Rotary Club

Transitions

Author: Charles July 29, 2017

High End Graphics! My certificate was really nice though.

I arrived home on Thursday night, July 20th, after 30 hours of travel (23 in the air).

During my last two days and nights in Bugiri, I hosted my replacement volunteer, Molly, for her first visit to Bugiri and ATEFO. I think she will do fine.

Molly is “chill” as the kids say.

She will be joined in Bugiri by a couple of other PCVs who will work for a different organization, but will live only two minutes from Molly.I took the three trainees around town, introducing them to my merchant friends, while also using the occasion to say good-bye.

Lauren is Ag, and Pat is a Health Volunteer

On my last night, Adams organized a goat roast, and invited the ATEFO staff for my send-off and to introduce and welcome Molly. As a parting gift, I gave Adams a replacement battery for his laptop. Previously he could only use it when it was plugged in, and would lose work he didn’t save it before the power went off. He was excited to get it. I gave Matthews a new motorcycle helmet. He never had a real good one, and often drove me without a helmet, or would borrow mine for the half day trip to his home village. I also gave out a few power banks to other staff members.
After two nights, the trainees went back to Iganga to continue their Lusoga language and cultural training. They will swear in August 11, and then return to Bugiri to begin their two year adventure.

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Matthews gets a helmet with an “Angry Birds” theme.

Just before I flew home, all Rotarians in Uganda were jolted by the news that the Rotary International President-Elect from Uganda, Sam Owori, unexpectedly died after a routine operation on his leg during a visit to the United States. He would have been only the second president of Rotary International from Africa. The death seemed sort of mysterious, but as of this writing I have no further information. President Museveni declared there would be an “official burial” on July 29.

Earlier in July, my “org mate” Ruwani and I received two days of orientation at CARE headquarters in Kampala. Originally it was to be in Arua, but I will have to wait until my return to actually see Arua for the first time. We learned about the CARE way of reporting its activities, and the recently developed software platform it uses, which is the same for all 90 countries CARE serves. The program interacts with Excel. I am a klutz on Excel Spreadsheets, but some of my work will be using the spreadsheets, not generating or manipulating them. I can do that.
It appears I will accompany teams to the refugee camps and assist in the monitoring and evaluation of CARE programs. I will write reports for internal use, and externally for CARE’s donors. In Uganda, CARE does not hand out food and water, leaving that chore to other organizations. There are many CARE programs to assist the refugee communities, and I look forward to writing about them. Maybe I’ll just copy and paste some of my stuff into the blog!
For my home site in Arua, I will be sharing a walled compound with the CARE Guest House. I will stay in a two room annex separated from the guest house by a shared garden. I will have a full bathroom (yay!). I will also have access to the kitchen in the Guest House. They have a full time cook, but I will want to do my own ‘American’ cooking (you know, Mexican and Italian dishes). I think it will work out. Who knows, there may be the occasional interesting visitor staying in the Guest House, not mention I might be meeting them anyway since they would be there on CARE business.

Ronnie with his new laptop courtesy of your donations. An update will be coming soon.

With my healthy daughter at Red Rocks

In the week I’ve been home, I’ve ordered a new laptop, attended the Northglenn-Thornton Rotary meeting, enjoyed a show at Red Rocks, got a colonoscopy (clean!), took my mom to see “Dunkirk”, and replaced my backpack with a life-time warranty at Eddie Bauer because of irreparable broken zippers.
Overall, while I am enjoying seeing old friends, emotionally I am more excited about my new position. I think that is a good place to be.

General

ATEFO (my NGO), Rotary Club, volunteers

November

Author: Charles December 4, 2016

Who needs a truck when you have a boda boda?

Sorry to be negligent about the blog recently. I’ve been a bit sick and had some low mental energy. It’s normal according to Peace Corps. Perhaps while I was gone for three weeks, my mind minimized some of the frustrations of my experience here. There is also distress about current events back home, a very late but moderate rainy season being so disruptive to the town’s grid and my meetings, and the challenge finding my niche in our new project to help youth groups. Its hard to ignore the internet, but reading books is a good distraction..

