Uganda and Rwanda
Pics from the last few days
Just five more days at the lake. I absolutely love it here, but I am definitely ready for a change and ready to move on. Our research paper was very well received and I am so relieved that project is over and that it went so well. Today is a rest day, taking it easy and reading mostly. 5 more weeks in Africa and lots more adventures to come.
June 24th
I've been so terrible updating my blog for the last few days. Mostly because nothing too terribly interesting has been going on. And also because I've been so busy.
Tavia and I have spent the last few days going through interviews and trying to determine how we were going to present the data. We ultimately created three categories and identified common themes that participants mentioned in their interviews, and then went back through each interview one by one to see who said what and if we missed anything else. Then yesterday we spent the entire day actually writing the paper. It definitely needs some serious editing but we have a completed draft! I am hopeful we will be able to finish it today! Which is definitely sooner than I thought. Then on Thursday we're going to a Health Center III to shadow a public health nurse there. And...I haven't counted my practicum hours but I have a sneaking suspicion they'll be all done by then! We'll see...
We've had a few groups in and out the last couple of days. We had about 40 high school students here for a few days. We're down to a grup of about 15 of them now. The last big thing is a party ENtusi will host for the mental health facilitators on the 29th. Then Tavia and I head to Kampala on the 1st and we'll see what happens from there!
A few pictures
One of the villages:
Local sweet bananas. Bright and Hannington told me if I ate the double banana I would have twins...so I went ahead and avoided that one:
That little tiny island is Punishment Island.
"The Bakiga used to leave unmarried pregnant girls on this small island with a lone tree - to die of hunger or while trying to swim to the mainland (swimming skills were rare). This was to educate the rest, to show them not to do the same. A man without cows to pay the bridewealth could go to the island and pick up a girl. The practice got abandoned in the first half of the 20th century. Although this practice has been abandoned, it is still possible to find women who were picked up from punishment island today."
One of the churches:
We've been calling these Seuss trees because they look like something out of a Dr Seuss book:
Sorghum:
Research:
"The Bakiga used to leave unmarried pregnant girls on this small island with a lone tree - to die of hunger or while trying to swim to the mainland (swimming skills were rare). This was to educate the rest, to show them not to do the same. A man without cows to pay the bridewealth could go to the island and pick up a girl. The practice got abandoned in the first half of the 20th century. Although this practice has been abandoned, it is still possible to find women who were picked up from punishment island today."Signing one of the many visitors books:
June 19th
The last few days have been absolutely crazy and busy. We've been traveling to many of villages surrounding Lake Bunyonyi (which, also, I found out means "lake of many tiny birds". I think). These are the villages we've visited (some multiple times):
Burimba
Mugyera
Kyabahinga
Kagunga
Kagarama
Bugandaro
Mutaba
Kifuka
Bufuka
Kabungo
Mukoni
Rutinda
I just think the names are fun and interesting. Let's see...some things that have been going the last few days.. we've been all over the lake, by boat, on foot, by boda (my first boda boda ride!) Tavia and I have taken to calling the hills we've been hiking "African switchbacks" because we've determined that in Africa they don't actually have switchbacks. The path just goes straight up. And here we are huffing and puffing our way up and women are walking next to us carrying giant jugs of water on their heads with babies on their backs. Women do everything with babies on their backs, including all the agricultural labor. To see a woman working the land (land which she herself is probably not able to own) with an infant strapped to her back is truly a sight to see. How strong and powerful they are, but how little power and respect they are given.
What else can I tell you? The majority of the feedback from locals we've received so far about mental health largely centers around alcohol. It's everywhere and it's cheap. Even walking down the main road in the village you can see the men huddled in a room drinking in the morning, while the women are out working. It's a frustrating thing to see, especially because, as I said before, only Africa can help Africa. People can't come in here and change it. So how do we get the men involved to be the ones to change Africa? We met the director of a vocational school yesterday, a school which he started with the intention of bringing more girls into education, and he said: "When you educate a boy, you educate an individual. When you educate a girl, you educate a nation."
