Cattle run on the street

This is what we ran into one day walking back from the market to our house, which is just off this road (if you can call it a road!).  Check out those horns!

"Winning"

Dave was shopping in downtown Kampala when he had one of those surreal moments.  Just as he made his purchase, the checker got excited, called the manager, and the employees started cheering.  Apparently he had won a contest of some sort, and was obligated to take a photo with the manager and bring home free stuff.  Free stuff is always good!  Among the items (not shown here) was a beer mug (gave that to the caretaker), two giant bottles of lotion, and "hair food," which appears to be a chemical treatment for women's hair here.  In a city of several million people, the white guy had to be the winner.  Haha!

Lake of Many Little Birds (Bunyoni)

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Pygmies and Pigotts

For those of you still reading this blog (and presumably care what adventures we’re on) this past weekend we took a trip down to Lake Bunyoni (lake of many little birds), which is in the southernmost corner of Uganda on the border with Rwanda and not far from the Democratic Republic of Congo.  It is a very long, narrow, finger-like lake at an altitude of 6333ft that is dotted with islands and ringed with hills. The residents who live here are farmers.  They farm every square inch of the hills, which they have mostly deforested.  Where gorillas, chimps and a dozen species of monkey once roamed now it is nothing but bald mountains all divided up neatly into rows.

The view from the porch of our geo dome the first morning.

Open-air geo dome

But the effect is stunning.  Mindblowing.  The surrounding hills are a patchwork of different crops.  Each hill (or mountain, as the case may be) is farmed all the way to the tippy top.  The texture, light, and colors are surreal: mainly women performing gravity defying subsistence farming of sweet potato and beans.

Fresh crayfish

We stayed at a resort called Byoona Amagara on Intambura Island.  We arrived at sunset and had a short motorized canoe ride (considered a “speed boat”) to the island, where we were shown our geo-dome lodgings and got some much-welcomed dinner after our very long drive (9 hours to drive 300 miles with a stop for lunch).  We were surprised to find that the geo domes were “open air,” meaning they had no front!  It was too dark to really see much of our surroundings, so we somewhat apprehensively accepted the accommodations. 

It wasn’t until the songs of the birds woke us up that we realized our extraordinary surroundings.  We sat up in bed and saw the lake with low clouds and mist in the early morning light.  The birdsongs were magical, and several little birds flew in and out of our geo dome, perching on the bed net and the chairs.  It was very much like waking up in a fairy tale. 

Sam and Joe on hike to Batwa village.  Every inch of that hill is farmed.

We had arranged to be taken that day to a Batwa village.  The Batwa people are what we call Pygmies. There aren’t many of them left, since they were the original inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa.  The Batwa were out-competed for farmland, being hunter-gatherers.  They live in communities of between 20 to 75, since it’s hard to get bigger than that as a hunter-gatherer society.  After about an hour in the “speed boat,” we then walked a dirt road for another 1½ hours.  White people are decidedly a novelty in this part of the country, and as we walked farther down the valley, where women and children were farming the hillsides, we continuously heard shouts of, “Howayu? Howayu?” (“How are you?”) ringing out from all directions.  These were the voices of children, young and old.  Some children who appeared to be no older than two were doing their level best to say, “How are you?”  Apparently that is all the English they know.  That, and, “Give me your bottle!”  Kathleen was carrying a water bottle, and all the little kids wanted it!  Many of these kids formed a small parade behind us, giggling and laughing each time we turned to smile at them. 

With Jackson, our guide.  Quite possibly in Rwanda.

Joe is the first one the locals warm to.

As we came to another beautiful valley, our guide let us know that the opposite hill was Rwanda. It was possibly the most beautiful and remote spot any of us has ever been in.  We climbed a steep hill off of the main path and promptly came to the Pygmie/Batwa village.  I think we’ve located it on Google Earth here so cut & paste this into your Google Earth search bar: 1° 21’ 49.78” S 29° 52’ 59.52” E.  The visit felt very intrusive, but they seemed utterly pleased to sing and dance for us.  Of course, we paid for the demonstration. We bought some of their crafts, took several photos, and quickly left them to get back to their work.  Although desperately poor, they graciously welcomed us and seemed entirely happy, until they saw Dave dance.