I finally gave up on my smart phone, replacing it with new cheap one which I hope will get me through to the end of service. Photography might suffer, although I might still use my crippled phone for that. This Phone Doctor place in Jinja had my phone for a week. I lost a great picture of a lady transferring the SIM card that didn’t work on my phone to test it in her own phone, all the while nursing her baby.

ATEFO’s new contract required us to put in place nearly 600 “backyard gardens” This an ideal opportunity to spread the gospel of permagardens. However, the approach by the field staff is to get out there and slap gardens down, without the little bit of extra work to dig a permagarden, which ultimately will mean less work to maintain over the long haul and more resiliency during dry season. My counterpart and master gardener Matthews says the permagardens we dug recently are thriving. I chide Adams a bit, but ultimately what ATEFO does is a business, and profit trumps what would be best for the beneficiaries. There are many boxes the trainers will have to tick off to complete the contract, so corners will get cut.

While Matthews runs around spraying pesticides, I have gone out to visit the youth groups with a different counterpart, Amos. Each group has chosen a business, such as tomato growing, poultry rearing, vegetable selling, and candle or soap making. ATEFO provides funds to each group for start-up capital, but before they get it, I worked with a few of them to make a budget, and teach them to keep a cash book to account for it. These kids are usually very deficient in education, and not surprising, some of the money has not been accounted for very well. Amos is easier to understand as a translator, but he prefers to summarize a long conversation to real time translations,

Meanwhile I press forward to facilitate Rotary grant funding to renovate Hindocha Primary School, basically by nudging the relevant actors in the Clubs in Bugiri, Colorado and California. I really want to show something for my effort before the end of next summer, but it’s a bit of a slog.My cohort has passed the 2/3 mark, 18 months down, 9 to go. The PCVs of the Education cohort from the Fall of 2014 are starting to go home this month. It’s hard to believe my own cohort will soon to be the most experienced.

These are coffee beans getting scooped up into bags.

Carpenter shops. On the left beds to sleep, on the right coffins for that final sleep.

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Cute kids outside my place

More cute kids.

I haven’t published too many pictures of other volunteers. Some of us celebrated a pot luck Thanksgiving in Jinja. All three guys from my cohort on the right have not cut their hair since arrival. Coy in the middle is a “no shave in 2016” guy.

Peace Corps Ladies. Carm in the middle is leaving soon, she’s been filling out applications for grad school.

Birds land in front of my mirrored window and can’t see me.

First picture with the new phone. A selfie in Kampala with Aine, the director of the Blue House girls orphanage in Kazo which my sister Karen and I are planning to visit next year. We might do a Peace Corps camp there. I picked up a new pair of glasses while I was there. Each PCV gets a new pair during service. The dust and grit scratch them horribly. Forget about contact lenses.

Blair’s treatments are going quite well, based on a recent PET scan to evaluate it. She sent me this photo from a recent chemo session. Her last chemo is February 2. She will be happy to stop being sick every two weeks, and looks forward to growing her hair back.

General

adversity, ATEFO (my NGO), children, Rotary Club, volunteers, Youth Group

Two New Shirts, One Sunday

Author: Charles September 20, 2016

I’m with Dennis, from Centenary Bank, and Abram, a soon to be new member from First Touch Salon.

Adams limbers up

On a recent Sunday, most of the Rotary Clubs throughout Uganda sponsored 8K Cancer Runs in their communities. Proceeds are to be used to purchase a radiation machine to treat cancer. It will be the only radiation machine in this country of 37 million people. The old one has broken down, so wealthy patients go to Kenya or South Africa . Otherwise you do without. This run required a minimum donation for a sleeveless T-shirt and then do the 8K. No way did I run 8k of course, but I had plenty of company walking.

Post-race snack, meat on a stick!

