Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Coming Home Series
It’s never easy to sum up ten months of ones life in a brief and hopefully interesting essay, especially when one has been exposed to so many new people, places and other fascinating stimuli during that time. In fact, I have only tried it one other time, when I left China, and so now eight years later I will attempt to succinctly offer you a glimpse of our experience of living in Mbarara, Uganda. Furthermore, since we have been keeping the blog up to date all year, I will spare you a repeat of the highlights and instead try to pass on my thoughts regarding the intricacies of day to day life in a Sub-Saharan, East African country. I have a lot to ramble on about so I will break it up into a series of blogs over the next month. The first entry is actually an assignment I had to turn in a couple of months ago, but seemed like it would make a good blog entry, so don’t get thrown off by the use of the words “project” and “resistance factors” as they were terms needed for the assignment. Plus this will buy me some time to collect my thoughts in order to produce more coherent blogs.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Coming Home #1: The Project
My project is obvious in that my wife and I, in August, moved halfway around the world to live here in Uganda for ten months. There are numerous reasons why our life and work here is different from the everyday routine we established back home in America, but the major differences are pace of life, eating habits, social interactions and fiscal constraints. This endeavor was carefully planned before our arrival and has been meticulously managed during our stay to avoid any undue resistance mainly regarding the fiscal constraints.
Living in a foreign country for an extended period of time can be both extremely gratifying and sometimes frustrating. There are many wonderful aspects of living abroad, especially in Uganda, such as the overwhelming natural beauty, the gracious people and first-hand accounts of a developing nation, including a strong sense of the struggles and successes of a culture far removed from one’s own. The first big difference we have experienced here is the pace of life. Africa is well known for its slower, laid-back type of lifestyle which takes a bit of getting used to when one comes from a high stress job in a fast-paced society. After six months here we have definitely gotten used to and learned to enjoy the Ugandan pace of life, but some aspects can still be frustrating to us when we are used to a more orderly and regulated atmosphere. Second, several aspects of our eating habits have changed over the last six months, most notably, being that we prepare or cook meals much more often than we did back home. Being deprived of the convenience of pre-packaged food has actually been a very enlightening experience for both of us as we have had to learn to cook our meals from scratch, which is more time consuming but also, in the end, a more satisfying and healthy endeavor. We have also had to become creative with our meals because my wife being a vegetarian often finds very limited menu options at the local restaurants. At the same time, I have learned to survive on less meat than I typically consume at home, but feel healthier for doing so. Third, we have experienced a remarkable upswing in social interactions due to our living situation. We live in the MUST campus housing along with 15-20 other short and long-term visitors. And because we are all living in the same situation, close together and away from family and friends, we, therefore, share many of the same ideas and values and often get together for shared meals, drinks and good conversation. Although we have many friends back home, our way of life differs from here and, consequently, does not afford us as much time for the numerous friendly, social interactions we have here in Uganda. Finally, we have had to become much more fiscally conservative to be able to spend ten months here earning no money. Granted, it is much cheaper for us as Americans to live here than in our own country, but our savings was limited and so we have had to learn to live a more conservative lifestyle in order to survive.
Prior to embarking on this trip, we needed to make plans and situate our lives in a way that would enable us to successfully live overseas for ten months without having to worry about resistance factors from home. These plans, undoubtedly, revolved around finances, which most people know tends to be a high anxiety undertaking. We had to cancel credit cards and magazine subscriptions, open new bank accounts, make sure recurring bills were paid, pack our belongings away and then hope that we still had enough money saved to be able to live all year in Uganda. While living here we have kept a strict budget to monitor our spending in order to live in relative comfort, while allowing ourselves enough money to explore this wonderful country and continent because we may never have this opportunity again.
This project has encompassed many of the resistance to change factors including, fear of the unknown, need for security, contrasting interpretations and lack of resources. However, these factors plus others will always be part of any project and were quite expected by us during our needs assessment and feasibility study that we conducted prior to leaving. Furthermore, we have adapted well to these factors because we have worked together as a team to rise above the complications and when this project comes to a close on May 25th we will, without a doubt, be very pleased with the results.