Aside from visiting a disappearing culture, despite its forced integration into farming, the lake, the resort, and the lodging vibe were by far the most memorable part of this trip.  

Lake Bunyonyi is completely enchanting and enchanted.  There are places in the lake where they have not found the bottom.  No waves, no wind. Just hundreds of species of little birds communicating in frequencies beyond description, farmers bringing their children to school via canoe, variations of green stripes forever, humble and sincere people eking out a living any way they can.

Simply magical and so remote I doubt I’ll ever get back there.

A Grand Day Out

Coconut Capture Lessons

Our friends here, the Kamyas (parents of our student-son, Grace Kamya at BYU-Idaho) took us to an island paradise the other day: Bulago Island in Lake Victoria.  (www.wildplacesafrica.com/bulago-island) Birds everywhere.  Sandy beaches, our own private swimming pool & basically the whole island to ourselves.  We were greeted with fresh pineapple juice cocktails in crystal martini glasses, with a “G’day, I’m Ott, Pineapple Bay Manager.  Welcome.” 

Joe got the prize after much effort.

We were certain they had the wrong people, that our boat had somehow arrived before the VIP boat.  We played along anyway.  Turns out we were the only guests planned that day!  We had the whole island to ourselves.  Got such a sunburn (except Mom & Mary) that a week later we’re still in pain.  Sam never was able to climb the coconut palm & deliver the goods on the hanging coconut.  At the end of the day one of the waiters showed us how it’s done by shinnying up the tree in about five seconds, & dropping a huge coconut  we shucked once we got home.

Better tasting than it looks.

The tour of the 500 acre island showed us a couple of private home, a landing strip for some pilot who has a place on the other side of the island. And a forest of bird-eating spiders as big as your hand to freak the living bejeezus out of Joe and Sam.  Sheet after sheet of spider webs all lined up in a very organized fashion as if there were some uber-spider orchestrating the best angle birds or as many of the trillion flies on that side of the island, into the webs.

While on our hike the manager (with no other clients on the island) fished off the pier, caught about 30 perch and tilapia.  Last week he said he caught a perch weighing 85 kilos! Big Fish!

Lunch, like everything else that day, was over the top delicious.  Whole tilapia (including head). They say the head and eyes are particularly savory.  Dave’s the only one who can confirm this & he’s not telling.    Certainly one of the most relaxing and luxurious days we’ve ever spent.

Murchison Falls National Park

The day we left Gulu we were headed to Murchison Falls National Park, which is a game reserve in the same part of the country.  Most tourists sign up with a tour company and enter and exit the park through the south, which is closer to Kampala.  Since we were north of the park, we decided to find our way to the north entrance.  We knew virtually nothing about the park, but had planned to hire a safari vehicle and driver on Tuesday morning.  We figured it would take someone who knew the park inside and out in order to find the elusive animals. 

Elephant from highway

But the animals weren't so elusive!  Before we even found the north gate, we saw an elephant from the main highway.  What we didn't know at the time was that the northern side of the Victoria Nile (which bisects the park) is where all of the large game animals are.  As we drove through the park, we didn't see another car or person for miles and miles, but we did see elephant, giraffe, warthog, and several varieties of large and small antelope.

Since we were in a small Honda CRV with tinted windows and one window that doesn’t roll down, the kids decided to crawl out the windows and sit on the door frame to be able to see better.  At one point I heard Mary yell, “I was born to do this!!!”  I think we all felt that way.