I am in a WhatsApp group for the Bugiri Club and Adams posted the following recently: “As Ugandan Rotarians struggle to raise 13.5 billion to buy a cancer machine to treat Ugandans, the Ugandan parliament has approved 64 billion tax payers money to buy cars for MPs. Its a shame……….”

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The Bugiri Corporate football team parades through town.

Posing back at home with my new Bugiri shirt. It was literally the first time I wore shorts outdoors in public.

This is a good way to attract the townsfolk to the game. I told the coach I would only play if the team was behind or ahead by three goals. Considering my skill level, no one argued.

In 1979 after finishing law school, I hitchhiked around the USA via truckers who transferred me by communicating on their CB radios . Recently, at a taxi stage, with help from Matthews, I snagged a ride with this Kenyan trucker, hauling Chinese steel from Nairobi to Kampala. Here we are crossing the Nile River.

General

health, Rotary Club

Seeds of Opportunity, Seeds of Conflict

Author: Charles August 23, 2016

These ladies are one of the new youth groups we are taking on. learning how to style hair at “Brego’s Saloon”. (sic 😉 ) They can run this business from their home. Their little town is west of Bugiri and a popular night stop for truck drivers, with all that entails.

I am sitting in a hotel in Seeta, just outside of Kampala. It is time for a week of Mid-Service Training (MST). I haven’t seén most of my cohort since January. We are going to get re-tested on our language skills! I brought my notes from last year to study on the taxi ride to Seeta. I will flunk for sure. Sorry sorry.

Apparently the accommodations get upgraded for each training of the cohort. This place has a gym and a pool, and free wi-fi. I’m low on data, so I am taking advantage of the free wi-fi for today’s posts.

They say it takes a year for a PCV to get established, then you can get more things done the second year. I have some new optimism about my work in the next year. ATEFO just entered into a contract to work with an NGO which has purportedly established 110 youth groups in Bugiri and Iganga during the past year, teaching various occupational skills. This NGO wants ATEFO to take on these groups and teach record keeping, leadership, marketing etc. Another part of the curriculum is teaching household gardens. I have lobbied Adams to allow some PCVs to come out to Iganga to help me teach the trainers how to dig and teach permagardens. He seems agreeable, but in Uganda they always seem agreeable. We will also probably teach sack gardens. The contract runs through next July, shortly before my service ends. I am being pretty aggressive about getting some good roles to play in this project in the next year. While I am away this week, ATEFO has hired additional trainers for the project, and they are to mapping out the youth groups to confirm they are there, and establish rapport.

In the meantime, I am also working with the Bugiri Rotary Club to obtain grants from Rotary International to assist two projects. The first is the “Love Project”, boosting a primary school for disabled students. They are blind, deaf, handicapped, and autistic. The campus needs some minor renovations, including a wall for security around the school compound, and equipment and materials, such as braille machines, glasses, hearing aids, tactile globes, white canes, text books etc. I am also desirous of putting on a camp for these kids with my follow PCV, Becky, with the assistance of another PCV who has experience with camps for disabled kids..

A room at Hindocha Primary School.

The second project is to aid renovations of Hindocha Primary School, which is located right behind my office at ATEFO . A tour of Hindocha revealed terrible conditions at this 70+ year old school. Every room has a leaky roof for example. I will go into more detail as these two projects develop.

A graduate of Hindocha is member of the Riverside California. Rotary Club. He runs a technical training school here in Bugiri and goes back and forth between the two countries. He has asked for forms to request a new Peace Corps volunteer. He has chided the Bugiri Club for identifying the two projects a year ago and making no progress. I am his ally now to push things along. I have told my club I have a year left and the grant process takes a while, so we have to push push push. I have tentatively recruited my home Northglenn-Thornton club to be an International partner for one or both of these projects. I can be their boots on the ground to ensure the money is spent properly.

