Testing The Guitar Curriculum

I am currently in Clarksdale, Mississippi working with youth to build guitars from scratch. When locals hear that response, they raise their eyebrows and nod their heads because, while it may seem a bit unconventional, it also makes sense. Coahoma County is a rich artistic community. People are building and creating all the time. It is normal to hear a young person improvise a song about getting out of bed, or meet elders who perform at juke joints they built themselves, or see families singing and celebrating every Sunday at church. So, building musical instruments with community members is understandable.

The most exciting part about being here is that I am working on a project I've been a part of since January 2016. For almost two years, I've been learning about Coahoma County, collaborating with community members, and designing with youth through my Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship class. During those semesters, I had the opportunity to visit the county five times, and engage with hundreds of high schoolers. We asked them what they would like to learn through hands-on education, and music, performing and visual arts, technology, and entrepreneurship were the top voted areas. We developed a guitar curriculum to include all those parts. 

Since May, I been testing the curriculum. I have worked with 15 middle and high schoolers who built 12 diddley bows, led a 3-day STEM camp for 35 youth, and hosted a pop-up activity with 10 kids. It's been great!

2 min video of the ADE Community Dev project

Building diddley bows has definitely been a highlight of my time here. It's funny because when we start out, most of them are pretty confused. They follow the steps, build the body, put in the pick-ups, and once we start planning the design for the neck, the light bulb turns on and they get really excited. Last month when I was with 3 youth in Bobo, I ask them if they needed a break after working 3 hours straight, they all shook their heads and proclaimed they wanted to continue. Seeing that reaction was rewarding, and I hope in the future, our program will generate the same energy.  

Youth in Bobo celebrating their finished instruments

In early June, I partnered with the Coahoma Community College to host a 3-day STEM camp. I asked for a cap of 15 students, and within a day, 35 students were signed up. I hadn't led a camp in years, and definitely was out of practice, but luckily the college staff was there to support me. During those three days, the group of 1st to 6th graders participated in a paper tower challenge, boat design challenge, and team building activities. They made collages, bottle rockets, and even tried coding. From what I heard, most of the youth enjoyed it, especially the bottle rockets, which gives me hope I did something right.

Building paper towers under time and resource constraints

The next few weeks here, I will be building a guitar with 3 youth from Bobo, and I will keep you updated on our progress in future posts. Thanks for reading!

IDDS Life

I'm writing from beautiful Fusagasugá, (say it five times fast) Colombia, where IDDS Climate Change Adaptation is being held at the University of Cundinamarca's sports center. There's a lot of high quality content about the summit being put out on U de C's youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/Udecando/videos) and on Facebook and Instagram (https://www.idin.org/blog-news-events/events/idds-climate-change-adaptation), so I'm just going to focus on my perspective on the summit and on life here. Some photos of the campus to get us started:

The horse who lives here, whom I have dubbed Campus Horse. He's not really concerned about rules or boundaries and just sort of wanders as he pleases. There are also two cows, but they mostly stay in their field.

Participants hard at work on their design challenge outside of the gym-turned-workshop.

A very big palm tree outside the dining hall.

Life here is really good. Showers are cold, wifi is limited, and bugs are rampant (currently having a bit of a strange allergic reaction), but I really don't mind any of that. I'm living in a double room with another girl from the organizing team, and we share a bathroom with one other roommate pair. My time is mostly spent in the workshop, teaching participants to use tools, documenting projects, and doing odd jobs. My hands are always covered in small cuts, and at this point I'm sure my nails will never be clean again, but it's some of the most fulfilling work I've ever done. In the mornings, I often have the opportunity to go for a short run on the concrete track, but breakfast starts at 7am and organizer meetings and nighttime hanging out sometimes run until midnight, so I'm trying to live a balanced lifestyle and prioritize sleep. 

The workshop (my second home).

The track and soccer field, complete with forested mountain backdrop.

Speaking of breakfast, the food here is absolutely incredible. Meals rarely happen on time (this is still Colombia), but the kitchen is very aware of the presence of foreigners and seems to be really stepping it up. We also get to drink amazing coffee from local farms, and I've completely abandoned my tea-drinking roots. We all eat together, and mealtimes have been a great opportunity to get to know some participants. They're from near and far, and work in many different fields, but they all care deeply about solving the challenges of climate change. The accents from different parts of Latin America sometimes confound me (sorry Uruguay), but everyone is friendly, patient, and involved in really cool work. I'm also one of the younger people around, so hearing about people's paths is also really interesting and inspiring.

