Work Update

I left my home 31 days ago, began my research 25 days ago and today I finally collected my first bit of generalizable data, which somehow puts me right on schedule because that’s how it works here. Today, July 17, 2018, I held an introductory meeting with 18 newly elected Town Officials for the Bugembe Town Council, including the mayor and representatives from Uganda’s National Water and Sanitation Agency.

My goal was to leave with some sort of general knowledge, from those in power, on the waste management processes utilized by the Town Council. After spending 380,000 Ugandan Shillings just to get the government officials out of their respective offices to my meeting site (which was ironically outside next to a heap of unaccounted for waste), I was able to learn about the many issues that plague the five respective parishes of Bugembe. I administered a short questionnaire and held a focus group discussion for about an hour and a half with translation help from the Bugembe Town Council’s Primary Health Inspector.

Some of the more important pieces of information that I received through the Questionnaires & FGD can be found just below:

• Solid waste is not collected in some areas
• Bugembe Town Council suffers high influx of people (over 70,000 people coming in and out every day) and little is done to plan for their waste collection centers
• Social indiscipline- People litter garbage carelessly without care about the environment (However I believe this is more to do with a lack of shared knowledge than “care”)
• Poor roads have made some collection points inaccessible
• Specialized equipment for garbage collection needed
• Insufficient fuel for garbage collection
• Only vendors are taxed for waste collection at 10,000 UG Shillings per year (less than $3 USD), but many can’t afford that
• Bugembe Town Council’s waste management budget is 70,000,000 UG Shillings per year ($18,900 USD)
• 30 Tons of waste generated per week by the Town Council

After being stagnant for the past 2 and a half weeks, this meeting, thankfully, put my work back into perspective for me. Towards the end of the meeting, one of the three English-speaking officials, called me out for exactly what I had been struggling with last week. What happens when I’m gone? But before I could answer, the Health Inspector stepped in and explained how important my work will be in helping the Town get funding from not only my NGO, but from other Ugandan and international organizations, and how it can serve as a stepping stone as the Town Council lobbies for policy change. It’s been hard to see the importance of my work these past few weeks, which in turn has made it hard to progress against a lot of the ailments in front of me, but my work can and should make a huge impact on the lives of 64,000 people. Hopefully, this momentum will help propel me through the next two and a half weeks of field work before my research paper and dissemination takes place.

Personal Update

For the first time in my life I feel identity-less. I have not forgotten who I am, and what makes me who I am, but my identity really doesn’t exist here. Yesterday, I was asked why I had hair like Ugandans by a Ugandan lady, who when I told her I was Black, didn’t believe me. My identity is something I’ve always had difficulty with, like a lot of people, but I never really questioned what I was until I got here. I’ve always seen myself as Black, but ironically, now more than ever, it’s obvious the effects of my heritage and lineage being stolen from me.

Since I got to college, colorism has been a topic that I have been unable to evade, for valid reasons. In the Black community, being lighter skinned is often looked down upon because we are closer to what is accepted by society and thus afforded privileges that many darker skinned Black people in America don’t receive. I acknowledge this is true, but as someone who does not identify as light or dark skin, I often feel lost in the debate.

In America, I’ve never been seen as anything but Black, so I find it hard to acknowledge these said privileges for myself, although some might feel differently. But here, I’m seen as literally nothing. I have been asked if I was East Asian and even Chinese (I know), but besides that most people are stumped.

This whole experience has made me more aware of how complex Blackness is throughout the world. It is something that is challenged differently everywhere and is not necessarily unique to Blackness, but it is definitely more intense with Blackness.

My last point is unrelated, but today I found out I made more money to be here for 65 days than half of my host organization makes in a year. Capitalism is trash and will always be unfair and unethical. See you next week?