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In a newer project, Azedy is growing 20,000 orange tree seedlings. You start with lemon seeds, which grow into a very hardy tree, but then graft orange buds on to the seedlings to produce hardy orange trees. Can you imagine doing that 20,00 times? I can’t wait to see this, and will try to learn how, mainly just out of curiosity, He believes the government has programs to buy these seedlings or direct certain suppliers to him. He is hiring some boys to help him put the seedlings in little bags of fertilized dirt. The other day, Margaret discovered that these boys had dug up some of “her” recently planted dirt for the seedling bags. Voices were raised that night!

Azedy is able to use his neighbor’s half built walls to get protection from goats and thieves.

Recently, I went to visit my home stay parents in Iganga, Hellen and Simon. Much to my surprise, Hellen has embarked on an identical orange seedling project, including the grafting of orange buds to lemon trees. She is making 30,000 seedlings and has plans to get up to 100,000 of them. I was sad to point out to both Azedy and Hellen that they were doing identical projects, but hated not to say anything.. I am worried about an over-supply, and now so are they. If I know two people who are doing this, how many others are there? Margaret and Simon are friends too, through their teaching careers. The seedling sales will probably occur January through March, I will keep you posted.

These are Hellen’s seedlings. Some relation told her about this opportunity and she has jumped right in. At least both of the seedling projects are hiring some boys to do most of the work.

You might recall Adrian had a close brush with mortality. As he struggled, an uncle asked him what he would want if he got better. Adrian said a bicycle. The uncle had just delivered it, sparking a round of sibling jealously. I remember my first picture of these kids a year ago. They were playing with rocks!

Adams is getting married! The normal way to raise money for your your introduction ceremony is to hand out a budget. I’ve been given budgets for graduation parties too. This one was accompanied by a pledge card. If you care to blow this photo up, you will see on the first two lines that Adams is contributing 7 cows and 4 goats as the dowry he negotiated with the bride’s parents.

General

agriculture, ATEFO (my NGO), Entreprenuership, host parents, Rotary Club, Uganda Culture, working, Youth Group

Odds & Sods II

Author: Charles July 8, 2016

For the 4th of July, I was invited to a school about 30 minutes by boda south of Bugiri to talk about American Independence. A few hundred students in a school assembly were there. The man in blue standing was the headmaster making announcements when I came in and took the picture. I prefaced my remarks with my usual discourse about the importance of education and other patter. I spoke about Paul Revere’s midnight ride, Boston Tea Party and Washington crossing the Delaware to wake them up. I told them that Washington “came out of the bush” to lead the troops to victory, became the first president, and then willingly surrendered power (hint hint).

The Rotary year begins on July 1, and just like home, there is a changeover of officers at an installation dinner. My NGO supervisor Adams, second from right, is the new Secretary and he is in line to be President in a couple of years. Before dinner they were playing music videos on the white screen. Adams plays videos on his dash when he drives except when I am with him and complain. I also make him wear his seat belt.:-)

I have started working out with a Bugiri town football (soccer) team on a pitch five minutes from my home every morning except Sunday and game days from 6:15 to 7:15. I join them in exercises and drills, which leave me in an exhausted pool of sweat. I am at least twice as old and lousy at the ball drills, but they have welcomed and tolerated me. I am sort of amusing to them. I really need this to stay fit and hope I can stick with it. Due to schedule conflicts most weekends, I will attend few games, relieving them of any pressure to play me. Right now, I am missing some work-outs due to appointments keeping me in Kampala until the end of this week, but I have been walking quite a bit instead. I have lots of little things to show.

“The Book of Mormon” is a hilarious irreverent play written by the South Park guys. Its about the hapless adventures of Mormon missionaries in Uganda. Here, are some actual Mormon missionaries in Uganda! From left, they are from Utah, Zimbabwe, Washington, and Zambia. Utah had seen the play. We had a nice chat.

