Thursday, June 18, 2009

Africa thus far: Beautiful weather, hospitable people, broken people, and cockroaches.

My friend Paul Storms and I arrived in Kampala, Uganda on Tuesday! We had two flights that were about 8 hours each, with a stop in Amsterdam in between. I think this was a very fair amount of traveling, considering that it took 40 hours to get to our destination when I went to South Africa in 2007!

Here we are at an Irish Pub (Murphy's) in Amsterdam, Holland. I got an Irish Shamrock and some Amsterdame Bitterballen and Paul got a Murphy's Red and some Fish+chips+mushy peas.

Uganda is beautiful, to say the very least. I'm a big fan of puffy clouds and there are a bunch of fluffy white clouds. Right now I'm in the offices at Pilgrim in Kampala, which is right next to Lake Victoria, the biggest lake in all of Africa! Paul just left for Soroti to do some farming work with Aaron Ruud and I'm in Kampala for about another week working on a project with the finance/accounting department here. It's been a humbling experience so far; Angella, the head accountant at Kampala, has a bachelor's in Finance and an MBA in Accounting and Finance. Jane, the bookkeeper, has her degree in Accounting. I haven't even finished my senior yet! But I think this means there are a lot of opportunities for me to learn from them.

As much as I'd love to pretend everything is happy and dandy and perfect, it's not. Don't get me wrong, I've loved my time here thus far. But yesterday we went into town (downtown Kampala) and spent four hours trying to withdraw money from our accounts and get SIM cards and airtime for our cell phones. Barclay's, a large bank, ATMs only accept VISA cards and both Paul and I had Mastercards so we had to see a cashier. The debit/credit card authorization system at Barclay's was down so we had to wait. And... weren't able to access our accounts anyway because our cards are embossed (as opposed to flat) so we had to buy shillings (Ugandan currency) and pay a $25 processing fee. Then we spent at least another hour trying to get a SIM card to work with Paul's phone. Our guide, Simon, waited very patiently throughout the whole thing. He never uttered a word of complaint and was respectful and straightforward when driving and asking people questions and directions. For four hours. Wow.

While we were walking to and from all our destinations, I saw a whole lot of broken people - literally. Many were missing limbs, several were crippled. I saw one lady lying against the wall around Barclay's and there was a baby sitting next to her wearing a beaded thong. Neither of them looked happy or healthy. (I don't have photos because I think it would have been rude for me to gawk at them and treat them like photographic fodder.)

I'm never sure how to reconcile the disparities I see in Africa. I've only been here three days and have ridden in vehicles ranging from a beater van to a brand new compact car with a camera in the back to see what's behind. I've seen people who are broken and in desolate positions and people who are looking fresh, clean, and very wealthy. It is all very interesting to take in.

On a completely different note, last night when I was talking to Paul we found a cockroach in my pants. Thankfully, the pants were hanging on a bedpost and were not on my person. Paul courageously hunted it down and flushed it down the toilet for me. The brand of toilets here are called "Hindware" and the models of sink are "Vitreous." This amuses me.

This post may have been really scatter-brained.. but I just wanted to update as soon as possible. Next time I will make a more sensible, organized post!

Blessings from Uganda,

Jessica K. Nguyen
Senior - Accounting
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington, Seattle

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update and praying for your time there! - fallingup79