I know what you are thinking dear readers. A retro Destiny's Child reference to kick off a new week? What could possibly be better? And my answer for you is, likely, many things could be better. However, the song fits the theme of this post and if you would like some theme music as you read, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lPQZni7I18
I had a lovely day today. I thought I was going to go to my mommy's village with her where she has a garden where she grows vegetables both for consumption and sale. However, the meeting she was supposed to have got canceled, so instead I got to hang out with Kathie (who was home for the weekend) and my cousin Kato (who is also typically at school but was home for the weekend). They both helped me with my Luganda homework which, as is the constant reaction whenever I try to speak Luganda, amused and delighted them both tremendously. As an interesting aside, everyone is always very impressed that I can "write Luganda." I was a bit confused by this at first, since Luganda and english share the same alphabet and once you get a few phonetic rules down (for example the "ch" sound is written "ky") it is a very phonetic language. But apparently people who have lived in Uganda their whole lives and are fluent speakers of Luganda cannot proficiently write the Language. I asked Kato and Kathie if this is because writing isn't stressed in schools, but they said it is taught so I am just confused as to why this is the case.
After homework was done, Kathie took a nap and I chatted with Kato for a while, who couldn't have been a lovelier 17 year old. He and I chatted about all sorts of things, in Luganda whenever possible, but often in English (I still can't answer "Why did you like Obama more than McCain?" in Lugana...). As a fun fact, the Buganda people name all of their twins the same thing. For twin boys, the older is Wasswa and the younger is Kato.
Later that night, my mommy took me to the Mother's Union she is in through her church. Essentially, the Mother's Union is a group of about 25 women from her church who act as a sort of informal lending and development institution. The way it works is that every other week, each woman pays in 20,000sh (about 8 dollars) and one woman each week gets that sum (about 500,000sh), taking turns for who gets the sum each week. At the meetings, the women also discuss development ideas. For example, my mommy was saying that they often talk about how to start farming businesses, or businesses selling cakes out of your home to school canteens. The women in the group use their shilling sums to put into their businesses as capital.
My mommy was telling me that one of the major debates the group has been having is whether to keep distributing the money as they have been, or to instead put the bi-weekly payments into a bank account that the members can withdraw from. Initially, my thought was that putting the money in the bank was the obvious choice, since then it would have the chance to acrue interest. However, my mommy was on the side of the status quo, saying that "If we wanted to bank, we would just use the bank accounts we all already have. We need to do something to keep people interested and invested." After going to the meeting tonight, it is clear to me how vital the support system is for these women, and how much their style of development, though perhaps non-sensical to my western perspective, offers something compelling, and ultimately development-promoting. It reinforced the idea that while donors have the capital to provide to developing countries, the best ideas for development are entirely homegrown.
I also went to a very cool market on Saturday that is entirely occupied and run by female vendors, so it was quite the girl power weekend! The role of women in development here is very interesting. As I mentioned before, the culture is that women with husbands traditionally don't work or handle financial matters, but I sense that the culture is shifting, thanks perhaps to networks of women, helping each other out.
So basically, girls rule.
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