That was really powerful to hear from him.
More vocab (as best I can figure out):
Tugende: (tu-gen-day): Let's go!
Webale: (way-ba-lay): Thank you
Cale: (cah-lay): Bye, okay
Muzungu: (moo-zoon-gu) white person (what gets shouted at us everywhere we go)
Entusi: (did I tell you this one already?) Eucalyptus
Greeting locals with "agande" and responding with "nije" has been really fun because some of the villagers completely light up when you address them in their own language. Although that's pretty much the only kind of conversation we are able to have, it is still a pretty amazing interaction.
All in all, this week has been a busy one.
We have conducted and transcribed 20 interviews; visited 12 different villages; seen schools, health centers, churches and homes; met teachers, headmasters, directors, nurses, reverends, priests, children, and families; gone into Kabale town twice; traveled on foot, by boat, canoe and boda; filled out about 20 visitor's books; experienced the sun, the rain, the wind and most of all the mud (only one major tumble down and one splinter, which I dug out just how my father always showed me); visited Punishment Island; drank about 50 cups of coffee (not coffee really, Nescafe); gone through every item of clothing we both own; and been called muzungu more times than I can count.
As I sit here now, it's about 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday, and we have 2 more interviews to complete and transcribe, and then our interviewing should be concluded! YAY!! All that is left now is to organize and compile the data and write a brief about our research and our recommendations. We will spend the majority of next week doing that, except for Thursday in which we will be visiting a public health nurse at his local clinic. We are then hosting a gathering at Entusi for all the people who were trained in the Mental Health Facilitation on June 29th and are expecting around 20-25 people to attend. At that time, our practicum hours should be completed and we head back up to Kampala on July 1st!
Tonight, Tavia and I decided to bring a little tradition here from home, so later this evening we will be celebrating the end of our interviewing week with wine, popcorn, chocolate, and a movie. They have a projector system here so we have been able to watch a few movies together with the staff, which has been really awesome. So far we've seen JAWS and Raiders of the Lost Ark- two movies from my childhood (no, JAWS should not be a movie from anyone's childhood, but we're going to go ahead and blame my brother for that one).
It's been such an amazing and exhausting experience, and whenever I'm getting too tired or frustrated I have to stop and remind myself that Tavia and I are actually conducting our own field research in a rural area of East Africa. How incredible and humbling to be able to say that.
Pictures coming next!
Pictures!
Sunset from last night:
June 16th
Long but great day! We spent today traveling (aka hiking) between a couple villages, Kagunga and Kifuka and conducted a few interviews and also met Brite's wife and adorable 7 month old baby! After visiting a while in Kagunga, chatting with a few people, and visiting the school, we hiked back down the hill and boated to Kifuka. In Kifuka we found that the people we had intended to interview were both gone in Kabale and it was unknown when they would return. So, we hiked to the other side of the village where we were to wait and meet a boat. But I think Brite got really excited about the prospect of canoeing, and borrowed a canoe from the priest's wife. Tavia and I watched as he emptied buckets and buckets of water out of the canoe from the intense rain last night. Side note: I have never experienced a storm like that in my life. The thunder was literally so loud it made me jump every time as it shook our tent. And then lightning would immediately light up the inside of the tent. There was no need to do the little counting trick to figure out how far away the storm was (if that's actually a real thing or just something my grandpa taught me?). No, because the storm was directly above our heads. And just sheets and sheets of rain. I probably should have gone out and showered in it. It may have been warmer than the shower I took earlier in the evening. Okay, I got off track. Brite finally got all the water out of the canoe and we loaded in. I was a little wary of the sea-worthiness of this particular canoe, but you see locals floating in them all the time, carrying huge loads of bananas and leaves and people and no one ever appears to fall out. So we clambered in and got about 25 feet away from the shore when Domboro showed up with the Entusi motorboat. So back to the shore we went. I admit my relief, not because I wasn't enjoying the canoe ride, but mostly because I had every piece of electronic equipment I own with me in that little tiny canoe. So off the canoe, into the boat and on into Kabale. So Kabale is about a 15-20 minute drive from the dock, and we have to hire a driver and a car from there. It's 40,000 Ugandan shillings to get from the dock to Kabale and back to the dock (approximately $13). You can also hire a Boda Boda for a lot cheaper but the roads are super twisty and today they were exceptionally muddy. Anyway, we got in to Kabale and did some shopping in the market, and then headed up to Kabale Regional Referral Hospital to conduct another interview for the research. Apparently the teacher we were to interview in Kifuka was not feeling well today and went to see a doctor. But he agreed to meet with us while he waited (which was definitely above and beyond). After we met with him, we headed back to Entusi and began transcribing our interviews for the day. Because I am a fairly quick typist, Tavia and I decided that she would conduct the interviews and I would transcribe them while people are talking, to save time and also to have a double-check with the recordings. I get most everything people are saying, but have to spend some time cleaning it up and fixing typos.