Watching the execution of the summit itself has also been really cool given my background. The material that the summit covers is basically the second part of UOCD (mandatory Olin human-centered design class) with the addition of maybe one prototyping cycle, but packed into three weeks. It's intense, hard to execute in a culture without punctuality, and definitely not perfect, but participants get to work in very close contact with local communities. There are unique challenges here. What do you do when community members aren't as engaged as you thought they would be? When the project direction you've been planning for months falls through? We're also getting to the point in the summit where participants are starting to have complaints and criticism, which is super interesting from an Olin perspective. Going to a small college with experimental classes and an emphasis on feedback makes think I've heard every complaint that there is to complain about design curriculum, but I thought wrong. I feel like having experience with how students react to design curriculum gives me more of an insight into what are actual problems with the class and what are parts of the process that students just need to accept, but it's still difficult to distinguish. I don't think I would be ready to be a design facilitator in charge of a team, so I'm glad that I just get to help out and be along for the ride. 

I'm trying to get as much out of the opportunity to be here as I can. I've learned some new techniques for problem framing and insights into team formation, and there are many more lectures for me to sit in the back of and conversations with talented designers to be had. I've also been able to visit some of the communities that we're working with, which has been incredible. I spent the 4th of July at three different farms, and found myself in a blackberry field at the top of a mountain at sunset, which was absolutely transcendent. I only took two photos, and they don't even begin to capture the moment, but I still want to close with one of them. Your coffee comes from a magical place.

The tourism board here doesn't have to lie.

Diving into East African Life

When you travel to a very new place, you notice the differences first. Similarities come later. As this is my first blog post, I’ll do my best to give a few good pictures of some differences.

• I noticed the first difference when I stepped off the plane. The air here is simply mostly water. No need for Chap Stick, just try not to drown in the humidity.

• Uganda was settled by England right? Yeah, so people speak English and I won’t need to worry about understanding anyone.

• HA! I only asked “what?... say again?... Huh?” about 6 times before resorting to smiling and laughing nervously to myself. Yes, people speak English, but there was still going to be a language barrier.

• Still at the airport, we got used to the idea that things in Uganda just take more time. Period. When we got out of the airport, Betty had been waiting outside for two hours. Our plane had landed 5 minutes late. This is the first of many examples.

• Food can take many hours to cook. A good dinner here usually boils for about three hours, unless it’s beans where it can take more like 6 or 7
• A simple exchange at the bank that would take only 3 minutes in the states might take a few hours since the line moves so slowly. (Something in the computer system?)
• Lighting a gas stove in America takes about 2 seconds, here it takes about 20 minutes to light a fire and get the charcoal set

A luxurious four burner Charcoal stove

• The other half of the large bag was being carried by Betty’s friend who lived close to the airport. On the way to the car, we seemed to run into almost every passerby coming the opposite direction on the path.
•  Riiiight… England settled Uganda. Brits drive on the left.
• We took a bus the next morning to Soroti (the town we’d be working in for the next month and a half). I quickly learned that transportation in Uganda was not decided by the traveler. As soon as the bus company learned we were trying to get to Soroti, my bags were already out of the car we had come in, and I was being dragged by 3 shouting men into the bus entrance along with Katya and Betty, (who seemed as if nothing was out of the ordinary)

• Looking around a city street packed with people, I was painfully aware that we were the only people in sight that did not have African skin, and judging by the looks everyone was giving us on the street, there were not many others in the whole city.
• After getting to Soroti we realized that we may very well be the only “mzungus” in living in the entire city. (Mzungu is a word for white foreigner, and all of the small children smile and laugh and yell “mzungu hi!”, “mzungu how are you?” “Mzungu!”)

• I had thought it was hot the night we flew in. I was in for a real surprise when I was sitting in a crowded bus with my knees jammed into the seat in front of me under the baking sun coming through the window.
• Not only do you swim in the air here, you swim in your sweat.

• Roads in the US are generally paved, and generally passable at about the speed limit. Uganda does not follow suit. Some of the road to Soroti was absolutely gorgeous, not a blip in sight. Other parts were colored bright rusty red since they were made from the local soil, and the surface was probably more pothole than not pothole.
• Almost all the road work is imported from India or other Asian countries despite there being an enormous population that would be willing to be employed to work on roads. Some believe the government lacks the capital to invest in highway paving machines, and thus contracts small sections of road externally.