I attended a huge funeral for Paul Kitakule, who was Chairperson of the Busoga Institute for Rural Development, and a Canon for a Protestant Church. He had 12 children and 40 grandchildren(one wife). His son is one of the founding members of the Bugiri Rotary Club and owns the Gilgard Guest House where we meet. Adams said I am considered a member of the community now, so I had to go. It was four hours of hymns and eulogies. There must have been at least thirty wreaths for the casket. Ushers would rotate a different wreath on top of the casket every few minutes.

The funeral was held on the Bukooli College grounds. These cars are in the shade of an Umbrella tree on the grounds planted in 1981, when it was the size of the seedling planted last week at my office by the Ambassador. See how far the branches stretch. When I teach in the villages, it is often under the shade of these trees.

Heavy demand for boda bodas parked at the funeral

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Wednesday was Eid, the end of Ramadan, and a Uganda public holiday. The men wear white and the women are colorful. These kids in Kampala asked me to take their photo.

While in Kampala I enjoyed the Uganda National Museum. It was combination of natural history and people history. A guide took me around. So many parallels with the colonization of America but in the 1800’s. The British traded beads, trinkets and old guns for Ivory and slaves.

A water-tight initiation basket. The mother would place the umbilical cord of her new baby into a solution. If it didn’t float the baby would not be from the the clan.

I love Google maps in Kampala. This dirt trail showed up as a walking short cut.

Boda boda drivers don’t hesitate to go up on sidewalks, like the guy on the right.

I had a snack in the shade of the museum. I met a lady in my hostel who is researching Ugandan museums. She said there is an interesting one in Iganga run by a prince. Azedy tells me there is a cultural museum in Bugiri, the capital of the eastern region of the Masoga tribe. Bucket list items.

General

history, Kampala, Rotary Club, Teaching, Uganda Culture

No Syrians Here (Yet)

Author: Charles March 21, 2016

I am now in a routine of presenting programs to four farmer groups each week. In a Thursday farmer group, I gave my first talk about keeping household budgets as a way to control spending, In the USA, where I suspect written household budgets are rare, I helped families with budgets required in connection with their bankruptcy filings. Here, where a man has multiple wives, I recommend keeping multiple home budgets. I hope it promotes trust and harmony between the families. There is often suspicion the husband is favoring one family over the other, so best to work together and lock in the amounts. I asked how many men have more than one wife. Almost all ten men in the group raised their hands and sort of shrugged about it.. I ignore the moral dilemma this presents to supposed Christians (Muslims claim their faith allows it), but observe that the culture of polygamy typically increases the number of children, and hence adds to the strain on their limited resources

This is Agnes, my neighbor behind our office, sifting and picking her rice, a common sight in the third world. Here she is picking out small stones. I eat lots of rice in restaurants and I automatically check for pebbles with my tongue before I chew. My rice cooker is used for noodles.

Here is Agnes at mid-flip. I never knew why they did this. It separates out the lighter husk remnants which catch the breeze. Sure enough they were on the ground by her.

On an off day, I was invited to speak at another primary school near Mbale, where one of Matthews’ sons is a teacher. I was stunned by the size of the crowd of parents jammed into a class room just to hear me. I am evolving a decent stump speech for these occasions.
Whenever I ask for questions, I get some variation of “We have such a need of your knowledge and skills, how can we get more Peace Corps volunteers?” I respond that 200 Peace Corps volunteers in a country of 38 million are stretched pretty thin. I lament that my country has far more resources devoted to endless unsuccessful military engagements. I just read that the Department of Defense is the world’s largest employer, with more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty and 742,00 civilian personnel. This compares to 220,000 total Peace Corps volunteers over 55 years. I tell them I wish my country could begin to flip this priority, but with our two likely militaristic candidates, it will not change with our elections this year.

The parents should donate their own knowledge, skills and resources. Volunteer to help at school by helping a group with reading, tend to the school garden, help with maintenance or any number of non-monetary contributions.

Chicks painted pink! Easter is coming! Friday and Monday are public holidays.

