Happy Stories from Uganda: Eric the Vet

There was another one, a vet, that used to be like every other vet. In fact I remember his group of volunteers coming to a team brainstorm a few weeks back saying that they had no ideas; they couldn’t see how they would innovate this business to make it different from others. It's important to us that we don't simply promote copycat businesses but vets make sick animals well, you can’t change that fact (at least not without losing customers!) It was quite a challenge.

 At the time I remember comparing the traditional model of vets to private healthcare (i.e. you pay on a case by case basis when you get ill) and I suggested they try a more NHS-ish style business model whereby the customers pay a retainer to the vet every month, who receives money whether or not the animals are sick but then also comes out to the farm when needed and also does checkups so that preventative healthcare is possible. I didn’t hear any more from the group on this subject and, if I'm honest, I forgot all about it.

I was therefore fantastically surprised when one of the other pitching panels told me yesterday that the most impressive entrepreneur they’d seen was a vet called Eric who had secured 6 contracts with farms, doing checkups etc, making sure that animals didn't get sick, rather than just treating them once it was too late. He wanted money to buy new stocks of drugs for the animals and we decided to give him the full amount that he asked for.

Happy Stories from Uganda: Musa the Scale Maker

One guy we funded was a scales manufacturer (amusingly he wrote ‘made in Kenya’ on every scale so that he could sell it at a higher price). His workshop is in his mother’s house and he spends 15,000 shillings on hiring a drill for every set of scales that he makes but if we buy him one at 150,000 he’ll have broken even within 10 scales. He’s certainly not a wealthy man at the moment. I’ve had a look at his financial records; there’s a lot of money coming in and a lot of money going out. Ultimately though he wants to save up to go to university and study law. I’m not actually convinced that this is for the greater good because his business will take a hit and he almost certainly won’t utilise the qualification once he gets it (says the geography graduate!) I met a logistics student the other day who was planning to become a baker once she graduated – this isn’t an uncommon story. Quite the opposite. However, education is the key here - who knows what he may have the potential to go on and do. Also, he already employs a couple of other people and we hope that he'll be able to continue to provide more and more employment to other people here.

A workout at the Borehole

Today I had plans to visit the borehole. There hasn’t been water in our house for a week and all the Gerry cans are empty. I was quite looking forwards to this and set my alarm for 5:45am to be ready to go. Unfortunately my alarm clock decided (exercising more autonomy than the average machine should) to go off silently, and did this for at least half an hour before I noticed it. But it didn’t matter because the water was restored to our house overnight. Of all the timings! It’s ok though, I still got my trip. The thing about bore holes, as I soon learnt, is that you have to work incredibly hard to bring the water out of them. This didn’t register with me until I was half way through filling my first Gerry can. The guy who had been pumping water smiled at me and said I was doing it well but too slowly. He then took back control but when I saw the pace he set I wanted another go.  It is exhausting! With all this activity I may soon have the core strength of an oak tree! Happily after 3 cans filled (2 of which were half size ones) the locals were suitably impressed and I was sent on my way. This is a relief as I couldn’t have gone on for much longer.

Shower in a gerry can

As I write this I am terribly hot and sweaty. I could see my shiny reflection in my laptop screen while it booted – it’s a terrible sight! Emma and I have taken to going for pre breakfast runs on a morning (which, to be fair, necessitate a pre pre breakfast snack because neither of us can run on an empty stomach) hence the hot and sweaty sight. Today when we came back from our run, I jumped into the shower, only to find that there was no water there to accompany me. This was a terrible moment! It was only 8am but I’d already managed to work up a sweat and it was currently running off me in a rather disgusting fashion. Just as I was half way through a ‘baby wipe shower’ I was presented with a plastic basin and a Gerry can full of water. (I’m not 100% sure what the basin was for as I've been told that I'm supposed simply to tip the cold Gerry can full of water all over me). The most difficult part is washing your face, because I can’t lift the can with 1 hand (it's too big), there can be no dainty splashing of water onto the temples, instead there’s just a torrent poured straight into your face. I'd like to be the hardened traveller by now but I did let out an involuntary shriek when the cold water first washed over me, which amused the girls next door.

Goodbye Claude

Possibly you've noticed that it's been a while since we had an update from Claude. Well, that's because Uganda's most forgetful volunteer has gone home!

This came as rather a surprise to me because he forgot to tell anyone that he was planning to leave the program early. It turns out that as part of his degree he is doing a term in Hong Kong...he then forgot to accept his place on the program and so lost it, but the fact remains that he still had flights home booked on the initial assumption that he would be going.

I was a bit worried that he wouldn't leave, primarily because he had decided to book his own transport and I thought he might, you know, forget. But all went off without a hitch and he has gone to cause chaos elsewhere.