• On the bus, I failed to recognize that there were no stop signs or street lights. It was impossible to ignore, however, zipping through busy streets on the back of a motorcycle taxi called a Boda Boda. Four others were carrying our bags, Betty, and Katya.
• Helmets would just be an inconvenience.

Three people to a BodaBoda near Sipi Falls (2 weeks later)

• Driving through the less populated areas of Soroti, it was clear that both running water and electricity are luxuries only the wealthiest can afford. Most get water from hand-pump wells in filling large yellow plastic jugs that resemble diesel cans. (I’ve seen about 50 jugs in line to be filled at one time)

After living here for a little while, I began to notice some less obvious differences.

1. People here feel like they must show their wealth. Even if you live in a clay hut, you still wear perfectly clean clothes in public.
• Additionally a person’s weight is considered a way of showing economic standing, and if your guests don’t gain weight, you are considered an indecent host.
• Yes, they are attempting to fatten us up.
2. In America when most people get off work, they do something fun they enjoy. Embracing fun activity. Here, there is less of a drive to do things for fun. If you do not need to use your muscles to work, most people will sit, talk, and relax. Americans live for adventure, Ugandans seem to think adventure is exhausting.
3. Women absolutely have a lower standing than men. Parents wish their children will be boys. Women do all of the housework and cooking (which takes so much more work than in America.) 
• Most of the gardening and harvesting is done by women. No Boda Boda drivers are women. I guess most Taxi drivers are male in America too, but it’s not 100% like Uganda. 
• If a family only has enough money to send one child to school, the girl will be learning how to take care of the house instead.
4. What happened to experimentation? Here, they play one game of cards. That’s it. In America children make up card games all the time, creativity and individuality is much less valued.­­­
5. If you are white, you will absolutely be charged more for things. Not always, but it happens. The market is usually a place for negotiation.
6. Foooooood Oh my, what do they do to bananas in America to make them taste like plastic? How do they make pineapple here taste like it has twice the goodness? Why does that fruit named Jack look big enough to eat me?

7.  People slaughter animals. Yes you can argue that animals get slaughtered in America too, but no one thinks about it, they just get meat in nicely packaged morsels from the supermarket. Here when you get meat, the vendor hacks it from a piece of animal carcass hanging from the ceiling in front of you.

8.  The sky at night is awesome! At least this time of year there’s been lightning in the surrounding clouds every night. Usually in the distance, but sometimes closer.

And that’s all from Soroti, Uganda this time. I’m sure there will be much more to learn in the coming weeks.

Sunset by our appartment

Uganda Style

Imagine a street full of boda boda (motorcycle taxis) rushing by, letting each pedestrian know that it is their responsibility to not get run over, with men yelling from the shared taxi’s “Jinja! M’bale! Soroti!”. As Betty Ikanaly -- my boss and the person that the next few weeks of my life depended on -- navigated effortlessly through the swarm of people, I followed closely behind until we made it to the bus that would take us to Soroti, an Eastern district of Uganda.

           

            As soon as we climbed on board, the bus started. To be completely honest, it was more like we climbed on board as the bus was moving. We took our seats and I waved farewell to Kampala. The scenery changed from rows of two story buildings to run down cement and sheet metal houses and then to farm lands with scattered villages. As the bus made its first of many stops in a village, women and men flooded the bus with goods, such as roasted maize, water, soda, and grilled goat. Betty, a wonderful host, treated us to roasted cassava, groundnuts, and chapati. Within the first hour of the bus ride, I knew that food here would definitely not be lacking in flavor, or in quantity.

            When we reached Soroti, I quickly noticed the starking contrast from the capital city. People lounged outside of the shops and strolled through the town. Most took shelter from the heat underneath buildings. We boarded some much less hectic boda boda, and drove out of the town to our new apartment. Children ran out as we drove by, screaming with glee, “Mzungu hi!” (Mzungu means white foreigner). After a short ten minute drive, we reached the apartment. Betty made sure that everything would be ready for us when we got there; we have running water, electricity (most of the time), and even a fridge!

Our apartment in Uganda (the second door from the left)

            Three weeks later, I have settled into my new home for the next couple of weeks. Colvin and I have been working on improving the carbonization process at Betty’s company, Appropriate Energy Saving Technologies (AEST). I have definitely learned a lot during this project. For example, one of the largest differences between the US and Uganda is that here, things move slowly. A task that might take an hour in the States, can take up to a day here. Part of the reason is that some processes simply take time, such as waiting for the charcoal to dry in the sun, or warming biomass to make charcoal. Other reasons include a lack of resources and the blasting heat, which definitely takes a toll on productivity. When visiting a local high school – one of the best in Uganda – I chuckled as I read the school’s motto, or what Colvin and I consider to be Uganda’s motto: if you rush, you crash.

