Tag Archives: Blogging

Week 5/6 Update

College Life, Free Write, Personal Essay, Social Justice, Summer, Uganda, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The deeper I dive into my work and into this community, the harder it is for me to recommend a solution that I can truly see being successful without being impeded by all that encompasses daily life in Uganda.

In my opinion, when working with citizens of developing countries, well all people for this matter, the biggest hurdle to jump is the varying levels of knowledge between citizens. This challenge is magnified in developing countries where formal education is far from a guaranteed right and even further from normalcy. It’s important for me to note the relevance of this issue in my work because quite frankly, it is the cause of the whole waste management issue.

Bugembe Town has a population of 64,000 people, which makes it nearly impossible for a research team of one (me) to sample properly in the short time I am here. However, with the help of 4 translators, I was able to sample 110 citizens in one day, regarding their interactions with waste. I use the word “help” loosely because my translators were made up of people who have no background in research and I’m honestly still not sure if they understood my survey questions completely in order to translate properly, which is a different issue that I’m dealing with.

From my data collection came many expected results, but also many answers that have the ability to hinder my research deeply. For example, during the survey, 67% of my respondents said when they see waste on the street they pick it up and “dispose of it properly in a waste bin”. The only problem with that is there are ZERO waste bins on the streets in Bugemebe, but I guess they could be associating “waste bin” with the garbage heaps that pile on the sides of streets, but I am more inclined to chalk this up to fear because many believed these surveys were a propaganda ploy by the Town Council.

The other problematic responses came with the questions, “Are you willing to pay/ pay more for waste collection from the Town Council (government)?” and “Do you believe it is possible to reduce the amount of waste you produce?”. Fifty- one percent of respondents responded to the first question with a “yes”, while 70% of respondents believed it was impossible for them to reduce their waste production. These two responses have the ability to not only dictate my research outcomes negatively, but show the lack of knowledge the community has regarding waste and more importantly navigating the bureaucracy and corruptness of their local and national government in Uganda. In a nation where the average weekly income carry over (I don’t know if this is the right term or makes sense, but I just mean the amount of money they have after taxes and necessities) is 3,000 UGS (less than $1 USD), I have over half of my sample, albeit a small sample, willing to pay money that they just simply don’t have. This would allow the government to continue to tax its residents dry, but obviously not nearly as hard enough to receive enough money to improve its waste management system because there is just simply not enough money in anyone’s hands.

Not to mention, that they can EASILY reduce the amount of waste they produce, but this requires sensitization, knowledge production and time that is rightfully trumped by the time and work ethic they need to focus on providing for themselves and their family. On top of that, of the 30% of respondents who believed they could lower their waste production, said they could do so by burning their trash more frequently, which everyone does here and is common in most developing/ over-populated countries. Burning waste is not necessarily harmful, except here in Bugembe, and in most of the Nile region of Uganda, they do not separate their waste which leads to the burning of extremely hazardous and cancerous materials including plastics and metals. I can also point out in the past ten years, Uganda has experienced and influx of birth defects, which coincides with a growth in population and subsequently a growth in waste production (waste burning). But I obviously can’t say that is the reason for more birth defects and health issues, but is something that definitely needs to be researched, if it isn’t already.

So simply, as of right now, the data I have collected for my research can be used as propaganda to allow the local government to continue neglecting the safety, health and financial security of its citizens for literally an extra handful of US coins per week.

I was going to write about myself a little bit, but I’m not going to lie putting this information onto digital paper drained me and further supported the fact that my personal journey should be put on the back burner for a while.

Uganda Week 4

College Life, Free Write, Personal Essay, Social Justice, Summer, Uganda, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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?

 

 

Uganda Week 3

College Life, Free Write, Personal Essay, Social Justice, Summer, Uganda, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

*Disclaimer* I was 500 words deep into this week 3 update and my Microsoft word crashed. And!!! Since I don’t have internet, the auto save/ auto recovery function was not working, so I’m starting from scratch.

Week 3 Update

I decided to switch up the update this week due to the fact that I’ve accomplished little to nothing this week in regard to my research. I spent the entire week going back and forth to the Bugemebe Town Council offices just to get my research accepted by the health inspector. This is normal for research, so I understand. However, it was just frustrating because the Town Council Health Inspector cancelled the meeting multiple times and then had me wait in his office for two hours one day just for him to forget that I was there and leave. But I digress, my job here isn’t to critique Ugandan governmental practices.

Before coming to Uganda, I told myself I would not be like the other academic researchers we all here about. Those that often fit the stereotypical white academia mold and who partake in research on a community, instead of with, and don’t ever disseminate their findings or truly leave the place they studied in a better shape than when they arrived. But sadly, I find myself drifting towards those lines every day, no matter how hard I fight it, because the institutions and powers I am fighting against, or working with (depending on how you interpret it), are a lot more powerful and experienced than I am.

As I set of 2,000 miles away from home to attend Northwestern, I told myself I was going to dedicate my life and my work to the cause. More than anything I believe in social equity and social justice in a country that is finding itself moving further and further away from those missions every day. Growing up in a relatively financially stable household for most of my life, I was able to understand at an early age the privileges afforded to me that most of my friends and my peers didn’t have. Not only that, I was able to, for the most part, effortlessly breeze through school and accomplish a lot of things that my peers couldn’t even dream of, mainly because they didn’t know they existed and couldn’t grasp their magnitude. Let me tell you this can cause a shit-storm of emotions, all typically ending with the thought that life is often not fair and there’s really nothing you can do about it. Although I’m a Black kid whose grown up with nothing but Brown and Black kids for my entire life, which is far from what most people would consider lucky in this country, I am just that lucky. It’s no coincidence that at 18 years old, and while attending the 10th best school in the country, I have the transcript of a third year, or the fact that my brother graduated from UCLA just one month after his 20th birthday. In our case, this is because of the hard work of those before us and a couple lucky rolls of the dice. But for those who aren’t as lucky, this is because of the oppressive practices that hinder a majority of the world’s daily life, no matter race, religion or creed.

I say all of this to reiterate the point that I set off to do this research because I have experiences that don’t normally fit the mold of the stereotypical white academia in research, and experiences that I hoped to use in order to help the world become a tiny bit better. However, at this point, I’ve fallen victim to the bodies of power in front of me. I shouldn’t fail to mention that these institutions have helped me to be in this position (NU, the Ugandan Govt., etc.), which creates a hard power cycle to evade, especially with no experience. This doesn’t mean I’m done with my goal, but I can’t really function without acknowledging the challenges ahead of me, which is what this is I guess. Also, one last point, since I began using this platform to release a lot of my thoughts and work, people have seemed to think I’m unhappy with my experiences at Northwestern and beyond, but that can’t be further from the truth. I just can’t live without critiquing the bullshit I see, even if some of it benefits me. I also realized that I cursed a couple of times in this piece, and I guess this is me coming to terms with the fact that I’m an adult and living 10,000 miles away from home right now, so who cares?

Around 100 people have been clicking this link a week, so to the 10/100 of you that made it to the end of this update, THANK YOU!