Two poor goats are stuffed under the rear seat of a taxi

I also spoke to two classrooms of children, one of them P1 through P4 and the other P5- and P6. Here is a brief video showing how the classes in Uganda always greet their visitors. Besides asking them to appreciate the sacrifices their parents make to ensure their education, I stress how important it is to always do your best, and get in the habit of being honest, the two qualities I wanted from my own children.

For a secondary project, I am establishing a relationship with a youth group called the “Education Club” at Bakooli College (high school), which is within walking distance of my office. The club seemed to be the group with the most goals and activities congruent with what I am doing. I am also hoping to make it a Rotary Interact Club, so it can get needed support from the Bugiri Rotary Club. The teacher/adviser and a boy and girl from this group will accompany me to Youth Technical Training for a week in late April, in Jinja. I turned down an offer to form a youth group in a deep village because of the unreliability of my transportation, but I am going to meet the head teacher to see about presenting some programs there.
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This is pretty typical of the refugee compounds. Almost all of them had been swept clean.

In front of the primary school.with Tom, Ryan.and Aruna. Definitely an upgrade compared to village schools.

Aruna stands with his “uncle” who came to the camp in 2002, a couple of years after Arruna’s arrival, , and a childhood friend. Just like Aruna’s older brother, the uncle was involuntarily conscripted into the Sudanese army, and escaped when he got the opportunity, later sending for his wife. The situation has not gotten much more secure all these years later.

A cute chicken coop at Aruna’s uncle’s place. Recently they got a disease and all died.

Sign near the entrance

Playing pool outdoors. Tom and Ryan have seen this in other villages.

These tents are temporary shelters for new arrivals

After the camp we took a took a trip to the shores of Lake Allen, which marks Uganda’s western border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The water looked awful. I would not eat fish from here.

Last Friday, I traveled all day to Homia on the western side of Uganda. There, I met Aruna, my PCV friend and former Lost Boy of Sudan, and two other PCVs, Tom and Ryan. We visited the refugee camp from Aruna’s childhood, which I wrote about in one of my first blog posts.. It was an interesting and enlightening experience. Unlike my assumptions of teeming refugees living in squalor, the place was nicer than the villages I go to. Clusters of huts are scattered throughout, and plenty of land for farming is available. It is not surprising that some have been there more than 20 years. This camp has 22,000 refugees, about twice as many as when Aruna was there. The vast majority are Congolese. The photos tell the story.

General

Education, Rotary Club, travel, Uganda Culture, Uganda food, working, Youth Group

WASH

Author: Charles December 9, 2015

Sticking with my propensity for song titles (Pearl Jam, again), but actually WASH stands for Water and Sanitation and Health. This is an initiative of the Rotary International Foundation. In the absence of my counterpart, interpreter, and motorcycle driver Matthews, who is getting some health issues attended to, my supervisor and Rotarian Adams has taken me with him to villages to help determine how WASH funds will be spent. There are 10 schools in Bugiri District which will receive these funds. The main Sponsoring club is the Rotary Club of Ntinda, which is located in Kampala.

We go into the community and it’s like a town hall meeting under the shade of big trees. There is great participation. They talk about their community resources and the problems they have with water and sanitation. School is out so there are lots of kids on the periphery of these meetings, but they are exceptionally well behaved. I get treated like a special guest and they are easily charmed by my fractured Lusoga. All I remember now are the introductory phrases and a some greetings. Then I tell them my Lusoga is “mpola mpola” (slowly, slowly) and they all laugh and I switch to English. I say a few sentences and sit down, and the whole meeting is beyond my comprehension. Then we inspect the school’s latrines and water resources, which are often the same as the village water resources.

A couple of facilitators are used to keep the meeting moving.

They make the kids drag their desks and chairs out of the classroom to the tree where the meeting is held.

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Pit Latrine inspection. This one was OK. So far every school gets a new bore hole. They cost about $12,000 US.

