The Places You’ll Go

It's been a little over a week now in France. After coming in from the States I've been in Paris, had orientation in Grenoble for a day, and then returned back to Paris. It has been a lot of fun getting to know the city. Its big, there is plenty to see, and it is also pretty easy to get around. I've been staying in the same apartment in central Paris with Chris Gregores and another friend from Portland, Sean Spang. None of us speak any French but we managed to have a pretty wild time. A few days we even felt adventurous enough to go out by ourselves without the aid of Chris' cousin, who grew up and lives here.

On to the language challenge. So far, still so good but its looking dicey. We ended up having to pay 65 euros for shisha one night due to our limited ability to complain. It is just a lot easier to get ripped off. It also quickly becomes obvious that you miss a certain element to the entire experience. A few nights ago in Grenoble I needed translation from my roommate Ben to understand this deadlocked rasta telling us about how girls are nothing but trouble. It was 2 AM, we were at a tram station, and I would have loved to keep this guy going. I speak fluent "depressed homeless rambling" back home. Hopefully, by the end of my time here I can enjoy a conversation like this one. I met someone from Latvia who spoke English to learn that apparently it sucks there (shocker) but he said Prague was pretty cool. More language skills would really add a lot of value. I better get on it.

Other random observations:

Old European men have perfected the art of wandering aimlessly. If theres a perfect balance between looking both clueless and determined to go somewhere, those men aged 55+ have found it. I'm sure they are just enjoying living or doing something really poetic and European but if your people watching, its funny to see.

I was very impressed by my school in Grenoble (Grenoble Ecole de Managemen). The building is really nice, the people seem friendly, and its on the complete other side of town from where I'm living. I guess riding a tram won't kill me. Hopefully. I'm about to finish Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan", if anyone has a good book recommendation, send it my way. I could use it for that commute.

Even though I havn't explored Grenoble, its very easy to get antsy. It's the same feeling I get when I'm in an international terminal at the airport. You look at the boards and you see all of these cool places that people are going. Its always been a little overwhelming for me. The cool thing is being around at a time where its not hard for me to get everywhere. The danger is going nowhere because you sit around daydreaming. I'm lucky enough to be in a lot of extraordinary circumstances, I just need to chill out, figure out where I want to go, and get there. Its worked for me in the past but right now there's a ton of options. I'm excited to see where I end up.

Yes mom and dad, I am still coming home in December. Don't read that the wrong way.

Time to pass out on the train, didn't get home until 6 this morning from going clubbing and my ears are still ringing. Paris is fun.

The Places You’ll Go

It's been a little over a week now in France. After coming in from the States I've been in Paris, had orientation in Grenoble for a day, and then returned back to Paris. It has been a lot of fun getting to know the city. Its big, there is plenty to see, and it is also pretty easy to get around. I've been staying in the same apartment in central Paris with Chris Gregores and another friend from Portland, Sean Spang. None of us speak any French but we managed to have a pretty wild time. A few days we even felt adventurous enough to go out by ourselves without the aid of Chris' cousin, who grew up and lives here.

On to the language challenge. So far, still so good but its looking dicey. We ended up having to pay 65 euros for shisha one night due to our limited ability to complain. It is just a lot easier to get ripped off. It also quickly becomes obvious that you miss a certain element to the entire experience. A few nights ago in Grenoble I needed translation from my roommate Ben to understand this deadlocked rasta telling us about how girls are nothing but trouble. It was 2 AM, we were at a tram station, and I would have loved to keep this guy going. I speak fluent "depressed homeless rambling" back home. Hopefully, by the end of my time here I can enjoy a conversation like this one. I met someone from Latvia who spoke English to learn that apparently it sucks there (shocker) but he said Prague was pretty cool. More language skills would really add a lot of value. I better get on it.

Other random observations:

Old European men have perfected the art of wandering aimlessly. If theres a perfect balance between looking both clueless and determined to go somewhere, those men aged 55+ have found it. I'm sure they are just enjoying living or doing something really poetic and European but if your people watching, its funny to see.

