Lwaki Osoma Luganda?

Hello all! I hope that everyone is having a wonderful weekend and a restful shabbos! I am very much appreciating the arrival of Shabbat this week, because it has been an absolutely crazy week! We had three papers due this week, not to mention that this is the last week before we all start out independent research projects (SIT calls it a practicum) so we basically had to figure out our lives for the next six weeks! Yikes!

The week began with receiving our scores on the ACTFL test, sort of a standardized way of assessing foreign language competency. For those of you who don't know (or have been skipping all of the little Luganda lessons in my blog) the first three weeks of the program included an intensive language study in Luganda.

I wound up getting a score of "Advanced Mid" on my ACTFL test, which I'm super pleased about as it's definitely better than I expected. I don't really feel like an Advanced Mid speaker, there is still so much I don't know and many moments that I have to stare stupidly at someone speaking to me in Luganda until they rephrase in words I understand. I'm not really sure, then, what it means to be an Advanced Mid speaker. However, in thinking about it, I've decided it means a few things:

It means that I don't get overcharged on taxis (as much). I have definitely had to protest to a few taxi conductors when they overcharge me (tonseera! don't overcharge me!), and when I am able to explain myself in Luganda, they usually are more willing to drop down to the legitimate price.

It means that I am freakin hilarious in this country. I feel like my study abroad experience is giving me an overly inflated sense of my own humorousness. All it takes is shouting "maas awo" (ahead there) in a taxi or greeting the person next to me "osiibye otianno ssebo?" (how are you this afternoon, sir?) And instantly the taxi is in hysterics. No one expects the muzungu to know Luganda, so people find it endlessly funny that I do.

It means that I feel like a part of my village. After I get off my taxi at the "Roko Construction Stage," I have about a 15 minute walk up a giant hill to get back to my house. I like to play a little game I call "pretend I don't speak English" (I imagine you can guess the rules of the game) as I walk to my house which has earned me many friends. First, I say hello the the hilarious women who work in an electronics house at the bottom of the hill. They are always so enthusiastic and happy to see me, shouting "Kulikayo Muzungu!" (Welcome back Muzungu!) whenever I pass. I complimented one of them on her Obama t-shirt in Luganda one day and they have liked me ever since.

It means that when I cross the road and pass a group of men outside the construction factory the no longer call after me in perhaps a not so parents-friendly manner... After they realized I spoke luganda they all shout "oli otya nnabyo!" (how are you maam) as I pass. I wish them all a "sula bulungi" (good night) as I pass and continue on my way.

It means that I can talk to one of my favorite vendors who sells candy and other snacks from a little table. She usually has her adorable little daughter with her who I always greet with an enthusiastic "ki kati mukwano!" (what's up my friend!), to which she just stares at me, much to her mom's amusement. I have asked the little girl her name many times (gw'ani? who are you?) but she still just stares at me, so I call her mukwano, to her mother's further amusement.

It means that the children in the neighborhood love me. Some of my favorites are a group of kids who play in front of one of the shops near my house. They like to show off when I approach, yelling Muzungu! and then dancing or jumping rope. I always say muli mutya (how are you guys?) and tell them jebaleko! (well done!) or kilungi! (awesome).

It means that I get many refrains of "kulikayo" and "nvuddeyo" (I have returned) as I approach my house. Most days, when someone starts to laugh at my Luganda skills, I hear a voice behind me saying to the laugher "amanyi luganda" (she knows luganda).

It means that as I approach the house, I see my favorite friend. She is a nearly toothless woman who sits on the corner behind a table with a jerrycan sitting on it. That's it. For the longest time I had no idea what she did or what was in the jerry can. But then one day, I stopped to ask her, "otuunda ki?" (what are you selling?). She proceeded to tell me "amata" (milk).... and then introduce me to every member of her family, including an adorable gaggle of children. Now, if I don't greet every single one of the kids individually, they will chase me around the corner until I say "oli otya?" and get a bonga.