Mary and Sam in their "safari" vehicle

At one point we tried to count the number of giraffe we saw in a group in a small valley.  The count ranged from fifteen to eighteen!  One of the most surprising things was that we were the only car in the whole place.  And there definitely weren’t any fences!  Just dirt roads and the African animals.

Murchison Falls from the Nile

We got to the ferry launch with a few minutes to spare before an afternoon boat ride to the base of the falls for which the park was named.  It was a fairly small, rickety boat, but it got the job done.  The ride to the falls took a little over an hour, and along the way we passed a huge bull elephant on the river bank; many, many, many hippos; crocodiles; several cape buffalo; many beautiful birds; and at least one crocodile sunning itself on a rock.  

Dave getting all the info he can

After taking the ferry across the river at sunset, we arrived at our “lodge” just up the hill from the river.  The Red Chilli Hideaway is a quaint mixture of tents and bandas, which are just small huts that sleep anywhere from two to five people.  Because Kathleen is so cheap, we booked two bandas with two twin beds in each, and Kathleen planned to sleep with Joe.  

Dinner at Red Chilli Hideaway

Joe washing his face and not looking forward to sharing that bed with Kathleen

They have a great open-air restaurant that overlooks the river.  We had a fantastic meal and went to work getting ready for bed.  We all remarked at the stunning beauty of the stars. It has been a long time since any of us were so far from light pollution.  The fireflies were a nice touch, too.  At one point Joe wanted to light the candle in our banda, so he took a flashlight and bravely went out into the dark to get the matches from Dave and Sam.  Within a minute he ran back into our room, quickly shut the door behind him, and whispered, “There’s a hippo right outside the door!”  He must have thought if he said it too loudly the hippo might have charged the door, although it wouldn’t have fit in the entire banda!  The hippo, about the size of our minivan, was indeed just munching on grass directly next to the tent that was pitched in front of our two bandas.  We had to convince Dave and Sam that getting up was worth the effort.  When I finally said, “There is a 10-foot-tall hippo out your front door,” they took me seriously.  We watched the hippo until it quietly grazed its way to the other side of the campground.  A little later, when Sam and I went to the bathrooms, we had to dodge not only the hippo but several warthogs as we made our way back to our bandas.  It was a little surreal.

Hippopotamus outside our banda!

After a long and very hot night (electricity for fans turned off at midnight), and after a giant breakfast, we decided to cut our trip a day short since we had already seen all the game in the park (except for a lion) and didn’t see the point of hiring a guide, crossing the river again, and then spending another night.  We left through the south gate, but not before taking a side route to the top of Murchison Falls.  The entire Victoria Nile flows through a few incredibly narrow canyons on its way to Lake Albert.  It is impossible to describe the power of the water being forced through that narrow opening. 

Hopefully the video will do it some justice.

Simply put, it was a fantastic few days. 

Help Wanted

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Yay! New (used) Clothes! Denis is next to me.

Since 2007 Kathleen and I have been working with a former child soldier named Denis Ayella.  Dave met Denis at an IDP camp (essentially a refugee camp for displaced locals) when Dave was shooting a documentary film about Uganda.  Denis was abducted as a child by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army and forced to do some horrific things.  Denis was in the LRA for he thinks about nine years. To make a long story short, Denis escaped the LRA in 2004.  When Dave met him he really had no options.  We got Denis out of the camp and attending a local school in Gulu, then another one in Jinja.  Two years in school didn’t work out (too much time had elapsed since his formative years) and Denis returned to Gulu and began taking in orphans in the area, we feel, to help atone for some of the things he did while a soldier.