I've always wanted to Milk a Cow

This morning I went to visit my neighbour, Peace. She’s a beautiful young lady with a sweet personality. She’s 23 years old and has a 7-year-old child. She lives with her mother, uncle, 3 brothers, 3 sisters, her own daughter and nephew. Anyway, I was there because she had promised me last night when we went round for dinner that I could come today and milk her cow. It was quite a different experience to milking a cow in England. For a start the cow’s back legs were tied up to stop it kicking over the bucket, there was no milking stool, we just squatted next to it, the calf was invited in to start proceedings (thereby making it easier for the human milkers) and then shooed away. When I tried milking a cow in the new forest, its udders were so big that the calf couldn’t get down low enough to drink from them! The next part was much more similar to home – I was invited in, shown how to do things, then I took over and milked diddly squat. Actually, to be fair on me, I would have been exceptionally pleased with myself if it wasn’t for the clear indication from Martin, my teacher, that he didn’t consider my efforts to be very fruitful. He kept frustratedly showing me the technique again and so I gathered that I wasn’t quite meeting his standard. It’s all a case of perception! It’s a mystery to me how some people have a natural aptitude for milking. It will take me a long time! One of these naturally good people was Emma, who showed up some way into proceedings (having been absent thus far due to her early morning run, which I had forsaken due to the cow), took a few photos and turned her hand to milking. The jets of milk coming from the cow with Emma in charge pleased Martin very much. I was impressed too. We finished proceedings with a mug of fresh milk each. It didn’t taste like normal whole milk, possibly a bit sourer, but maybe that was because it wasn’t refrigerated. After all, it’s very rare for a Brit to taste room temperature milk.

Some people will use any excuse to stop running...

Yesterday morning Emma and I went for a run before breakfast (although to be fair, we do claim that this necessitates a small pre-breakfast-breakfast so we fuelled up on bananas). As we ran some of the local children decided to run with us, one of them took my hand, which made me feel a little lopsided. It’s not easy to run while holding onto someone’s hand, at least not if you’re as unfit as me. The first interesting thing we came across was a black line across the path that on closer inspection turned out to be the most enormous trail of ants who had built up sandy barricades either side of their road to make some sort of ant-esque superhighway. As we went on I felt a sting on my leg. You guessed it, as I observed them, one of them had decided to have a closer observation of me and got inside my trousers. The child very helpfully assisted in the killing of this rather mangled ant.

The second interesting thing that we came across was some men in a field standing amongst big piles of stone. If I’m honest, it was partly because I wanted an exercise break that I suggested we go over to see if they could tell us what they were up to. They could; their level of English was pretty good; they were mining stone. There was a child in the pit throwing up slabs, and a man sat on a pile of little stones with a hammer who was smashing up the big stones to aid in the proliferation of little stones. After watching for a bit, I realised that there were spare hammers and so I asked if I could have a go. The men were tickled pink that a white woman would try her hand at their work (of course, it’s easy for me, I can stop when I’ve had enough, so I don’t see it as arduous at all). I picked up a big stone, was surprised to realise it was solid granite, took a hammer in hand and handed another one to Emma (who had introduced herself to everyone as Anna as we find this new name catches on better). I hit the stone hard a few times and succeeded in nothing more than making some white marks on it, then all at once it fell apart. Not quite into pieces as small as I needed but all the same I was very pleased and kept up my hammering. As the person in charge of the health and safety of all the volunteers I was glad it was me, rather than anyone else, engaging in this extremely risky activity. Incredibly, the men were working while wearing flip flops and no eye protection, so I felt that at least my running shoes and glasses were a step in the right direction. It was probably no coincidence that most of them had missing teeth and so I reminded Emma not to smile while hitting the rock. Before leaving I looked down into the pit, and as if my mind were being read, it was suggested that maybe I’d like to climb into the mine to have a go at chipping off a bigger piece of rock. Yes, I thought that would be fun. So I lowered myself in (it was only about 8ft or so with lots of good footholds on the way) and climbed from bolder to bolder to the exposed rock face (it was quite flat, it looked like an enormous grey half-carved ham – very easy to see where you start) the footing wasn’t the best and I marvelled at the way anyone could do it in flip flops. When I was ready I planted my feet firmly each on a flat rock and was passed an enormous hammer. To be honest, this was my undoing. I could lift it easily, but wield it, not at all! I did give it a good go, but the effect of waving a weight of that magnitude unbalanced me on my feet and I struck the rock with all the force of a doctor tapping a patient’s knee to test their reflexes. I did have a couple more goes but must admit that I was not equal to the task, not by a long way. I wasn’t keen to stay in the mine as another man had started proper work some distance from me; his granite chips were flying over and able to deliver  a nasty sting when they struck me so I scampered out. Happily for my duty of care, Emma didn’t follow my example and remained the contented spectator.

When we got home I tried to act out to our host mother and aunt what we’d been up to. I’m pretty sure they thought I’d been using an overarm technique to hoe a field but they were suitably impressed.