Betty's cook stove factory

Other things to note when coming to Uganda:

• Most women and girls wear skirts and dresses
• Look first right then left when crossing!
• Your host wants you to gain weight before you go back home, as will be noticeably in the quantity and quality of food
• Throwing food waste on the ground is completely acceptable
• It is quite toasty (currently sporting a nice sun burn)
• Cooking takes much longer, since you need to heat up your charcoal cook stove before your food!
• You will do the same thing as a local for a day and end up covered in dirt, whereas they will still be wearing a pristine ironed white shirt
• You won’t even know where to begin when doing your laundry (how the heck to I get mango juice out of a white t-shirt?)
• Workers will stick weld on the side of the road wearing only sunglasses
• Children will find you fascinating and a little terrifying- most screaming the little English they know, and some even daring enough to touch you or shake your hand 

Stick welding the cook stove grates

            But in the end, people are the same everywhere. We bond over the love of Justin Bieber’s hot new single, complain about the heavy lifting, and tease everyone working incessantly. After a day of work, we might kick around a soccer ball or throw a Frisbee (that we brought from the States).­­­­­­ I’m definitely excited to learn more from the people here and from Uganda!

           

Sipi Falls: One of the many beautiful landscapes of Uganda

Goodbye Bogota

A student painting a mural at the National University of Colombia.

Tomorrow, I leave the big city for a town called Fusagasugá (known locally as Fusa) to start preparing for IDDS Climate Adaptation with the other organizers. I wish I could say that I'm equally sad to be leaving Bogotá and happy to be going to Fusa, but I'm much more excited than sad. Though I've had a good time in Bogotá, I'll likely never be a fan of big cities or wearing wool socks in June. Fusa is much lower in elevation and therefore a bit warmer than Bogotá, and it's nestled in a valley in the beautiful coffee-producing regions south of here. 

The place I've been going to work for the past 5.5 weeks

In the past few days, we've packed the entire workshop/office into boxes, and tomorrow we'll put it all into a truck to drive down. I'm currently in the process of packing up my things here at home. Fortunately, many of my clothes stayed in my suitcase for the whole time I was here, since my travels this summer will bring me to the warm temperatures of Mexico City, Boise, Seattle, and Boston, as well as cool, rainy Bogotá. Fusa won't be too drastic of a change, but an increase of 5 degrees Celsius is enough to really alter the way a climate feels. While I'm not very excited to reacquaint myself with mosquitoes, moving to weather that feels like summer will be a welcome change. 
The prospect of experiencing the summit itself is also very exciting. I'm expecting to learn a lot about both design in low resource contexts and the actual execution of an event like this. Though I'm not a participant, I'll still get to meet everyone and see the whole process while helping to make it happen. Sixty participants make this is the largest IDDS ever, so there will be no shortage of new perspectives, and I'll be spending my days with people from many different places and walks of life. I'm also looking forward to having three solid meals a day. I know how to cook, but often fail to convince myself that the effort is worth it when I'm only cooking for myself. This is definitely not related to being in Bogotá; I struggled to keep my weight up last summer when I was doing research at Olin as well. I guess eating is so connected to socializing during the school year that I just don't get as hungry when I don't have anyone to eat with. I haven't had many opportunities to exercise, either, since long work hours and 6pm sunsets make running a little unfeasible. As a result, I'm not nearly as fit as I used to be, but there's a track at the place where we'll be living, so I'm hoping to wake up early and try to remember some track workouts from high school. Don't worry, parents, I'm not wasting away, Bogotá has just left me not quite as strong and healthy as I prefer to be.
I'm sure I'll find myself missing things about Bogotá throughout the next few weeks, but right now I'm just excited to go to Fusa. We'll see how it lives up to my expectations! I'm sure I'll have much more interesting things to write about as well once the IDDS is in full swing.

Surprises from the First Two Weeks

The view out my bedroom window; taken May 16.

Today officially marks two weeks since I arrived in Colombia! I'm happy, healthy, and excited for the rest of my time here. Two weeks in, I feel adjusted to most of the everyday things. I'm comfortable with the language, altitude, and traffic patterns of this city. I've tried and enjoyed many new foods, and I never mess up the order and placement of the five keys I need to get into my apartment anymore. I barely notice that there aren't any bugs up here at 2,600m. However, a few things have been more deeply surprising, and I wanted to share them in this post.