Adams stands in front of a pond which is the water source for the village. He says it is not fed by a spring, it’s mainly rain run-off. Yuk.

Our four wheel drive picked up two passengers this morning, so we were 4 abreast just like on a taxi, but then it got stuck in the muddy road. We all piled out to walk, while the vehicle was able to eventually pass us with the lighter weight. Adams is in front of me. He laughed and said “This is Africa!”. It reminded me of the snow back home.

General

ATEFO (my NGO), Rainy Season, Rotary Club, Teaching, Water

Independence Day

Author: Charles October 15, 2015

Last Friday was Ugandan Independence Day. A large crowd gathered around a field to watch marching groups make a procession. It was followed by a soccer game between my Bugiri Rotary Club vs. some Primary School Teachers. I’d guess 2,000 people were around the field to watch. I’m sure there was a healthy curiosity about the Muzungu on the Rotary team. This is the reviewing stand

Only the Police procession carried real rifles. Everyone else had sticks.

Team introductions over loudspeakers and everything! The President of the Rotary put my name on the lineup card as “Charles Muzungu”

A team photo before our Rotary Club played. The lady behind me in green was our goal keeper, named Ford. Most names are sort of old fashioned like Agnes.

The Rotarian on the right, Egesa, is running for Parliament as an independent. He was also our best football player.

The club president Moses is on the left. I have met many men named Moses in Uganda. I had a law partner named Moses once, The Rotarian on the right, Egesa, is running for Parliament as an independent. He was also our best football player.

I played in the back defense for the first half. They only had one opportunity to score, and I looked pathetic trying to stop their onrushing forwards. Fortunately, the ball sailed over the goal. Otherwise we had the ball on their end the whole first half but couldn’t score. The teachers dominated the second half while I sat out, and won 2-0. A couple of days ago some boys in my neighborhood said they saw how badly I played. ;-).

I forgot this last week. Adams hosted a Rotary party in front of our offices on a Sunday night. We had roasted goat! Definitely need toothpicks for that meat. Power went out right when it started (for 24 hours), so we used candles.

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How about this? A coal powered iron! We have frequent power outages and my neighbor Ali borrowed it to press his shirts. My permanent press shirts look pretty good after drying on the line. I wear a few of the more wrinkly ones on weekends.

Occasionally you see kids pushing bike tires with sticks. A bygone sight in America, unless there are tire pushing video games.

Rainy season is back. I am trying to get my permagarden finished! Will post on that later. My umbrella got blown off my porch into the flooded compound.

This is a road on the way to work after a heavy rain the night before. The kid is one of two really tiny ones (1-2 years old I’m guessing) who absolutely want to get to me when I pass by. I often throw them up a bit or carry them back to their home.

This is the second kid. I try to get to their side of the road so because they don’t look when they come out.

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Bugiri, children, Local Politics, Rainy Season, Rotary Club, Uganda Culture, Uganda food

All The Way From America

Author: Charles September 8, 2015

My dad in a rodeo late 1940’s I hoped the Bugiri Rotary Club might enjoy learning about my cowboy roots

I prepared and gave a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Bugiri Rotary Club last week. We couldn’t make the projector work, so I had to show it on the my computer screen. I spoke about my life and journey to wind up in Uganda. I also spoke waaay too long. What can say, except that at 61, I have had a full life! Nevertheless I think it was all pretty interesting to them. I shared about my Cowboy ancestry, my family, my law career, my home Rotary Club, the dream of the Peace Corps as a retirement activity for my wife and I, her subsequent illness, and ended with my current deployment here.

For good measure I added photos showing the snow in Colorado (my driveway after a blizzard) and Jan and I skiing, and my brief political career, when I ran for the Colorado State Senate in 1984. There is a candidate for MP (Member of Parliament) in my club who took interest. I concluded with a short list of things I liked about Uganda.

