in the moment I am in, and while i have a very nice cushy life back home, and even here I am much more comfortable than most (as far as the home goes), when you look here most everyone is on the same plane. Well I should say to each other there are different standards but from a Western view everyone is poor, so it doesn't stand out as much, especially having been immersed in it now for a month and a half. There is still so much to learn but it comes from the peoples experiences with the war and any number of things, and almost more touching are their adaptation strategies for dealing with those experiences. What I picked up most is how people the world over are the same when you put them face to face and have a conversation. I say that both about the locals and the people I've met from other organizations from across the world. There is so much strife that is political and religious or territorial, but all of those are on a macro scale, and putting people on a micro level across the table from each other, they are fundamentally the same. The is both the most surprising and the most refreshing and gives me the most hope that if politics can shift from action ideologies into diplomacy that problems can be communicated and worked out. I think that is a thought process one can't (or I couldn't) gain until getting that international view and talking with people from 20 some countries who've been to even more. I think we need to encourage much more international travel and work. Personal opinion at least. I guess I say that I didn't expect to grow in that way, because I expected to see and learn so much from the developing world and I expected to form new views on it, but I wasn't expecting my first world views to be so transformed. This will all be better thought out and added to and more clearly written in one of a few articles I'm writing so if your interested, either look for more later, or by all means hit me up and start a conversation about it. I don't know if I'm properly putting verbiage to all these thoughts, but know that all is good and things are productive and I highly recommend getting out into your world.

FYI

For those of you who don't know there is also a picture site that goes along with my travels that can be found at http://216.139.29.116/cpg1413/index.php?cat=10003 Hope it is equally enjoyable and much as the post here have been, it will be updated whenever possible.

I want to ride my bicycle...I want to ride my bike

Power outages, Sketchy internet and a dead computer...just some of the reasons nothing has been posted in a while. The last blog post left off on our way to Kampala during which we explored the city, walking countless miles a day and got to just about every corner of it. Quite a place, big, smoggy, and loud. I'm very glad that I went but its nothing too amazing and don't have much desire to go back. The best part about exploring the city was going to a Muslim mosque on a hill overlooking the city and while there being invited to go to the top of the minaret and getting to see the entire view of the city from one of the highest points and in full 360 degrees. While we were up there the soundsystem kicked on and the call to prayer went out and we were able to gaze out on the city while a beautiful Islamic prayer/song echoed through the city...it really was quite amazing. The third day we went river rafting down the nile river, in the stretch that was recently rated the best rapids in the world. It was almost exclusively class 4 and 5 for those of you who know anything about rafting and what I noticed most was how many rapids there were, they just kept coming. Our boat managed to only flip twice, but every other boat got tossed much more. The last rapid tossed me immediately and I spent quite a bit of time under water, first time I can remember relying more on my life jacket than my swimming prowess. It was amazingly fun and brutal and epic and something I can say I did that no one else I know has. And our guide for navigating the Nile was named Moses...I found that rather humorous, even if we weren't in Egypt.
We got back to Lira Monday and last week got quite a bit done on the business end of everything, continuing to set up the infrastructure for everything that we are doing as well as making great business connections with some of the higher ups in the town. We are moving along on the business plan and exactly what we are hoping to offer to the community.
Today our advisor left and Doug and I have 4 weeks left which will be spent almost entirely on the business end of setting things up. I had a great time and it was incredibly valuable to get to the villages and learn the culture but the way my brain is wired I'm geared up to get rolling on accounts and business proposals. There will obviously be a lot of culture left to experience but productivity should become a little more measurable from here on out.
I have started to shoot and hope to continue to film some of our activities as well as more generic footage around Lira to hopefully make some sort of video about both my trip and with some re-editing a marketing tool for MAPLE. So start getting ready for all the awesomeness that that will encompass. That is about all that is going on and of pressing concern. I do appreciate the e-mails and am sorry for any delay in response, the computer issues call for great prioritizing of the time here but its working a bit better now so I would love to hear from all of you. Till then good luck all.

Half the story

So again its been a while and a million and a half things have happened. One day I'll get on top of this blogging thing and update more often so to not miss out on a bunch of things. The good news is I still have 6 weeks left so plenty of adventure. That is probably the last time I will refer to having 6 weeks left as a good thing. So we have continuously been working for both ILF and MAPLE (please please donate if you haven't already...shameless plug but everything we're doing here is for nothing if we don't get donations...even 20 bucks is helpful here...seriously people step up to the humanitarian plate it's a big world, sacrifice a week of Starbucks...ask me if you don't know how). We have worked out a distribution model for ILF and are about to implement a pilot program using an organization to the North that works with widows. This should be a good way to work out some kinks and test all of the assumptions we've made in a relatively short time frame. Hopefully, and I trust, it will turn out very well and not need too drastic modifications. In addition to that we have also been working very hard on MAPLE which is the student group that is our actual main focus. A large portion of our beginning was getting adjusted to and learning the culture, which consulting for ILF greatly aided. Now that we are a few weeks in we have been able to develop a strong mission statement and beginnings of a business structure. In the coming days we will be solidifying that with the help of all the students back home and continuing to get the infrastructure set up to start our more permanent activities and make sure all the future trips aren't starting from scratch.

