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.

I Guess I'm a Maverick Now?

I spent the week of July 18 shirking my work. Why? Because Agastya was hosting an international teachers' summit, and I was asked to be a participant!

The event: Maverick Teachers Global Summit. The people: 30 or so incredible teachers from around the world, and several educational "thought leaders," with a special emphasis on inviting Indian educators. The goal: to develop curricula and teaching tools to help educate about and solve specially selected global challenges, inspired by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

7 teams of educators working for one week on specially chosen problems, trying to build empathy with global students, designing educational materials and prototyping/piloting them with children at Agastya's campus. In other words?

The Oliner's Natural Environment. (Or, at the very least, mine!)

I was lucky enough to be on the Gender Equality team. We were the largest team by far (10 people!), but we also had one of the largest problems that the summit had selected: how can we design a curriculum that promotes gender equality throughout society? I was happy to be on such a stellar global team: we had three people from the U.S. (including myself), two from Finland, one from Chile, and four from right here in India (four women and six men, if you're wondering). The great part about having such a big team was a diversity of opinion and thought, which was a strength that we tried to leverage to make a gender equality learning plan that would be relevant to children everywhere (that is, something that would be culturally adaptable).

Go Gender, Go Gender, Go Gender, Equality! (PC Prianka)

Our team, truly global (again, PC Prianka)!

Immediately, we were struck at the vast differences in experience of gender inequality. The defining characteristics of what it looks like in different countries is hugely variable, from the U.S, where the popular gender inequality discussions of the day are centered around Lean In, STEM education (2nd link), Hillary Clinton, and #yesallwomen, to India, where sexual violence is (Trigger Warning on this link) being described as an epidemic, but women seem to be doing better in STEM careers (happy link, click away).

So where, then, do we begin? What is the unifying factor in these experiences? I found my own answer to this from a local thirteen-year-old boy I spoke with, who said he had never spoken with anybody about gender inequality. Once we had established that he did understand what gender inequality was, I asked him what he thought the source was. And he pretty quickly responded: "The gents have all the power. The ladies have no power." He also gave me a more-local reason: "The parents respect their sons more than they respect their daughters."

Wow. So the kids get it. They know that they live in a world deeply affected by gender inequality, and they know why. So our team decided to create a lesson in which students can bring their own experiences and viewpoints to the table, speak critically about gender for what may well be the first time, and be introduced to the concept of gender-based violence.

Most of the materials that we made will be posted online soon (hopefully!), so I won't go into details here, but I think we laid some groundwork for what will hopefully be a culturally adaptable curriculum, for all ages, that is as relevant to students in Europe as those in South Asia, and everywhere in-between. I believe that we took a major step toward this goal when I heard the students we worked with commit to change for the better. We had them write a small "promise to act" on a piece of paper, something that they could do to try to make the world a little more equal in regards to gender. I leave you with what one student wrote.

"We should treat all the children as our brothers and sisters.
We should have a good attitude to one another.
We should not do wrong things to one another.
We should never degrade another person."

The conference was fun, the team was great, the curriculum we designed was interesting. But I hope that the change we affect is better.

The above quote as originally written, in Kannada. (seriously, the last one, PC Prianka!)

Bio Discovery at Agastya (and my first few weeks in India)

Hey y'all! I'm Mitch, and I'm an Electrical and Computer Engineering student at Olin. I'm spending the summer at the Agastya International Foundation, near Gudivanka, Andhra Pradesh, India. It's an educational NGO, and is really focused on hands-on and investigative-based learning. This post is mostly an introduction to myself and the work I'm doing, so it'll be a bit long I think.

The campus itself is a huge (172 acres) ecology park in a rural area, where the buildings and curricula are integrated with nature. It's also quite modern, focused on teaching math, science, and engineering to local students to augment their normal education. The whole feeling of the place is one of dualisms, especially between the energy of the hundreds of kids that come every day and the calming natural environment that surrounds and permeates it. I heard one of my professors describe the campus as "pastoral;" that's an apt description, but it seems to leave out some indescribable quality of the air, the kids, the teachers, and the weather. I'd add to it, "invigorating."

I work in the Bio Discovery program here. I say "in," but I really mean "with" or "for." You see, unlike many programs here, the Bio Discovery program has no buildings yet. It's a new program, and they hope to have their first building complete within the next year, ending with (I think) ten buildings to teach kids biology in an engaging, memorable, and high-quality way. The whole center is to have five components: Let's Investigate, The Sensorium, Learning Gardens, Mechanics of Movement, and Genetics. I'm here as a prototyping intern, so my work is mostly centered around building physical models and interactive demonstrations in each of these components.

So far, I've been engaged in 3 projects. The first of these is with another intern here, Katie, and has most utilized my electrical engineering skills. It's to make an interactive demonstration that shows how somatic reflex arcs work. The general idea of the demonstration is that an instructor will press a button on a model of an arm or leg, and lights will engage in sequence to represent neurons firing, up the limb, to the spinal cord, and back to the limb. Finally, the limb will jerk in some way, demonstrating that the muscle responded to the stimulus. I've been focused on what circuitry we need to make such a demonstration simple, effective, and durable.

The second is a special goggles that children will wear to invert their vision. This is a part of the Sensorium, and the goggles themselves will be a fun way for students to better understand the relationships between our senses and our brains' processing of those senses (relevant link). The design of the goggles is really "just enough" to hold special prisms in front of the children's eyes, so I don't anticipate this particular project taking very much time.

The third project is the big one that will take most of my summer: designing and building Mechanics of Motion models. The idea is that students will be able to physically interact with some sort of demonstration or exhibit (think science museum), and see how particular motions in the body occur. To begin, I'm working on a lever-pulling demonstration, where students will see the muscles and joints involved in pulling a lever (encompassing radial abduction of the wrist, flexion of the forearm, and extension of the arm), and in pushing that lever (the opposite motions: ulnar abduction, forearm extension, arm flexion). The general idea of the demonstration is that it will be mostly passive (i.e. not electrical), a mechanical system, and that it will show bones and muscles working together. I haven't quite worked out all the details, but it should be an exciting exhibit when I'm done! After this particular motion is finished, I plan to work on a few more motion demonstrations to varying degrees of completeness. I hope I can finish at least one or two before I leave!

India itself has taken some getting used to, but I'm adapting quickly. I certainly echo much of what Aaron said in a previous post about the experience of being the only white person around (save some of my fellow interns). I'm enjoying the pace of life here at Agastya, and their unique outlook on education. I'm hoping to learn as much as I can before I return to Olin.

Vidkolu,
Mitch