This last Sunday we visited what is now called The Future is Now Orphanage, Gulu, where Denis oversees sixteen beautiful children who have become a large family.  The orphanage is currently experiencing a great deal of hardships.  To put it bluntly, the little brood is barely surviving.  We brought as many clothes for the children as we could, bought them several hundred pounds of beans and corn, and provided four bed nets for the new bunk-beds one of the service missionaries’ daughters provided a few months back.  The missionaries, Elder and Sister Woods, worked with the children a few months back, planting sweet potato seeds in a small garden Denis has been using free of charge.  The dinner the orphanage provided for us and the Woods during our short visit were the first fruits of that little garden project.  We enjoyed boiled sweet potatoes, beans, and a sim-sim (sesame) sauce with a little grit from the sand and diesel dust from the “house” being so close to the road.  The children did a little welcome dance, just before the sun went down.  Once the sun goes down, it becomes very, very dark.The orphanage is temporarily housed in a small village adjacent to Gulu, called Laroo.  No electricity.  No running water.  These are luxuries in this part of the world. The landlady is in the process of evicting the whole brood due to the fact that the latrines are full and the children make too much noise.

Two of the youngest orphans

With our help Denis has nearly completed purchasing two acres of land in Paicho (ten miles outside of  Gulu, on Kitgum Road: GPS coordinates for you Google Earthlings: 2°52’59.08”N  32°26’08.79”E) and is in the process of clearing the land to grow some crops to feed the kids.  He has an option for an adjacent three acres across the street—a very good investment considering the road will eventually be paved & electricity brought in--Kitgum is on the way to Juba, South Sudan, where much international work is being done.  The cost of the latter is 4.5 million Uganda Shillings, or about $2000USD.  Denis is one of the hardest working men I’ve ever come across and is deeply committed to the children.  They are the family he never had and undoubtedly there is a lot of psychology at play in this situation.  

Our little foundation, Enough to Spare, has helped as much as we can but the needs of the orphanage are greater than our meager means, since our charity is also sponsoring 25 children in other schools, and four teachers’ salaries.  Two great couples from Rexburg, Ches & Stephanie Blackham, and Shane & Gale Goodwin, are generously sponsoring one of the orphans, a little boy named Eddimon.  Because of them, little Eddimon is thriving.  No others have stepped up to help carry some of the load Denis bears, and he takes charity wherever he can, sometimes from the LDS Church.  Although we never proselyted to Denis, he sought out the missionaries on his own in 2010 and was baptized.  He attends the local Gulu branch intermittently, together with his orphans.  Transporting 17 people five miles with some children as young as three can be challenging.

Sam, Dave and Denis with children who still live at the refuge camp where Denis grew up

 

What the orphanage needs is a permanent home and a way to create some income to pay for school fees to get these kids some opportunity for an education and a future.  There is a house (no electricity or running water, but potential to install) down the street from where they live now.  The cost of this is 12 million Ugandan Shillings, or about $5000USD.  Another option is raw land nearby (still close enough to town so the children can attend school) at nine million Ugandan Shillings, or about $3600USD, an absurdly small amount for a “house.”  We all realize this is “chicken feed” by American standards, but for such a paltry sum these kids could have a permanent home and move forward with several possibilities of sustainability, looking to install electricity eventually, running water, and wow, even a luxurious toilet!

With this in mind, we have come up with four possible revenue streams for the orphanage, if a permanent home can be obtained:

1.  A Goat Farm.  Goats sell for about $36 each. Two hundred goats (only a few males needed) will nearly double in number in one year, the sale of which would pay for school fees.  School fees are roughly $45USD per term (three terms per year).  Slaughtering a few goats would also add some sorely needed protein to the children’s diets.  Cost for this project would be around $4500USD for 200 goats and the supplies needed to corral and contain them; the chickens would reproduce more quickly and within a couple of years a few hundred chickens and at least 200 goats would sustain the orphanage on the two acres of farmland.  Denis would rotate the goats so they wouldn’t overgraze; the chickens would require feed which is not much.  Denis would build coops, and also two corrals for the goats on the two acres in Paicho.  During the dry season Denis would need to bring in water; a lot of work but doable.  This is a reasonable and manageable investment to create a sustainable revenue stream for the children.

