World Food Day

I just attended "World Food Day" in our Sub-County's headquarters, about a 5-10 minute motorcycle ride away. It was a big open area surrounded by vegetable stalls with a tent in the middle to protect some guests from rain. People came and showed off their cows (and tried to sell them) and there were a couple of BIG ol' bulls. A couple of goats or rams or something started going at it ramming their heads (which is why I think they could have been rams), so that was exciting. Other than that, a lot of kids dancing, and a lot of people there. I'd say 600-1,000 people, though my companion at the event, Mangowe Masawi Wilson, our outreach coordinator and mayor of Bumwalukani, guessed 2,000.

Our drama group performed to this huge crowd. I was impressed by the way they held their own in front of a large crowd. Our health center houses a community health drama group who creates and performs small plays about public health issues. Then there were some speeches and such, and then Wilson and I split. It was a good day, overall. A good experience to be certain (though my camera is broken) and I might have made some good contacts at a government run bank that seems to encourage renewable energy projects (Biogas?) and the Community Development Officer of the district. I MAY have arranged to get a copy of the video taken, so if that's the case it will be on youtube once I get it and get a decent internet connection for long enought to upload it. All for today.....

My Election Night

I partied it up with some teachers from Arlington Academy of Hope (the school). After hearing that they had a sattelite, I expected at LEAST a 19" tv, but alas... it was more like 10". I got used to it pretty quick, and was happy to be watching my first tv since I got here. Leading up to the party, Godfrey (one of the hosts) was talking about sausage, chicken and the like.... I was making promises about bringing a case of "Senator" beer aka Obama (soon to be named "President" beer, I'm sure). As I was dreding carrying a crate of beer up the slippery, muddy hill to Godfrey and Andrew's house, I quicly realized that I wouldn't have to worry about it, as Senators were sold out in Kiholo (the village trading center) and they only had 7 Eagle Beers in the whole trading center. I bought them out and bought out the sugar cane liquor that they had, too (10 small pouches). I called Andrew, the school's treasurer, and apparently he sent a 6th grader down to "make things happen". I saw the kid coming down the hill with a backpack and money while I was on my way up, and he told me that "Andrew sent me to find beer". The kid came back without beer, but with the promise that it was 0n it's way. Sure enough, an hour later, a motorcycle drove up to the house with a crate of Senators!! Oh happy election day!

After washing down my sausage, chicken, rice, chipati bread, potatoes, and many other starches (maybe even a vegetable in there) with SENATOR beer, it was about 11pm. I fell asleep for a few hours, and was ready to go for the rest of the night... the results starting pouring in aroud 3-4am, and by 5am, we were fired up, Godfrey had his shirt off, and the party really started.... We kept it going until Barack's emotional victory speech just around sunrise. By then, I looked over and the health clinic staff was there, early for work, watching along with us. They were impressed that I managed to work the next day until 2pm. Not my most coherent day of work, but I got some things accomplished. I even test drove a bike and got damn muddy doing it. Luckily, my booze and mud soaked ass got overlooked thanks to everybody's excitement. WHAT A NIGHT!

Shout Barack... Obama.... Barack.... Obama.....

People are psyched about Barack. His Grandmother's village is 80 miles from my village (as the crow flies... by road, it's probably twice that).

There's a song by "Cocoa Tea" called, you guessed it... "Barack Obama" that was being cranked by one of AAH's teachers, Teacher Godfrey, on Saturday afternoon as he was sitting on his porch drinking a Kenyan beer called Senator named after, you guessed it, Senator Obama. People just order "Obama". Godfrey has a sattelite TV (one of two TVs in town that I know of) and he agreed to an all nighter Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Other Ugandans are also coming - they're psyched.

In Mbale, the city, people see a white guy walking down the street (me), ask where I'm from, and within seconds, we're high fiving, or hugging or jumping up and down, laughing in excitement about Barack.

I'm sure that no Presidential candidate in history has had this kind of international support... I don't want to offend any of my blog readers, but I'm psyched about Barack Hussein Obama... and I'm not the only one.

Papa

We hiked two hours over rivers and up steep trails to get to Salim's house for lunch on Saturday. We were guided by both a cook from AAH (the school) and by "Papa", a 77 year old man whose son is the founder of the school. Papa had knee surgery on both knees and when you look at him, you wouldn't imagine that he'd be able to handle ten minutes of hiking. In fact, he's been hiking these mountains his whole life and he laughs in the face of muddy slopes, rocky passes, and cliff-side paths. And he was doing it this past Saturday in a suit and tie.

On the way home from lunch, about half way into our two hour hike home, Papa disappeared. The last time I saw him, he was talking to an old lady so I just let him do his thang, continued walking, and figured he'd catch up. We stopped at the bottom of an especially steep downhill stretch, and Papa didn't show up for five to ten minutes, but it felt like much more as we started to worry about him. Once our fear started to escalate, we were thinking, "great, papa's missing or he's hurt and it's all our fault. What are we doing letting the old man go last down a steep slope without waiting for him more often?"

Then, as we were all looking uphill, waiting anxiously for Papa, we heard a call come from the other direction. As we turned, what did we see but Papa, standing there looking dapper as ever with his walking stick dressed in his suit and tie with a big smile on his face. He had taken a shortcut and was actually waiting for US. He had to come back to find us, as he passed us while we were contemplating what could have possibly happened to him.

