Matthews holds the rice sack summary with me and translates. That’s Moses in the foreground checking data while I talk.
Here I am, speaking to a farmer group after their weekly VSLA meeting, about the importance of record keeping. I ask at the beginning: Who keeps records? No one does. For a Peace Corps assignment, I interviewed the heads of the three financial institutions in Bugiri. I asked their biggest problem with customers, all mentioned lack of record keeping.
I encourage the farmers to keep simple crop records in a notebook (Date of planting; Amount of inputs used; Date of harvest; How much was the yield; Additional notes about disease, drought etc.). I also show them how a cash book works (it’s similar to a check register- if you are under 30 ask your parents).
I do not want to spend the next two years speaking to 200 farmer groups about record keeping. In a staff meeting yesterday, (after clearing my talk with Adams) I explained that Peace Corps wants me to help farmers, but my job is also to help ATEFO help farmers; so my efforts are sustainable after I leave. ATEFO’s primary purpose is teaching farmers to take a more business-like approach to farming, rather than just sustenance. Record keeping is fundamental to being successful in business.
The farmers can already see how important record keeping is, since the VSLA needs a journal to record welfare and savings contributions, and loans, and each farmer has his own passbook. Extending the concept to the farm and home should be easy, and this record keeping is much simpler compared to the VSLA record keeping.
Our trainers run around to these village VSLA meetings to write down data on savings to report to our funders, and will point out any deficiencies they see in their VSLA, both laudable activities. We are helping build a culture of saving. But we are failing the farmers if they do not receive a 20-30 minute lesson on record keeping, budgeting, post-harvest handling etc.
I suggested that each trainer in the our three districts should go out with me for a talk or two, then I would go out with them to watch them give the same talk. They are seeing these groups at least once or twice a month, so throw in a talk. We get more lessons delivered to more groups this way. Their talks would be faster than mine too, without a translator.
Speaking of translating, I say five words, then Matthews (holding the rice sack with me) speaks for 60 seconds. He swears he says what I say, and the three Bugiri trainers we go out with agree Lusoga takes longer to say the same thing. It’s hard to argue, because as you know, I am no expert on Lusoga.
I can’t say whether the trainers will agree to this process, although Adams seems to, and one trainer admits I am right about ATEFO’s purpose and sees no issue with my plan. But it requires a little bit more time, as they race around collecting data. If no one is there with the trainer, how do we check that the lesson is given? Maybe randomly check with VSLA chairmen. It’s like I used to say to clients: I am paid to give you advice, it’s up to you whether to follow it.
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When middle class Americans run low on money, they often use up their retirement funds, and credit cards until they run out of credit. They hope they get that new job or their business will get better, and then they will pay it all back, only turning to bankruptcy as a last resort.
Ugandans don’t have those two ‘backstops’ let alone an ability to get a ‘fresh start’ which bankruptcy provides. They also don’t get unemployment benefits. So have a bad harvest, and the next step is food insecurity (but not if they have a permagarden!) , or eating poorly, causing stunted growth and other nutritional ailments . School fees can’t get paid either, so the children suffer in that regard too.
Meanwhile the children keep getting born….
Once while I was speaking to a farmer group, my office mate and trainer Moses went deeper into the village and bought a couple chickens to take home. He hung them on his handlebars and said he would let them get fatter before eating them. What do chickens think as they hang, going down the road? Maybe one day I will do a blog post on chicken and rooster behavior. I’ve learned a lot watching them everywhere I go.
On Saturday I got my first visit from another PCV, Vanessa. She had her home stay for language learning in Bugiri and wanted to visit her home stay family for the last time before her service as an Education volunteer ends in December. So I finally got to show off my home!
Besides introducing me to her lovely home stay family, she showed me where a pork joint is on the edge of town. Most PCVs love pork joints. The cooking was in a thatched hut with a another hut next door with tables and chairs. We got there at noon and were served at 1:30, about normal for a pork joint. We ordered two kilos. They chop and cook it up on a large plate. Very fatty with lots of little bones, but it’s pretty good. Forgot to take pictures. No one at my office knew of this place, so we will all go there some day. Except Adams, who is Muslim, so it’s his loss.
Vanessa (29) is taking the foreign service exam today (Wednesday) at Peace Corps headquarters, as she tries to figure out what to do next. She is considering Peace Corps Response, something my niece Britta did. In Response, a returned volunteer (or any American with 10 years experience in a suitable career) goes to a country for only about nine months or a year. Britta terminated early in Bolivia due to civil unrest, and then did Response in Liberia. I may want to do this too. More exotic travel on someone else’s dime. Anyway, good luck to Vanessa!
This week is slower than last week , when I visited about 10 villages and gave my talk to a few of them. Monday was primary election day for the NRM party (President Museveni’s party – the National Resistance Movement). My trainers said no one would show up for VSLA meetings. NRM has another primary on October 26 for different offices. On Tuesday we had the aforementioned staff meeting. Today, Matthews is in Jinga for some medical tests, so no riding out to villages. A chance to work on my blog. Friday is Uganda Independence Day. I will walk with the Bugiri Rotary Club in a parade of some sort, and then we are supposed to play in a soccer game against an unnamed opponent. So I’ll be getting a bit of exercise at practice this week.