2.  A Chicken Farm.  Chicks are cheap (about 80 cents each).  Feeding 300 of them for 120 days until ready for sale (they grow much more slowly on the feed here than in the states) would cost another $1500USD.  Broilers (hens for cooking) sell for around $6USD.  Eggs would also be a regular source of protein in the children’s diet and easily sold at market.    

3.  A corn mill.  The villages around Gulu grow an incredible amount of corn.  In the more remote areas, such as around where Denis has purchased land (in Paicho) there is no one to grind the corn into meal (they call it posho), which is what most peasants eat every day.  A corn mill would be quite a good little business since Denis would charge for the convenience of milling the corn instead of people doing it themselves, which is still done.  Currently, farmers are required to bring in their harvest all the way to Gulu (about ten miles), renting a truck, or getting it there any way they can, have the corn milled at a fee, then haul it all back in sacks to the village.  A Chinese-made (cheap but good for starters) corn mill would cost about $800.  Then a diesel generator to power it (electricity is spotty in the rural areas) would cost another $800.  This is perhaps the cheapest way to generate some income, but I fear the income generated will not be enough to sustain the group.  Perhaps the corn mill should be one source of revenue in addition to others, at least until the orphanage is on its feet.

      4.  An Internet Café.  Denis is quite good at computers, at least for an uneducated African.  I could probably talk the surplus department at my university to donate five or six desktop computers monitors, and a printer/scanner or two to the cause.  Shipping them over would cost around $1200, which is about the cost of the equipment itself.  We may have a container from Rexburg coming in the next few months. If so, I will put some computers in it destined for the orphanage’s needs. What will also be required for this project to happen is the payment of renting a small store near Gulu University, where many students need computer/printing/scanning services.  Should the internet café need serious technical help, Denis could call on the IT students on campus to fix the problem quite inexpensively.  Start-up costs on this, considering donated computers, would be around $3000 for shop rental, advertising, etc.  This seems like a reasonable and plausible sustainable business opportunity to provide for the orphanage, although student clientele would be seasonal. 

 All of the above are estimates based on current prices.  Costs may change due to inflation (20% here), currency exchange rates, rainfall/scarcity/famine, etc.

One of the smallest girls in a new dress

 

Now for the smooth salesman close, and I really don't enjoy asking people for money, but I see no alternative and someone must go to bat for this small family faced with so many hardships.  Not seeing anybody else volunteering, I am:  Is there anybody out there that would be willing to help us get a permanent dwelling for this little brood, and put one or more of these sustainable business plans together?  For example, there is no reason why we cannot support both chickens and goats, or corn mill and internet café, or any combination. Even just helping with ten goats would be fantastic.  Any and all support would be tax deductible through our 501(c)(3) non-profit charity, Enough to Spare.  The senior missionaries in Gulu would oversee the projects and provide valuable advice and consultation.   

In a nutshell, does anyone reading this know any gajillionaires who don't know what to do with their money, or just people who want to make a difference in the world for some orphans? :-)

Working for the Kingdom of Buganda, or A Tight Spot

I wore a tie for this one.

I just gave a lecture to the faculty of Muteesa I Royal University (where I've been teaching) about new methods of instruction. I tried to include what BYU-Idaho has been doing re: changing the way "professors" teach.  MRU is owned by the kingdom of Buganda, which by definition tries to conserve its culture.  This position is somewhat at odds with the rapid changes taking place here as Africa enters the global economy where values are being crowded out in the name of economic growth, modern jobs, technology, etc.  So, I had to walk a bit of a tightrope so as not to offend the kingdom, while at the same time informing the faculty to step up their curriculum a notch or two if they have any hope at staying/becoming competitive.

The Minister of Education was present for the central government (not the kingdom).  He asked me to present to his administrators the next day.  I don't think he'll like what I have to say about foreign aid for schools being diverted to Swiss bank accounts. Maybe I'll just show a video instead.