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Traditional Presentation of my home Northglenn-Thornton Rotary Club banner to the President-elect

Next week I will apologize for the length of speech, but will say I sincerely want to have an individual tea or beer to get to know each member. They do not have a meal together, like a typical Rotary club, so there is not a good chance to interact as you normally would, so it is hard to get to know the other members.

I want to meet the MP candidate first. He is a genial fellow.

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background, Rotary Club

Goin’ Mobile

Author: Charles July 31, 2015

First off, a shout out of thanks to my Northglenn-Thornton Rotary Club for stepping up to cover the school fees and boarding expenses for Sharon’s last two years of High School! She will start during the summer break on August 7, and make up the two terms she missed along with her third term until December. Then she will have a more normal last senior year from January until December. All this for $525 US.

They waited until I picked out a mattress before they had the frame made. Then we walked through town with the disassembled frame.

I am in Bugiri until Friday morning and then go to “Tech Immersion” in Kibali. So far, I think I am going to like Bugiri. I have partially moved into my new home. It’s got a painted concrete floor with two rooms. With my move in allowance I will put down vinyl flooring, as in my home stay room. Nice looking and easier to sweep. I will use one room for a kitchen and eating table, and the second for combo bed and living room. An electrical outlet is in each room. I will need power strips. There is no running water so I will have to go about 100 yards down the road with a Jerry can to a water pump. I bought a kettle, so I can boil the water in the morning for my tea/coffee and my Nalgeen bottle, and in the evening I will add it to a bucket of cold water for bathing. Fortunately, I also have a stall inside my place for bucket bathing, so I don’t have to go outside for that, where the mosquitoes lurk.

Those cans are pretty heavy when they are filled with water.

So my place is a bit rustic, like my first place in Capital Hill during law school, minus the running water and cockroaches (I might get a cat to deal with any pests later). I thought I would hire a neighbor to wash my clothes but I only have two neighbors in this quiet tri-plex. One is a very pregnant lady named Sarah with a girl I would say is about 7 and a 1 y.o. baby. Haven’t seen the husband yet. The other neighbor is a man named Ali, who just started working for the town in the planning department (I think).
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My supervisor with the NGO I will work for (African Trainers and Entrepreneurial Forum), Adams, is a nice jovial person and I have a good office set-up (no internet though). Most of the time I will be going out to the fields to meet with rice farmers. I will travel on the back of my counterpart’s motorcycle. I’m still not sure what they plan for me.

Adams is thrilled I am a Rotarian and said he hopes I can attend each weekly meeting of the Bugiri Rotary club on Thursdays. It just got chartered (6/15) but already has 35 members. As most of us know, in most countries the Rotary Club members are the elites of the community, so this will surely help to get me integrated. I am glad I brought a couple of our banners to exchange. The meeting started an hour late (African time!) and they will party until midnight. Adams borrowed a car t take me home earlier. I look forward to working with this club. Peace Corps always wants volunteers to start youth groups, so I think I will start a few Interact Clubs, which are Rotary high school youth groups.

My counterpart is Matthews. He is a bit difficult to understand, but otherwise, a we get along fine. While sharing a meal with Matthews, he happened to mention that they stress organic farming without pesticides. This was a big thing with Peter Jensen too, and led to an intense discussion about perma-gardening. I showed Matthews pictures I had taken during training of the various stages of the garden we dug. He totally understood the concepts of water from the roof, double-digging, storage for dry season etc. I remarked that unfortunately my new home site wasn’t suited for my own perma-garden, but he thought he could find several locations that could work as demonstration sites. He’s pretty excited about the potential for this. Timing is perfect to get them dug in August and planted just before rainy season starts up. Adams requested me to send him my perma-gardening pictures on WhatsApp.

I take the time to greet and stop to talk to the people I meet walking to work and back. I have yet to see any other muzungus (white people). I have a whole new crop of kids to teach my name.

General

ATEFO (my NGO), Bugiri, empowering women, living site, perma-garden, Rotary Club, Uganda Culture, Water, working

Tag Archive: Rotary Club