We were able to get out to a village early last week and talk with a huge mobilization of people, everyone is incredibly excited when they hear we are coming, though it often takes a while to break through and have them realize we aren't just giving handouts. We keep trying to emphasize our intent on learning and that any money will be a loan to help them help themselves, but it is such a dependent culture and it is tough to break through. No one ever said Africa would be easy. That day we arrived and Doug and I played football (soccer) with the children at the local school who were on an hour break. It started by them surrounding us and us just kicking it around the circle and then the circle getting slowly smaller until Doug and I were almost shoulder to shoulder. At that point I launched the ball into the open field and all mayhem broke out, Doug somehow beat them all to the ball and made a goal. This led to direct challenges from each and every child to a shootout to see if they could score on/stop our shots. It was certainly entertaining and I managed to only hit one kid with a full speed ball to the head. While he was not hurt I get the impression he will not soon live down the stigma of being the kid who got beamed by the mzungu. His fault...head on a swivel kid...any coach will tell ya that. I spoke with a group of men aged 18-35, as this one how they broke themselves up. One group was women, one was men 18-35 and one group was men older than 35. My group was incredibly difficult to get through to as they kept wanting more of the same, more corn, more tomatoes; it was very difficult to get a new idea from them. Eventually the flood gates opened and the ideas flowed though and I got a lot to work with.

That next day we went to a village to talk about microfinance and got some decent replies. The important part of that day is that we prepared dinner in the village and ate there. For those of you who don't know...that means killing, slaughtering, de-feathering and butchering a chicken. Thats right I have beheaded a chicken. It wasn't quite as surreal as I expected it to be but it was still quite an experience, certainly glad to have done it so that I can better appreciate the Costco chickens. I am definitely glad I don't have to do all that prep every time I want a chicken sandwich, that is for sure.

So that was what led up to the trip to Kampala which was a whole other set of adventures for another day...hopefully tomorrow.

another day another dollar...or 1000 shillings

For the last week or so Doug and I have been focusing our efforts toward consulting for the International Lifeline Fund and trying to help them as much as possible with their business. So far we have been modeling distribution possibilities as well as costing forecasts. We have met with the leaders of ILF multiple times and are getting very good feedback on the work we’ve already done but much still has to be done. Some of the insight we got today came from the 2^nd in charge at ILF and he was relaying to us some stories about different transaction models he’s used in different parts of the world and told us to put a huge focus on the logistics of the actual cash transaction. This was great advice and not to say we hadn’t considered it but surly we hadn’t put as much weight as it probably needs. Needless to say everything we’ve done has well received as well as well critiqued which is actually very helpful. At this point we still have a lot to do in terms of refining everything and building some marketing campaigns as well as operating a pilot distribution program. Most of our days have been spent working through analysis and consulting work in the morning and meeting with ILF and doing more cultural research in the afternoons. Most of the last few days we’ve lost power for portions of the day with or without storms. The storms here are amazing and as much as I complained when finding out that I was leaving Eugene to come to the rainy season but Uganda puts Eugene so to shame that it actually is fun. In Eugene the rain is just a hassle and obnoxious. Here in Lira the rain comes like clockwork, luckily after we finish working, and is so torrential that you can’t help but stand on the porch and marvel at the sheer power of nature. The most recent big storm Brian and I went into the yard and both did the Shawshank Redemption arms wide soaking up the rain pose. I’ve been getting more and more used to the living situation but I doubt I will ever adjust to the food. It’s not bad, it is just incredibly bland (shocking for Africa) and there is no variety. For as much agriculture as there is, everyone grows the same 5 things and so you cycle through about every 2 days. I will be sleeping in Safeway my first night home. More on everything soon. Hope all is good back home.

a week gone by

So this is the first entry written after setting up the blog and i definitely didn't expect it to take this long. Most of that is just being exhausted whenever we get home and wanting to just chill. A large part of that is all the talking and conversing that we have done sitting out in the porch at night. The conversations we have had have really been awesome and insightful and it makes you not want to leave them and thus not much writing gets done. That and to be honest I've gotten wrapped up in a few lengthy internet chats now that we have the internet which i explain everything thats been happening and I forget that not everyone is reading those and I need to post it here to. Its been a week since the last post was written and most of our time has been spent in the villages talking to all of the people who live a very different life than those in the town that we interact with on a more daily basis. We learned a lot about how people operate and how some of the loaning models work out here which was very informative. The biggest bummer of the week was going to a market day in a village a little more than an hour away and hoping to get some really cool local garb and everything there was cheap imported crud that wasn't African and had no use to us or even a use in the lives of people who were suppose to buy them. Some people surly bought them just to have something from the modern west which is sad since it was even a waste of money to them and it wasn't even quality stuff. That day however we did hike a giant rock that gave us a great view of the village and the market and Doug and I were able to sit and take in the view and contemplate life and quote “Just Friends” which are all the things that needed to be done at that moment. The fourth was spent at a house a few streets over where a few other Americans and two Brits gathered for a bbq which was awesome because we actually had french fries and chili which was just amazingly American. One of the funniest parts of that night was finding out that one of the people who was there was a Bellarmine Bell...you go half a world away and you can't escape the rivalry. Yesterday we went to a pool in Gulu about an hour and a half away and Brian and Doug and i swam and taught a guy how to dive and got some sun and it was an extremely relaxing day. Driving back from that we ran into a huge thunderstorm which started out with heat lightening that just lit up the horrizon every few seconds. Then it got dark and the rain came and between potholes and foolish people walking down the middle of the raid is was a crazy stretch. We did make it back and today was spent just doing some reading and prep work for the week ahead and that is about to get started as soon as i wake up. Hope all of your week went well and hopefully this will get updated again soon.

Pictures

I think that this should have some pictures from the trip, sadly I can't upload many but here go a few