I'm realizing that maybe I haven't explained what the research Tavia and I are doing actually is? So last year, Entusi/GLI partnered with the National Board of Certified Counselors to provide a training for community members in mental health, certifying them as mental health facilitators in their community. Essentially their job is to support people with mental health problems in their community and refer them to Kabale Regional if necessary. GLI was asked to once again host this training, but Jamie (GLI's CEO) first wanted to conduct an evaluation to determine how effective the training actually was, whether or not people have used the knowledge they gained, what challenges they face, and what they would change about the training in the future. Enter Tavia and I. We actually were not aware that we were the primary and sole researchers for this project when we started out, but it has been an interesting and exciting process to figure this all out. And to stop and reflect on the fact that we are actually conducting field work in a rural area of Africa that will hopefully have a deliverable that will be useful and informational, and result in more support for those with mental illness in the rural regions of Kabale. Even in just the last two days, we have walked so many places and met so many people, and they have told us how thankful they are for the Entusi center, and how they hope that we can get more mental health support for their community. So this week we will be conducting interviews with those who were trained in the mental health facilitation program at Entusi last year, as well as fellow community members and leaders. Then next week, we will code and compile the data and hopefully get it into the form of a concise and informational brief that can be utilized to determine the needs of the community and the direction future trainings should take. And on the 29th we will host a party/gathering for all those people who trained at Entusi as a way of sort of wrapping things up. Sorry, I didn't think I was going to be quite this long winded today, but the internet is out and apparently I had a lot to say.
Oh! I got my official Rikuga name last night! (Rikuga is pronounced Ru-Chee-Ga, and is the name of the group of people here and of the language where we are. Although sometimes it sounds like they're saying Lucheega, so we all get confused). I don't know how to spell the name, but it is something like Niakarunge (pronounced nee-ah-kay-rune-gee), and they told me it means "beautiful." I can't really explain the feeling of happiness I felt when they gave me a Rukiga name. And maybe it seems a silly thing to become so excited about. But it's hard not to feel like you're becoming part of a family, part of something bigger when you are here with these people at Entusi.
More vocab: Entusi means eucalyptus. Agande (uh-gone-dee) is a greeting like "hi, how are you?" Nije (nee-jay) is the response meaning "good". Orireje (oh-ree-ray-jay as far as I can tell) means good morning. I'm trying to think of others but those are the only ones coming to mind now. The language is VERY difficult. And people say their names so fast (last names first) that it's often difficult to even grasp a name. But the people have been understanding, and we've had a translator with us these last few days. His name is Brite and I swear he knows everyone within 100 miles.
Okay apparently I could just keep going on and on tonight so I'm going to cut it here. I have some pictures from the day that I will post shortly. Yes, Jeremy, I'll post a picture of the tent we're staying in and some more of Entusi so you can see what it's like!!
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