Nashville’s Artisan Chocolatiers, Olive & Sinclair, make a wonderful Cinnamon Chili Chocolate. The package had a recipe for using it in Mexican Hot Chocolate, so the Source Cafe in Jinja, Uganda gave it a shot.

Kawere Mohammed and Maximillah Matini demonstrate the process just a few blocks from the Source of the River Nile.

MGK gift catalogue

Join us at Midnight Oil in Searcy on October 18 at 5 PM to hear Bobby Garner, Kibo’s Uganda Country Director, talk about creative development and partnership in East Africa.  Sign up for the event on Facebook.

The cylinder can’t touch the bottom as it would stir up sediment and risk damage to the moving parts, so it is suspended about 2 feet above the bottom of the well.  The well itself is 6 feet in diameter.

With so many families in this community hoping to use the well, we wanted to calculate the number of jerrycans that could be drawn from the well in a day.  As you may remember from your high school geometry class:

Thanks to my Crayola Markers and a scanner, you now get to see how professionals take field notes.

An average family consumes approximately 5 jerrycans each day.  This particular well could provide water for about 40 families.

A special thanks to my 10th grade geometry teacher, Mrs. Polsgrove.

I would ask American audiences, “Time is . . . what?” Of course they would answer as you are in your mind: money. Time is money.

Then I would say that in Uganda, if you asked, people would say “Time is . . . for friendship.” People love to host others in their homes and time seems plentiful to enjoy relationships.

But this is not the case in an ever-changing Ugandan culture where cell phones abound. I remember in 1999 a South African company had a slogan, “A Cell for every Ugandan” or something like that. It didn’t seem possible, and why would someone without clean water need a cell phone?

Well little more than a decade later, it’s really true. MTN was right. Cell phone networks grew and other companies came and it’s hard to find a Ugandan without a cell phone per family at least. And it’s funny how the long greetings have changed based on economic and social and technological factors. Now, air time is literally money. Money is exchanged on the air from person to person, phone to phone to pay for school fees, pay someone for a bag of corn, or to buy a coffin.

And now that air time costs and people buy “pay-as-you-go” cards, greetings over the phone have gotten shorter. Long greetings about family and goats and crops have been clipped and drastically shortened, so now Ugandans have become adept at quick calls and greetings and have, for economic reasons, learned to “cut to the chase.”

Part of the culture of visiting someone is that you often don’t ask why they have come. It would be rude, for example, to say, “What can I do for you?” when someone drops by your house. Isn’t it good enough just to see and visit with me? the visitor might think. So often there’s a lot of serving drinks and food and conversation, but for American sensibilities, we would often want the person to come out with it earlier in the visit. But when using cell phones, a person calling is using air time and quickly comes out with the request, the reason for calling.

Maybe time is still largely for friendship in Uganda but increasingly time is money. In many ways this is helpful to Ugandans. I mentioned above the bad assumption that a person must somehow go up the hierarchy of needs to get water before a cell phone. This is incorrect and presumptuous. Yes, at the same time a village may be struggling to get clean water, a cell phone still saves time from sending messengers by bus with news about sickness or death or business deals. Money is exchanged by cell rather than making trips to the bank. Even staying in touch rather than frequent expensive visits can be done by phone or text. So even though time is money, phones are saving people money — probably saving them more than the cost of having the phone.

This article was originally posted on Greg’s blog.

Megan Bush fit the bill.  She spent the last two months cataloging resources, documenting progress, assessing programs, and creating schedules.  It’s hard to know how she managed to put all the pieces together, but she did.  In the Spring, we knew we needed some help.  Our files were in disarray.  But it went beyond some simple organization.  We needed to arrange things for future assessment.

Megan spent time with program managers, directors, and field workers, creating categories and standardizing workflow.  Every staff member feels better equipped to do their job and evaluate work.

Most internships are valuable experiences for students, but this one was particularly valuable for Kibo.  We got wonderful data and a streamlined system for training, field work, and future audits.  Thanks, Megan!

Since there are no bore-hole drilling machines (government or private) based within the province, the price of improved water has been set at over $200 USD a meter. This is done through temporarily importing a machine from the neighboring country of Malawi which is difficult for the average Mozambican living on an average of $55.00 USD a month.

The objective of our proposal is to acquire a well drilling machine capable of suppling water to thousands of people living within and surrounding the provincial capital city, Lichinga. Our goal is to train a team of 8 men who can operate and maintain a diesel mud-drill rotary rig. We are committed to helping drill 2 non-profit wells per month for the communities in which we work. This would require the community to raise money amongst themselves to provide the Afri-dev hand pump which costs around $500 USD. This guarantees that the community is not receiving a hand out but invested in the future of their source of water. During the rest of the month the team will drill “for-profit” wells at a just price of $50 USD per meter that will go toward maintenance of the rig and salaries for the drill team.

