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

still chugging

June 27^th

Waking up always happens early and it honestly makes me feel like I am in an apartment complex because there are already tons of children out and as soon as I am conscious I can already feel the heat and hear their yelling and feet running around. Quite nice to wake up to, better than any alarm clock. Today we were up before the guys from ILF so Ron, Doug and I had a small impromptu meeting on the patio furniture we dragged around back so we could sit in the sun. This was a discussion about what each of us what hoping to gain, what we wanted to be able to say we did upon arriving home, and how we wanted to approach those goals in both a time-line and activity standpoint. Ron had been planning on doing a lot of work with the ILF activities and bringing in some sort of micro finance and infrastructure to their work. Doug and I both felt that we wanted to focus our outcomes on the business end and let the humanitarian outcomes develop from that as they more than inevitably will. This might seem a bit selfish but going around handing out blankets and food will get you NO WHERE in this environment. The only hope is to start some sort of project and try and give it the best legs to stay sustainable. This is where all of our business education comes in and hopefully we can swing it into action and make the most of it. Doug and I agreed (I hope I'm speaking correctly for him here) that working with ILF was important as they have done so much for us and they are our main contacts in this whole area, but we would like our project to be as independent as possible. We are trying to make sure that MAPLE Microfinance can be its own self sustaining firm with or without ILF. Granted this will not be possible in the immediate future but the more independently we operate the better we feel. We've tentatively decided to operate on a sliding scale of effort and focus for example 25% of our time this summer on our own project and 75% on helping their efforts, which will be equally beneficial to our business training and will help us get to know the area and culture the best. Then hopefully by the end of our time we can scale up our efforts on our own project and next year come with a 60/40 effort split and then 50/50 and so on. I keep referring to our separate work as “our project” because that is far from decided. We have been charged with finding and developing and financing a socially, business and environmentally sustainable business venture. This obviously has not been done in the first 2 days so for now we are focusing most of our time with ILF to get to know what is needed here and how everything operates all the while noting possibilities which we discuss as a team after the sun goes down.

After that we overhauled the house as it was cleaning day. That's right we cleaned Uganda. Actually its nice to get all the cobwebs down and at least a significant portion of the dust swept and the dishes done. Now I don't have to shower inside a spider web. I was also able to rework all the power cords so now we have pretty stable outlets, at least when the overall power is on. Sadly the Internet is still down, since last night, and we have no estimate on when it will be back up. I have done everything I can with the electronics and all our routers are good so its just the general Internet. When this gets posted will tell you how frustrated I am, i.e. If its posted today June 27^th all is good, if this goes up sometime in August then I'm out of my mind. Actually being a little incommunicado is very nice and I am enjoying not having to respond to a million things and being able to focus solely in the amazing world that I m currently in. That being said, I've only been out of touch for a day so after a few weeks it might be different.

You Gone...Duh

To All,

Decided to do a blog rather than track down every email address of anyone who might want to know about whats going on. So now I can update this when I can, hopefully as often as possible, and you guys can check at your leisure. I qualify this first entry by saying I know it is amazingly long and I apologize but for all of you who know me you know I'm verbose and this is also covering all the travel including New York City as well as two days in Uganda so yeah lots to say. I hope you enjoy this one and come back knowing the future will be much more easily read.

As another preface we are in Uganda to do the ground work for a microfinance firm set up by the International Business and Economics Club at the University of Oregon. The we consists of Doug, another student, Ron, our faculty advisor, and myself.

So we left Portland at midnight Monday night and flew for about 5 hours, of which I slept every single minute, and landed in New York about 8 am local time. We were lucky enough to have a very long layover and were able to leave the airport and get into the city. This however did not prove a cheap affair as transport to and from cost each of us about 40 dollars. The price one pays I guess. We tried to reach Doug's cousin but were unable so we grabbed some NY pizza from the shop rated best in NY by The Food Network. This was incredibly tasty though frustrating as when I asked if I could have pepperoni, not knowing it was not quite done because we got there right at opening, the guy said in classic New Yorker “No, here's your cheese, enjoy”...So I ate my cheese pizza and enjoyed (would have waited had I known that was the issue). After pizza we walked the streets of the Village and SoHo and I tried to find an authentic Yankees hat but alas SoHo is not the place to do such shopping. More or less we just soaked in the sights and sounds, mostly honking, though that is a $350 fine now apparently.

After getting back to JFK we checked in and got to our gate after a great deal of security lines. This gave me some time to talk to some important people whilst missing out on a few for last goodbyes as the security line didn't give us much time before boarding. The flight to Amsterdam was amazing. Huge pane and every seat had its own video screen with remote that had on on demand system where you could cal up probably 30 movies, all hits or classics, mostly new, tons of tv, endless music, even video games like Deal or no Deal (Niki and Mallory, you would have loved it I'm sure). While I was planning on sleeping that flight it didn't happen, but I did watch 2 movies and some TV.