Oh, and by the way, I nearly had a mutiny in class yesterday when I announced the due date for the major project (a case study of problems and solutions in Uganda.....).  One student said "It's too much."  I responded that this is the type and amount of study we do in America, and much more!  I wonder what the quality of the work will be.

Sipi Falls

Sam and Joe on homemade ladder

Last Friday (October 5) we took a day trip to Sipi Falls.  This was our first really long drive outside of the city.  Our 170-mile trip to the falls took over six hours due to the condition of the roads.  There are no freeways here.  The roads all seem to be two lanes with the occasional passing lane thrown in on a hill.  Cars, semi trucks, and motorcycles all jockey for position. Then add people walking, riding bikes, and hauling water and chickens and just about everything else you can imagine on the sides of the degrading tarmac (pavement) with potholes every three feet and you have yourself a fine specimen of a highway.  Oh, and don’t forget the police and military checkpoints.  We spent a week on the road that day.

At one point we needed to pull over to check the map.  As Dave started to pull away he promptly ran over a carton filled with glass bottles set on the side of the road to be picked up for recycling.  They still do the glass deposit/return game here.  It was obvious this was a big deal when people started swarming the car yelling that we would have to pay 30,000 shillings, no 40,000 shillings!! ($16), to make up for the loss.  Dave would have none of it.  He’s fed up with being targeted for jacked-up prices just because we are white.  He gave the lady who owned the bottles 4,000 shillings ($1.60) for the three broken bottles (from the sound of it, I had guessed it was more like twenty broken bottles), and then gave her another 10,000 shillings ($4) just to get her to stop yelling (and for the carton, I guess).  So many people swarmed the car you would have thought we had run over a child!  And who puts a carton of glass on the road!?

 

But I have to say that even this couldn’t ruin the beauty of Mt. Elgon.  We wound up a very steep mountainside to a little town called Sipi and pulled into the drive of a popular backpacking lodge.  The place was deserted, but we met Moses, who agreed to take us on a hike to the falls.  I need to insert here just how non-commercialized natural attractions are here.  We had to find someone who knew the trail in order to get to the falls.  In the U.S., we would have hotels and a six-foot-wide paved trail to the falls, with several shops and restaurants along the way selling “My parents went to Sipi Falls and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirts.

Moses jumped in the car and directed us to one of the trailheads.  We wandered a dirt path down through the grounds of a traditional lodge, over a small river, past several grazing cows, through banana fields, past caves in a cliff, down a ladder built to scale a cliff face, through more banana fields, past a family farming their land, and finally to the falls, which thundered and sprayed us until we were soaked.  Dave tried to stay dry with a huge banana leaf, which worked for about a half a second.  It goes without saying that we were the only people there.  We passed a cave on the way down and magically, on the way back up there was a makeshift "soda stand".  Naturally we bought sodas, had a good view of the falls.  A couple of enterprising young boys brought around a chameleon they had caught among the coffee trees and let us play with it, then charged us for the privilege. This was all agreed upon without words and we had a blast.  Eagle-eyed Moses spotted another chameleon and Dave caught it.  Very cool lizard.

Going back up was the hard part.  While we all huffed and puffed and slipped around on the muddy trail, Moses had no trouble at all, and he was wearing simple flip-flops. 

The drive home was challenging for Dave.  Driving at night on these terrible roads with very dark people walking just inches from the cars going by is frightening.  Our friend Ssimbwa told Dave that a missionary couple killed a person on the very road we were driving.  Did we mention that people are invisible here at night?  No highway lights, only diesel dust that hazes over any view.  Trucks take up the middle, knowing pipsqueaks like us will pull aside, into the abyss of potholes and people.  Jinja we love, so we stopped there to have spring rolls at the same restaurant where we ate the week before.  These are spring rolls worth stopping for!  It was 11:00 pm by the time we got back.  Dave is a hero for getting us back safely. 