Living in a foreign country for an extended period of time can be both extremely gratifying and sometimes frustrating. There are many wonderful aspects of living abroad, especially in Uganda, such as the overwhelming natural beauty, the gracious people and first-hand accounts of a developing nation, including a strong sense of the struggles and successes of a culture far removed from one’s own. The first big difference we have experienced here is the pace of life. Africa is well known for its slower, laid-back type of lifestyle which takes a bit of getting used to when one comes from a high stress job in a fast-paced society. After six months here we have definitely gotten used to and learned to enjoy the Ugandan pace of life, but some aspects can still be frustrating to us when we are used to a more orderly and regulated atmosphere. Second, several aspects of our eating habits have changed over the last six months, most notably, being that we prepare or cook meals much more often than we did back home. Being deprived of the convenience of pre-packaged food has actually been a very enlightening experience for both of us as we have had to learn to cook our meals from scratch, which is more time consuming but also, in the end, a more satisfying and healthy endeavor. We have also had to become creative with our meals because my wife being a vegetarian often finds very limited menu options at the local restaurants. At the same time, I have learned to survive on less meat than I typically consume at home, but feel healthier for doing so. Third, we have experienced a remarkable upswing in social interactions due to our living situation. We live in the MUST campus housing along with 15-20 other short and long-term visitors. And because we are all living in the same situation, close together and away from family and friends, we, therefore, share many of the same ideas and values and often get together for shared meals, drinks and good conversation. Although we have many friends back home, our way of life differs from here and, consequently, does not afford us as much time for the numerous friendly, social interactions we have here in Uganda. Finally, we have had to become much more fiscally conservative to be able to spend ten months here earning no money. Granted, it is much cheaper for us as Americans to live here than in our own country, but our savings was limited and so we have had to learn to live a more conservative lifestyle in order to survive.
Prior to embarking on this trip, we needed to make plans and situate our lives in a way that would enable us to successfully live overseas for ten months without having to worry about resistance factors from home. These plans, undoubtedly, revolved around finances, which most people know tends to be a high anxiety undertaking. We had to cancel credit cards and magazine subscriptions, open new bank accounts, make sure recurring bills were paid, pack our belongings away and then hope that we still had enough money saved to be able to live all year in Uganda. While living here we have kept a strict budget to monitor our spending in order to live in relative comfort, while allowing ourselves enough money to explore this wonderful country and continent because we may never have this opportunity again.
This project has encompassed many of the resistance to change factors including, fear of the unknown, need for security, contrasting interpretations and lack of resources. However, these factors plus others will always be part of any project and were quite expected by us during our needs assessment and feasibility study that we conducted prior to leaving. Furthermore, we have adapted well to these factors because we have worked together as a team to rise above the complications and when this project comes to a close on May 25th we will, without a doubt, be very pleased with the results.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Top Tens
Top ten things you can buy in Mbarara for 2000 USh ($1)
- One kg of dried garbanzo beans (several kgs after soaking)
- A third of a can of imported Pringles potato chips
- 2km Bodaboda ride in and out of town. Twice.
- A single blood sugar check in the medical ward of the hospital
- Ten large avocados
- A week's course of oral ciprofloxacin
- A single pirated DVD rental (with a vague return date...)
- A liter of petrol
- Two large pineapples
- A large plate of matoke (mashed plantains) and beans
Top ten things to do with visitors to Uganda
- Boat trip down the Kazinga Channel: hippos, crocs, buffalo, birds galore...
- Rafting down the Nile- survivable but may leave a mark
- Seeing the tree-climbing lions in Ishasha
- Drinking cold (always relative) Nile Special beer
- Cautiously tasting "home-brewed" banana gin (oogie) from deep in the village
- Swimming and Scrabble at Lake Bunyoni
- Chimp trek in the Kyambura Gorge
- Drinking sundowners on the deck at Ndali, overlooking the Rwenzoris
- Waiting 30 minutes for a temperamental female elephant to finish lunch
- Waking up in one of the tents at the Nile Porch- ahhhh!!!!!!!
- Endorphins- enough said
- At least 3 people saying "thank you for the exercise!" as I run by- I take it to mean "good job", but a great Uganda-ism...
- The soft dirt roads that are perfect for a gentle jog most evenings
- The 5-year-olds who drop what they are doing to run next to me until a better distraction comes along
- The sky at dusk- stunning and different every night
- The views from the top of the hill behind our house- 3600
- The perfect running temperature- always
- The offer of barbecued goat as I run past the old market- almost like a marathon aid station, I suppose
- The hills- okay, I don't always love them, but I know I should...
- The bodaboda drivers who always offer me a ride home in the middle of my run- do I really look like I need it???
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