1. I love working with my hands. I come in at 9am and stay late every day, and I'm not even getting paid. I guess the amount of fun I had in PoE should have been a clue, but I still didn't expect to be having this much fun at work. Most of what I'm doing right now involves learning to build and documenting the projects that will serve as introductions to the use of tools for participants during the first few days of the IDDS. They are small projects using cheap materials, but they're really practical and fun to make. I plan to redesign the solar fruit dryer for use in my dorm room in the fall.

2. The mindset of the people I work with here at C-INNOVA is different than anything I've ever encountered. They are all deeply committed to creating positive change in their country, and they deal with the complications and hypocrisies that they encounter in the most direct way possible. I've always disliked patriotism, not only because I'm a child of two countries, but because of the ways it's usually expressed in the US and Europe. In the US, people tend to express their love for their country through superlatives that ignore its deep inequalities and problems. In Europe, patriotism often means shunning outside influence and intercultural understanding. For my co-workers, loving Colombia means acknowledging and taking responsibility for its problems. It means serving Colombia's people and taking steps to improve their lives. I'm sure there are people with this mindset in every country, but it isn't something I've been lucky enough to encounter before. I'm excited to experiment with this version of patriotism and to find more people who embrace it.

3. Truly being a foreigner for the first time in my life is more strange and beautiful than I ever could have imagined. When everything is new, the wonder of childhood comes back and the smallest things seem magical. You can go from one climate to another here in a matter of minutes, just by driving down the mountain. I've finally started wearing sunscreen every day, because Bogota's proximity to the equator and altitude mean that I can get sunburned on my walk out to lunch. The sounds of small explosions we heard during a weekend in the countryside were nothing to worry about, just a popular pastime that's a bit like corn hole but with gunpowder. The dogs on farms that don't seem to belong to anyone are friendly and have all of their shots. The other day, I saw a billboard advertising NO-AD sunscreen. I think I finally understand my parents' tendency to giggle at small everyday things, when they're outside of the countries where they grew up. There are some things that just never stop seeming odd or wonderful when you're in an unfamiliar context.

Everyone always says that the first two weeks in a new place are the hardest, and there have definitely been difficult moments, but I've really enjoyed my time here so far. Here's to the next seven weeks!

Outsider in Zambia

When I decided to take the IDIN grant to travel and work abroad, I was not at all sure about what to expect from the experience. I asked my placement coordinator where my skills might be best utilized and most needed, and was immediately pointed to Kafue Innovation Center in Kafue, Zambia among others. I spoke to John, one member of 3 at KIC, soon after, and his excitement and interest in having me was overwhelming. I began looking at flights that same day.

About 2 weeks after beginning to work in Kafue, I spoke to John regarding how he thought things were going and felt about the work I was doing. I felt that I had been doing a good job of getting through what was asked of me and learning everything I possibly could about KIC, the projects, and future possibilities. He agreed, but he also wanted to encourage me to take more of a leadership role and share more of my opinions on everything I was learning about the center. Essentially, he wanted me to get tough with them. I was really glad to have that feedback, but also a bit uncomfortable. Thanks to my previous coursework in international development, the fact that actions and even simple suggestions may often have unintended consequences in this field was not lost on me. I was hesitant to cross the line between consciously doing no harm and making unique contributions even though that was why I had come. Moreover, without classmates, expert instructors, and a degree of separation that previously made real world problems seem more inviting than urgent, I felt extremely alone. 

Going from the classroom where stakeholder feedback and interactions are much fewer to basically unlimited access was quite overwhelming. My notebooks were inundated with new ideas and insights, but I was hesitant to pursue or even propose them without feeling more secure in my knowledge and understanding of the assumptions I was making and their ramifications. After talking to John, however, I realized misusing the best resource I had access to: the people I worked with at the innovation center every day. 

I came to Zambia acutely aware of my outsider-ness and actively avoided falling into any undesirable power dynamic. My friends at KIC helped me understand that they understood this concern and could handle it. They weren’t looking for an outsider to open up a whole new world of insights for them, but a contributor to bring useful feedback to the table for consideration. I didn’t stop assessing my assumptions, but I realized that picking them apart to the level I had been really impeded my progress. I think this is where my experiences in the classroom and working in Zambia completely diverged. I had become so used to attempting not to lead stakeholders to any particular conclusions about what I was presenting to them, that I forgot to even let my partners in. I wasn’t used to having so much access to them, and it took time for me to take advantage of what they had to offer.