I was very impressed by my school in Grenoble (Grenoble Ecole de Managemen). The building is really nice, the people seem friendly, and its on the complete other side of town from where I'm living. I guess riding a tram won't kill me. Hopefully. I'm about to finish Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan", if anyone has a good book recommendation, send it my way. I could use it for that commute.

Even though I havn't explored Grenoble, its very easy to get antsy. It's the same feeling I get when I'm in an international terminal at the airport. You look at the boards and you see all of these cool places that people are going. Its always been a little overwhelming for me. The cool thing is being around at a time where its not hard for me to get everywhere. The danger is going nowhere because you sit around daydreaming. I'm lucky enough to be in a lot of extraordinary circumstances, I just need to chill out, figure out where I want to go, and get there. Its worked for me in the past but right now there's a ton of options. I'm excited to see where I end up.

Yes mom and dad, I am still coming home in December. Don't read that the wrong way.

Time to pass out on the train, didn't get home until 6 this morning from going clubbing and my ears are still ringing. Paris is fun.

First Impressions of France

I told myself that I would write this prior to my departure from the States. Moving down from Seattle Friday night and choosing to go out both later that evening as well as Saturday night put an end to that plan. The last few days were mostly a blur of me sleeping in and leaving the house while my parents told me I still had a lot to get done. Nonetheless, I was ready to go Monday and arrived in Paris via Amsterdam on Tuesday. The Oregon weather followed us the day we got there, which is especially frustrating considering it had been 80 and sunny the day before. Once we arrived, my friend Chris (who is staying in France for a week) and I were greeted by his cousin. We headed downtown to their apartment in Paris' 9^th district. We told ourselves we were going to hold off from sleeping to get a full night's rest but after lunch (and beer) we couldn't help it. Later that afternoon, we met up with a friend of ours who's a Parisian that had visited us in Portland a few times. After walking around the city for a bit, we eventually decided to call it a day. Twelve hours later we woke up, grabbed some food, and headed for the train station where I bought my ticket and am currently in route to Grenoble by train.

So far things have been moving extremely quickly but I have noticed a few things. One is that I am absolutely terrified of puzzled looks because they can only lead to one thing; questions. This is my biggest fear due to my low level of knowledge on the subject of the French language. Even at the airport where the customs official was speaking broken French/English, I still had no idea what the hell he was saying. Twenty-four hours into the trip the "smile and nod" move has gotten me almost across the country and I haven't starved yet. At some point I'm going to hit the point where I have to start pushing myself to learn which is going to open a lot of opportunities so I'm excited about that.

The next is that the French all seem like nice people. Considering the language barrier, I've gotten treated with nothing but respect from everyone. Coming from the East Coast, I would still say that I have had more trouble with people who speak my own language than I have had with those that I don't understand. I'm hoping that saying this won't come back to get me. Nation of France, don't blow this one. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Before closing this out I would just like to thank everyone at Boeing with whom I had the pleasure of working with this summer. I learned a great deal about developing as a professional. All the feedback I had received was extremely humbling and I value all of it. I am looking forward to keeping up the relationships that I made throughout my short tenure there. Translating that experience into this upcoming experience will certainly be interesting.

I hope to have another post up soon with more interesting stories. Feel free to take a look at some of the postings below from my trip through Uganda. The organization I was working on, MAPLE Microdevelopment, just recently received their Non-Profit status and has begun developing business projects in the town of M'Bale in Southern Uganda. I had a great time forming that organization and I encourage everyone to check up on what they have been up to. And make a now-tax deductable donation…

For those with Skype, you can find me on dougwgould. And if we aren't Facebook friends, send me those friend requests.

Take care.