It means that I make new friends everyday. More often than not, one of the people who I greet decides to strike up a conversation with me as I walk (which never interrupts my friend-greeting schedule, of course). We have lots of interesting conversations about careers, school, and Uganda, all in Luganda. Almost always, these conversations arrive at the question "lwaki osoma luganda?" (why do you study luganda?) With my limited Luganda, I can only answer "kubanga njagala kugamba ne abantu Uganda ne kubanga nsoma eby'enkulakulana" (because I like to talk to Ugandan people and because I study development studies). However, that is not the real answer. I study luganda because being able to speak luganda gives me the most amazing window into Ugandan life.

When I speak luganda, people immediately warm to you and are at ease. I was at the bank thursday(thanks again mom for sending me western union!!!) and the line was really long and the teller was cranky. However, when I got to the counter and greeted her in luganda, she broke into a smile. During the rest of the transaction, she kept teaching me the luganda words for everything we were doing, and told me to come back so she could teach me more luganda. When I returned to the bank friday with my friend Margie, she remembered me and called me up to the counter to talk to her, instead of waiting by the door.

When I speak luganda, I begin to move from being a tourist in this country to a member of the community, which is certainly how I feel in Kawempe.

As I walked up the hill today after an awesome trip to Mukono, all of my friends greeted me enthusiastically and asked me where I had been (eri wa? where were you?)- they notice when I am gone. Sadly, today is likely my last walk up the hill for a little while- I am likely (oh Uganda and how you challenge my type A sensibilities) moving into a house in Bakoto (another neighborhood of Kampala) tomorrow, where I will live with 5 other students during my practicum. I am so excited to live with the other students, but I am also sad to leave this community that has been my home. I will definitely be sure to come back regularly during practicum time.

So what is this practicum business anyways? Part of the SIT curriculum is 6 weeks of independent research. Students are given free reign to choose what they study and where they study it. For my practicum, I will be working with UNICEF in Kampala. So here is the best way that I know how to explain what I am doing: the world of foreign aid information can be divided into two main sources of information.

The first is commitment information, aka. the World Bank commits $10 million to build schools in Uganda. This is the information in AidData, the group I work for as a research assistant at WM.

The second set of information comes from monitoring and evaluation reports. These reports come from aid workers on the ground who go into communities to see what schools are there, whether they have books and desks and teachers.

However, there is no data source that connects these two sets of information- there is no way to compare what aid is supposed to show up with what aid actually shows up on the ground. This grey area is where corruption happens: if communities don't know what they're entitled to, they can't hold politicians accountable when aid doesn't show up because the funds have been embezzled.

My job with UNICEF will be to start on a prototype of what will eventually be a country-wide public website which will track aid funding from the top to the bottom and will include grassroots reporting on whether projects are functioning. Hopefully, at the end of six weeks, I'll have a website to show you people that includes all UNICEF funds and maybe world bank funds too.

I am super pumped about starting work monday (ahh, what?!?), though in many ways I am giving up some things to do this particular practicum. Many of my friends are going to go to amazing new places (and I will miss them all terribly these next 6 weeks) and are going to spend six weeks interacting with incredibly interesting people (for example, Greg and Margie are going to Gulu in the north to study how health care is a part of restorative justice in prisons and how communities respond to child headed households that are the result of conflict respectively, and Ashley is going to Mbarara in the west to study how the views of traditional healers affect maternal health, just to name a few). Most of my practicum will be spent in an office. However, I realize that I will be doing this for the rest of my life, and thus don't need to incorporate all of my research goal eggs into one practicum basket, as it were.

Most importantly, I have an amazing opportunity to begin a project that I really believe in and could improve how foreign aid works in Uganda. As we learn different things about development and foreign aid in Uganda, I have found myself questioning a lot of what I thought to be true about those subjects. Much of what I thought was clear and simple now seems to be neither of those things. However, the one thing that I really believe is true in development is that information is power and that information ought to be democratized so that the power lies with the people. I am so lucky to get the chance to work towards something I believe in.

Shabbat Shalom and weekend enlungi (have a great weekend!)!

All my love,
Alena