Amsterdam airport was nice and more than anything surprisingly confusing. Doug and I got lost easily 5 times even though I don't think we ever went more than 9 gates in either direction. We checked out some soccer shops and then got some breakfast. Unlike most crummy airport restaurants this was a rather nice full blown eat in restaurant with seemingly authentic food, albeit Irish not Dutch. That breakfast consisted of eggs pudding and baked beans, kinda odd but good.

Ended up sleeping the entire flight to Uganda even though I tried to stay awake and enjoy movie selection one last time. Landing in Entebbe was strange because it was by far the darkest airport I've ever flown into on account of there being no city lights around. I honestly thought we had a couple thousand feet to descend when we touched down. After pulling around and seeing the airport the only thing I could notice was the hundreds of thousands of bugs around every light, apparently they were flying white ants and they were even flooding in the doorways being trampled by everyone. We got to the Hotel which was actually quite nice and got some dinner with the guys we are staying with in the house. After that we watched the soccer game and showered and pretty much passed out. Next morning I was up by 5:30 thanks to a combination of roosters and all the sleep I got on the last leg on the plane journey. Since I was wide awake and well rested I was able to watch the sunrise and write in my journal to my dear Morgan (who I miss fyi). It really was quite amazing all the sights and sounds and smells all coming together like no way I'd ever experienced before. The land was so beautiful and peaceful and other than the birds, dead quiet. Once everyone else was up we got breakfast which included some of the best fruit I've tasted in a long time in not ever.

At that point we got a taxi ride to Kampala to meet up with the guys from International Lifeline Fund which was the scariest taxi or driving I think I've ever been in a car for. I'm glad I had the New York taxi drivers as a small warm up (that should tell you something). Not a care in the world for speed, or lanes or sides of the road, or frankly for staying on the road at all. Amazingly we didn't hit anyone and weren't hit which was good. Once in Kampala we loaded up the truck and crammed 5 guys in a pickup, all with stuff at our feet and on our laps and drove for 6 ½ hours. This driving was no more calming, as this road had more potholes than actual road. We spent more time half off the road, all off the road, or on the wrong side of the road trying to avoid potholes and bicyclists than we did in a straight line on our own side by a factor of 5. The most interesting part of the drive for me was when we stopped for food and as soon as we came to rest the car was mobbed by 40 people selling fruit and meat and water all trying to get our business, just shoving everything in the windows and climbing up just to get our attention. We got some roasted banana which was very interesting (this is the best word for most of what happens here), not my favorite,won't necessarily have it again, but not bad and totally worth the experience.

Our house is quite a sight. We have an 8 foot high wall topped with barbed wire fence around the entire compound, so mom you should feel safe. The house is actually large, at least for Ugandan standards. It has 3 bedrooms and one bath and a kitchen living room and office. None of these rooms are large by any means though. Ben and Brian are our cohorts from International Lifeline Fund, who have been here about a year and were so kind as to open there house to us and they have two of the rooms as well as Ron having the other. Doug and I have the pleasure of crashing in a cabana out behind the main house. There is a half divider wall down the middle and then each side has a tiny bed, which looks awesome all covered in mosquito netting, and then a shelf and a table. Not as big as it sounds by any means (refer to pictures) but is fine for sleeping and that's all that its meant for so all is good. That first night we went out after getting unpacked to the local bar and all shared a round of beers and watched the soccer game with a bunch of locals as a guest of the owner who seemed to like us very much. Being his guest spared us the entry fee and saved us each about 25 cents so a good connection for sure, haha. Actually when I say he liked us that is somewhat not very meaningful as every single person we've met has been the nicest people I've met and are all fantastic.

Bear with me we're almost caught up to the present, hopefully this reads faster than it writes. This morning (our first full day in Lira) we got up about 8 and got moving. We followed Ben and Brian to the office and checked out that situation and then went down to the stove making factory. The factory was two covered areas where they made bricks and bound them together to make both humanitarian and commercial stoves (I'll go into the differences in a later post) Today was a distribution so there were about 300 locals from within a killometer who were there to pick up a free stove to make their cooking more efficient, and use less firewood as well as expel less carbon. We spent most of the day interacting with these people and drilling Patrick, a local who is one of the heads of the operation, with every question we could think of. I think we came up with some good possibilities for microfinance businesses and at the least we got quite a lot of experience talking and dealing and learning from all the local people. Though we still have quite a lot to do. Later in the day we had lunch which was actually really good at a local restaurant. It was beans, rice, beef and mashed bananas and only cost about a buck fifty. We then went to the super market which was anything but and did a little shopping but it looks like at-the-house eating for me at least will consist of pb&j.

Right now as I am writing there is a huge thunderstorm going on and all the trees are blowing and the rain is really loud on the tin roof and thunder is booming and it is amazingly beautiful and awe inspiring. Hopefully you made it this far and found it worthwhile. I promise not every post will be anywhere near this long, this is just having to catch up on 4-5 days. Hope all is well in the states and please write back in some fashion so I know all this writing is worthwhile. I am also more than happy to answer any specific questions or go into more detail about any section. Our Internet is touchy so it might take a while but I will get back to you I promise.