Nonprofit Myths in the Developing World

I keep bumping into a few attitudes that just make me want to hit my head against the wall:

1. “We can’t do anything until we get more grants.” No way! There are plenty of things small, start-up organizations can do without grants! Gain knowledge. Talk with people. Build a network. Become experts in their field. Find out what similar organizations are doing in other places. Develop new strategies.

   Plus, one of the worst things a young nonprofit can do is waste all of its time searching for and applying for grants which aren’t likely prospects, or even worse, receive grants while lacking the infrastructure to manage them, and as a result leave a bad taste in the mouths of would-be future funders.

    

2. “Raising money locally is just extorting the poor. All of our funding should come from abroad.” I think there is so much power and pride that comes when a community can come together to meet its own needs, even on the smallest level. Outside funding always comes with strings attached, no matter what. My dream is to help the most marginalized people in this community—the rural poor, the people living with HIV/AIDS, the people suffering from domestic violence—to find their own voice and their own power. Without that key element, African countries will always be at the mercy of the big international donors.

    

3. “People are used to getting handouts (mosquito nets, sugar, etc.) when they come to meetings. Our meeting attendance has been dwindling since we started sending them home empty-handed. We need to find something to give people so they will come and get the psycho-social support they need.” The fact that people won’t come to our meetings without receiving a handout means that our meetings aren’t providing them with the psycho-social support they need, or not enough of it to be worth the trip in from the village. If we can’t revamp the meetings to actually meet the needs of the clients, it would be better to cancel the meetings altogether than to pour resources into incentives for people to come.

Pictures from my long walk home

The 15-ish mile journey began in a jungle-y area…

…through a few tiny towns and villages…

…up higher to a beautiful view of the horizon…

…past children in their school uniforms…

…and finally home!

Hospitals, Concerts, Nuns, and Goats

Saturday:

After riding two hours in a “small taxi”—a circa-1990 Corolla carrying about 12 passengers (I kid you not! They even squish two people into the driver’s seat)—I arrived in a nearby town to visit my friend Irene in the hospital. Irene’s story is so sad! She was a nurse in our health center. Somewhere in the process of taking the blood of an HIV-positive patient, an open wound on her finger came into contact with infected blood. She rushed to the nearest hospital to begin taking an HIV prophylaxis. She had been taking the drugs a few days when she developed Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a rare but life-threatening drug reaction. She has been in the hospital for over a month. I had spoken with her on the phone a few times and was glad to finally be able to go see her in the hospital. When I first saw her, I startled. She looked like a burn victim, with open sores covering her entire body. She wasn’t able to talk the first couple of weeks because of the sores in her mouth, and her family was afraid she would die. Her condition is slowly improving, but she will likely have severe scarring and she still can’t eat solid foods. I wanted to do something for her but I just couldn’t think of what. I gave her the novel I had packed to read on my weekend trip, feeling a little bit silly but hoping it could at least stave off some boredom. I left feeling so sad, and then later angry. If she had been wearing gloves when she came into contact with the blood, none of this would have happened. Does our clinic not supply its nurses with gloves? I intend to investigate.

Next I sat in regular “taxi”—a 15-passenger van—for another four hours to the next big town, where I met up with another Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). We continued on another taxi for another hour to another town, where we met up with a group of about eight more PCVs for dinner and then a fun concert. This town is near some tourist attractions, so it has a lot of “muzungu comforts.” I actually had a cheeseburger! Even though it was no comparison to Hires back at home, it was fantastic!

The concert was fun and interesting. The main performers were two popular Ugandan singers, Radio and Weasel, who do kind of reggae-ish music. There is definitely a different performer-crowd dynamic around here. I’ve decided that whatever developing countries may lack in political democracy, they make up for in crowd democracy! The warm-up bands were local musicians singing along to pre-recorded backup music, but after a song or two, people started shouting and someone from the crowd would jump up on stage and point to his/her watch, signaling that it was time for the next act. Eventually, Radio and Weasel came on and the crowd wetnt into hysterics! People were jumping up on stage and giving the performers money, taking pictures with them, and dancing with them. The guard standing on stage with an AK-47 (these guards are ubiquitous in Africa) did nothing, and the musicians didn’t seem to mind. It was definitely a concert managed by the people, for the people! After the concert, we saw Radio and Weasel as we all were leaving. Weasel saw us and shouted out “Muzungus!” My wonderful and hilarious PCV-friend Miranda shouted back, “You call me madam, not muzungu!” Way to sass off to a celebrity, Miranda! J