Extortion, Pork, and Photo Shoots

This week started off in fairly normal circumstances with Derek and I working with ILF on their stove project and brainstorming about our business. Tuesday we learned how interesting things can be here. We were planning a day of meeting various groups that work within a farming co-op and learning how they operate. We had a full day of driving planned and were going to the supermarket in the middle of town to get some water and snacks for the car ride. We popped into the supermarket for about 5 minutes and came out to our truck had a boot on the tire. Derek and I were pretty confused because our driver had been in the car the entire time and we didn't understand how someone gets a boot on their car while they are still in it. We saw that he was arguing with a few men and they were pointing to notebooks that they had and kept flipping through them. What had happened, as our driver explained, was that these men worked for the city and said that we owed money on a parking ticket. Our driver had a handful of paid tickets and they had no proof of the outstanding ticket but said that it was back at their office and when they went back to get it, then we could get the boot off. If we wanted it off now we had to pay 30,000 shillings (about $22). We told them to forget about the money and sent our driver to the office to inquire about the ticket. He eventually came back with the men's boss and said that there had been no proof of the ticket so their boss was going to make them take the boot off. The city workers had come back and, with their boss in attendance raised their price from 30,000 to 60,000 to take the boot off of the car. We were with a few Ugandans and they all recognized it to us as extortion. Derek and I were frustrated and I ended up being pretty harsh on one of them. The time that they were holding us could have been time that we were helping other Ugandans out. They ended up walking off and their boss was stuck with us. The whole affair ended with a police officer coming and inquiring as to what was going on. After having the situation explained to him he immediately began to attack the municipal worker who had come with our driver as being the reason that foreigners fear Uganda. He went on to say that people in his profession only cheat and that they are ruining the entire country. The police officer gave us clearance to saw off the boot and a large crowd had gathered to watch. After the boot was gone we finally got moving again and the whole situation seemed to be just a big waste of time. The men who had put the boot on the car were apparently going to be arrested for their attempted exploitation. It was interesting to see that the police officer was the moral authority over someone who worked for the local government. It was nice to know that at least there was someone who had the authority and the judgment to take a stand and help us out.

The rest of our day was pretty unremarkable in comparison to the morning. We met with the co-op and saw a ton of chickens. We learned that there are a number of different farming practices that are done in the urban areas in the South that are just being introduced to the North. Some of them sounded like sound business ideas that could very well if implemented correctly and the co-op was hoping to diversify its portfolio. There had been large farming co-operations before the civil wars had started and now the government is encouraging the formation of large commercial farming co-operations. It is good to see there is the idea of taking something that everyone does to survive and trying to generate additional income in the form of commercial farming instead of simply subsistence farming.

The rest of this week we have been involved a bit with closing out our professor's time here and networking with local businesses. We are getting to the point where we have to realize what legal status we need to obtain here in Uganda in order to fulfill our organization's goals of encouraging the development of business ideas through education and loaning. The next few weeks should fly by as we have quite a list of things to accomplish. Hopefully soon I will have some news of the development of our organization.

Halfway

At this point I am about halfway finished with my African experience. By recognizing that I’m not saying that I am eager to finish up and that I’ve been homesick. I am looking forward to the comforts of Oregon, especially when the only consistent daily reminder of home is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The power has become increasingly unreliable and I have given up on the internet. Luckily, the organization that we have been consulting has just completed a new office with satellite internet and is looking into getting a generator. But in the meantime I can only reflect on and some of the things that I have learned without the ability to download any new songs or check my Facebook (really roughing it).

The rainy season here is like a mildly wetter version of the summer in Portland. This is awesome because it’s sunny for a few days, rains like crazy for a few hours, then back to being sunny. I’m hoping to come back with a bit more color than my friends who have been around Oregon all summer. We are planning a trip down to Tanzania and the beaches of Zanzibar Island, which I couldn’t be more excited for, so being back home with good color is almost assured. Derek and I have become a bit bored with the Ugandan scene and are looking forward to hammering down our business plan and taking off to see some more interesting parts of the region. In the guidebook we have the pages that are filled with vibrant color pictures are dominated by scenes from Tanzania and Kenya so we have been getting the feeling that there is much more around than the blandness of Northern Uganda.