Ssimbwa had advised us against making the trip by ourselves.  We didn’t tell him we went until the next day. ;-)

This is the way we wash our clothes so early in the morning

1st step: 1.5 to 2 hours soaking, scrubbing, and rinsing in tub

Mary and Joe hanging laundry on clothes line

So, laundry is the hardest thing I (Kathleen) do here.  If there is any hope of getting anything dry by nightfall, I have to start pretty early in the morning.  The clothes soak for an hour in the tub, and then I have to hand-scrub each item.  Depending on how big of a load it is, that can take 20 to 40 minutes.  Then I rinse twice, and finally I wring the livin' daylights out of each piece.  By the time I am done, my hands are raw and red.  I have now developed calluses from doing the laundry.

I recruit the kids to help me hang the laundry.  The jeans and heavier stuff go on top of the bushes. 

Then it is a race to see if anything will dry before it rains!  Prosper, the caretaker, is a genius when it comes to being able to predict when it is going to rain and comes and gets me with five minutes to spare.  We all race outside to gather up the laundry.  When this happens (and it almost always does), we drape the laundry around the couches, chairs, drapery rods, and any other surface we can find.  It has taken up to three days to dry a single load.

I feel like I must apologize for complaining earlier this summer when I had to hang my

Jeans seem to dry best when draped on the bushes!

laundry for three whole weeks.  At least I had
a washing machine!  And I am also grateful that I at least have a tub and running water to help me with the process.  Every day I see women who are washing their clothing in a tub in the front yard or in a (dirty) river. 

Westerners are pretty blessed (spoiled?).

I suppose the sarcastic need a place to eat, too.

More Girls Hygiene Education

Papyrus ten feet tall!

What a thoroughly delightful trip to Mpigi District about 50 miles south of Kampala, just a few miles from the equator.  Ssimbwa, our dear friend & frequent driver, took us to his home villages where we saw what could be considered the most beautiful part of Uganda. We traversed a giant papyrus swamp to get to a pretty remote and extremely impoverished little primary school called Jalamba Primary School.  No electricity. Not a toy in sight, but in the most pristine tropical paradise we've ever seen. Here's what was growing across the street: Arabica coffee (cash crop); corn; mango; papaya; avocado; potatoes; tomatoes; mangos; cassava; yams; sweet potato; beans; squash (I used to be a good squash player); tons of bananas and pineapples.

With this type of year-round growth and abundance, this part of the earth has never known famine and it's obvious that electricity is a luxury many can live just fine without. Indeed, the beauty and bounty of the place is half of the problem when it comes to development, since for eons these people have not needed to plan for the future: wake up, pick an avocado, a pineapple, a papaya.  Take nap.  For dinner maybe some guava and beans.  Year round growth = no need to store up or plan for a cold winter.  This is one reason why most of the wealth is in the northern latitudes: without preparation and cooperation we Bazungu (whities) would all freeze to death or starve.  For cooking everybody uses charcoal, which is quickly destroying what's left of the forests.  Each kid coming home from school either had a jerry can (water) or a bunch of sticks on their heads (charcoal).  Each evening the entire nation, the entire continent, gets a low-level haze from everybody using charcoal.  We call this energy poverty, since the electricity is unreliable or inaccessible.  If civilization imploded tomorrow, these people would still go along as they always have done & wonder what all the fuss was about.

A real treat for us and for them.

The girls at the school were in absolute desperate need for what we had to offer. Kathleen was told that the traditional methods to take care of their menstruation were so abrasive that they often couldn't attend school just because of the sores it made on their thighs (sorry for the lack of discretion, but this is real for these girls!) Many of their dresses were torn and threadbare.  But they were radiant, sincere, and delightful.  Kathleen would talk, the "Senior Woman" (teacher over all the girls, like a headmistress) would translate, and they would all start to laugh.  Mary and Kathleen were becoming a little self-conscious until the Senior Woman told them that the girls were just so happy!  She said that for many of them, this might be the first thing of their own in their lives.  

Not a First World Problem