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.