Sunday:

I left town in the morning to journey back home, taking another way back. Another hour on a “taxi”, then an hour and a half of waiting, and then what should have been three hours in a “small taxi”, except the fact that we had a flat tire and the car was overheating along the way. Three hours quickly turned into five. Finally I made it to another village about 15 miles from mine, where there is a convent with some fantastic Ugandan and American nuns! They also have two young German volunteers teaching in the school run by the convent, and an American volunteer, Nick, who has been here for a few months setting up a microfinance organization. It was Nick’s last night in town, so he invited me to come join them for his goodbye dinner. Dinner was great—Mexican food! We all played cards and dominoes for a few hours, and then I stayed up late talking and relating experiences with Nick. The sisters were kind enough to let me stay in one of the empty teacher rooms.

Monday:

I walked down the main road after breakfast, intending to catch another “small taxi”, but when I reached the road, I wondered how long it would take to walk. The area is beautiful and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect—sunny with a cool breeze—so I started making my way…

Two and a half hours later, I heard a goat in distress. I rounded the corner to find a goat hanging from a rope by the neck off a drop-off, one foot above the ground. The goat had been tied on the flat land above, but had fallen off the drop-off and the rope wasn’t long enough for the goat’s feet to touch the ground. I looked around to make sure nobody was watching and might think that I was trying to steal their goat, and then I picked up the goat and put it back on solid ground above the drop-off, but the goat just laid on its side, gasping for breath. I thought, “Goat, I don’t know what else I can do for you!” But luckily, the goat finally started breathing normally and stood up.

An hour and a half later, I finally made it home!

Thrills

“It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it die away—go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow—and you will find you are living in a world of new thirills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life… It is much better to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back to the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy.”

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 111

Host Family During Training

Host mom and three of the kids at our big farewell program.

 

“Jaja” (Grandma), one of the cutest old ladies alive.

 

Host parents and some of the kids.

 

Ezra, the youngest, and a neighbor. Can you guess which one is the trouble-maker? J

 

Crystal and me.

 

Host dad (left) working on the new chicken house.

“He lives in wisdom who sees himself in all and all in him.” – The Bhagavad Gita

Writing depresses me a little bit because I can never fully describe what it’s like to be here. The first few months have been rough, but I feel like I’ve finally reached the top of the hill and can see a clear 360-degree view of the beautiful horizon all around. And it’s pretty awesome. I will write more about the journey coming here, but first I want to write some of my thoughts and feelings right now.

I’ve decided that the best thing I can do for the people here—and myself—is to stop trying to be some kind of savior and just learn to be one of them This is my home now, my community, and these are my people. Happiness requires jumping in with both feet. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t intend to lose my culture or individuality; indeed, these things will only help me to become even more integrated into this group of diverse individuals.

I’ve also thought about what it means to serve from the heart and love the people you’re serving. I think sometimes we make the word “love” so deep that we’re afraid to use it; it has to imply some sort of desperate “I’d do anything for you” mentality. But maybe it really just means appreciating another person for who they are, seeing a bit of yourself in them and them in you.

Finally, an update!

I now finally have regular internet access.  Woohoo! 

I have so much more I wish I could say, but here’s the brief version with a few highlights…   

Training is already a blur in my memory.  I thought the 10-week Peace Corps training program was about nine weeks too long!  I was so anxious to get out there and get to work.  During training, we each lived with Ugandan host family, which was wonderful but also very challenging at times.  This nightly occurrence at the dinner table is what I remember most about my host mother, Ruth:

 

Ruth: “You have taken very little matooke!  I add you more?”  (matooke = mashed plantains: the staple food in Uganda)

Me:  “Oh no, this is enough for me, thank you.”

Ruth:  “Sure?”