People who work for NGOs abroad are downright badasses. The guys that we are living with who work for the International Lifeline Fund are complete soldiers, at least in my sense of the word. They are willing to put up with bad living and working conditions, the constant threat of fraud, and human management chaos in order to really create a positive impact on the world. One of the guys who we are living with, Ben, has been working in Afghanistan, Sudan, Malaysia, to name a few and continues to not be completely burnt out from the work. Most of the NGO people we have met take everything in stride, whether it was attacks on them in Darfur or terrible food in Kabul, and work without a lot of recognition. They aren’t doing it necessarily for the good of a nation or group, but work towards the betterment of all mankind. They have stories that range from life-death situations to stories that are completely hilarious and will never be replicated. It has been pretty cool to be able to hear some of the experiences that they share with us and you get a little jealous of all the experiences they have had. Veejay, the deputy-director of ILF and a complete badass, said to “get the f*** out and travel as much as you possibly can”. No matter where I end up getting locked-down in my career I am going to make sure to keep getting out and seeing the world. It seems like that is the best way to put your own life into context no matter what you end up doing as a career.

Overall; the largest problem with Africa has got to be the complete lack of public infrastructure and absence of faith in the government. It’s not that people talk about the government frequently and with a lot of distaste; it’s that it takes a lot of prompting to get people to do so. Things are very different when you have discussions with people from different areas about the federal government. Up here in the North there is a complete lack of trust of the current President because he is from the South. In a conversation with a Southerner who currently resides here in the North I learned that, from his perspective, the Northerners are only concerned with fighting each other. The tribal conflicts here are the main focus whereas the work of the central government is trivial because they feel no real connection to the leadership in Kampala. After going around to villages and constantly having them ask for lower fuel costs, more hospitals, better education, and clean water you begin to get the sense that they don’t think the government will do much for them. Driving around and seeing the state of the roads, (the worst of any country I have ever been in) it seems like the absence of services that we figure to be so basic of a government (like road repair) shows a complete failure of a government to work in the best interest of its people. I am in no way saying that faith in the government will change things for the people and that “get out the vote” programs will change anything. They won’t. What I’m saying is that in a modern era where Africa is becoming more relevant in the global economic scene, the countries that will succeed on this continent are the ones that can become successful in helping the everyday worker complete their basic task and add to the production of the country. If roads are poor, people are sick, higher education is difficult, it doesn’t matter how well you pitch foreign investors into coming to your country. Globalization has created native pockets around the world of multi-national corporations and the easier that nations can help multi-national corporations create their vision in a local context (hiring locals, seeing that nation as a potential market, etc.) the more willing companies will be to relocate to that nation. And it isn’t the recognition that these problems will help their nation because the leaders certainly know.

It’s in the actual implementation and, in Africa, that’s where most of the things fall down. Ideas and planning here need to have direction and goals because people will take advantage of vagueness and weakness. Having concrete plans and wisely investing at the start are the best way to carry an organization forward in Uganda. Anything that is kept as a concept here surly will fail.

Kampala, Uganda = Meh

So the past 2 days we have been here in Kampala, Uganda. It is a bit different from Lira as it is the capital and, due to its status as the commerce center of the country, the only city where wealth flows in from foreign nations. Already, after having been here for only 2 days, I am starting to get an itch to not only get out of Kampala but also Uganda. It shows flashes of what its neighboring countries are but when you talk to Westerners about Uganda the conversation always ends up in discussing the neighboring countries and plans to explore. We have heard a number of things and Kenya and Tanzania and Derek and I are planning a trip to briefly visit those countries before we head home.
Here in Kampala there is the usual big city problems like awful traffic and pick-pocketers however there are also a few other problems unique to Africa and maybe Uganda. For one, the power goes out frequently. It’s surprising to say that as we have had the same problems 300 km north in a much smaller town. To say that in the capital city doesn’t say much for the country’s infrastructure. Also, there is an abundant amount of very mediocre places to eat. Derek and I searched today for almost 2 hours looking for something interesting to try but didn’t see too much that looked good. There is a lot of Ugandan interest in fast-food and there are a number of large food courts that have very Western-looking food stalls. We wanted to get some interesting crafts as well and were sent to a large “market” with stalls that all sold the same corny African wood carvings and lame t-shirts. Besides this market and a few smaller, more expensive art galleries, there was nowhere else to get some interesting gifts. The only things we picked up were from an antique shop because the carvings there were rather inexpensive and had various significant meanings to the small tribes that produced them. At least we got a bit of content with our gifts. We are hopefully that in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam we are able to pick up some interesting scarves and beads to take back home with us. I have always been interested in Arab culture and both of those places have very different influences than the British influence on Kampala. Today we even made it up to a mosque on the top of a hill over-looking the city and for 5,000 shillings (less than $4) we were able to go up into the minaret and take pictures of the city below. They started the call to prayer while we were up there and it ended up being a pretty cool experience for both of us.
So far Kampala has not really shown us too much but it is nice to get some amenities that we have come to miss since being up in Lira. We are leaving for Jinja tomorrow morning to go rafting at the mouth of the Nile River which will be a welcome change of scenery. I’m sure after this long weekend of traveling we will all be ready to get back on Monday and get back to work.