We have seen measurable success with our sanitation program and have drilled water wells previously with a manual percussion drill that takes up to two weeks for a shallow well. So now it is our desire to expand to drill more wells to reach more people with a drilling project that can sustain itself for years to come.

We are trying to raise a remaining $19,000 of the total $35,217 needed to obtain the drilling rig, equipment, and training necessary to begin drilling wells for the Niassa province of Mozambique. We appreciate your interest and consideration in partnering with us to bring water to those who live without.

Thank you. Please contact me for more information.

Josh and Mike are currently making a documentary about Feliciano dos Santos and his band Massukos.

(L-R) Lindsay Rosenfeld and Hannah Nemer find some bit of “refuge” at the Souce Café in Jinja, Uganda in their first week.

Over the past two days, the Source Café has proven to be much more than simply the source of coffee, lemongrass tilapia, and some of the best banana bread I have experienced to date (which is quite a tall order considering how much fabulous banana bread I have been blessed to taste over the years). Yes, a source of all things pleasurable to the palate, this café has been our primary “working” place, internet haven, and social space since our arrival on Tuesday. Situated on Jinja’s main road- appropriately named Main Street- the Source Café was created with the intention of fostering positive connections between Jinja’s locals and foreigners over wonderful wonderful food and drink, contains the first lending library in Uganda, and has a beautiful craft shop.  It also houses the Kibo Group, one of the three organizations Hannah and I will be working with this summer. While I cannot confidently claim that I completely understand the mission and structure of the Kibo Group, it is no exaggeration to say that I have been blown away by the group’s local American team, Bobby and Candice Garner, and current intern/Rochester College soon-to-be-senior/born and raised Ugandan, Tom. The three have gone above and beyond in making us feel welcome and I hope, as time progresses, that we can continue to learn of their lives and loves. Born out of the Kibo Group by one of the founders, Mark Moore, MANA (Mother Administered Nutritive Aid) is the second organization we’re documenting this summer. Developed as a relief response to severe acute malnutrition, MANA’s fortified peanut butter packet will HOPEFULLY make its way into the hands of mothers and, thus, children who struggle with malnutrition over the next few weeks. Life moves significantly slower here so we’re not entirely sure when distribution can begin. Last but certainly not least, we’ll be working with Silent Images in creating images to represent the work of the Kibo Group, MANA, and other individuals/groups/experiences that we find moving. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on the progress of our projects.

A few particularly noteworthy moments (David Letterman style minus 6-10):

5. The bananas are much sweeter here than in the states. Not an overwhelming sweetness and definitely still banana… just a little kick of something… like Countrytime lemonade when you mess up the water to powdery-mix ratio. They’re very good though… interesting but good.

4. I’ve loved riding the boda-bodas- bicycle or motorcycle taxis- and am pleased to report that all of our drivers have been slow, safe, and incredibly kind. Originally used in the 60s and 70s for crossing the Kenyan-Ugandan border, drivers would shout “border border” to prospective customers. R’s are hard to pronounce so it was shortened to “boda boda.”

3. As mentioned earlier, time is conceptualized differently here—In the United States “time is money,” “the early bird gets the worm…” Life is so fast paced that if you cannot efficiently utilize your time, you’ll be left behind. Survival of the quickest. A race to the finish. We’re constantly trying to manipulate our individually allotted twenty-four hours so that we can be more productive, make more money, clock more hours, visit more people, etc. etc. that we all must be weary of flipping into auto-pilot in order to complete task after task after task. In Uganda, 2:00 actually means 3:50 or maybe even 4:30… twenty minutes is more like forty-five… and something that may take an hour or two in the U.S. could take days or weeks. To be honest, it’s a bit relieving.

2. (a) People do not say “give birth” here. Instead, they say “produce.”
(b) Yesterday, Bobby headed to the hospital to see Ida (woman who does some women’s empowerment work in Jinja and the village) and her newborn baby girl and ended up picking up Ronald’s very pregnant wife on the way. Long story short, the wife produced in the back seat of Bobby’s truck. Also, while at the hospital, Bobby ran into Irene (an employee at the Source Café) who was in the “maternity ward” because her sister had just produced. June is a good month for popping out the babies!

1. Undoubtedly my favorite aspect of Ugandan culture so far pertains to greetings. Unlike the United States where you hardly acknowledge those around you, Ugandan greetings seem to be long, personal, and distributed with a smile. Hello, How are you?, How was the night?, etc. etc.; Hug/handshake/pat on the back.

Read on…

In bananas and boda-bodas,

Lindsay

This post was originally posted by Lindsay at Silent Images.