Me:  “Yes.”

Ruth:  “Sure?”  (bringing the huge spoonful closer to my plate)

Me:  “Yes.”

Ruth:  “Have more.”  (plop)

 

I tried to be a good sport and eat it, but it became a real problem.  Dinner was usually at 10 p.m. (which is common here), and I was going to bed with an absolutely stuffed stomach.  I woke up every morning with bad stomach ache, and I usually ended up running outside to the latrine.  Then something worse happened: halfway through training, I saw myself in a picture, and did a double-take when I noticed my bulging stomach from my huge overload of carbohydrates in my new Ugandan diet.  WHAT?!  I hadn’t seen myself in a full-sized mirror since I left the U.S.  This had to stop!

 

Aside from being stuffed with food, I had a good time with my host family.  I taught them out to make guacamole, which they loved.  They ate it plain by the spoonful, sometimes for dessert.  I’m not sure they ever learned to pronounce the word “guacamole” correctly—usually it sounded more like “quock-mo.”  I enjoyed answering their many questions about life in the U.S.  I was chopping onions one day with their 21-year-old daughter Doreen, and she said, “I don’t think people in America chop onions.  Don’t you have machines to do it for you?”

 

Then, on a day I thought would never come, training was at last over and I finally got my assignment.  I was going to a very rural district in western Uganda.  My job would be to build the capacity of an organization which works primarily on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.  The organization is a young organization which has had a lot of Peace Corps support, but my job is to help with strategic planning and staff training so that they will be able to stand on their own two feet after two years.  Sounds cool!  I was so excited.

 

My housing description read as follows:  “House is nice with four rooms, an indoor bathing area, outdoor latrine, and outdoor kitchen.  Rooms include a living room, a main or master bedroom, plus two other bedrooms.  House is located on a private compound surrounded by a living fence.  There is also an opportunity for a garden!”  WOW!  Sounds NICE!  (Haha… I was soon to learn that in Africa, things aren’t always the way they sound…)

 

We packed our things and went to a hotel in Kampala.  The next day we were going to be sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers.  A pang of anxiety was starting to boil up inside of me, subconscious at first, but growing more and more intense by the hour.  I was finally leaving the safety of my little training

More posts coming soon!

I know it’s been a while, but don’t give up on me! My internet access has a promising outlook. Check back soon!

How to pack for 2 years in Africa

New Blog Experiment

Recently I heard some people talking about how freeing it is to type with your screen off—no worrying about the way the words look or sound, just a constant flow from brain to fingers. Sounds fantastic! Here goes! Please excuse my typos.

I’m not sure have the mental energy to blog tonight. Oh well. It’s been way too long.

I can’t believe I’m leaving in three days! The whole thing still hasn’t set in. I hate saying goodbye. Strangely enough, my biggest consolation is Facebook. Somehow, I kno that the friends I’ve made aren’t lost and gone forever. I love that.

This is kind of hard. I keep peeking at my monitor!

Anne read a part of an Austrian short story to us. An old woman is in a telephone booth, trying to cll for help. First, she calls the good, but the good were busy. Next, she calls the enlightened, but I don’t remember why it didn’t work. Next, she calls the rich, but the rich are asleep in bed. Then she calls someone else, and it doesn’t work either. I wish I could remember the story better, because it was bueatiful! That part about the good being busy keeps replaying in my mind. I worry that that’s me—always out trying to save the world, but missing the wonderful opportunities there are to connect with the people right around me.

It reminds me of a passage from The Alchemist, when an old man teaches the boy the scret of life. The boy is in a mansion, nd the old man gives him two drops of oil in a spoon. The man instructs the boy to wander around, without spilling the oil in the spon. He does this, and returns to the old man. The man tells that boy that it’s great that he didn’t spill any of the oil, but asks if he noticed the beautiful tapestries hanging throughout the mansion. The boy says that he didn’t, so the man sends him out again. This time, the boy sees all of the wonderful sights of the mansion, but accidentally spills the oil. After the boy retunrs, the old man explains that the key to life is to enjoy the scenery, while not spilling the oil.

Wait, is that from  The Alchemist?