Village People

The past few days we have been going into villages to gauge how much interest there is in starting businesses and new products and services. The first day we were working directly with a group that is based out of an Internally Displaced Persons camp called Rochacoco and who serves windows. They try to help them develop useful skills in things that they are interested in so that they can provide for their families. Many of the widows take care of more than 5 children as it is typical in this culture to pass of your children if you can’t provide for them. Families will only have a few kids but will be burdened with providing for as many as 10 as others simply can’t provide for their own. We learned more about their organization and discussed different partnerships that we are thinking about entering into with them then took a tour of the town. The IDP camp had previously held almost 10,000 people but now many of them have returned to the villages and things have become very quiet. After walking around for a while, and being stalked by a group of easily 50-60 children, we met up with a few of the widows and talked with them for a while. The women in this culture are very willing to start new businesses as the income gained greatly helps when supplemented by the income gained by their husbands. With this group there were no husbands so they were very eager to pose ideas about the types of businesses they would start if given some start-up capital and it was interesting to hear a few of their ideas. None of the ideas were really anything radically different from what we have heard before and there is really a lack of imagination when it comes to thinking of new products and services.

Yesterday we went out to the home village of someone that the professor I am traveling with had met walking in-front of our house (?). She had mobilized the village and we had received many of the local head councils of the various smaller villages outside of the main village, Aromo. We had decided to break-up into different groups as to not speak and ask questions to the larger group as a whole. I had said that I would work with the men and later on found that this was going to be a very daunting task. Derek, my colleague, had taken the “youth” group which included people from 15-35, so that meant that I was going to be working with all of the “older folks” in a culture where the life expectancy is 45. All of them were farmers and most had been since the left primary school (7^th grade). As I probed I found that nearly all of them were growing the same 5 crops and when the prices of the crops went lower, they all suffered. I tried to ask if any of them had any ideas about how to avoid the low prices and they said if they had businesses that made a lot of money then the prices would go up. I responded by asking questions about the type of businesses that they were thinking of and kept hearing responses that talked about what they would do if they had more money. What I had learned was that in these smaller villages it really takes them being given an idea to try out rather than being given money to creatively use to generate income. I had a type of a break-through when I asked about what they would do to generate income if they were “fearless” and having “no risk” in starting anything. The answers I got relayed to me fears of the rebels and from thieves. It made me realize that in the US we talk about people having fear from starting a new businesses and being worried about the businesses going under. These people had no experience with this type of failure at all and really hadn’t seen start-up businesses generate any successes because there really were no start-up businesses. This group of older men had lived through not only the Lord’s Resistance Army burning their school as recently as 4 years ago to the rein of Idi Amin. They didn’t speak in terms of successes and failures but were hardened by living a life where things were either given to them or taken from them. By the time the conversation had ended and they stopped asking me questions they had asked me for help rebuilding their school, help in getting water, help with higher fuel costs, help with low food prices, help with rebuilding their church, money in general, and a soccer ball. It’s tough sitting in-front of all of these people and repeatedly saying that I was eager to hear ideas that would enable them to be able to help them generate their own income to solve these problems. I’m sure they wrote me off after a while as being able to help them at all. However; they did say that they are eagerly waiting for me to return.

All around here the people are so distanced from the flow of aid, business, whatever that when they see us Westerners it’s like the rest of the world has come to sit and listen to their problems. Americans are constantly relevant in the stream of global progress and when we come it’s like plugging them into that global stream. When we leave they get disconnected again and struggle every day until we come back and hear their problems. Even if we promise them nothing there is the sense that their hope stems from us simply being there.