Its goodbye to Uganda and hello Woburn Sands..

It is Friday 2nd July 2010 and tomorrow I travel to Entebbe to be near to the airport and ready for my flight on Sunday morning back to the UK. I am very much looking forward to going home and very happy that BA did not decide to strike but also feel sad to be leaving Uganda after such a great trip. I have developed real liking for Uganda and also really enjoyed conducting the research here.

Since I wrote last I have been in a whirlwind of final visits to the co-operatives, trips to Kampala for interviews and desperate last minute entering of my data! We have visited Twekembe Youth Group the most as this was the last co-operative that we started to work with and we have therefore had lots of activities that we needed to do with them. It has been interesting to work with this group as they are a more traditional cooperative that was established some time ago and more recently have set up a youth arm to the co-operative; however they are not specifically a youth-focused co-operative like the other ones I have worked with. This means that they have not been able to access the same kind of support and training that the other cooperatives I have looked at have. That said they are still working well together and benefiting by working as a co-operative. They have done quite a number of animal husbandry projects where one member is given some pigs or goats or cows, they look after them for some time and when the animal has offspring they give this to another member and get to keep the original animal. David a 19 year old at Twekembe told me all about this through the photos we asked him to take. One of my research methods was a photo project. I brought some disposable cameras out with me to Uganda and then asked a member in each co-operative to take photos of their co-operative. It worked very well as it gave the young people the chance to take control of what information they were giving to the research. By taking lots of photos of the animal husbandry projects David was trying to show that co-operatives are crucial in building trust among members. We have heard a few times that there is a lack of trust among young people and David feels that these type of projects necessitate that youth trust each other – relying on a member to look after the animal well and then relying on them to give up the offspring to another member. David at 19 is a farmer and is responsible for looking after his grandparents and his 2 younger siblings, his Mum and Dad have passed away. For a 19 year old he is very mature and serious about life. This really highlighted to me that whilst he may be a youth in age he is carrying out an ‘adult style’ of life which is necessitated by the situation he faces. It is so important to go beyond youth categorised by the number of years someone has lived to what their life is like and what responsibilities they have; are they married, do they have kids, are they looking after others, are they male/female, do they live in rural/urban areas, as these experiences really change their experience of youth.

During a recent visit to JoyFod SACCO in Buwenge I was observing a loans appraisal – an half an hour interview with the member requesting the loan and the loans officer at JoyFod, the member of the SACCO was requesting for a loan of 400,000 Ugandan shillings (just over 100 GBP) to boost his business. It was interesting to observe this activity and see that the wife of the member who was asking for the loan was also required to be present in the loans appraisal. This is now standard practice for SACCOs - that if a wife or husband wants to take a loan then their spouse also has to also agree to the loan. Many of the members say that this process has encouraged them to include their wives in all decisions and consultations that they make for the family and at times their business - a very positive change for rural communities where men would typically make most of the decisions.

During this loans appraisal I witnessed a very strange event, as we were sat in front of the man’s shop, members of the community started to appear wearing handcuffs. They had been arrested as their homes had been inspected to check they had proper toilets (a clean pit latrine) and over 15 members of the community were found not to have and were arrested. This seemed a harsh arrangement to me, children were crying as their mum’s were carted off and I wondered whether they could even afford to build toilet. But everyone I was with felt it was what needed to happen if there was to be development in rural communities around hygiene and sanitation - particularly has there have been several outbreaks of cholera in the area. It was a stark reminder for me that I may view things very differently to people here based on my background and arrangements in my own country but it is important to understand a situation from the perspective of the people who live there.

It has been so sad to say goodbye to the youth in the co-operatives I have got to know them so well and it has been a pleasure to spend time with them. During the goodbyes I have thanked them sincerely for helping me and providing information to me – without it there would be no research. But much to pleasure they have said they are grateful for someone coming and taking in interest in their lives and what they are doing – all so keen to have their photos in the research and their names used (no problems with consent for me!). They say they feel re-motivated and have even learnt a few things and I am happy that the research to some extent has been a 2 way process where the participants also benefit as well as me getting the information that I need. I hope that I will always do research in this way as I think it is a much more balanced approach.

As this is my last blog for Uganda I am very pleased to able to announce that I can now ride side saddle on the motorbike taxis, it has taken 3 months but the other week I managed it. Most women in Uganda ride this way and it is necessary if you want to wear a skirt and still look decent! It gave me a real sense of achieving something, as I was so scared to even get on the motorbikes when I first came and there I was perched in a very respectful way wearing my skirt and managing to stay on! As I was basking in my own glory when I read an article in the local magazine that said women are mainly hurt in motorbike taxi accidents and the reason why is that they sit side saddle and this means they fly off the bike more easily when there is an accident. Needless to say I am now reverting to straddling the bike even if I look disrespectful and am flashing a bit of leg to the residents of Jinja!

I have loved being in Uganda. I have really enjoyed the research, it has been a real privilege to be able to spend time with the youth in the co-operatives and ask them many questions and get to know their lives and ways. It has definitely given me a new found motivation for academic research and my PhD – I have realised I like doing research, it is really interesting to really find out about people’s lives and I think very important that this information is shared with people who are interested in co-ops and young people. It will I hope give them insights into their work and programmes and that as a researcher you can act as a bridge between the youth in rural communities and people who sit I offices making decisions about youth and co-ops in both Uganda and the UK – this I think is a useful thing to be able to do and is what makes the research and the PhD worthwhile for me. As part of this I will be writing a publication for the Co-operative College in the UK on youth and co-operatives in Uganda and I am really looking forward to doing this and for people to be able to read it and hopefully learn a few things. I have also really liked Uganda, it is beautiful and green and people are very welcoming and friendly here. There are many things I have enjoyed here, in particular I have found it easy to meet people and form relationships, which has made my research all the easier. I love that people take time to greet each other properly, to everyone at work, people in shops - nothing less that Hello, how are you?, how is here?, would be considered rude, it is important to make time for this and when you do it really makes you see the person in front of you and have an interest in how they are. Anyone who has been to Africa before will have experienced this but it is sadly so different to how we interact in the UK – we can definitely learn a thing or two from Uganda. So there are things I will miss and things I won’t miss like worrying about whether there will be a loo where we are going to visit, to feeling a bit ill and worrying if it is malaria, to people being late to meetings - as the concept of time and time keeping in Uganda being very different to the UK.

So 3 months are done and it is time to get back to Woburn Sands - Nik and Mosi and summer in the UK are calling. I will be sad to leave here but also happy to come home to my own bed, to long walks around the woods in Woburn, to see friends and family. After a summer of entering my data into the computer – each word of every interview and every focus group discussion – over 80 activities altogether – I am then off to Lesotho for more of the same in October 2010! Til then goodbye and thanks for reading.