Papa proved that the mountains still have nuttin' on him.... Neither do us punk kids.

Farewell to David

As I mentioned in one of my first postings, my predecessor, David Gelvin, did an unbelievable job here and after spending two weeks being trained by him, I feel like a better person. We had two ceremonies to honor his leaving and my arriving. One was with the villagers and the other was with our partner school (AAH). They were touching and inspiring, as he was given a hero's farewell and I was given a warm, open-armed welcome. The volunteer coordinator for AAH spent nine months with him, so I'll cheat today and provide a link to HER blog tribue....

http://outofuganda.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/david-and-goliath/

"Not-so Fair-Trade" Coffee

Mt. Elgon (and the foothills where I live) is a coffee growing region - 100% Arabica. The picture here is a coffee plant. Inside the purple things you see are coffee beans. Each of these contains two beans. It is grown by small, local farmers and sold after being harvested, husked, fermented, dried, and washed. It takes a lot of time and effort to go through the process from a seedling to a dried bean.

During October, the streets are lined with farmers drying their beans and preparing to sell them. Most locals need the money so bad that they sell them almost immediately for a little over a dollar per kilo (about 50 cents per pound). If they just wait six months until March, they can sell for at least double that, depending on the quality. Generally, the beans are sold in October or November and the money is spent by January. If financial management were better, the same crop could bring in twice the money and the same farmer could live off of it for twice as long. After a spending few hours here, it was obvious that some kind of "bridge financing mechanism" or something of the sort needs to be created in order to get higher prices for the farmers. One local man simply buys up about 10,000 kg per year (still less than 20% of the area's coffee), holds on to it, and sells it in March. That's great for him, but it doesn't spread the wealth.

As a pilot and as a small fundraiser for the local men's health group to provide basic health needs (like blankets for remote households in the mountains or mosquito nets to prevent malaria), I'll be loaning a little over $100 to buy about 200 lbs of coffee which should in theory sell in March for $200 or so. I'll just get my money back and give the proceeds to the men's health group. This kind of return would be a dream for a wall street investor (percentage-wise, not dollars), but this kind of dilemma isn't meant to be solved by investors seeking huge returns. Even if the farmer could borrow at an annual rate of 20%, their cost would only be 10% on a six month term and their coffee income would still almost double.

For a coffee growing region to live in poverty like this is shocking. We always see Fair Trade labels in Starbucks, but I'm seeing first hand that coffee farmers are flat broke. Though it doesn't relate directly to my job at the health center, my FIMRC supports a comprehensive aproach to community development and they're more than willing to have me allocate some time to this kind of activity.

A couple of days ago, I was on a motorcycle boda and passed a peace corps volunteer a couple of miles away who I talked to only long enough to learn that he decided to leave this area due to some problems he was facing. Yesterday, I met his local counterpart who works with our young men's health group and had been distraught that his economic development plans had slowed down with his volunteer leaving. We talked about getting together with his community and with mine to brainstorm and figure out some ways to improve the coffee supply chain. Financing is one part, but if they can improve their quality and their yield, their coffee income may enable them to take some forward steps in development.

If you'd like to make a six month loan and get a 10% return, I would give that money to our men's health group who would do what the "rich" guy in town does - buy some coffee now at 50 cents/pound and sell it in March for $1/pound. 55 cents would go back to the investor and the remaining 45 cents would be split to provide some public health essentials and to invest in the improvement of the coffee supply chain. Like I said before, this kind of model doesn't represent a long term solution because the farmers are still selling for too cheap, but it's keeping more money local, it's helping public health, and it's contributing to a longer term solution, which I'll develop with the community over the next year. If you're interested, send me an email or comment on this posting. You can either mail a check to my sister (who doesn't know about this yet) or deposit it into my Bank of America account. You'll get 110% back in March. I would actually appreciate it if you could send this link to more people who might have $100 or more to loan to this cause. Otherwise, thanks for reading and keep drinking coffee!

Forging New Paths

My first initiative is kind of a cherry on top of a recent expansion of the health clinic. It is a new path leading from the road to the health clinic. Through collaboration with David, the health clinic staff, and several higher-ups from our partner school, Arlington Academy of Hope, the plans were hashed out over the course of the week. The old path was small, had funny slopes, and was often slick and muddy... easy to fall and not ideal for sick patients or for mothers carrying sick children. A new path was ideal for me as a first project because it is simple enough, it involves a lot of interaction, it's highly visible, and people agree that it's a good idea.

Once the plans were complete, I reached out to a local character named Alex Shizense who, according to David, can "smell out work". He's lovable and endearing in that he often does work that needs to be done, but nobody asked him to do. He'll then approach multiple people and say, "look at this hard work that I've performed. My stomach is hungry." He's a nice man and I look forward to giving him odd jobs.

"Smelling" my plan for the new path, he was walking by on Friday around noon. I walked up to see him (we had met a couple of times before) and brought a local with me to be translate. Shizense speaks SOME English, but I wanted to be clear so I brought our volunteer coordinator, Peter. We worked out the details and I left to run an errand. When I came back less than an hour later, Shizense was already hacking away with a hoe, forging the new path. No contracts, not signatures, no red tape... just a plan and a man named Shizense.

The photograph above is the man himself standing proudly on day one of construction with our health center in the background